Lars Eighner's Lavender Blue

Introduction to the First Edition

by John Preston

Picture this:

An associate editor of The Journal of Gay Erotic Love staggers into his office on a Monday morning. His boss, the editor, is stern-faced as he looks at his watch. The turncoat machine says the associate editor is fifteen minutes late, again. The boss announces that they have to have a piece of fiction chosen for the next issue and it must be decided upon today.

Trying desperately to cope with his hangover and to squelch his frustration that his lover wouldn't put out the night before, the associate editor vows there'll be no problem. He doesn't admit that the story promised by his most beloved author hasn't arrive yet (it's already weeks past the deadline). The associate editor collects his mail and goes to his desk.

The associate editor sees the return address of his most beloved author on a suspiciously slim envelope. He rips it open to read the impossible news that the story won't be forthcoming. The stars weren't in the proper position for the creation of art. The associate editor moans. He didn't want art. He wanted a decent short story to fill the white space that's making a gaping hole in his magazine's layout!

He opens more of the mail and discovers a virulent letter from a writer whose latest work he'd rejected. The writer is furious that the "New York conspiracy" has once again turned against him. All those editors who lunch at Four Seasons with mega-agents are members of a plot that's intriguing to keep him from achieving his rightful place in the literary world.

The associate editor groans. Actually, he's from West Virginia and he loathes New York himself. Rather than thinking it's the center of the universe, he perceives it as a trap he fell into, one that continues to ensnare him because it's the one place he can find gainful employment at this odious vocation of his. The last time he had lunch with another editor had been with his college classmate who works for Plumber's Monthly. They went to Burger King.

The associate editor is not in a good mood as he opens the larger envelopes that came in today's mail. He retrieves the manuscripts from them and piles them on his desk. Like any other periodical in the country that pays money for writing, The Journal of Gay Erotic Love receives many, many more submissions than it could ever use. Today there are about a dozen. One of these has a good chance to see print.

Now, the editor wants one of these submissions to be good enough for publication. He has options: he can go to his back files and pick out a story he was holding; he can write something himself; he can probably cut a deal over the phone with a book publisher to allow him to reprint an excerpt from an up coming title.

He doesn't want to do any of these things. That back file exists because he was hoping to create some themed issues in the future and he wants to hold certain pieces for those. Other stories in the back file are from tried-and-true contributors. He'd rather the same names didn't appear very often in too many issues of the magazine. Not only does that make it look as though The Journal of Gay Erotic Love is dependent on a few people, the associate editor-when he can push aside sour memories of his lover's lack of carnal interest-really is a nice guy and would like to give someone new a chance.

One of the magazine's great secrets is how much of its material is written by its staff-without extra pay-under a host of pen names. One of the last things the associate editor wants to do in his condition is to write something himself. The hangover isn't the only thing: he has never quite reconciled himself to the lousy salary he's getting. The idea that he should have to give his employer his creative work in addition to the Draconian hours he has to put in at the office is too depressing. But he may have to do it and he has to admit it could make life a great deal easier. The associate editor at least knows precisely the length the magazine has available in this issue. There are also so many other variables of which he's cognizant and which an outsider couldn't be aware of that he's tempted to take on the assignment.

Negotiating a book excerpt has a certain appeal but there are problems as well. If he takes a chapter from X's book, he knows that Y-X's dreaded literary enemy-will scream and yell until he takes one from him as well. Aside from that, some excerpts simply cost too much money, or involve such complicated negotiations with big time agents that they end up being a waste of the associate editor's time.

No. What he really wants is to find something just right in this stack of submissions. He takes up the pile of paper and puts it in front of him. He opens his container of coffee which he'd bought at the corner deli on his way into work and swears to himself. The cheapskate publisher decided to cut corners and increase productivity by removing the coffee machine from the office to eliminate not only the cost of the coffee, but also the time employees spent talking to one another.

He starts in on the manuscripts.

He takes up a story written by someone who has decided to display his gay pride by typing his manuscript on lavender paper. The associate editor runs a hand over his brow. He cannot face it. Deep in his heart, he knows this person is trying to make a statement and if his head were in better shape, maybe he could get into it. But not today. The associate editor doesn't even read the first paragraph. He puts the story in the file to be returned with a printed rejection letter.

