laptop traveling

Welcome to my brain. This is what happens when I write three books at once.

I’ve been thinking about it was like to be gay (or apparently the term was “homophile”) in 1961. My research has really surprised me on how contemporary some contemporaneous attitudes were. I’m thinking about raids in San Francisco and the Kinsey report and an old PBS special and how things were just on the cusp, right then, of exploding into a firestorm.

I wonder what it’s like to be in the head of a foreman on a construction job who doesn’t know—doesn’t want to admit—he’s attracted to the architect. And what it’s like to be in the architect’s head, knowing he’s attracted to the foreman and can’t do anything about it. What it’s like to be in the closet when no one was talking about being in the closet. When there was no closet because there was no coming out. If anyone saw you somewhere compromising, it meant they were in the lifestyle, too. Which meant you were safe. Maybe.

Then my brain goes to Spain, and I wonder what it would feel to stay in the Parador in Leon, Spain, with its clipped hedges outside. Would it feel like a castle? And I wonder whether the gorgeous herringbone pattern in the wooden floor squeaks and why there are ancient wooden cradles in the lobby.

I wonder about whether I’ve described Wyatt in bed with a sheet around his waist before. (I have.)

And if I’ve got my character’s ages right. (I haven’t.)

(Now I fixed it.)

Then I go back to California’s coast and I think about what it smells like in a Victorian house next to a lighthouse, and what it would feel like to be on the red carpet, staring down the paparazzi.

I don’t have any idea how I keep this all straight in my mind. All I know is that I love being transported to other places. And I hope I get to take you along with me soon.