Creative work

Let's talk about the creative enterprise. Cass can write magnificently, triumphs with the icky and horrible, told me last night that she hates people. Erik's characters leap off the page, as real as you or I, every moment of life in sharp focus. Kit tackled one of the greatest stories of French literature, adapted it confidently for the screen. Joey writes original screenplays full of wonder, maturity, wry humor. Jim is a rewrite man, does it for a living, creates whatever the story needs. Dave has the giddy gift of bright comedy, Gerry the grim truth of drama.

Then there's me. Slow. I plod a page at a time, often devote an hour to a single paragraph, uninterested in storyline. I throw my characters into hopeless situations, let them struggle through it. How real it is doesn't matter. I feel every inch of their predicament and heroism, let them laugh at bad jokes and grit their teeth in pain, risk life to undertake an impossible mission. My hero is average intelligence, does guesswork and takes chances. The only thing he knows how to do is shoot to kill, something he despises, having done too much of it.

There's something else I do that separates me from all of my honored colleagues. I write red hot sex scenes, because that's how I understand heroism, hunger for the challenge of success as biological animals. We've almost lost it culturally, but I remember it, want to transmit it to the future, that straight white couples can be hot creamy animals, a race of titans in love with personal power, hard man and wanton woman, magnetically drawn to each other. The world around them ceases to exist and they live for that glory, the impossible and stupendous thrill of physical romance, an irresistible union, never a dull moment.

As far as I know, I'm the only author who puts vivid hetero sex on the page, where men are bold and unafraid and women want them that way. "Old fashioned," Cass says. But there's another independent author who shall remain anonymous, a woman who sees what I see in life, because she carries a gun at work, knows how deep and wild the river of life pulsates. I could not have risked two years if it weren't for her example and quiet encouragement. Now Chris and Peachy cannot be undone. I bet my career on privileged passionate valor.

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