Society Made Me Write A Novel

No one knows why so many people with mental conditions, such as bi-polar disorder or chronic depression, do creative things in their lives: writers, composers, singers, actors, etc.  No one knows why so many gay people gravitate to the performing arts.  No one knows why so many great musicians/composers/performers of the Twentieth Century were Jewish or had Jewish ancestry.  (Didn't know that?  Think about it, even using just a small sampling.  Who's the most famous violinist in the world today? Itzak Perlman, whose fame goes back to the last century. Who was the most famous conductor of the last century? Leonard Bernstein, who was also a great pianist and a brilliant composer.  Two of the most famous composers of the early Broadway theater were George Gershwin and Irving Berlin. We still sing their songs. Gershwin was also a brilliant pianist. Who doesn't know Stephen Sondheim by now? The movie version of Into the Woods made $128,000,000 in the US alone. Worldwide?  That should double or triple.  Not to mention, there have been many many thousands of productions of his work around the world.  Performances of his shows are playing somewhere every day of every year, which has been happening for decades.  Stephen Schwartz is the composer of Pippin and Wicked.  And to really seal the deal, search through the names of the pianists who were part of the massive CD collection of Great Pianists of the 20th Century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pianists_of_the_20th_Century  Rubinstein, Horowitz. Janis. Argerich. Ashkenazy.  That's just five off the top of my head.  You'll see what I mean.  And that's just pianists.  If you searched for the musicians who made the most classical recordings between 1900 and 2000, you'd find that the majority are of Jewish ancestry. Amazing!  Isn't it?)  I've thought about it all very much.  Many people have guessed.  Here's mine:

Culture.  Aspects of society make it happen.  Make it.  Because this involves how people feel.  Not just think, but feel.  You feel love.  You feel attraction.  You feel depression.  You feel mania.  You feel isolation.  You feel acceptance.  You feel success.  You feel failure.  You feel connection.  Culture is constantly telling us how everyone should be feeling about all of these.   And culture is so massive, everyone has to find his or her way through it to find safety, first, then success, of some form or another.  And all that differentiation causes friction.  The more a person mirrors the most popular "truths", the more that person can survive quite well without questioning very much of it. After all, the majority of people in America are white, are straight, are Christian, are somewhere on the spectrum of middle class, want children, send them to school, expect a core belief system to be taught there, have jobs, drive cars, eat at restaurants, buy the things in life they feel important, instill these beliefs into future generations, which become a system for their lineage, a proven path to follow, Nothing is wrong about any of this per se.  We see the benefits of it all around us, in our homes, in our neighborhoods, on TV, in movies, and online.  But what about those of us who do not fit any of the more dominant social paradigms? We are left to ponder our public differences.  (Everyone has private differences.)  In my observations, to skip over that stage is to become trapped in a form of limbo. You learn nothing about yourself, you cannot change anything about yourself, you continue doing (usually) destructive things.  The riots in Baltimore are a form of this happening. What is really showing in those videos?  I see young black men who feel they have no choices, no alternatives, nothing to contemplate, other than their own combustible rage.  And a match was lit, and now that rage is on fire.  The worst horror is not the buildings on fire but the men destroying them.  Look at their faces!  Most of the media that I've seen has been trying to keep from showing them beyond a minimal amount expected for "good" journalism.  They know their audience doesn't want to see the cruelly tattered humanity.  An aerial view of a city aflame is a much easier video to watch.  And makes it easier to dehumanize them yet again.  But I can't stop looking.  THIS is happening in America.  And parts of our culture have created it.

Why are we not the same?  Why aren't we seeing ourselves projected?  Why are these groups of people over here very accepting, while these groups of people over here are rarely accepting, while many groups move about some amorphous middle ground?  As a gay man, as a very liberal/progressive believer/voter, as a man with an "incurable" disability, as a man with talents in the arts, I've had to ask such questions to survive.  Often.  Art is about talent (within certain boundaries) so people with that kind of talent, or people who can foster that kind of talent, go where that talent can thrive, even if it's on a small scale.  Parents and grandparents--and back and back--that have seen how a life in music, say, can give their child a profession to last a lifetime (or close to it) and a respected place in their culture, will try to make that happen.  In other terms, if we feel empowered to make choices, we make choices that we can see work, especially in historic patterns.

