“You’re published? That’s great! What do you write?”
“Romance.”
“Really? Like modern day or the history ones?”
“Mostly paranormal and fantasy.”
“Wow, that’s awesome. Where can I buy your books?”
“Well, there’s Amazon and ebook.”
“Cool! Give me the link.”
“Uh, two warnings.”
“Warnings?”
“Yeah. First, I write erotic romance. Lots and lots of sex.”
Blink. “Oh.”
“Second, half of what I write is gay romance…”
Around about that time, the reactions vary. There are those who do a quick backpedal, because they really got caught on the ‘erotic’ and can’t even fathom the ‘gay’ part. Then there are those who fastened onto the ‘erotic’ and started getting really interested, only to be thrown by the ‘gay’. It’s that ‘gay’ that really throws people.
“You write gay romance? About guys?”
“Yeah.”
“How can you know what to write?!”
How to explain? When to explain? IF to explain? About this time I have to judge if it’s really worth it. For those whom I don’t think will ever read my stories, I usually just kind of stop there. They’re being nice and I realize and appreciate that, but it’s not worth either of our time for me to go into it. For those who I think might be interested, I’ll give them the link to my website and tell them no hard feelings if they never mention it again. But then there are those who are really intrigued. Them, I’ll go into a bit more detail.
I’ve been going through this a lot at work lately since my boss outed me at the staff meeting the other day. Very strange. But, so far, everyone has been very supportive. It’s been nice, if very very strange.
Written by Jet Mykles
Jet is a writer of sexual fantasy with a firm belief that all men are at least partially gay, that vampires are just people with a liquid diet and shapeshifters live on every block.
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Jess wrote,
you boss outted you, i wouldnt be impressed with him LOL
what are your feelings on it?? did he do it in a mocking way or in a supportive way
Jess <—-curious
Link | April 13th, 2008 at 3:31 am
Jet Mykles wrote,
oh no, he was totally supportive! We’d already talked about it and agreed that since people were going to ask why I was cutting back my hours anyway, we’d tell them. Since I knew that some people might get funny if they knew I was writing sex (see post) then he decided that he’d just mention that I’d had some success at writing and they could come to me for details. I think he’s actually quite proud of me, which is very nice :)
Link | April 13th, 2008 at 9:58 am
Marty Rayne wrote,
I love this post Jet because I have to give the same warnings (and add in that many of my books contain BDSM) and get the exact same response. The same question as to how I know about that stuff (being a married woman - *lol - poor hubby gets some interesting looks). But I think it’s getting easier as time goes on and since I also write heterosexual stories also, I have others to offer if they are interested. But I do have to say that I’ve a had couple actually inquire about my gay books :)
Glad your boss is being supportive. Makes things a lot easier.
Link | April 14th, 2008 at 11:23 am