erastes

Sleepy, Dopey, Doc, Grumpy, Sneezy (and their cousins Worry and Sporky)

I am quite sure that everyone and his wife has linked to this (another moron who doesn’t think that gay women should be writing m/m) but in case you haven’t seen it, here you go. Comment 25 is where it all kicks off.

As Alex Beecroft said recently, why does no-one complain when women writers write about straight men? Charlie Cochrane attended a Romance Novelists Association chapter recently and met a gay man who was writing romance. Not Gay Romance. He said he’d get very annoyed if anyone said that’s all he should be writing.

At least women know what it’s like to be penetrated, know what it’s like to be in love with a man. I’m not doing the whole justification thing again, as frankly it’s all been said, and it’s getting old. I guess that every now and then there is bound to be this reaction as more and more gay men discover the genre. I know that I—and many of my fellow writers—get readers’ emails/letters, and as far as I can tell they are from gay men – I know mine are. i think what made me laugh most was saying that unless we grew a prostate we could never understand. This assumes that men think with this gland and that F to M are obviously not real men. Headdesk. I hope that Donald L Hardy’s book (and yes, he’s really really a real gay man) Lover’s Knot will put many of the foxes amongst the chickens because out of the four Running Press Books, his is the least sexual. I had to point out today that he must BE DOING IT WRONG because somehow (GOD ALONE KNOWS HOW) his two gay male protagonists manage to fall in love without mentioning their prostates once! Bad Donald.

It’s been a long wearing day, had to get over to Dad’s for 8am and then go with him to take his Yorkie to the vet (bad teeth and infected tear duct) – they warned us that it would be a risky operation (I know they always have to say this, but it doesn’t stop anyone worrying) and a little extra because he had a slight heart murmur (he’s 12).

Anyway, long story short (won’t bore you with the six hour wait on tenterhooks) he made it through the operation and we brought him home and I’ve left Dad to look after the poor little tyke. He looks in a right state, really groggy and whining, his mouth must be very painful. He’s got tablets to take (I wish they could have given him injections, as it’s not fair to force a dog to take a pill when his mouth is in such pain) but frankly, I’m more worried about him eating than I am about him taking his pills. Dad is understandably in a flap about the pills he has to give him, with Alzheimer’s he can’t keep the instructions in his head, and every time he looks at them, it’s like he’s reading them afresh. If it wasn’t for the cats, I’d go over there and stay for a few days, so I’ll have to stay in daily contact.

I read somewhere on a blog somewhere recently that writers shouldn’t write about their personal lives—so pooh to that. It’d be a lot harder to deal with if I couldn’t share with readers.

So. Much. Wrong.