Many Feelings About the LGBTQ+ Section

My latest manuscript, Sweetest Downfall, is a YA contemporary romance about two boys who think the world broke them, who think they don't know how to be strong in the broken places. Obviously it's emotional and, on the surface, heavy—but it's also about hope and the transition from surviving to thriving. There's sexual tension, kissing scenes, cuddling, fighting both verbal and physical. The narrator, Zeke, is a Black gay out upper-middle class valedictorian managing generalized anxiety and also a dead best friend. The love interest, Nick, volunteers at a hospice (which is important for Reasons), is demisexual and Catholic, and made some pretty significant mistakes in his life but still manages to love the people around him crazy amounts.

It's about two boys. It's not about two boys at all.

So Sweetest Downfall is a contemporary realistic young adult novel, which means of course the fact that this romance features two cisgender teen boys is brought up. They encounter homophobia, and Nick's not out to anyone and is still figuring out the ins and outs of his attraction, and Zeke's out to everyone but sometimes wishes he weren't. But they don't gayly hold hands. They don't queer-kiss. At no point when Zeke's tucked under Nick's arm, head resting on his shoulder as they help each other with homework, does Zeke say, "Here's your hourly reminder that I am homosexual and you are demisexual and this action of awkwardly cuddling because we're both nervous and a little shy and new to this makes our budding love affair totally gay. Lo, I do say we are positively gaying up the establishment! I am very much fond of you, my darling demi love-partner."

I love that there's LGBTQ+ sections in libraries and bookstores sometimes. I love that when I want to read about a romance that could, you know, actually happen for me, I can find a book that fits the bill. I don't even want to write a "But" sentence after those two, because I absolutely can't overstate how necessary it is that those things exist, so I'll just say this:

I don't love that LGBTQ+ fiction is a niche.

Not always. I have a great deal of love in my heart for allies (which very well may be because I'm young and haven't been burned as often), and I know a lot of them buy books like Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda or None of the Above or The Miseducation of Cameron Post. I also know that those allies are the exception to the rule.

Like, okay. If you're straight and cisgender, answer this to yourself with honesty and no regard to my feelings (which shouldn't matter, because I'm not asking you to comment with your reply): would you buy a book featuring a LGBTQ+ romance, or one about characters with gender identities outside of the binary, or one featuring a polyamorous relationship, because it sounds overall like something you'd enjoy?

Really?

Because chances are you wouldn't. I mean, that's okay-ish, because I think I can see where you're coming from. At least in my opinion (which tends to be overly forgiving), it's not an aggression; it's not you saying you hate queer people. It's you saying "Of course I support LGBTQ+ rights, but I want to read about a romance that could happen to me."

And here's the thing: so do I. And here's the other thing: I can't. Please name me the blockbuster YA books with enormous cult followings, with movie franchises, with theme parks and merchandise and the original novel series on the bestseller lists for entire uninterrupted years, about two girls madly in love. Or two guys, one of whom is trans and the other being Latino and disabled. Go on. I'll wait. I'll be waiting a damn long time.

I won't even pretend the vast majority of the reason for this isn't because of queerphobia. It so is. Homophobia, transphobia, and queerphobia are violent, and they're donating five dollars on IndieGoGo to a bakery in Indiana that wouldn't cater a queer wedding, and they're going through my Twitter feed and favoriting literally everything I tweet except the ones where I even mention being queer, and they're just not ever going to the LGBTQ+ section in your local bookstore.

I don't blame you for not browsing there, and that's the truth. If I were allowed to be angry about twenty things straight cis people consciously or unconsciously do to queer people, this wouldn't make the list. But it's also not the ideal situation, and it sure as hell makes me uncomfortable and more than a little sad. Whether you realize it or not, you're saying "These books don't matter." And maybe they don't to you, but they do to me, and there's only so many copies I can buy, y'know?

The other reason for there not being enormous LGBTQ+ YA is because it is LGBTQ+ YA. Because of its name. This category is so inherently other to most people that they can't imagine picking up even one book in that section.

