Republican & Gay Marriage; Hollywood Fails Gays; Nelsan Ellis Slams Luke Grimes

Republican & Gay Marriage

David Jolly is a freshman in the US House of Representatives from Florida and he's publicly supporting gay marriage. He's also a Republican, which for some reason this article seems to find fascinating.

'I believe it is fully appropriate for a state to recognize both traditional marriage as well as same-sex marriage,' Jolly, 41, said this week as he spoke about a recent judicial ruling that made same-sex marriage legal in Florida's Monroe County.

 ' ... As a matter of Constitutional principle, I believe in a form of limited government that protects personal liberty,' Jolly said. 'To me, that means that the sanctity of one’s marriage should be defined by their faith and by their church, not by their state.'

You can read more here, where there's an interesting note about Jolly's personal life.

I'm not really surprised at the tone of this article. It seems to suggest that all Republicans are anti-gay and anti-gay marriage and I think that's because it's not from a US publication. The fact is that there are gay Republicans and Republicans who do support gay marriage, and it's more common than most would imagine. In recent years many Americans from both parties have felt the need to go silent with regard to politics because they fear backlash from the loudest voices/bullies from both extremes. I think that's going to come to an end in the future.

Hollywood Fails Gays

Speaking of loud left wing liberal politics, the irony of this next link is interesting because it claims that ultra pro-gay Hollywood has failed in the way it portrays gays in films. The survey was done by GLAAD. They covered the seven largest studios in 2013. There were 102 releases, and only 17 LGBTI characters. According to this survey, not one gay character was a lead. As a side note, I often look at Tony while I'm scrolling through on demand and wonder why there is only one gay film, hidden in the indie section, that I had to find out about on social media. And it's usually not a very good film.

‘The lack of substantial LGBT characters in mainstream film, in addition to the outdated humor and stereotypes suggests large Hollywood studios may be doing more harm than good when it comes to worldwide understanding of the LGBT community,’ said GLAAD's CEO and President Sarah Kate Ellis.

 ‘These studios have the eyes and ears of millions of audience members, and should reflect the true fabric of our society rather than feed into the hatred and prejudice against LGBT people too often seen around the globe.’

I've been saying basically the same thing since I started blogging. This is one reason why I sometimes parody heteronormative films in books, with gay characters. Time and again, it's fail, fail, fail for Hollywood. And if they do get it right, they fail in other ways...like Matt Damon joking around about how weird it was to kiss a guy (and to get paid quite well to do that). Not all do this. Actors like Trevor Donovan play gay roles, do it well, and with respect. They make it look simple. But unfortunately, Donovan and the others aren't in the majority.

The same thing could be said about books and the publishing industry, which is one of the main reasons why I have always been pro m/m romance. In the m/m romance genre things aren't always perfect, but most of the time the authors (and the readers) get it right. I also think this is why the genre continues to grow. But I don't want to get off topic. This is about films.

You can read more here. The bigger question for me is why do we, as gays (and those who support us), continue to take this? If they aren't exploiting us for monetary gain, they are examining us as if we're lab rats. If they aren't treating us as if we're pet poodles, they are patronizing us and portraying us as heteronormative clones. And we...I include myself in this because I'm just as guilty...take it each time.

Nelsan Ellis Slams Luke Grimes

Finally, someone is speaking up and not letting "them" get away with it. I'm talking about Nelsan Ellis from True Blood. He plays Lafayette, the gay character on the show that was supposed to have a gay storyline with Luke Grimes this season. I posted about Luke Grimes allegedly quitting when he found out about the impending gay storyline. And now Ellis is speaking about Grimes and the situation for the first time in public.

'I just think that, you're an actor, you're an actor on a show that's True Blood, we're all sitting there going, "You quit your job because ... really?"

I'm just... I'm over him,' Ellis tells Vulture. While a spokesman for Grimes said the departure was over the actors' feature film schedule, HBO has maintained it was over the creative direction of the character. Says Ellis: 'You quit your job because you don't want to play a gay part? ...

You have to be open. But more importantly, you make a statement when you do something like that.

You can read more of what he has to say with this link.

Stay tuned for Grimes' reply, which I'm sure will come very soon.

Small Town Romance Writer

 

by Ryan Field

Amazon Link

 



FREEBIE: Small Town Romance Writer; Pope Gay Marriage; Gays Can't Love

Freebie: Small Town Romance Writer

I have two releases scheduled to come out within the next couple of months. One is a self-pubbed novel in the Chase of a Lifetime series titled, Chase of a Holy Ghost. And the other is a 114,000 word novel in the bad boy billionaire series, Small Town Romance Writer. A novel with 114,000 words is long even for romance, but it couldn't be helped this time. Each word is important to the storyline, and it has been edited down from 150,000 words, which wasn't simple to do. I could have made it two books, but I hate doing cliff-hangers. And I think my readers...or at least I hope...will appreciate getting a longer novel this time for the same price. It's really like getting two books for one, and this one is probably one of the most emotional stories I've ever done.


Here's the blurb:

 

In this 113,000 word gay romance, when bad boy male stripper, Ethan, and quiet academic, Travis, first meet at the storied Iowa Writers’ Workshop in l990 neither one of them know this unusual relationship will consume the next twenty years of their lives…even as their lives change, they meet new people, and they each take different paths as career writers.

Ten years later, Travis is a well-respected author in the LGBT community who is up for a prestigious literary award and Ethan is still a struggling gay erotic romance author writing short stories for small LGBT presses. But all this is about to change when Ethan soon becomes famous for a gay romance that Travis thinks is quite possibly the worst book ever written.

As Ethan’s mainstream writing career progresses and he’s dubbed the Small Town Billionaire Author, Travis’s career moves forward in more subtle, literary ways. Although there are times when Travis is jealous of Ethan’s fame and fortune, he’s found the young man he thinks is the love of his life and nothing else matters. In fact, his life seems perfect…until tragedy strikes and leaves him with nowhere to turn but to Ethan.

Years after that, both Ethan and Travis have evolved in many ways as men and authors. They also find themselves in situations they hadn’t predicted, and the tables have turned on them. Their long-lasting, unusual relationship is challenged once again when Ethan is up for the same award Travis won twenty years earlier, and this time it’s either going to make them or break them.

    

This novel is more like an epic or a saga in the sense that it covers the span of a half a lifetime. Most romances I write cover a shorter period of time. So I think that made the book longer, too. I will continue to post more as we get closer to a release date. The Excerpt is below.

