It appears that Black Blade Blues has been nominated for the Spectrum Award for Best Novel published in the previous year.
I think this is awesome. You should check out the list of other nominees as well. Lots of good books there.
I posted a while back about becoming a writer, and how important it was to put myself out there in a way that would change people’s lives. Then, surprise, surprise, some of you started sending me letters telling me that I’d succeeded.
Some of them have been wonderful, and some have been heart-wrenching.
For the record. I’m married and straight. My main character in the Sarah Beauhall series is a young lesbian. Yes, I understand why some people are perplexed when they find out a guy wrote these books. Yes, I understand the difficulty of writing a young, capable gay woman when I’m a straight guy twenty years her senior.
It’s work, hard work. I research and spend a HUGE amount of time thinking and rethinking Sarah’s reactions. I double and triple check my assumptions and my world view. I don’t know any other way to go about it.
And many of you have let me know I’ve hit the mark. Sarah is a wonderful character. I love writing about her and the world she lives in.
There are some people out there who don’t like the books because there is too much of this, or not enough of that. That’s cool. We’re all individuals with our own tastes and world-view. If we all loved the same things, the place would get pretty damn boring.
But some of you seem to love these books as much as I do, and for you I want to say: thank you.
I’ve had stories of teachers who shared my books with students who are dealing with their own sexuality. One young woman carried Black Blade Blues around like a shield, only returning it to the teacher after reading it several times, and because the school year was ending. My book, my words were so powerful to her, she did not want to give them up.
Some who have written to me to express how reading Sarah’s story has given them the courage to come out to their parents and friends. While others have told me how they now understand a friend or family member better for having read about Sarah’s life and struggles.
I’ve had readers tell me that my stories have shaken them out of their way of thinking and made them look at the world around them in a whole new way. That’s powerful folks. We all need our assumptions challenged.
One reader let me know that he was not a reader at all. That he only found my book because his Sargent basically dragged him onto a B&N. This guy was bored, wandering around waiting to leave. Luckily, in his wandering around he saw the cover for Honeyed Words and stopped in his tracks. “Hot chick, fast bike… and a sword.” The next thing he knew, he was six chapters into the book and his Sargent was dragging him OUT of the bookstore instead of the other way around. He got back to his base and was sixteen chapters into the book when he realized that Honeyed Words was book 2 in the series. Back to B&N he went to fetch Black Blade Blues.
He consumed those two books, totally floored by what he read. He thanked me for showing him he could be a reader, and told me he was taking my two books with him when he shipped out to Afghanistan.
That took the wind out of me. I did that, I wrote a story that had that big an impact on this person’s life.
And the woman who told me of an isolationist movement in the gay community. How some women had finally had enough with men and their violence and their BS that they’d stopped associating with them in any quarter. This woman has been out for a long time, comfortable in her life-style and her friends. Unfortunately there were some men in her life that had been not so kind. She found no reason to even associate with men any longer, cutting herself off from old friends and the potential for new pain.
But she read Black Blade Blues and had to reassess. She told me that if a man could write a young lesbian with this much care and detail, that maybe there was hope for my gender after all.
That’s a mighty thing right there. Pause a moment and consider the power here. It stops me in my tracks just thinking about it.
I know writers who are paralyzed by fear, both of success and of failure. Many can’t overcome the voices of doubt they hear, or the overwhelming work involved in getting stories and novels published. I understand all of those fears and trials. I’ve been doing this a long time.
This life-changing stuff, however. That I just wasn’t prepared for. I’m very much humbled and amazed that these people would share such personal stories (these are but a few). The depth of pain, and the transformative power of my young character’s struggles has been amazing.
I snatched that brass ring. I fully understand this. I can walk into bookstores and find books with my name on them sitting next to people I’ve long admired and loved. My hard work and constant practice has earned me that right.
But I get to carry these stories with me along with the dragons and strong, young heroines. I get the knowledge that I changed some people doing what I love.
And that, my friends, is worth the whole shooting match. Tolerance and love. Care and consideration. That’s all we want. That’s the glue that holds us together.
I get asked how it is to write Sarah, and I just smile. It’s the hardest thing I do, and the reward is beyond my wildest imagination.
A thousand times, thank you.
Okay, I got a haircut today. I really needed it. I rarely think about my hair, honestly. It’s curly beyond anything I could ever do with it, so I don’t do anything. I towel dry it after my shower and it does what it does.
When I was twelve, I finally realized that if I didn’t wash my hair, people would notice (thanks 9th grade girl with the attitude for pointing that out to me in front of the whole bus, especially the cute girl I couldn’t work up the nerve to talk to yet. You rock.) But, I also realized that it was going to be a huge shrubbery no matter what I did.
