The Beauty of Men Never Dies: An Autobiographical Novel

Writing

46 Writing Ithink I just finished my twentyfirst book. For some reason, I can never keep it quite straight in my head. And by finished, I mean published. I don’t really count a book unless you can go into a store and buy it. I have four novels and a how-to book written and ready to be published, so I guess I actually have finished twenty-five books. This flood only began some fifteen years ago, and I have had one or two books published every year since. As I tell everyone, you can never be said to have ruined your life after seventy, and I feel I should write and produce the books I have because I don’t think anyone else is going to. I love the twenty-first century, and I think my writing and books have perhaps been pushing toward a kind of unhampered thinking I see in younger people. The male nude books I have done were to make public all the photographs that were hidden away or traded among homosexuals and to generate some feeling of casualness about the subject. I think women’s liberation has aided a lot, as men have become the sex objects women once were. It seems to me, too, that American men are, for the most part, uncomfortable with sex. They don’t wallow in it and want it to last. I think they want to get it over with and get back to the television. Homosexuals are the ones who have been left to really enjoy, read about, discuss, and involve themselves deeply in sex. Perhaps I am wrong, as there is a major business going on with heterosexual videos. But again, this is observing, not partaking. My books sell, particularly the photo collections. But it is the novels that make me feel that I am actually productive and using myself to 47 Writing create. And although they are not really autobiographical, they do draw upon life experience. I wonder if other writers find as I do that once they use life experience in their writing, it disappears from their memory. If I should reread parts of a novel several years later, I find I have completely forgotten the details I recount there. It is as though you are shedding your past once you turn it into a story. For me, it helps me make sense of my life. It wasn’t just lived for me alone. If it can be shared with others, then there is some reason for it. And why is it we feel it should make some sense? I think a lot of literature contains characters that may be original and fascinating and theatrical but actually don’t have many of the qualities we know from ourselves and our relationships with others. I try to be honest in my books and not have people feel or say things I don’t think people would really do. I want everyone to be a real person, not some stick figure that suddenly appears to keep the plot moving. And the same thing with events. Even in very highly regarded novels, I find the author has stuck in some “by chance” event that is essential to plot but not very likely or completely unlikely in reality. That kills the book for me. I feel that I am now reading something that is not designed for me to learn from but only to amuse me. And I do not wish to be amused with no end result. Knowing this, I hope I will be able to write until the end of my life. Because when I write, I feel I have done something. To this point, I have rarely spent a day just passing time. And when I look at my peers, that seems to be largely all that they do. I want to go to the end involved with other people. Hopefully, even having sex with them. I have a horror of being someone other people feel they should pay attention to or of whom they should take care. That reversion to a childlike state is always a bore for other people. So, I will continue writing and I hope have something of interest to say and recount. Few have ventured from eighty to ninety and written about it, so perhaps I can cross that particular desert and bring back some news. ...