Just Another Writer's Journal

It’s always interesting where ideas for stories come from. Even I don’t always understand—or remember—where an idea for a story came from. Often, an idea will come to me, and I start writing, and half an hour later, I can’t remember exactly what the original idea was. It’s already changed dramatically from the original concept. Some stories are based on people I see, and I try to imagine a back story for them. Other stories are based on situational ideas that come to me after reading something. Sometimes a story comes to you pretty whole, and sometimes it comes in parts. You have an initial idea, you write it, but then you need more. And more. And you slog away at it. And sometimes you get really lucky, and you encounter something that fits perfectly into your story. I'm currently working on a story about a guy that falls in love with a footballer. (English football.) I’ve already written a few thousand words of the story, but at the moment it is really ...

I was just reading about the latest conservative representative to be caught in a gay[1] scandal—it seems to happen every six months or so—and it made me wonder why. But it’s not; 'why do these people find themselves in this position?'—because being in the closet is likely to force them into these situations. And it’s not; 'why are there gay conservatives'?—that’s a topic for another day. The question I wonder is; 'why did these gay conservative legislators vote or promote anti-gay legislation?' Because, inevitably, these people turn out to have voted against the interests of LGBTQ+ people. Do they lack empathy, and think they have a get-out-of-jail-free card for themselves? Are they so full of self loathing that they do it to punish themselves? Do they think that if they pass one more piece of legislation, it might frighten themselves straight? Or are they using it as a beard? To hide the fact that they are gay? “ You know, that guy Jim, he see...