2015: The Year of Queer

One parade I wasn't late for.

Always late to every parade (if I show up at all), here I am with my New Year's Resolution!

For decades I never bothered with them. I've only just started back up. Last year's was stupid. I vowed to name all my characters after TTC subway stops. Well, by the time I'd finished replacing real people's real names with fake ones in Like It's 1999: Diary of a Teenager in Love with a Teacher, I'd pretty much used them all up. That was in February.

This year's is a good one.

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I disappointed myself in 2014.  There were a few times I forced my characters to be straight when they weren't.  That probably sounds weird.  I'm the author.  I should be able to control every aspect of my characters' personalities... but, strangely, that's not how it works. Characters are real people--well, real fake people who only live in my head until I write them down.

A few times in 2014 I was working on books where, for one reason or another, I felt like readers were going to want my characters to be straight. Readers wouldn't like it if this girl was bi. Readers don't like bisexual women. Readers don't like lesbians. Readers don't like this, don't like that--keep it on the straight and narrow.  I had a lot of voices whispering in my ear that I wish I hadn't listened to, because I feel that I betrayed myself in doing so.

No more of that.

In 2015, no character will get shoved in the closet. 

The readers I want are the readers who want me. My work has always appealed to people who are a little different. I couldn't appeal to the mainstream if I tried. I know that... because I've tried. And failed. I don't enjoy writing books that aren't me for a market I don't understand, so it's a lose-lose-lose-lose-lose situation.  Everybody everywhere loses.

That's why I hereby proclaim 2015 The Year of Queer. You can look forward to unapologetically queer books from me, like:

• EVERYBODY KNOWS: a second anthology of heartfelt transgender erotica (trust me, it's going to be AMAZING! Even better than My Mistress' Thighs), 
• SAPPHIC CONFESSIONS: a book of lesbian confessions much like "Secret Confessions" but all lesbian, all the time!
• GETTING IT ON THE GO: a mini-collection of gay public sex stories that's secretly available in print right now but shhh nobody knows so keep quiet about it...
• THE OTHER SIDE OF RUTH: a later-in-life lesbian novel I've been working on for the past five years. If you've read the Audrey and Lawrence series, you'll remember Lawrence had a wife called Ruth. Well, while he's busy cheating on her with a much younger woman, "The Other Side of Ruth" is his wife's side of the story. She's not so innocent either. There is a certain neighbour girl...

And that's just the stuff that's already written!  There will be more. I'm in my ninth year as a professional writer. Trust me, I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet.

2015 is going to be exciting, so stay tuned.

Pride!