11/09/2020
The only evidence I’ve ever had of my ability to write fiction was my creation and dissemination of a Christmas letter to my extended family, every year for most of a decade. The main thing this exercise in heavily filtered half-truth did for me was to instill a deep cynicism about the Christmas letters I got from other people.
In 2004, I wrote: “His name is Edward, and we’ve been spending most of our time together in the last year… however, a couple of years ago, an old spinal injury flared up badly and he’s now trying to find a kind of work – probably writing or politics – that he’ll be able to do from home.” This was edited down from: “His name is Edward, and we’ve never had intercourse because his body is too fucked up, but we’ve done a few amazing scenes together, switching roles and exploring what fun is to be had with his sensitive tits and my iron butt.”
In 2006: “I decided this year to return to school to work on a Master of Fine Arts degree with an eye toward teaching writing at the university level. I’m in the Creative Nonfiction program at St. Mary’s University in Moraga, about half an hour from here, and completely loving it.” Edited from: “I spend a lot of my time trying to figure out how to write about sadomasochistic sex, gender-bending, polyamory, and traveling around the country to teach those things, for everything I write to be critiqued by a roomful of people – including most of my professors – young enough to be my children.”
In 2007: “Miles cashed in almost everything he could… and took off for six weeks of solo backpacking across Europe: London, Dublin and Galway, then across the channel to Paris and on to his ultimate destination, Prague.” Edited from: “Miles went to Europe and came home with a large bottle of absinthe in his luggage. His new girlfriend L was here waiting for him, and the two of them disappeared into the spare room for two days. Every time I tiptoed through there with a load of laundry, the level in the bottle had dropped another inch or two.”
In 2008: “I haven’t yet had any luck finding a home for my book; I had an agent for awhile, but we had very different visions for where the book was going, so I decided to move on.” Edited from: “My book Girlfag: A Life Told in Sex and Musicals has been looked at by dozens of agents and publishers, every one of whom has said, ‘I’m not sure what the market will be for this book.’ Well, that’s never stopped me before, so I guess I’ll self-publish. Again. (PS: The agents and publishers may have been right, but I still love the book.)”
In 2009: “Even by usual crazy standards, this has been a year full of rapid change, most of it due to this difficult economy.” Edited from: “We’ve been here in Eugene for six months and have already moved twice, renting while we wait for the economic chaos to settle and something to happen with our house in Oakland.” And, if I’d written one in 2010, I could have added: “The Oakland place went into foreclosure and we wound up moving four times in two years, and it’s looking like we’ll be renters – in a town where the rental market is tailored to college students – for the foreseeable future. And, oh, yeah, one of the ‘owners’ we rented from turned out not to own the house at all, which we didn’t find out about until her ex-husband showed up expecting to find the place empty.”
At that point I gave up writing the Christmas letters. I’ll probably never be much of a fiction writer.
Slut & Sons 