Conundrum
In the late 90s, I worked in the film industry in Texas, doing both production assistant work and acting. I did a lot of extra work and even got spotlighted in some commercials for local brands. I landed a job at Studios at the Lakes and ran around a lot, from being a set PA to painting greenscreen walls to picking up talent from the airport. I made cards that said both sides of the camera. I was told by my boss to pick a side and that there was no way to do both. The idea bothered me, and eventually I chose to be in front of the camera… for a while until my mom died and I got married, which set me off in other directions.
Now, I am having the same conundrum with my writing. My third published work was Wild Boys, a violent western and cowboy romance of sorts. It labeled me squarely as a gay writer, which is fine, but I also love horror. My refusal to write what I don’t feel, i.e., following my gut (along with pirating), led to the end of my relationship with my first publisher. In 2017, I self-published and have been at it since. And I am still not sure how to market. I created the moniker Punk Fiction, to try to explain what I write as it crosses genres; it may raise more questions than answers, though. I write about outsiders, and most of them happen to be gay. The story is what counts; the adventure or the horror are more important than one facet of a character.
This conundrum of genre affects my unpublished manuscript, Lane Bowden 1973. It is a true crime fiction take that is not horrific enough in its early parts for the horror publishers and too horrific for most of the gay ones.
I feel at the end of a rope with the submission grind with Lane Bowden 1973 and others, but I will find a way.
DS