He picks up another manuscript. The Journal of Gay Erotic Love prides itself on its celebration of gay erotic love. It says so right in its title. This manuscript is a story based on the impossibility of finding any such thing. It's a tale of a louse who cheats on his mate, leaving him devastated and feeling unwanted and insecure, leading him into a pattern of anonymous sex with strangers who talk dirty to him.

(Now, The Journal of Gay Erotic Love has nothing against dirty talk, mind you, but it doesn't want its characters to mean it when they say: "You dirty scumbag cocksucker." That language can only appear in the Journal's pages when it is clearly a term of endearment between men who are committed to a long-term relationship.)

The associate editor hates this story. He damns the audacity of the writer who obviously hasn't read an issue in years, or else he'd know what kind of stories they used. The manuscript is rejected. But, more than that, the associate editor is incensed by the gall of this person who would dare put into print his own worst fears. (The associate editor is convinced that he'll end up as that discarded lover; last night's refusal on conjugal bliss was only the beginning; he's sure of it.) The associate editor isn't going to let this bastard get away with it! Not only will this author get a pink slip; he's going to get an acidic note telling him never to darken The Journal of Gay Erotic Love's P.O. box again!

The next manuscript is typed on erasable bond. If he were to take this story-the associate editor hasn't even read the thing yet-he knows the typesetters will hate him and yell at him and call him unerotically ugly names. Every hand that touches it smudges more type, possibly even removing some of it from the page, making it increasingly difficult to read. No. Just the thought of the grief he'd take for sending this manuscript on its rounds is too much. Into the rejection file it goes.

Another writer has decided that script type fits the mood of his romantic story the best. No. What was, in fact, the perfect story for the Valentine's issue of The Journal of Gay Erotic Love is rejected because the type is unreadable.

But it was sent from heaven compared to the next submission which was printed on a cheap computer. Letters like "g" and "j" don't descend beneath the line, they're bunched up. The dot matrix printer has left gaping holes as it tried to type many of the letters. The computer paper edges are covered with ugly little nubs. A work which the associate editor will never know was done by a true literary genius goes into the rejection pile.

Worse, the next manuscript was done on one of the fancy printers that can alter typeface at will. There's italicized print for emphasis; there's oversized gothic print for drama, there are little flowers around the margin…an associate editor with a hangover doesn't need this.

The next to last manuscript is covered with a formal invoice which includes the author's attorney's name and address for reference and which informs The Journal of Gay Erotic Love of the precise conditions it will have to meet if that periodical chooses to have the good sense to publish what the author irrefutably knows to be a work of art. Payment will be many times more than The Journal of Gay Erotic Love would have been willing to pay Stephen King for a story. A check will have to be sent the moment the manuscript is accepted-not on publication the way every other contributor is paid-and on and on.

This associate editor just had his totally justifiable request for a raise rejected by the tight ass of a publisher who won't even provide him with a cup of fucking coffee in the morning, and this moron thinks that the associate editor is going to go to bat for him, have corporate policy reversed, take the time and effort to deal with someone who's so defensive he begins with an introduction to his attorney…oh, no, not a chance.

The associate editor's at his wit's end. He's more and more convinced he's going to have to write the damn thing himself and wonders how he's going to come up with an erotic story line when his lover's a frigid stone in bed who hasn't given him the genital time of day in nearly a week.

And then he finds it.

The manuscript is nicely typed on white bond paper. There are adequate margins all the way around it where the associate editor and the copy editor would have to make their marks. The author has his name, address, and social security number typed right there where they can be easily found. The title-which still might have to be changed-isn't half bad. The typing was done with a sharp, clear carbon ribbon, easy to read. The pages are numbered. They're held together with a paper clip, not a staple, so even that little annoyance doesn't have to be dealt with.

The editor begins to read. To his amazement the first sentence contains a noun and a verb in the proper order. There's a hook in the first paragraph that captures his attention. The story's hot! The sex scenes are realistic and still a turn on. The associate editor's swept up in the small drama of the story, a little dubiously at first, since it appears that a lover's going to get the emotional shaft once more. But, no! There's hope here. The narrator made a mistake and his lover come through with style and finesse and an ending that leaves the reader felling like a decent human being. The associate editor's moved by the piece; he really doesn't want his lover to leave him and really does want to believe that these things can work out.