Pope Gay Marriage

In this interesting piece it says that Pope Francis has called a meeting to allegedly discuss gay marriage. From what I gather it's more like a discussion on family issues, including divorce and contraception.

‘It is telling the pope and the Vatican what they already know. But it's what the Vatican in the past has not wanted to hear,’ author John Thavis told the Los Angeles Times.

 ‘It's strategic, but it's also a genuine effort to find out what the voice of the church really is on this. It's very much Pope Francis who wants less of a top-down model — the bishops preaching the rules and doctrine down to the faithful — and more of a dialogue.’

It should be interesting to follow up on this in the fall.

You can read more here.

Gays Can't Love

I'm sure my m/m romance readers will get a huge kick out of this link, especially since m/m romance is geared all around LOVE. There's a retired Greek business tycoon, Demetri Marchessini, who is claiming that gays are not capable of love. But that's not all. Among other things that involve racism and some of the worst aspects of rape culture, he thinks married women can't get raped. The arrogant piece of moose shit is also a UKIP donor. Sorry for that moose shit remark. Sometimes it can't be helped.

The sixth largest individual donor to the UK Independence Party was interviewed on television recently, where he said gay people are only capable of lust.

[There is] no such thing as fidelity in their relationships,’ Marchessini said on Channel 4 News. ‘They just all go out looking for action. That’s the way it is.’

I urge you to read this because he goes on with more comments about women. Check out the comment thread, too.

Excerpt Small Town Romance Writer

 

            It was clear they were both bored waiting for Hank to arrive and they needed to kill time. But when Travis saw them fooling around that way, completely nude, his heart started to race and he had trouble breathing. Mike was stocky and fair, with wide muscular legs, a thick neck, and a penis that resembled Travis’s can of hair product. Chuck wasn’t as muscular or stocky, but he had sandy brown hair, long legs that bowed at the knee, and a sack of balls that Travis could have hung from for days. When they both started messing around in front of Travis, he tried to look up at the ceiling and concentrate on awful, hideous images, but his eyes couldn’t help darting to the way their endowments were flopping around while they played. And when Travis glanced down and tried to think about more horrible things, it was even worse. Their large feet and their hairy ankles drove him into such a state of frenzy he felt like ripping off his sweats, falling to the floor, and sucking their toes. He vowed then and there he would go out and have sex as soon as this modeling job was over.

           Oh, Ethan was right once again. Travis had given up sex for too long. It wasn’t natural for a single ay man to go without as long as he had. He hadn’t felt this way since the first time he’d entered a gay bar when he was in college and saw all those good looking gay men for the taking. The things Travis wanted to do to those four models even made him cringe. As Mike and Chuck continued to shove each other around, he imagined himself on his knees holding Chuck in his hand while he sucked Mike. He wanted to lick them and chew them until his tongue had explored every last inch of their bodies. When he thought about the magnitude of burying his face in their arm pits, he had to hold on to the bench so he wouldn’t get dizzy. Their deep throaty voices made his own penis swell so much he had to uncross his legs and clamp his knees together. The strong male scent they were giving off made the lips of Travis’s anus twitch in a way that would have made him laugh and roll his eyes if he’d read it in one of Ethan’s dirty books. As a writer who also reviewed books, he'd learned when to laugh and when to criticize.

            By the time Hank finally did arrive, Travis was so worked up he wanted to jump all of them, including the skinny photographer named Fred. But when Hank set a box on the table next to the photographer and he reached inside to pull out a tiny blue piece of cloth with string attached to each side, Travis gaped at him and said, “What’s that?”

            “Isn’t it divine,” Hank said, as he stretched the blue strings apart. “It’s our newest line of undies. It’s called, Brunch at Tiffany’s because it’s all made out of fabric in a shade that’s so close to the baby blue color of the infamous Tiffany’s bags. Don’t you just love it?”
            Travis’s erection subsided immediately. He stood up, crossed to the table, and glanced down at the thong Hank was holding. It was nothing more than a blue pouch with strings. And there was a large, white fake pearl where the two strings met at the front of the pouch. “Isn’t that awfully skimpy,” Travis said, for lack of a better way to phrase it.

            That week during the photo shoot Travis had worn boxer shorts, boxer briefs, plain briefs, and bikini briefs. He’d also worn square cut briefs, briefs with built-in cock rings, and briefs that were cinched in the back to make his ass round out more. On top of all this, he’d worn jocks traps, thongs, and underwear made of fabric so sheer he could have put his fingers through it. The other models had worn similar things, too, and no one had felt self-conscious about it. But this little blue piece of fabric that was only connected to two thin strings was not something Travis had expected. He wasn’t even certain he could pack his dick and balls into something so small.

            Hank put the blue stringed thong back into the box and he handed the box to Travis with a great big smile. “Go over and put on the blue body suit first. I think we’ll start with the least revealing piece and go from there. In this last shoot, you’ll be the only one wearing the underwear. The focus is all on you this time.”

            There was nothing Travis could have done about it by then. He’d signed a contract and he was obligated to finish the shoot. And, he didn’t want to be like one of those models who behaved badly by complaining all the time. So while Hank told the other four models to gather around him so he could tell them what to wear, Travis went to the far end of the room, set the box on the bench, and started to remove his clothes. At least he wasn’t aroused anymore. Now all he could think about was what his snob literary friends would say when they saw him in the catalogue wearing nothing but a pale blue piece of fabric with a big white pearl above his dick.

            As the day wore on, there were issues with the photographer, issues with the lighting, and Hank had to take a phone call that wound up lasting almost an hour. Each time they shot someone wearing something different, it took longer than usual for some reason because Hank was obsessed about making it look natural. He kept complaining he couldn’t get the right light because they were indoors as opposed to out on the beach where they’d been shooting all week. One shot with Travis in a light blue bikini took so long poor Chuck fell asleep on one of the locker room benches.

            Travis saved the string thong for last, because he kept hoping Hank would forget all about it and wrap up the session. As it was, they wound up working well into sunset that evening and they only had the house that one last day. It wasn’t as though they could finish in the morning. This was it. So when Hank told Travis to go put on the thong, Travis went back to the bench and followed his order.

