I’m a little slow on the uptake. It finally dawned on me that hashtag #Me too was a personal attack. Fair enough. If you know me personally, pick a spot on the map and state how and when you were wronged.
Experience figured heavily in my novels. I lived through the times and temper of Milwaukee in 1975, so ‘Partners’ was documentary in its language and culture. Ditto screwball filmmaking in ‘Chiseltown’ and the ugly underbelly of Los Angeles in my four volume private eye saga The Case Files of Cable & Blount. My science fiction novels addressed human needs, relationships of trust, and practical problems.
This is particularly true of sex scenes. All of my fiction featured adult men and women locked in red hot boy-girl romances. I dealt with it as frankly and graphically as possible. I’m in favor of straight marriage, male leadership, polygamy, durable commitments, pregnancy, childbirth, and family values. Elders were honored and cherished as household members and social leaders with serious responsibilities. Courage always matters. Intimate honesty is vital.
No one appears without a back story and difficult experiences in youth and young adulthood. What we do as mature people is a settled choice, especially when we’re given the spectacular reward of an adult romance and the realization of bone deep longing for the highest possible thrill of triumph in life, never achieved without dedication, daring, encouragement, and cheerful devilment by an intimate, trusted romantic partner. Whether anyone admires my work as an author is unimportant.
The important truth is life on life’s terms, whether past, present, or in the distant future.
I always found it difficult to perceive what life offered me, and I was unpersuaded by religions, moral philosophy, democracy, or empirical science. I was attracted to certain food, drink, drugs, and practices without caring about risk. I moderated myself if I had to. I was seldom ill, and I hated 8 out of 9 dentists. The specialist in Harley Street was excellent. I also had a good surgeon in Petaluma and a good urologist in Houston. It’s part of life, dealing with physical problems. I’ve been spared serious symptoms so far. Long term damage from smoking is part of the bargain, and we all have to die of something. There’s a history of heart disease and stroke on my father’s side and mental disability on my mother’s side.
Hereditary risks are part of the furniture. Undertaking optional risk is the business of a career. I gambled on creative ideas, both as a perpetually broke filmmaker and perpetually unread novelist. I did difficult work to explore and win spiritual integration. Becoming a unique individual limited my popularity. That’s the upside of life on life’s terms. You get what you pay for. I’ll never be confused with another author.
An old lady asked me if my latest novel, The Triumph of Passion, was misogynist?
I don’t know. Maybe a little, but no fictional female was humiliated or injured. Sex was consensual, no matter how unfair kinky sex play involving bondage might seem. It should be sufficient to say that some women hunger and thirst for it. Most women do not. Many women are easily offended. They don’t want to read about sex, not a single slick, wet syllable. Did I waste two years writing an unsalable story?
Stories are seldom deliberate. Characters are imagined and focused. What happens next is a matter of chemistry. Relationships bloom or they don’t. Private truths emerge and commitment deepens or dies. It has to make sense. It’s very difficult for characters to remain frozen. Ambitions are fueled by a desire to live it up while we can. Risk excites ambitious people. Mistakes are unavoidable and danger is story. That does not explain why I wrote a big novel about a mob boss and a middle aged whore.
The best way to understand what I do (and why) is for you to try doing it, write 138,000 words about a hot adult romance that ratchets the stakes higher in every chapter. Literature should be difficult. It has to see and hear hearts and paint with clear language, 99% believable, two complicated adults in love.
I do the difficult because I can.
The result was huge, dozens of titles, hundreds of thousands of words. The awful truth about writing is there’s no way to undo a body of work. The bar of excellence and originality keeps getting higher. The goal is to top everything else, a true masterwork to cap decades of maturation. The Triumph of Passion was very near the summit. If I die before I conceive and undertake a more difficult literary battle, and if Passion becomes my coup de grace and gift to the future, that’s fine. Voila! En garde!