My life is not niche, and neither are stories about people like me in this regard. I'd really love to see the queer section flourish and diversify—and personally, another part of me wants it to go away forever. If it did, if those books were put in Science Fiction, Memoir, or Realistic Young Adult instead, maybe you'd pick them up and be taken away by the premise and notice that it's about two girls and a guy in love or any other possibility, but maybe you wouldn't give it a second thought.

And since I don't know how to end this post, here's some links to books I enjoyed featuring queer main characters or books I think I'll enjoy featuring queer main characters:

• Goodreads to Hannah Moskowitz's Gone, Gone, Gone and Not Otherwise Specified, which feature (respectively) a gay romance and a bisexual Black narrator; I love these books and also Hannah Moskowitz so much it makes me throw both things and temper tantrums
• Goodreads to Nina LaCour's Everything Leads to You, a romance about two girls and also much more; I haven't read but have heard it's like Taylor Swift's amazingness meets a unicorn's majesty (I just made that up but this book is supposed to be excellent, okay, deal with it)
• Amazon to Robin Talley's What We Left Behind, about two main characters, one of whom is a lesbian, the other being genderqueer, because if you haven't preordered this what is even going on with you and whatever it is I am so sorry
• Amazon to Dahlia Adler's Under the Lights, about a Hollywood romance between two girls, because if you do not worship at the altar of Dahlia Adler I don't want to say you're cursed to live a joyless life full of pain and also spiders, buuuuut
• Goodreads to Malinda Lo's Ash, a fantasy Cinderella retelling featuring two girls who fall in love, one of whom is a huntress, because though I haven't read it I think readers have collectively used every positive adjective in the English language at least once describing Lo's writing
• Also, queer-identifying writers/authors you should be following on Twitter since your birth: @Bibliogato, @NitaTyndall, @MissMolliWrites, @Jessie_Devine, @ABoredAuthor, me because I'm pretty great like let's be honest here

The Sincere Liking of Things and Stuff

As a child I had many passions. Like. A lot. First and perhaps most important, I loved Pokemon above all measure. I watched the TV show(s). I owned and regularly played all of the games. My brother had this binder full of rare or otherwise valuable baseball cards he'd collected, and I had a matching binder for my Pokemon cards. When I was about seven years old, I quite literally got on my knees and begged my mom to drive me from southern New Jersey to New York for a Pokemon convention. We couldn't make it work.

I also loved SpongeBob SquarePants, which is how you know I was born in the late nineties and grew up in a house with a television and cable access. I would lie on my mom's bed (because she'd watch Judge Judy in the living room at the same time and my mother kind of had seniority) with a Capri-Sun juice pouch and a small bowl of Cheeto puff balls, and I'd watch and laugh and laugh, even when I'd seen an episode upward of ten times. This was before smartphones or tablets, I didn't have a laptop, and our only computer was absolutely carbon-dateable and also in the living room. So when I say I watched SpongeBob, I watched SpongeBob.

As I grew older, I loved more things like they belonged to me, like they were crafted specifically for a target audience of me. A Series of Unfortunate Events and then Harry Potter and then Avatar: The Last Airbender and then A Series of Unfortunate Events again and then more recently The Legend of Korra, on and on, books and shows and games.

I wasn't bullied. But I had some friends and family members ask me why I wanted to play Pokemon games all the time when I was nine or ten and should've been into different things. I was asked to please stop talking about Avatar on numerous occasions. No one cares how excited you are about the new season of SpongeBob, seven-year-old Mark.

So not only did I learn that it was wrong to love these things, I learned it was wrong to love.

This is such a wrong thing. Especially for children, for whom the world is bright and new. Kids see New York City at night and the towers scrape the stars out of the sky and into their eyes.

We tell them—kids, pre-teens, teens, each other, ourselves—it is wrong to love things, to be enthusiastic about something unironically. Fandoms are full of twelve-year-old girls who haven't heard real music yet. We tell them to hate, and to be loud about it. Life sucks, and then you die.