The disability issue is the same, but from a negative perspective.  How do you protect yourself? Who will hurt you?  What will hurt you?  Where is danger?  Where is safety?  How can you prosper?  How do you manage relationships with so much difficulty doing basic tasks?  How do you live with a prognosis of "no cure"?  Alas, for us, most cultures are not mirroring much of anything but bewilderment, skepticism, fear, and containment.  So those of us with major health problems do not feel empowered to make choices. We may find fellow "sufferers" or our relatives, but no real social support system is there:obvious, well-used, known.  We have medicines and therapy--which are essential, as far as I'm concerned, so don't get me started--but the emotional wounds, and eventually, scars, do not have an obvious outlet.  So we are left to make our own.  We find what we are skilled at, and pursue that, until we cannot.  I was a singer, actor, speaker, director for most of my life.  But my bi-polar disability has brought about mental issues I can no longer resist with any certainty.  And you cannot perform with uncertainty.  You have to know you can perform the work...or you can't.  So I made a choice to do something that I could be uncertain about half the time, while being quite certain about the other half. All the while "safe" in my apartment.  Eventually, I'd get to the end of it.  Which is where I'm headed.  I have a finished novel that needs to be printed and sold.  And that accomplishment has been as healing as any medicine or therapy I've yet encountered.  Just seeing the happiness in the eyes of your loved ones or the happiness in their voices when you tell them you're finished... Nothing like it.  Not even singing at Weill Recital Hall (the chamber music auditorium where most of the great classical musicians have played) at Carnegie Hall, which was its own sort of joy, but not as rich.

So on Friday, the process of getting help for that final push commences.  It will take a buttload of work to accomplish.  Nothing is certain.  But I can do it all from that apartment I have so much trouble leaving, which for better and worse, is my bi-polar certainty.

For anyone interested, here's a link to an older version of this blog.
http://fredchamberplayers.blogspot.com/  I know it's out of date, but you might find something interesting to read there...especially if you're fond of opinions!

The next few days will be busy getting everything ready for Friday.  This all seemed so damned easy when it was just a list of things to do!  Of course, Friday is just the beginning.  I have a whole month of work to raise my funds.  Shit!

One of the important reasons why I wrote this novel was a form of, well, therapy is the closest word I can think of.  You see, I have bi-polar disorder (for any of you who don't know).  If you follow the progress of my campaign, you'll probably hear and read a lot about it.  My issues include difficulty leaving my apartment for long periods of time.  So writing was an obvious choice to pursue for something to help me live more productively.  It was a tough three and a half years.  And I'm not quite finished: I have to get it published.  But I'm one day closer!  Ready or not, Friday, here we come.

Kickstarting Kickstarter

The work has been difficult (and long in coming) but my Kickstarter campaign goes live this Friday, May 1, and ends on Sunday, May 31.  You see, I've written my first novel, and I'm trying to get it published!

The book is a mystery/erotic thriller titled Irish Guilt.  The cast of characters is large, including two gay men as protagonists, but every one of them has a secret.  Some of those secrets are a matter of life and death.

It's not a "gay" novel exactly.  No one is closeted.  No one is assaulted by homophobes.  No one is being blackmailed.  Sexuality is just one aspect of these characters.  The vast majority of them are straight.  I'm a fan of gay literature, but many fine writers are exploring those avenues.  I wrote what I would want to read.

Like a good mystery, details of the lives of these people are uncovered little by little, giving clues to the guilt, or innocence, of each of them.  Like a good erotic thriller, the book is chock full of action: violence, danger, and of course, steamy sex.  Yes, it even has straight sex!  This is definitely not for kids.

A fan page should be up and running tomorrow or Tuesday, and a Twitter account should show up along with it, so you can be kept up to date on everything that's happening.

So more soon.