            While Travis removed a pair of light blue box cut briefs, he overheard Hank talking to the other four models in the background and he almost tipped sideways. Hank said, “Now I want you guys to put on these blue football pants and nothing else. We’re marketing them as workout pants, but that could be debated.” He laughed and starting tossing the blue football pants to the guys. Then Hank said, “And I want this last shoot to be fun and way over the top. I want you to all have fun, with a homoerotic appeal, if you get my drift. Does anyone have an issue with that? I want you all to push this to the limit and make it as sexy as hell, as if you can’t get enough of Travis in the light blue thong.”

            Travis glanced over at them to see how the guys were reacting to the homoerotic comment. They exchanged a few glances and Skip said, “It’s cool. What do you want us to do?”
            “Just have fun with Travis,” Hank said. “Lift him up when I tell you to lift him, toss him around in a playful way, and treat him as if he belongs to all of you. Objectify him and own him…but always make it look playful. I’m going for a suggestive look here, without actually doing anything wrong.”

            When Travis heard that comment, he glanced down at the floor and pretended he hadn’t heard a thing. He had a feeling they were all looking in his direction and he didn’t want to make eye contact with them. Travis knew Casual Man wasn’t a gay catalogue and it was marketed to all men, but he also knew there had always been homoerotic undertones in some issues that had always been harmless. This didn’t bother or frighten Travis because he’d been openly gay since he’d been in undergrad school. But when he thought about those four young straight college football players lifting him up and tossing him around with their big strong hands, he wasn’t sure how much longer he could control his urges. And when he put on the Tiffany blue string thong and packed his dick into the tiny pouch and he saw the big pearl, he felt so stimulated at that moment he had to bite the inside of his mouth to keep his erection under control.

Gay Wins Big Brother: FREE Gay Excerpt Small Town Romance Writer

Gay Wins Big Brother

This summer the only openly gay man in the Big Brother house won the grand prize of five hundred thousand dollars. But before anyone starts clapping, the title of the article to which I'm linking is, Did a Racist Win Big Brother 15?  Here are a few of my posts on the subject this summer. And I haven't been the only one blogging and talking about the racist comments.

 From NBC News Entertainment:

and then there was Andy Herren, an openly gay contestant who found himself on the receiving end inappropriate slurs from his fellow houseguests, but managed to make enough verbal waves to spark a Facebook statement from his former employer explaining that he "does not represent the opinions or values of College of DuPage."

Andy Herren wasn't the only one, and actually he didn't make the majority of the racists comments. These racists comments were addressed at the season finale last Wednesday night when the house guests came together for the first time since each one had been evicted, before a live audience. But they weren't addressed in any detail by any means, and it would be interesting to see how some of these houseguests reacted to what America saw this summer on TV and the live feed. Several of them were fired from their jobs just like Andy Herren.

But not everyone made racist comments. Unfortunately he didn't win the prize. Howard Overby said this: (And I'd like to add that this guy was great. It takes a lot to bring me to tears, but what this guy had to endure this summer from grown adults absoluetly gutted me.)

"My sincere prayer to anyone who has said anything like that ... is that you grow from this, you mature from this, you own this," he explained. "Hopefully there's a change from the inside out."

FREE Gay Excerpt Small Town Romance Writer

All week I've been posting excerpts from published books, and because this is the last day of the week, I figured I would post an excerpt from an upcoming book in the Bad Boy Billionaire series. This one is tentatively titled Small Town Romance Writer, it's 113,000 words in length, and it's the eighth and final book in the series.

I'll post the pg rated part of the excerpt here on google blogger, and then you can click to my Word Press blog to read the erotic parts.

Chapter Fourteen

 

            While they were in the airport waiting for a flight to Boston, Ethan phoned Travis to talk about another bad review he’d received from The Shark Lady. This time his voice sounded wrecked with anger, to the point where he practically hissed and Travis had to pull his cell phone away from his ear.

            “That fucking asshole is trying to ruin me,” Ethan said. “Who writes two bad reviews for the same book? That was no accident, Travis. I’m going to write an open letter to that shark fucker on my web site and I’m going to fucking eat her for breakfast.” This time The Shark Lady had taken his highly toned down sex scenes out of context and turned them into hysterical examples of bad writing. She’d blasted it all over various social media web sites. Travis didn’t mention this to Ethan, but even he’d smiled at a few of her comments. They were genuinely funny, although highly out of context.

            Even though Travis had never been a fan of Ethan’s writing style, Ethan was his best friend and he had to say something to calm him down. But more than that, Travis had to admit that the review had not been fair. Funny, but not fair. He’d seen this before more than once, the way a clever book reviewer can take an excerpt from a book…any book, including the bible…out of context and make it look ridiculous. It was an age old trick some book reviewers’ use, but unfortunately most people didn’t recognize it or understand it. And there was nothing an author could do about it except take it with grace, write the book reviewer’s name down on a list, file it somewhere for future reference, and then get even with the nasty reviewer sometime down the road in the future.

            “You have to calm down,” Travis said. “If you write an open letter to a book reviewer about a bad review the only thing that will happen is that you’ll make yourself look bad. And you have so many wonderful things happening right now that would be huge mistake. Just laugh it off. Take it as a compliment. How many authors get two reviews from the same reviewer?” That’s what Travis had done.

            “You don’t know what it’s like,” Ethan said. “No one ever wrote a review like that for your book.”

            That was true. Travis’s award winning book had received some excellent reviews, and mostly middle of the road reviews. But this worried him even more than if he’d had bad reviews. He’d always believed the books that sparked the most controversy and created the most interesting discussions were the most valuable. In order to spark discussion a book had to be both loved and hated. But he didn’t want to get into that with Ethan on the phone, in the airport. So he continued to pacify him and stroke his damaged ego until they said it was time to board the plane.

            “I have to go now. We’re boarding. Call me later when I get to P’town. Just don’t write or say anything you’ll regret. Let it go, Ethan. Don’t do or say anything in public. You’ll regret it. Just trust me on this one thing.”

            “Can I send her a dead fish?” Ethan asked. “Or maybe a ticket for a cruise ship in shark infested waters.”

            “No, not even that. Let it go. She only wants you to respond. She’s goading you.”

            His voice had mellowed by then. “I suppose you’re right once again. Thanks for listening to me rant that way. But I will get even with that nasty, vicious, evil excuse for a human being someday if it’s the last thing I do.”

            Travis smiled. “I have no doubt about that. Call me later if you want. Love you.”

