Chapter 17 is posted.

You can read it here.

Happy Thanksgiving, peeps.

Historical gayness

Yes, I'm still working on the story, and yeah, I know it's been awhile, and yes, I know that Chapter 16 left some of you especially eager to see what happens next, and yes, in the back of my head, I suspect a few of you will feel let down. (I mean, Joe is still aloof, detached, weird Joe.) No, I'm not sure when the new chapter will come out. Sometimes these things write themselves; sometimes it takes awhile for the ideas to come together.

While we wait, here are a couple of interesting things to look at.

One is a pretty fascinating Tumblr blog that shows vintage-gay candid snapshots, generally G-rated (PG-13 at worst) with the subjects in unguarded moments of everyday life. Stuff like this:


The cumulative effect is moving, odd, surprisingly comforting -- it's worth a few minutes of browsing.

On a separate note in gay history: I knew that some scholars have argued that Abraham Lincoln is gay. But it turns out that Lincoln was really, really gay. And wait until you read about James Buchanan!

Awfulness

This is about as fucking terrible as anything I could imagine.

This, on the other hand, is amazing.

Tragedy.

Farce.

The two stories elide with each other, but I don't feel like bloviating about them at the moment.

All is calm, all is bright.

To start with, I haven't really read or thought about my story much since late July, except when I did a quick skim of Chapter 16 before it posted in mid-August.

When the writing goes at full steam, it's approximately as easy as turning on the TV or reading a moderately interesting book. It's more absorbing and a little more exhausting afterward, but I don't force myself. It's nothing like work. It just flows.

The last couple of months I've been preoccupied with work and social life and other interests. My mind's been elsewhere. This has happened before -- I once had a nine-month gap between chapters before the switch flipped -- but I think the audience interest now is significantly more intense than it was then.

So, that's where we stand. I've thought through a few scenes for Chapter 17, and for all I know, I'll sit down this weekend and hammer out 7,000 words. Or it may be a month or two. Or shorter, or longer. I never know! You're waiting on me; I'm waiting on my schedule and my muse. We'll get back on the same page sooner or later.

Meanwhile, I've been working my way through the raft of e-mails I've gotten since Chapter 16 posted. If you were nice enough to write, I'll reply to you eventually, but I always write individually, and some of the e-mails can be fairly detailed. Believe me, your notes are hugely appreciated. I used to think of the e-mails as a tip jar; now I think of them more like a salary. On occasion, they've influenced what I write or how I write it. (Don't submit any requests or demands, though. That's just obnoxious.) So, thanks for your thoughts and encouragements: the messages have been read more than once and appreciated, even if you haven't heard back from me yet.

Anyway, if you're bored while we're waiting this project to get back in gear, you could maybe skim Brideshead Revisited. That probably sounds apropos of nothing, but I came across it right around when I started "Joe College." It changed my story into something more ambitious than the original plan. The storyline of "Joe College" won't track Brideshead, but the tone and pace of it had a big impact on me.

Not that I think I'm Evelyn Waugh, or shit. Just consider it a good read. Or not! I just want to promote literacy, okay?

Q & A

Someone left the following question in the comments to my previous post:

Another question - feel free not to answer it - but how many chapters do you plan to write? While I'll obviously be devastated if it ends, it'd be interesting to know where Joe and co. are placed in the entire scheme of the story.

I've been meaning to mention something about that. My best guess is that we're at about the halfway point. Whether that means 40 percent finished or 60 percent finished, I can't say for sure. I tend to lean more toward the lower number.

From about the fifth chapter I've had a strong idea for how the story plays out and what happens to everybody, but as I write, I come up with new characters and situations, so it continues to draw out. And while I don't expect anything to come along to change my thinking about the overall plot, I can't say for sure. My understanding of the characters and their relationships changes as I write.

It also might be helpful to state that this story doesn't end at graduation. That's not a spoiler. If this were a book you could pick up around the corner, that would be clear on the jacket description. It seemed fair to mention it now, because I don't want anyone to have the impression that if certain plot lines seem like they're in full force as graduation approaches, we're suddenly going to reach the conclusion. It's going to play out in due course.

All that being said -- who knows? Initially, I would have guessed that the story would run about 20 chapters. Maybe this will be 500 chapters long and I'll be writing it into my eighties. I obviously don't expect that to happen, but this format gives me a lot of freedom. Thanks for indulging me.

Chapter 16 is posted.

You can read it here.

I hope it's as fun and interesting to read as it was to write.

How we got here; where we're going

"How did you end up here?"

"I'm not Sartre or Camus. How do any of us end up here?"

-Joe College, Part 12

Just wanted to explain a little about what's going to happen on this site.

Its main purpose is to post announcements when a new chapter finishes and goes online. Some of you have written asking whether I have a message board or e-mail list that would serve that purpose. Answers: no, and this seemed more organized and easier. If you have Google Reader or a similar RSS subscription, you'll get automatic updates when a new post goes live. Otherwise, just click back at your convenience. Easy!

I might, from time to time, post about other things. I'm going to be disciplined about it. When I post, it'll be directly about the story, or a topic that touches on the story but goes a little beyond its four corners. By that I mean certain books or movies that I've maybe had in mind, backstory on some of the music that I try to fold in, or an occasional detail about the writing process.

I'm going to avoid plot spoilers or anything that adds my own interpretations on the story. I love that everybody seems to read it a little differently. Detracting from that would be a shame.

This will never be a personal blog, where I ramble about what happened on my Saturday night or where I went on vacation, etc.

Lastly: news! Chapter 16 of "Joe College" is written. I finished it about a week before I finished Chapter 15. It's more than 19,000 words -- so, significantly longer than even super-long Chapter 10 -- and very different from the story's other installments.

I'll be away from the laptop for awhile, but when I'm back, it'll get another close read, and will post by the end of August.

Thanks for checking out the site. I hope I never use it to say something boneheaded.