Martin D. Goodkin

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Martin D. Goodkin
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Gay, Poor Old Man

Arts & Culture > Poetry & Prose > Writing a Book
 

Writing a Book






Writing a book is exhausting but satisfactory way to accomplish what you feel you need to accomplish.

In the mid 1980s I met, was interviewed and eventually quoted quite a bit in an excellent book by George Chauncey called “Gay New York 1890-1940” and which I always recommend to anyone who knows very little about gay life or those who think they know a lot about gay life.

I consider myself an expert in 3 fields: one being MY life, another about weight problems of all sorts and gay life through all my experiences in it for over 65 years. I have observed, seen and participated in gay life in New York, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee—well 49 out of 50 States plus Mexico, Central America, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, the Caribbean, Canada, etc.

In the past two weeks I have read comments by two people who think they know it all but know nothing. One based her comments on knowing, maybe, 4 gay men, while another who thinks she is an expert on everything really knows very little about gay men, what they think, know and want. Oh yes there is also the one who lives in my complex who is married to a self hating gay alcoholic who enables them to justify why they are together when she doesn’t have a clue.

I have had 8 books published of which 3 dealt with my ‘fat’ before and after and after story (yes, two afters!), 2 which dealt with my 4 live in relationships, one which was a series of essays before I learned what blogs were and the other were books dealing with motivation and/or cookbooks. All were a labor of love and my last two were polished by the great and late LadyeSparks, an editor only a writer can dream of and, justifiably, used her red pen on me!

I, also, wrote and had a play produced which was a big failure and a screenplay of that play which was made and disappeared after the week it opened.

After reading the comments referred to above I decided to write about the gay life I have lived and observed since I came out in 1948 and up to the present day and my involvement physically, mentally, emotionally, politically and what I see are the main differences between the gay youth (anyone under 50!) of today to the gay youth of yesterday, which includes gay ‘marriage’ which I am against the model it is based on and don’t see as the end all, be all, of the gay equal rights fight. I’ll write about gay couples who follow the failing template of nongay marriages and will wind up becoming statistics of failure like they have.

I’ll respond to women who think they know how men—gay or nongay—think about sex, sexuality and women. I’ll write about what it means to be gay in 1948 and in 2017 and how similar it still is and the few, very few, differences that have taken place.

Writing a book is a very disciplined exercise for me including a certain amount of time doing research plus a certain amount of time actually writing and then the, for me, dreaded, rewriting.

There is also the legal aspect because ‘name dropping’ might be involved if I want to be honest, which I do, and I have, in 2 cases, promised not to name names though they and most of their relatives have died---ah, one of the advantages of being old.

Right now the aim is to write a 350-400 page book and, after a little ‘sweet talking’, signing my life away but most of all pleading, to get Nina Pettis of Nina Proofs to take that dreaded red pencil to my pages!

 

I have given myself a deadline of December 2017 to finish writing the first draft!

posted on Feb 20, 2017 10:23 AM ()

Comments:

Sounds exciting to have something to get started on and look forward to the final product.
comment by troutbend on Feb 22, 2017 9:54 PM ()
Good luck with tat. It took me that long to write my master's thesis.
comment by jjoohhnn on Feb 20, 2017 11:38 AM ()
The most work will be going through 70 years of diaries!!!
reply by greatmartin on Feb 20, 2017 2:19 PM ()

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