            “Love you, too,” Ethan said. “And thanks again for being there, as always.”

            When Travis hung up, Scottie reached for their carry-on bags and said, “Is he okay now?” He’d been listening to the conversation the entire time. He seemed to have come to his own personal understanding about Ethan and Travis’s relationship and he never questioned the dynamics.

            Travis stood up and said, “I think he is. But I have a feeling someday in the future he’s going to picking his teeth with the remains of the woman who wrote that nasty book review. Ethan never forgets anything that bruises his ego.”

Read More....

Free Weekend Excerpt: Small Town Romance Writer

Free Weekend Excerpt: Small Town Romance Writer

I just submitted the ms for Small Town Romance Writer to the publisher and while it's all still fresh I thought I'd post another raw, unpublished version here. This book ran over 113,000 words by the time I sent it off, and so far I haven't heard any screams from the publisher. The average e-book romance novel runs about 60,000 words, and I'm usually contracted to only write 50,000 words. I thought this book needed more depth, and I couldn't help running over word count this time.

The basic premise of the book is literary gay author vs smutty erotic romance gay author. And even though no one will believe me, this book is not even closely related to my own life as a writer. I did take from some of my experiences, but the reason I made the two main characters so different was because I wanted to show how two different writers go through life with different POVs.

In any event, here's the excerpt. In this scene, Travis, one main character, meets someone he really likes and doesn't even realize this until he discovers the guy might be dating someone else. It shows how passive Travis can sometimes be a bit aggressive, and it's highly out of character for him to react this way.

It was evident Scottie didn’t know Ethan very well. Ethan had once had a bad haircut when they’d lived together in Iowa and Travis had told him the truth then. Ethan took his criticism so seriously that time he wound up wearing a baseball cap for the next month. After that experience Travis had learned it was much safer to lie to Ethan in some cases. Like that time he wore an ugly red shirt to a party and he asked Travis for his opinion. The shirt was so bad it made Travis cringe. But he smiled and told Ethan, “I love it. It’s the best shirt I’ve ever seen and I might even ask if I can borrow it in the future.” This made Ethan smile for the rest of the night, and he had no idea everyone else at the party was talking about the guy in the ugly red shirt.  Oh, Travis had learned the hard way what Ethan didn’t know would never hurt him.

            “I have to think about it for a while,” Travis said. “I can’t keep avoiding him forever.”

            “You’ll figure it out,” Scottie said. Then he hesitated for a second. “I have to ask you something. When you say we’re taking things slowly and this is a casual relationship does that mean we’re both allowed to see other people.”

            Travis smiled at his innocence. The poor kid was worried he would date other men. “Yes,” he said. “We are allowed to see other people. After all, this is a long distance causal relationship. It would be unrealistic for you to assume I’m not going to see other people.”

            “I’m not talking about you,” Scottie said.

            Travis opened his eyes wider. “I don’t understand.” He hadn’t expected this.

            “This guy asked me out this morning,” Scottie said. “And I said I would think about it. I wanted to see if that’s okay with you.”

            Well. It didn’t take him long to find someone else. Travis had underestimated him in more than one way. But he didn’t want Scottie to think he was upset about this, so he laughed it off and said, “It’s fine with me. We are both free to see anyone, or do anything, we want to do. No strings attached.”

            “Good, that’s a huge relief,” Scottie said. “I’m kind of new at all this, and I didn’t want to go out with someone else without talking to you first.”

            “What’s this guy like?” Travis asked. “I’m just curious in a basic sense. It’s not that I care or anything.” He felt a lump in his throat. He hadn’t even thought about going out with anyone else yet.

            “He’s a nice guy,” Scottie said. “He’s about your age and he owns a few small coffee shops in Providence. He has a weekend place in P’town on the East End. You might even know him.”

            Travis placed his palm to his chest and sat up higher. “Is his name Glen?” Provincetown was a small community, and everyone knew everyone else. He’d met a guy named Glen at a few parties and gallery receptions who owned coffee shops in Providence and had a weekend place on the East End. From what he could recall, this Glen was not around his age. He was closer to forty than thirty. He had a good body, but he dyed his hair that obnoxious jet black some middle age men think makes them look younger. And he had the thinnest lips Travis had ever seen on a man.

            “Yes, his name is Glen,” Scottie said. “Do you know him?”

            Travis forced himself not to groan aloud. “Does he have dyed black hair and big white teeth? And painfully thin lips? And does he have a tendency to blink with his entire face a little too much?”

            Scottie laughed. “I’m not sure if his hair is dyed, but it is black and he does have a tendency to blink every now and then. I get coffee at his shop in the morning on my way to class, and this morning we started talking and he asked me out.”

            “I’ll bet he did,” Travis said. He also knew this Glen had a reputation for going after younger men in their twenties. “But just so you know, he’s not around my age. I’m thirty-two. He’s more like forty-two. Maybe even fifty-two for all I know. He’s an old man.”

            “Well I didn’t ask him his exact age,” Scottie said. “It doesn’t matter to me and I didn’t want to be rude. What’s wrong? You sound upset.”

            “I’m not upset about anything,” Travis said. He felt like kicking the chair. “If you want to go out with that old man, who am I to say anything.” Maybe he was one of those younger guys that liked the old ones.

            “Good,” Scottie said. “I’m glad I asked you about it. I have to go study now. I’ll talk to you over the weekend.”

            Travis didn’t want to wait until the weekend. He wanted to know more about this Glen and what he was up to with Scottie. “I’ll call you tomorrow night around this same time,” he said.

            “Call me on Friday night around this time,” Scottie said. “I told Glen I’d get back to him about dinner tomorrow night. And since you’re okay with it, I’m going to call him as soon as I hang up with you. You’re sure it’s okay.”

            Travis kicked the wall. “Of course it’s okay. I’ll call you on Friday night. Have fun with the old guy tomorrow night.”

            When Travis went to bed that night, he tossed and turned so much he had to get up and take a sleeping pill. He never took pills to go to sleep. He’d always been one of those people who could fall into bed and drift off to sleep without any problems at all. He kept thinking about Scottie going out with that hideous old creature with big teeth and dyed black hair that lived up on the East End, of all places. Travis owned a home on the West End, where a more residential dignified group lived. Like most gay men in his position, he cared about his address. He was surrounded by Boston attorneys and people who spent the winters in Key West. The gay couple across the street from him owned radio stations and the gay guy who owned the house behind him came from an old Boston family that had made their money in shoe laces. Travis wouldn’t have been caught renting in the East End, let alone owning a home. In his opinion, the East End had always been for tourists and those who walked through town all summer licking ice cream cones with flip flops on their feet and short that bunched up in their crotches. 