But what about making a space for yourself that doesn't suck? But what would happen if you let yourself think and feel about things the way you genuinely think and feel about them, not the way you're supposed to?

I'm of the firm belief that behind every cynical facade, there's someone who is ashamed of their own hobbies or passions or interests. And I'm not saying that being cynical is wrong, either—especially if the world does not exactly treat you equally. (I'm marginalized too, folks.) But there are so many things to be excited about, and "looking cool" is not one of them.

So this is something of a plea, dear reader: when the world feels like it's in love with hatred, anger, or outrage; when no one loves anything for fear that not everyone will love them; when you want to brand someone as lesser for the things or people that bring them joy—remember it doesn't have to be that way. Fall in love with yourself. This is a beautiful world, if you let it be.

Decisions

Short post today, but I just wanted to update you all on a couple Things:

1) I got accepted to college! It's a funny story—my grades sucked for the vast majority of my high school years, thanks to my often being not in school for various reasons including but not limited to anxiety and partial hospitalizations. I also didn't have many extracurriculars, by which I mean I did Spanish club for three months in eleventh grade. But I did well on my SATs (even in the math portion!), and I wrote a pretty killer application essay on the subject of how I started writing. I only applied to two schools—my local community college and a well-respected local college. My application got messed up, however, and my guidance counselor had to call the college at least three times to iron things out. Last time he called was last Monday, when they managed to finalize everything and I was good to go—and by early Thursday afternoon, I was accepted! I'm reluctant to say what college this is yet because I still need to finalize everything on my end, but rest assured it's a good school within driving/public transporting distance and I love it and also everything.

2) I've started querying my latest project, Sweetest Downfall, which you can read about elsewhere on my blog—namely, here. I'm saying absolutely nothing about Sweetest Downfall or how querying is going or anything of the sort beyond what it's about on here or on social media for a whole slew of reasons, but yeah, it's out there in the universe, and I feel like this information should be on my blog for future cataloguing when these things happened reasons, so: here it is! That's all.

I Went to Intensive Therapy for Two Months and All I Got Is This Lousy Happiness

This post is something of an update on this one. You don't have to read that to read this one, though. They're more like companion novels than a series. Also, I'm not kidding about this post's title. Okay, so I am making something of a joke about it, and I (not therapy) gave myself the happiness I feel now. But. Whatever. Story time with a weird rambly narrative that I'm going to moralize and wrap up with a neat little bow at the end GO:

I've been suicidal before. Three years ago I wanted to die, had the whole thing planned out, and was preparing myself to do it. Except I didn't. They sent me to a behavioral health facility. I'd kind of talked myself out of dying, so hospitalization wasn't necessary, but I very much still needed help. In any case, I had a great experience at this particular facility and learned all sorts of things.

So then flash forward to late November 2014, when I could not bring myself to go to school for the life of me. I was in a bad place emotionally and mentally. I couldn't function most of the time, I was absolutely miserable, and nothing was helping. I was presented with something of an ultimatum: go to school regularly or go to behavioral health-land. Both options sucked in my distorted mind, but I chose the lesser of two evils.

But this time the facility had moved a few towns over, and about half of the old staff had jumped ship. None of the patients I'd known from three years ago would be there, and no one could replace them. I'd connected with a girl there over a mega-obscure pop punk band, for God's sake; that would not happen again, nor would anything remotely like it.

I didn't want to go the first morning, but I rode the van there (they provided transportation) regardless. And I walked into the cafeteria and sat by myself for half an hour, staring at my phone and trying to convince myself I was okay.

I got a new therapist who somehow remembered me from my first time there. There's two main therapists in the adolescent psych program, and I had #1 my first time and #2 my second time. #1 didn't remember me my second time there, but #2 did, hilariously. And, against my will, I made new friends. One girl started the same day I did, and she actually became my biggest support in the facility. These new people didn't replace the old ones. They didn't need to. They were amazing, amazing people, and while we didn't connect over the same obscure pop punk band, we did talk about everything else. I cried when they cried, and we laughed and we had bad days and we snitched to the therapists about who had cut the night before but didn't want to talk about it and they taught me to play Bullshit because somehow I was the only one out of six teens who didn't know how to play and I belonged.

