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You are here: Home > Forum > A Place of Safety > Literary Merit > Not slim, toned and hairless
Not slim, toned and hairless  [message #71621] Thu, 26 May 2016 09:08 Go to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



Not every gay boy is slim, toned, and hairless. Many, maybe most, aren't. Not everyone's beautiful.

I'm working on a story, which I hope will hit tomorrow's run, that is about a different gay boy.



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
The Tale of Croydon Below  [message #71625 is a reply to message #71621] Fri, 27 May 2016 07:31 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



I made the cut. Interested in reactions to the less classic svelte gay teens in my Tale of Croydon Below.



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: The Tale of Croydon Below  [message #71627 is a reply to message #71625] Fri, 27 May 2016 14:19 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



Unusually, I didn't get inspired by seeing a hot boy, nor did I have a location in mind. I've tried to create two lads, on the cusp of adulthood, both introverted, each unsure of his place in the world.

Neither is handsome, sleek, 'ideal' in an ideal gay pinup kind of way. Each has issues. Each is strong, and yet doesn't know it.

In my mind I started with a boy with a slightly unskinny, but very hairy body. He had to be a nerd, had to wear glasses, and had to be unaware that he might be attractive to someone else. I had to make him oddly nerdy, not just the run of the mill nerd, too.

My beta reader tells me it works.

[Updated on: Fri, 27 May 2016 14:22]




Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: The Tale of Croydon Below  [message #71640 is a reply to message #71627] Mon, 30 May 2016 06:25 Go to previous messageGo to next message
dgt224 is currently offline  dgt224

Toe is in the water
Location: USA
Registered: May 2011
Messages: 81



Your beta reader was right.
Re: The Tale of Croydon Below  [message #71642 is a reply to message #71640] Mon, 30 May 2016 08:06 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



Thanks. I found it a peculiar exercise. I need to be attracted to my characters to make a tale work. I found, as I wrote, I grew attracted to them more and more.

Ethan is a very particular type of nerd, I think. I had to make him eccentric-nerd in order to like him enough to write about him.



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: The Tale of Croydon Below  [message #71647 is a reply to message #71642] Mon, 30 May 2016 12:40 Go to previous messageGo to next message
solsticeman is currently offline  solsticeman

Likes it here

Registered: November 2012
Messages: 109



I said earlier that I hoped we were going to see more of Timmy's own writing, and this story is exactly why I felt that way.

The story is delightful and gentle, but more to the point I love the wry sense of humour... Typically:


"You two go into the living room. I'm going to do just what Mum always does.""
Argue with Dad?""
No, idiot older brother. Make some tea! We need it."


With lines like that, gay teen writing doesn't need to take itself seriously... It's too well done to need to be serious.

[Updated on: Mon, 30 May 2016 12:41]

Re: The Tale of Croydon Below  [message #71648 is a reply to message #71647] Mon, 30 May 2016 12:49 Go to previous message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



I hope you like the choice of clothes for the dance, too!

What I try hard to portray is real folk who also happen to be gay and finding themselves. That you noticed and have been so kid as to mention it shows I am, in part, succeeding. Thank you. It's a heady compliment.

I'm also trying to develop the present day tales into a realisation that, in 2016, homosexuality is normal, and, in the UK at least, treated as such, except by a few arsewipes, and religious nutters, none of whom count



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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