He stands up, jubilant. He yells to his boss, "This one! It's perfect! A little short, but I can arrange for some pullouts in large print to stretch it enough. We can use that photograph left over from the Atlanta shoot for an illustration."

The associate editor's very, very happy. The editor looks over the piece and agrees it'll do the trick. He may not have consciously noticed all of the factors of the presentation, though he certainly would have notice if the associate editor had handed him a manuscript on lavender paper. The editor gives his approval. The associate editor sits back down to his own typewriter and composes a note to the author, telling him how very happy everyone is that The Journal of Gay Erotic Love will be graced with his publishing debut.

That, gentle reader, is how it most happens.

#

There is, of course, another side to this story. There is the tale of what happens to our author once he gets this notice of impending publication.

He is ecstatic!

Our author began the road to writing his story years ago. When he was a young boy, he used to go on camping trips. He loathed them. He remembered being someone outside the group who would listen to the stories around the campfire and never hear anything in those tales that had anything to do with him or his life.

He would instead, daydream on his own. He would conjure up imaginary playmates much more loyal-and just as handsome-as the boys who were so content to shun him on those outings. There would be a day, he would fantasize, when he wouldn't have to be such an outsider and when the stories he had to tell would be about things that were real to himself and to his new friends.

Our author hung on until he got to the place in his life where he could see just why he'd always thought he was so far away from the center of things on those particular camping excursions. And, as soon as he did understand it, he began to go on new ones, far, far different than any his camp leaders could ever have envisioned for him.

Now he wasn't on the periphery. He was in the middle of the action and that action excited and terrified him. It made him feel wanted and a part of the group. Too bad, he thought, that there aren't any campfires on this trip. I'd love to become a story teller now!

He did begin to write letters, though. He wrote to some friends who'd been among the first with whom he'd explored his new world and he wrote to others, from further back, who'd never quite understood why our author hadn't seemed always to be there in all ways. He used his letters to explain some things he'd left out in the past, to describe the colors of his new life, and to start to paint the vision of what he thought the next scenes might hold for him.

Everyone loved his letters. When he thought they were especially funny, he'd show them to his roommate. When he was having a hard time explaining to his new boyfriend just how wonderful their erotic adventures were, he began to write out his feelings in very private letters to him alone.

They all said, "You must become an author! You must publish this writing!" (Even the boyfriend who thought it might be awfully hot to have himself described in the pages of a magazine, especially of certain kind. He was the one, in fact, who suggested The Journal of Gay Erotic Love.)

"Do you really think so?" You see, it mattered a great deal to our author. He'd been harboring secret dreams about becoming a writer for a while now. Our writer wondered how many of these comments were really honest and how many were really just those things that people said. But the idea lingered and one day he took a few of his letters and wove them together to make them into a story. He took out the elements which were distractions from the main plot and he worked very hard at all of it. When it was finished, he decided it was worth a try. After all, he'd never know if he could be an author unless he at least made a submission.

Now, with the letter from the associate editor in his hands, he understood he'd made it. He took the letter to show all of his friends and they were happy for him. They stood around the bar and they all wondered just what pictures will accompany the story and just which models will be used to portray our author's boyfriend.

They waited for the piece to appear. And then they waited some more. Finally, the rest of them gave up waiting. Our author had to face one of the horrible facts of publishing life: it takes forever for his words to go from their beginning as his manuscript to their eventual place on the printed page. If he's lucky, the issue of The Journal with his story might appear in six months. It might just as easily take a year to reach the newsstand in his home city.

If our scribe is a dilettante, he may give up at this point. Or, if he's really driven to make this attempt at the start of a career, his acceptance will drive him back to compose more and more stories. He'll make more and more submissions and he may receive more and more rejections-even though The Journal of Gay Erotic Love has christened him an author!

Whatever his luck, or lack of it, our author will finally see his first story in a magazine. He'll hold it in his hands and then he'll go through one of the most terrible and wonderful experiences than any writer can ever have: he'll read his own words in print.