            By the time he finally did fall asleep, he had dreams of the hideous Glen creature dancing at the A-house with Scottie. He woke up around seven in the morning at the exact moment this Glen creature was about to make love to Scottie. He had Scottie in his arms; they were both leaning backward in the middle of Commercial Street in front of Spiritus Pizza, and all Travis could see were Glen’s big white bleached teeth moving toward Scottie’s beautiful young lips. Travis sat up in bed, with his heart racing and sweat rolling down his face, and punched the pillow so hard he bruised his knuckles on the headboard.

            He spent the rest of the day trying to work. He tried as hard as he could to write that article about gender power in gay fiction, but he kept thinking about Glen’s big white choppers moving toward Scottie’s lips. He grew so frustrated he ripped a sheet of paper from his typewriter, crunched it in his fist, and stormed out of the house. He walked all the way to Herring Cove with his hands in his pockets and his head down to avoid anyone he knew.

            He tried to rationalize his feelings because he’d been the one who had insisted they keep things casual. He couldn’t blame Scottie for going out with Glen. Besides, he’d said it didn’t bother him. When he realized how alive he felt, and how long it had been since he’d cared this much about another guy, he decided not to call Scottie on Friday night. He called him late on Thursday night instead.

            The phone rang about six times and he almost hung up. It was after midnight and he had a feeling Scottie had decided to go home with the old man who owned the coffee shops. He felt a little silly by then, and he didn’t want Scottie to think he was a lunatic stalker.

            Then Scottie picked up and said, “Hello?”

            “It’s me,” Travis said, in a casual tone. Scottie obviously didn’t have caller ID. He could have just hung up and Scottie would never have known he’d called.

            “Hey,” Scottie said. “What’s wrong?”

            “Nothing’s wrong,” Travis said.

            “Well it’s after midnight,” Scottie said. “People usually call at that hour when something’s wrong. Are you sure you’re okay?”

            Travis clenched his fist and took a quick breath. “I told you I’m fine. I just called to see how your date went.”

            “It didn’t happen,” Scottie said. “There was some kind of crisis at one of Glen’s coffee shops and he had to cancel. He promised me he would make it up, though. He said he’d bring me up to his house in P’town this weekend. He’s picking me up on Saturday. Isn’t that great? We should all plan to get together for tea dance on Sunday at the Boat Slip.”

            So now this creepy white-toothed idiot was taking Scottie to P’town for the weekend. This made Travis want to pick up the phone, hurl it at the window, and throw it into the bay. But he took a deep breath and counted to ten.

            “Are you still there?” Scottie asked.

            “Yes,” I’m still here, Travis said in his calmest voice.

 

            “Are you free on Sunday afternoon?” Scottie asked. “I’ll tell Glen.”

Small Town Romance Writer: The 113,000 Word Version

Small Town Romance Writer: The 113,000 Word Version

This is one of those posts I do every now and then when I'm getting ready to submit a book to the publisher. It helps me see what the book description looks like in print, it helps me check out the first few pages, and readers tell me they like reading these things.

This particular book is the final novel in the eight book series I've been working on for the last year for Ravenous Romance. And this time, with this final book, for some reason I ran way over the contracted word count and it wound up being 113,000 words. Before I started editing it, it was almost 150,000 words. It could have stood alone at 150,000 words, but I think it works better when it's a little tighter. I think part of the reason the book ran this long is because it covers a time period of over twenty years, from l990 - 2012. I don't usually do that, because I prefer to cover shorter time periods. However, this time the story seemed to take over and I didn't have much of a choice.

Here's the book description, in raw form. Below that is an excerpt from a part of the book where Ethan wants Travis to read his new novel...also unedited, in raw form, and set in the year 2000.

In this 113,000 word gay romance, when bad boy male stripper Ethan and quiet academic Travis first meet at the storied Iowa Writers’ Workshop in l990 neither one of them know this unusual relationship will consume the next twenty years of their lives…even as their lives change and they meet new people, and they each take different paths as career writers.

Ten years later, Travis is a well-respected author in the LGBT community who is up for a prestigious literary award and Ethan is still a struggling gay erotic romance author writing short stories for small presses that garner him a less than fifty dollar flat fees. But all this is about to change when Ethan soon becomes famous for a gay romance that Travis thinks is quite possibly the worst book ever written.

As Ethan’s mainstream writing career progresses and he becomes known as the Small Town Billionaire Author, Travis’s career moves forward in more subtle, literary ways. Although there are times when Travis is jealous of Ethan’s fame and fortune, he’s found the young man he thinks is the love of his life and nothing else matters. In fact, his life seems perfect…until tragedy strikes and leaves him with nowhere to turn but to Ethan.

Ten years after that, in 2011, both Ethan and Travis have evolved in many ways as men and authors. They also find themselves in situations they hadn’t predicted, and the tables have turned on them. Their long-lasting, unusual relationship is challenged once again when Ethan is up for the same award Travis won twenty years earlier, and this time it’s either going to make them or break them.    

Excerpt:

Ethan stood up and walked to a briefcase he’d left near the back door. He picked it up, carried it to the island, and set it down next to a large porcelain rooster that had the most ridiculous expression he’d ever seen. He hated cute things; he despised the way this entire house was decorated. As Ethan unzipped the case, Travis walked over to see what he was doing.

            Ethan pulled a thick stack of white papers out of the briefcase and set it on the counter. The stack wasn’t neatly piled and most of the pages were dog-eared. He pushed it toward Travis and said, “I’d like you to read this and tell me what you think.”

            Travis gulped and glanced down at the papers. “What is it?”

            “It’s a novel I wrote,” Ethan said. Although his short stories had been getting published in anthologies and magazine for years, he’d never actually written a full length novel. This was his first attempt and what Travis thought of it meant more to him than anything. “I’d like you to read it and tell me what you think.” He’d never asked Travis to read anything like this before. He’d never asked anyone to read his work before. The first people who read his short manuscripts were usually professional editors. He didn’t believe in feedback from non-professionals.

            Travis glanced at the title and read it aloud: “To Badly Feel the Darkness of Emotion.”