People left. New people came in. I told my therapist I'm gay and immediately thereafter said "Wait, holy shit, I can't believe I just told a psychologist that." We talked about giving ourselves permission to feel what we're feeling, which was this completely new concept to me, Mr. Mark O'I-Always-Have-To-Be-Happy-Or-I'm-Wrong-Brien. I graduated from the all-day program. I learned cognitive behavioral therapy. I got new diagnoses that made much more sense. At no point did I regret asking for help.

And it's such a scary thing. Saying "I'm not in a good place and I need a hand to help me pull myself to a better one" can be paralyzing, especially if you've kept up the appearance of normalcy, of functioning. I will never in any situation discredit that feeling.

But.

But I've never heard anyone say "I wish I'd waited longer to get help." But I'm saying I'm glad I asked for it. But I will always carry with me the things I learned both go-arounds at this behavioral health facility. But people bared their souls to me and I did the same to them. But this is so important. Therapy is so important if you need it. The complete and entire shebang: daily check-ins, holding yourself accountable, possible medications, different modes of therapy, learning everything you can, bringing something to the table for yourself and for other people.

There is always a way you can get help. It might not be almost two months at a behavioral health facility, and it might not be treatment from a mental health professional at all. But you can always get help, and when you need it, I beg you to ask.

Terrible Titles for Sweetest Downfall

So Nita Tyndall tagged me for this thing fivever ago and I wanted to do it but I was lazy and now I'm doing it and yes! It's called the Ten Terrible Titles thing (I may have just made that up), and the premise is that you scroll through a manuscript and stop at random. Whatever phrase you stop on is a new terrible title for your book! I cheated a bit; while I stopped on random pages, I also chose funny phrases on that page. But. Whatever. Hashtag YOLO. Anyway, here we go:

1. Was Stabbing Someone In The Face Considered A Faux Pas?
2. People Can Be Bisexual, You Know
3. Please Do Not Fantasize
4. I'm Just Really Into Equality
5. Bears Had The Right Idea
6. Added "Hey, I'm Totally Straight" Effect
7. We Both Watched A Squirrel
8. The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing But The Truth
9. Real Like A Hologram
10. Don't Make Out With Girls, 'Cause You'll Regret That In The Morning

What was your favorite part? I liked that too. Oh, and I tag you, dear reader, if you want to do this! GO FOR IT.

Where I've Been, Mental Health-wise

I don't know, really. I just know I wanted to blog about this. It feels—not important, really, just like I should. I've always been open and honest about my mental illness, and I don't plan on making an exception for this. If you're here for the funnies or the writing advice, turn away.

So I haven't been to school in two weeks.

Well, that's not necessarily true. I went to school two Fridays ago for around two hours before I got my guidance counselor to call my mom to get me permission to leave. And you're wondering why, and, well: anxiety. It's been bad in pretty much every way—I haven't left the house willingly in a few weeks; I don't have any desire to interact with other people; I spend all my time hunched over my phone. (This sounds more like depression. I don't know how to words.)

Friday, my mom took me to a juvenile outpatient psychiatric facility, which is a long and cumbersome name for a place you go for a long and cumbersome time for some long and cumbersome therapy (seven hours a day, counting the three straight uninterrupted hours of "school," where we just do our homework). I start there tomorrow, on Monday. To be honest, I'm too tired to be nervous.

I haven't talked to my friends in weeks. I wish I cared more about this. It's not like I dislike my friends—in fact, they are my favorite people on the planet most days. But I just can't bring myself to get the energy to think about caring about this. I have talked to some online friends, but for fleeting periods of time. I actually have a text from a critique partner on my phone right now, and I should probably answer it, but the thought of having a conversation—though I love this critique partner dearly—makes me want to take a nap.

I haven't done homework in God knows how long. I've been neglecting self-care. The music I've been playing has been mostly Taylor Swift, but more "All Too Well" and "Sad Beautiful Tragic" than "Blank Space" or "Shake It Off," if you catch my drift.