It wasn’t until I was 19 that I actually got a short haircut. In high school, when I got out of the shower, I could reach around my back and grab my hair. It was a good distance below my collar. But, once it tried, poof, big and shrub like.
Now I try to keep it cut fairly short. I get lots of compliments on the curls, and even have people come up to me and ask if they can feel my hair. It’s a little strange.
It’s not until I can really tell it’s shrubbing again, that I remember to go get it cut. It’s usually longer than six weeks, and the women where I get my haircut think it’s funny. Did I also mention that my hair is fairly thick? It’s not uncommon for the other stylists to comment on just how much hair ends up on the floor when I’m done.
So, here’s a few pictures for those of you who are curious. Some of you asked, or I wouldn’t have even thought about this. 
On my way to get my haircut
Home from my haircut (thanks to my daughter)
New haircut (in my office after a shower)
I’m not a fan of my own picture. Reminds me how out-of-shape I still am. I want to know why writing doesn’t burn more calories? Totally not fair. Or coding, for that point. If I build a database with four terabytes of data, that should be worth an occasional soda or cupcake. Just saying.
But, as Dean Wesley Smith said so eloquently. “Fair’s in August.” Everything else is work and effort. Alas and alack.
More rowing machine, less sugar.
Maybe I’ll start posting more pictures. Doubtful, but it could happen.
When I was nine, I decided I was going to be President of the United States. I got really good grades, studied hard, and read, read, read. By the time I was in sixth grade, I’d figured I’d be a lawyer. My research had shown that was the best way to succeed in politics. But, I had this amazing student teacher, Ms. Lowers, (like flowers) who taught us poetry. I’m not sure if it was a crush on her, or the words. I just know I was going to temper the law degree with verse.
I began to fill notebooks with poetry. Some of it was horrendous, as you can imagine, but some was good. Ms. Lowers thought it was amazing. She made me a notebook full of her favorite poetry and rules for different styles. I carried that notebook around with me for the next two years.
It also happened that Ms. Lower’s father was a lawyer. She arranged it so I could write down questions for him, and she’d take them and get answers. I don’t remember what I asked him, but she said he laughed and laughed before sitting down and writing my answers out long-hand. I wish I still had those letters, for that’s what they were. Encouraging, helpful, supportive letters from a stranger to this Kentucky kid who wanted to change the world. I wish I could’ve met him in person.
Sixth grade was a fairly pivotal year. There were HUGE things happening in my life. My mother got remarried after being a widow with three kids for ten years. Suddenly, I was no longer the man of the house. This stranger had invaded, taken my place, and taken my mother away from me.
See, there was no surer way to get me to fight than to bad mouth my mother. In sixth grade I got in a lot of fights. I had a lot to prove, and kids that age really push the limits. It wasn’t until I took down the school bully in the middle of our classroom that they stopped antagonizing me.
I thought I was going to be kicked out of school, but my teachers believed I was worthwhile. When things got a little too out of control, they let me go into the library and lose myself in books. I was way ahead of the rest of my class in most subjects, so the additional reading was great for me.
I discovered mysteries and science fiction, folktales and gritty non-fiction. I read every book the library held on the Pacific Theater of WW2, as well as anything I could get my hands on that dealt with writing.
We moved the next year and I started junior high in a new town, with all new kids. I found a core group of like-minded nerds and fell into Dungeons and Dragons in a big way. I also found Lord of the Rings, Dune and Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. I read dozens and dozens of books that year, driving my school librarian, and public librarians crazy. I read book on all aspects of medieval life, studied weapons and tactics. I read folklore, mythology, detective stories and horror. By this time I’d read all of John Carter of Mars and Conan the Barbarian. I had grown desperate for story.
When I was fourteen, I borrowed my step-dad’s manual typewriter and began writing my first novel. I was working with my buddy Allan Howell. He’d write a chapter, and I’d write a chapter. We’d discuss plot and narrative, character and cliff hangers between classes and during our free periods. We wrote damn near the entire book by the end of that year. Then he moved.
My first attempt at a book left for Florida and I never saw it again. Sometimes I want to revive that book, write about the kids who flew skimmers on the moon and beat back an alien invasion while their parents were trapped deep beneath the lunar surface.
When Allan moved, I was pretty heart broken. One day, my mother sat me down and pushed me until I explained why I was being so surly all of a sudden.
I explained to her that I had wanted to be President of the United States when I was a kid (like five years earlier) and that I wanted to change the world. I wanted to fix the things I’d seen as broken — especially the way she’d been treated as a single mom in the early seventies when I first became aware of the world around me. I wanted to fix the bigotry that plagued my schools, the racial battles, the sexism and the poverty. We’d been damn poor until my step-dad came along. Eating out of dumpsters poor.