            “It is catchy,” Travis said. “You never mentioned you were writing a full length novel. How long did it take?”

            “About a month,” Ethan said. “It’s about 150,000 words. I would have finished it sooner, but we had a lot of events with Lance’s job. For a while it seemed as if there was a different party every night. Entertaining clients is a huge part of what Lance does. I’m so excited about this. I can’t wait to hear what you have to say.”

            Travis continued to stare at the first page. “I see,” he said.

            “Is that all you’re going to say?” He’d expected at least a little excitement from Travis.

            “I’m not sure what to say right now,” Travis said. “You hand me a manuscript for a full length 150,000 novel you wrote in a month and the title isn’t even grammatically correct.” He lifted his hands and wiggled his fingers. “You don’t feel badly. You feel bad on an emotional level, not badly. You feel badly with your fingers.”

            “I know that,” Ethan said. “I believe in common usage, and everyone says they feel badly. I write the way real people speak, and it’s the story that matters, not the grammar.” He’d always been a believer in common usage as opposed to proper grammar, and from what he’d been reading there were many who were beginning to speak out about this, even on academic levels. He’d recently read an article in a university review that talked about ending sentences with prepositions. “I want you to read it and tell me what you think about the story. It’s an erotic romance with light BDSM where two guys fall in love. It’s really an emotional love story this time, filled with schmaltz. I got tired of writing about just sex.”

            “I see,” Travis said, as if they were the only two words he knew. He turned the title page over and read aloud from the first page: “Like a chiseled and detailed statue, his elegantly muscle toned body crept up the elderly semi-circular staircase lovingly. It’s treads squeaked laboriously with each step he took, as he made his way slowly and carefully to Adam’s bed. His feet stopped abruptly at the top of the stairs when he saw Adam longingly and lovingly glancing in his direction. He smiled widely and muttered darkly with slight stutter, ‘I’m here. I’m here, my love.’”

            When Travis paused, Ethan leaned forward. “What do you think? Isn’t that a great first line?”

            “Well,” Travis said. “I’m not sure what to say.”

            “You don’t like it,” Ethan said. He knew that look on Travis’s face. He hadn’t seen it since the last time Travis drank too much and heaved his dinner.

            “This is an awkward position, Ethan,” Travis said. “I’m not sure what you want me to say. You show me a novel you claim only took one month to write. One fucking month. It took me years to write my novel. Then I read the first line and I see you begin the book with a simile, you misspell its, you use said bookisms for dialogue tags, and there seems to have been a sale on adverbs the day you wrote it.” Travis pointed to the next line and read it aloud: “’You’re here,’” Adam mumbled alluringly.” He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed.

            “I wanted the first few pages to be filled with emotion,” Ethan said. He wasn’t sure about the other issues Travis had mentioned, but he didn’t want Travis to know that. Travis could be so structured and picky sometimes, not to mention condescending.

            “Mumbled alluringly?” Travis said. He sent him a frown and shook his head. “That’s not good, Ethan. You need to work on it a little more. And maybe hire a good editor.”

            Ethan sat back and sighed. Why did Travis always have to be so condescending? “All I wanted you to do was read it and tell me what you think. But if that’s too much trouble, don’t bother. I’m never going to write literary books like you. I know and I’m okay with that. But I know I can write sexy books with a lot of romance and a killer story.”

            Travis rubbed his jaw and took a quick breath. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll take the book with me and read it from cover to cover. I’ll overlook all the grammatical issues and I’ll let you know what I think of the story; just the story. I’ll be completely objective in that respect. But you have to promise you’ll take my criticism as objectively. In other words, you can’t get mad at me.”

            “It’s a deal,” Ethan said. “All I want you to do is read it and tell me what you think.”

            Travis glanced down at the page and saw the byline. “Who the hell is G. X. Cloud?”

            Ethan sat up higher and squared his back. “That’s my pen name for this. Everyone’s using them nowadays, especially in e-publishing. And since this is a first novel, I wanted something different than I’ve used before.”

            “E-publishing?” Travis asked, with a sarcastic emphasis on the e.

            Ethan nodded. “Electronic publishing,” he said. “It’s where people read electronic books instead of print books. I’ve been reading a lot about it lately on the Internet. I’ve seen articles that claim everyone will be reading e-books on an e-reading device of some kind by the year 2010. And a lot of writers are using pen names with two initials.”

            Travis rolled his eyes. “Well this is the year 2000, and I haven’t seen any signs of that happening in publishing, so don’t hold your breath, G.X.”

            When it came to technology, Travis had never been open to the concept of change. Ethan had been spending a lot of time on the Internet and he’d seen the changes already happening in the publishing industry. Of course most of the people associated with traditional publishing like Travis either laughed at, or scorned, anything that resembled the concept of electronic books. But Ethan didn’t agree, and he had a feeling the world would change in the next decade and he wanted to be part of that change.

            “You can take this hard copy manuscript,” Ethan said. “I have an electronic back up on file. I back up all my work now with digital copies.” He was by no means a tech genius, but he wanted to use technical words to impress Travis. He knew Travis wrote his literary books on the same old typewriter he’d used at The Iowa Writer’s Workshop, and he found this amusing and quaint. Travis didn’t even have an e-mail address yet, and most people Ethan knew did. About a year earlier, Ethan had been warned by one of the publishers with whom he worked if he didn’t get a computer and learn how to submit his short erotic stories as Word Documents, he would soon become obsolete and no one would be willing to read his hard copy manuscripts. At first Ethan ignored the advice, but then it actually happened. One of his small publishers wanted to buy a short erotic gay story for an anthology, but he told Ethan it had to be submitted electronically. On that same day, Ethan bought a computer and asked Lance to show him the basics. Lance had already been using computers for architectural design and he knew the basics.

            Travis made a face. “I’ll stick with my old typewriter for now, thank you. But as long as you have a copy, I’ll take the manuscript with me and I’ll read it.”

            Ethan jumped off his stool and hugged him. “Thanks,” he said. “I know I’m never going to be as good as you, but not everyone can write literary novels that win big book awards. Some of us just want to entertain people and have a little fun.” Although he wanted that to sound like a compliment, he also wanted to let Travis know he wasn’t a complete idiot just because he didn’t get his graduate degree in Iowa. The competition between them often equaled the love between them, which made moments like this more intense. They always seemed to be on the verge of a kiss or a slap in the face.