I don't know exactly why I'm writing this. It isn't going to really help anyone, which is usually the reason I tweet/blog about depression and anxiety—to try to scratch the surface of helping other people. To be honest, I think I'm free-writing. I certainly haven't stopped to think about this stuff.

Maybe it's just because I want to tell stories. I've always told stories one way or another, and though this is a significantly less whimsical and more personal one, it's still a story. And I love those things so much.

Surprisingly, I have been reading—I read about a hundred pages of Hilary T. Smith's Wild Awake (which rocks, by the way) yesterday and thought I was the coolest person alive for that. Not much writing getting done, but what do you expect?

My heart hasn't really been in my tweets, though I don't know if that shows—I'm an exceptional actor. When I need to, I can turn on the smiles and the laughter and the fake. But yeah, tweeting usually gives me this weird joy because it's something I know I'm good at, but...lately, not so much? I tweet something and instead of rereading it and laughing at my own expense or my own ingenuity like usual, I just kind of shrug and say, "Meh." Though, all of your well-wishes and concern and the messages? They help. They really, really do. I love having this support system, and to be honest the fact that it's on the internet doesn't matter except that I wish I could hug you all but I can't which makes me sad. Anyway:

I hope I bounce back; I really do. I don't enjoy feeling like this blob of TIREDNESS and ANXPRESSION (DEPXIETY?). Also, I trust that I will bounce back. It's just one of those Bad Days (a few in succession, actually), and I figured I'd tell you all about it because I'm weird. We've established that. Come on.

I love you guys embarrassing amounts; take care of yourselves; let me nap another five minutes, 'kay?

WIP Update: SWEETEST DOWNFALL Edition

Hiiii everyone! So. It's been a while since my last WIP Update. This is mainly because I was knee-deep in FOR THOSE WHO LISTEN-land, but since I've been querying for a while, I needed a distraction. This is not to say querying is going well or that querying is going poorly; this is to say that querying is querying and therefore it's soul-sucking no matter what.

Anyway.

IN COMES THE BASEMENT BOOK.

It hit me like a ton of bricks, quite frankly: one minute I was working on something else (an MG, actually!), and the next minute I had this IDEA. And I loved this idea, and I started writing it, and now here we are, over 20k in!

So here's the breakdown of everything you need to know:

Title: Sweetest Downfall
Explanation for title:

From "Samson" by Regina Spektor. Graphic by me.

Genre: gay YA contemporary romance

Current word count: 23,149
Projected word count: 60,000
(Very very bad) pitch I just came up with: Seventeen-year-old Zeke Lye has a dead best friend, a childhood friend, Nick, who bullied her to suicide, an overwhelming desire to get the hell out of his sleepy South Jersey town, and generalized anxiety disorder. So when Nick's house is foreclosed, he and his mom move into Zeke's basement, and Zeke is...overwhelmed. And when they begin falling for each other—against their will—Zeke is forced to choose between the past he's always clung to and the uncertain future.
Twitter pitch I've been working on for like #PitMad and stuff when that comes around again if I'm ready I dunno:
Worse things than your old BFF bullying your current BFF to suicide:

• Him renting your basement
• Him telling you he loves you
• You might love him, too.

First line: "He pulled in front of my house in his fast car in his good mood in his Sunday best despite it being Tuesday with a steady stream of pop rock music emanating from his radio."
(Very short) excerpt:
He thumbed his lower lip again.
"Why are you playing with your lips?" I asked.
"Oral fixation. Why are you looking at my lips?"
Oral fixation.
"Theme song" (song that reminds me of this manuscript / that I keep playing as I write it): Poison & Wine by The Civil Wars ("I don't have a choice but I'd still choose you..." I MEAN REALLY.)


So. Yeah. I never know how to end a blog post anymore. To be honest, I never know how to start a blog post anymore, so whatever. Hope this project sounds kind of okay to at least like one of you! I have lofty goals, I know. Also, I'm going to have some blogging news this week, so stay tuned!