But I’d given up on the law after seeing how the grown-ups behaved. I remember Watergate and the end of the Vietnam War. I remember watching Hank Aaron hit the home run that took him into the history books, and heard the anger and vitriol from the grown ups in my neighborhood, that a black man would dare to reach beyond his station.
I decided at the age of fourteen that I couldn’t beat that system. I didn’t have the connections or the personal wealth to play that game. I could only get into so many fights, until someone was going to beat me down. So I changed tactics.
The year I was fourteen, I realized something more powerful than taking down bullies physically. I realized I had something different. I had a driving passion for story. I’d read Charles Dickens, Isaac Asimov, Andre Norton, Jack Chalker, Raymond Carver, William Shakespeare, Aristotle, Homer, J. R. R. Tolkien, Frank Herbert, Agatha Christie, Edger Allan Poe, Robert E. Howard, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and dozens and dozens of other authors. They had all changed me. These voices had a power long after they were gone to change how I thought, how I perceived the world.
That’s what I wanted to do. That’s how I was going to change the world. One story, one book, one reader at a time. It definitely wouldn’t be revolution, but I’d have more than the eight years the POTUS has to impact this world. I’d have a lifetime and if I was good enough, a dozen lifetimes as people read my books long after I shuffled off this mortal coil.
I doubt I was very eloquent with my mom that day, but she understood. She saw the need in me, knew how important it was for me fight against the fear and uncertainty, the anger and the sheer willful ignorance of the society around us.
So, at the age of fourteen I became a writer. I sought story with every breath. I faltered and fumbled for nearly a decade, finding my way through those rough and horrid teen years, but I want to college, got a degree in English and wrote, sent out my stories, and began collecting the rejections I knew would come.
But I never gave up hope.
And now, I have wrapped the third book in my Black Blade series. My wonderful editor has accepted it as complete and it wings its way through the publishing pipe-line.
Today, right this very minute, people are reading my books. They are seeing the world through a different set of eyes, and they are writing me letters expressing just how they are being impacted by my story.
I always knew I’d get published one day — knew that with enough work and perseverance I’d succeed in getting my work in front of people. What I didn’t count on, with all honesty, was the mail I’d receive.
It’s not the negative stuff. I can let that roll off my back. I’ve seen enough of that in my life to have a nice set of skills to handle the whiners and the complainers. I know not to let myself be wrapped up in the golly gee, or the ‘you suck’ mentality of most folks. But there is another class of feedback that I hadn’t expected.
See, I wanted to change the world, give people hope, show them how to stand up for themselves, be who they truly were.
What I didn’t realize was that some of you would write to me and tell me just how much my stories changed your life.
And how utterly overwhelming it would be for me.
Next time I’ll discuss a couple of the letters I’ve gotten. I need to do them justice, and this post is too long as it is.
Peace.
Thursday 9pm EST is your chance to talk with me, @JAPittsWriter and win autographed trade pb’s of my urban fantasies on #sffwrtcht.
Come online and create a search for #sffwrtcht to follow the live interview. Join in, ask questions. I’ll be on for an hour. Afterwards, Bryan, the host of Thursday night’s event, will post the interview on his web site.
Also. Don’t forget I’ll be at Powells in Beaverton tonight at 7pm reading and signing Honeyed Words, the next installment in the Sarah Beauhall/Black Blade series. If you are so inclined, we’ll have an open dinner at the McMinnamins there near the Powells.
This Wednesday evening.
Book Signing July 13th, 7pm
Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd.
Beaverton, OR 97005
(503) 228-4651
We will be gathering for food at the McMenamins Cedar Hills at 5pm for dinner. Hope to see you folks there.
Hey, I’m in the Seattle Times today.
There’s no picture in the online version for some reason. But, if you can grab a copy of the paper, I’m on B5. I’m in the background reading Honeyed Words, while Duane Wilkins is in the foreground. He wrote the article about summer reading that includes a mention of Black Blade Blues.
If you don’t know Duane, he’s the brilliant SF/F expert at the University Bookstore. You should stop by and visit him. He knows his field. Buy books from him.
Just a reminder that I’ll be doing a signing today at my local Barnes & Noble. I’ll do a little reading, take questions, and sign books. I hope to see you folks there.
Book Signing July 9th, 2:00 pm
Barnes & Noble
Crossroads S.C.
15600 NE 8th Ave Suite Q1
Bellevue, WA 98008
425-644-1650
Thanks to my pal Jay Lake, I find out that Get Fuzzy has my number. Only, he forgot my mustache.
Instead of writing novels, I coulda been a purveyor of four-panel humor. Who knew?
The wild ox; strength and power.
Creativity; words, music, and art.
The troll cross; wealth and prosperity.
The sun; energy, honor, guidance.
Personally earned or lucky wealth and prosperity.
The harvest; patience and promise.
The chariot; journey and travel.
Note: This is not the real book cover.