            And Travis always made sure he went insult for insult. He tapped Ethan’s messy manuscript and said, “And I’m sure I’ll have more than a little fun reading this.”

 

  

Gay Marriage Montgomery County, PA; Free Excerpt Small Town Romance Writer

Gay Marriage Montgomery County, PA

As most people know, same sex marriage in PA is still illegal in spite of the SCOTUS ruling this summer. In protest, D. Bruce Hanes, who is a Montgomery County Clerk, is straight, and has two children, started issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples this summer.

From my earlier post:

Even though same sex marriage is still not legal in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Montgomery County in PA issued marriage licenses to same sex couples today in defiance of the ban on same sex marriage. Tony and I live in Bucks County, PA, which is only a few miles from where the marriage licenses were issued, and it's s significant move for those who issued the licenses and those who obtained them.

When I wrote that post I was still under the impression I lived in a highly progressive community that stood for equality and cared about being on the right side of history. However, in recent weeks the mayor of New Hope, PA, which has a large LGBT population and is only a few miles from Montgomery County, PA, decided to refuse marriage to same sex couples based on what many legal experts say are weak legal reasons. I posted several times about that.

Even though there are legalities involved here, sometimes it's important to be on the right side of history in order to make a change. There was a time when people of African descent were not allowed to use the same bathrooms and water fountains as white people. Clearly, Mayor Keller doesn't believe the issue of gay marriage is important enough to take a stand and challenge.

Today it will be decided whether or not Hanes acted illegally as county clerk by issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples, and many people are watching this closely. Here's a link to a local article.

On Wednesday, Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court will consider whether Hanes acted illegally when he began doling out licenses to same-sex couples on July 24, one month after the U.S. Supreme Court declared part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional. State attorneys have argued that the documents have no “value or legitimacy.” So far, Hanes has granted marriage paperwork to at least 157 gay couples.

If the court sides with Hanes, the ruling could bring same-sex marriage a step closer in Pennsylvania, the only Northeastern state that does not permit gays to marry or enter into civil unions. If the court rules in favor of the state, the marriage licenses Hanes issued could be rendered useless.

I have no idea what to predict, but I will post an update soon. Similar things have been happening in other states, too.

This week has seen a flurry of activity supporting the freedom to marry in New Mexico. Three counties in New Mexico have been ordered by district court judges to end marriage discrimination and begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. County clerks in three additional counties have followed the lead of these rulings by issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in their own counties. These huge steps forward in New Mexico this week bring renewed urgency to why we need the freedom to marry uniformly across the state - and, ultimately, why we need the freedom to marry nationwide.

Free Excerpt Small Town Romance Writer

Along with several other projects I've done this summer, I've also been working on the final book in the Bad Boy Billionaire series, tentatively titled, "Small Town Romance Writer." I know a lot of people will be looking for similarities of me in the book, but I never work that way and rarely ever insert anything autobiographical in my books. If and when I do this, I take bits and pieces from my life or my experiences and I embellish them to the point where they are beyond recognition. I think that's important in writing fiction, because fiction should be larger than life. Otherwise it wouldn't BE fiction.

The two main characters in this book are writers, but they are totally different writers. One writes erotic gay romance and figures out a way to make billions. The other writes literary gay fiction and he wins awards and gains prestige. The book starts out in 1990 and covers the course of their lives and their careers as authors for the next twenty years, where they experience every emotion there is from, jealousy to closure. I didn't want the book to run over 80,000 words, but it wound up being 112,000 words...about 400 pages. Here's an excerpt from the raw unedited version.

1990

           

            When former male stripper Ethan Holmes gained admission to The Iowa Writers’ Workshop he had the best of intentions. And while he often bragged to people it was the oldest and most celebrated writers’ workshop in the country, and he never failed to mention how difficult it was to get accepted, he often wondered in private how he would suffer through the intense academic two year residency requirement without losing his mind.

            By the end of his first year in the program the only two things that kept him in Iowa were his best friend, Travis Lane, and a guy he’d met over the summer, Lance Mannington.

            Ethan had met Travis Lane the day he’d started the program. At the time, Ethan hadn’t planned ahead for housing and he’d spent his first night in Iowa in a dumpy hotel off-campus. He was from a small town on Florida’s Gulf Coast and he’d always been able to find affordable housing as an undergrad student there. No one had mentioned to him that affordable on-campus housing at the University of Iowa was so scarce in September. He thought he’d show up the day he arrived, sign a lease, and everything would fall into place for him the way it usually did. He’d always been charmed that way, and he knew it. Evidently, all these people had planned ahead.

            On the first day of class, the other grad students all looked and sounded so aggressive and competitive Ethan wanted to hide behind a door. It didn’t take him long to realize this wasn’t small town Florida where he could get away with anything by flashing a seductive smile, opening his shirt a little, and moving his hips just the right way. When he overheard the female students discussing feminism and rape culture, he knew casual flirting with them wouldn’t get him anywhere. When he overheard the male students talking about gender politics in fiction he groaned aloud and turned in the other direction.

            Then Ethan spotted a young man standing in the corner leaning against the wall, glancing down at a thick book. He seemed to want to remain separate from the others. There was a green canvas backpack at his feet stuffed with books, and he seemed oblivious to his surroundings in a forced way no one would have noticed if they weren’t paying attention to him. While he looked at the book, his eyes kept darting up at the other students waiting to go into class, which Ethan found interesting. The guy wasn’t even reading the book; it could have been upside down. He was only pretending to read the book.

             This unusual guy stood about six feet tall, had a slim, lanky body, and his short, straight hair reminded Ethan of the wheat fields he’d seen on the bus driving through Iowa. He wore a crisp white button down shirt that day, and flat front khaki slacks that bunched up at the hem around his brown oxfords. When his eyes went up and he noticed Ethan staring at him, he looked down at the book so fast Ethan didn’t even get a chance to send him a smile.

            So Ethan walked over to him, with his hands in his pockets and his head held high. He’d worn his tightest jeans that day, the ones that made his crotch bulge. He hadn’t brought any books or materials to class because he hadn’t unpacked any of his things yet. He leaned back against the wall next to the nervous young man, and said, “Hey, man. I’m Ethan.” He extended his right hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

            The young man hesitated for a moment, and then he shook Ethan’s hand and said, “I’m Travis Lane.” He spoke with a soft, cautious tone, as if he’d lost his voice.

            But Travis didn’t hesitate to look into Ethan’s eyes, which made Ethan feel more at ease. At least there didn’t seem to be anything fundamentally wrong with him.  “I was wondering if you could loan me a notebook and a pen, buddy,” Ethan said. “I just got here last night and I haven’t had time to unpack my shit yet. You should see the shithole hotel where I’m staying. I still don’t even know where I’m going to live yet.” He laughed and scratched the back of his head. “I guess I should have thought about that a while ago.”

            Travis sent him a look. His head jerked back a little and he asked, “You didn’t secure housing beforehand?”

            Ethan shrugged and smiled. “You know how it is, man. I figured I’d worry about it when I got here. I’m from a small town in Florida and it’s pretty easy to find digs where I come from.”

            Travis bent down and pulled a notebook and a pen from his overflowing backpack. He handed it to Ethan and said, “I waited a year to get my apartment in Hawkeye Court. Around here you really have to plan ahead for these things. Didn’t anyone tell you?”

            Ethan laughed. “I probably didn’t pay attention to them. You know how it is, man.”

            “Well you’re going to have a tough time now,” Travis said.  

            “Clearly,” Ethan said, taking the notebook and pen. “Thanks for letting me borrow these, bro. I appreciate it. I probably shouldn’t even be here in this program, but I figured I’d give it a shot since they admitted me.”

            “I don’t understand,” Travis said. “I worked hard to get accepted. I killed myself.”

            “Where are you from?” Ethan asked. He could see they’d come from two different worlds, but he wanted to make a point.

            “Connecticut,” Travis said. “I went to Yale and I’ve been planning to come here for the past four years. It was my only goal all through undergrad school. My mom and dad are both attorneys and they wanted me to be a lawyer but all I ever wanted to do was write. I had to get into this workshop; otherwise they would have made me go to law school. I wouldn’t have had a choice.”

            Ethan looked at him and smiled. “I’m from a small town on the Gulf coast of Florida. My mom’s a waitress and my dad’s a trucker, and neither one of them graduated from high school. I worked my way through undergrad school as a male stripper in both gay and straight strip clubs all over Florida. And I still don’t know how I got into this workshop. I heard about it one day last year and I figured I would apply and see what happened. I’m still shocked they let me in.”

            “Well you must be good,” Travis said. “They don’t just let anyone into this program.”

            “I guess they liked something I did,” Ethan said. He’d always been able to write and he’d never had to work hard at it.

            Although Travis didn’t seem stunned, he did tilt his head sideways and ask, “Do you want to be a writer?”

            Ethan shrugged. “I want to make a lot of money.”

            Travis laughed and said, “Well you can do that stripping. You don’t need The Iowa Writers’ Workshop. If I had your looks and your body, I might not be standing here right now myself.”

            That was when Ethan knew they were going to be friends. Though Travis looked like a tight-ass at a glance, he was far from it. Ethan looked him up and down and said, “You could strip with that ass. You wouldn’t starve to death. They love it when the smart looking guys pull down their pants. And you’re cute as fuck.” He made the remark about Travis being cute to see if he was gay. All of Ethan’s instincts told him Travis was gay but he wanted to be certain.

            Travis didn’t seem offended about the cute remark. His face turned a pale shade of pink and he said, “Well, thanks for the compliment, I think. But I think I’d better stick to writing. As it is, I still might starve to death doing that. At least that’s what my parents think will happen.” Then he stopped and hesitated for a second. He rubbed his jaw and thought as if he was choosing his words with caution. “I’m curious,” he said. “Are you gay? I am; just so you know.”
            Ethan didn’t mind the bluntness of that question, and he had come to terms with being gay when he was in high school. But he liked to play games, especially with someone who asked such a direct question without knowing anything about him. He shrugged and said, “What if I said I don’t like labels?”
            Travis lifted his eyebrows and said, “Then I would think you are mostly likely gay and you’re not ready to admit it aloud, or you are still lying to yourself. Your type is always like that.”

            “My type?” Ethan laughed at his innocence.

            “The rough-looking, straight dude who can pass whenever he wants to pass as straight,” Travis said. “Your type likes to hold out for a while.”

            “Well you would be wrong,” Ethan said. “As it happens, I’m into dudes and I have no problem admitting it aloud to anyone. If anything, my problem is that I’m into dudes a little too much. I can’t stop thinking about anything but men.” He glanced at a young woman in the hall with long flat, dark hair parted in the middle and he frowned. She wore a gray plaid skirt and black ballerina slippers. She didn’t have ankles, and her legs reminded Ethan of tree trunks. There were so many flawed people in the world he found it exasperating sometimes. “From the way it looks, all I’m going to be doing is thinking about men, because I haven’t seen a single man or woman yet that’s even halfway hot enough to actually fuck.”

            Travis blinked. “Well thanks.”

            Ethan patted him on the back. “Present company excluded,” he said. “I should have said that you’re the only cute guy I’ve seen since I got off the bus in Iowa.”

            “You’re full of shit,” Travis said.

            “Sometimes,” Ethan said. “But you are hot.”

            “What about beauty from within?” Travis asked. “Doesn’t that count for something? I like to think it does.”

            “That’s what your type always says,” Ethan said.

            “My type?”

            “The good-hearted elitist who cares about issues and all of humanity,” Ethan said. “You’re only fooling yourselves, and you’re the first ones to jump into the sack with the first hot piece that comes along.”

            Before Travis had a chance to reply, the other students began filing into the classroom and Ethan turned to join them. Travis followed him, and Ethan and Travis sat next to each other that first day.  After class they went out for coffee, where Ethan made sure he pulled Travis’s chair out on purpose. Even though they came from completely different worlds, they balanced each other in a natural way and finding things to talk about never seemed to be an issue. Ethan couldn’t believe his luck once again, so on the way out of the coffee shop he asked if he could see where Travis lived and Travis brought him to the small on-campus apartment he’d rented.

            It wasn’t much of an apartment, but the moment he walked inside Ethan knew it was better than the shabby hotel room where he’d spent the night. There was an open floor plan that had a living, dining, and kitchen area. In the back, there was one medium sized bedroom with a double bed, a closet large enough for two people, and a basic bathroom with a shower and a tub. Although nothing was elaborate, and the gray carpets and old white bathroom tiles had been around since the disco era, Ethan didn’t want to let this opportunity slip away without doing something about it.