There is nothing like it. Our author will berate himself for the awkwardness he never saw in his typescript. He'll never believe that he could possibly have made a certain structural error-but then he'll go back to his manuscript and discover he did. He'll be furious that the editor didn't find that embarrassing word repetition. There'll be nothing like it all. He's seen his words on the printed page.

Once he's over those moments, he'll want to go out to receive the real rewards of a writer, the ones that he's dreamed of since he received the associate editor's letter.

He goes to the bar that night and he nonchalantly drops the issue of the magazine on the counter for all his friends to see. No matter how much they respond to the physical evidence that he's achieved his success, it will be insufficient. Because our writer now has to experience another harsh truth. No one cares as much about a writer's words as he does himself.

But he's not dismayed. After all, this is erotica he's published. Even if that boyfriend of old has left him-what was his name?-this will help him find another one. There's a hot new man in town who our author has been longing to get into bed. Certainly he'd be willing to indulge in a little starfucking and take a well-known author into his arms.

Our scribe ever so subtly makes the stranger's acquaintance and manages-with a little less subtlety-to mention that he's the one who wrote the lead fiction piece in this month's Journal. The man doesn't fall into his arms at all. In fact, he beats a quick retreat.

Our writer's shocked. He was sure he'd at least get laid from all this. He asks his best friends about it. Our scribe's politely told that, since he's describing having sex only with demigods in his story, the man obviously was terrified that he could never match up to his expectations. That or else he was much more discreet than that old boyfriend and had no intention of having his most intimate secrets read about in a monthly magazine. It will be a sad but true experience that will repeat itself often now that our writer is being published: pornographers seldom get laid.

Well, at least he will be getting money. Just as promised, there's a check in the mail. Our author tears open the envelope, visions of a down payment on a new sports care are filling his head. But when he reads the amount on the check, he suddenly realizes that he'll be lucky to pay for the old Chevy's tune-up with his new earnings. Wealth is not the reward of the erotic writer.

But he won't be defeated easily. He'll at least broaden his horizons with this new experience of being a writer. He can go to the Literary Circle meeting at the nearby college. The members will certainly be glad to have him join them now that he's published.

So our author dresses in his best and takes his rolled up copy of The Journal to the meeting. He introduces himself to the people there, expecting a warm welcome. He has to leave soon to go to the men's room, though, to check the mirror to make sure he hasn't come down with the measles. That would be the only reason he could think of for the cool-no-cold welcome he's gotten.

It appears that, while the Literary Circle is just now raising money to protect the freedom of writers in various left and right wing dictatorships, they're hardly anxious to extend that hand of friendship to a (shudder) pornographer-and a faggot one at that!-and they do wish that such a demented young man would go away.

And so our author is left having waited many months to have any concrete evidence of his accomplishment. When he finally did receive it, he discovered that very few, if any, of the people in his group understood what it meant to him. He also had to give up fantasies that writing erotica would make him a sex star or a wealthy man. Any dreams that he could now join that rarefied coterie of literati have been smashed.

He walks the streets of his home town and he wonders just what the hell he's done and why he's bothered. Most people would have given up by now. But he's our hero, so we'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Our scribe realizes that he's pretty damned proud of himself. There are people all around him who are always saying that they're going to write, but never do. Maybe he hasn't written much more than one story for The Journal of Gay Erotic Love, but damn it, he did write it! Someone published his story. Someone wrote him a check for it, a final proof of its worth.

(Truth to tell, our author might eventually learn that most members of the Literary Circle never got one of those checks in their lives. Their publishers get off easily, never having to pay since there are so many who are so desperate to see their names on the table of contents in the literary magazines that they'll give their work away for nothing, which is usually a fair price.)

Eventually-since he's our hero-our author will realize that he can always hold this piece of writing in his hands when he's plagued with self-doubt about being a writer. There'll be proof that he is. He'll eventually be able to read through that harshly real printed copy of his story and he'll be able to learn from it. He can study just what the editor did to make the prose flow more cleanly and he can try to incorporate at least some of those alterations into his next work.

Our author can now dream-and he has this right, absolutely. No Literary Circle should be able to take this dream away from him. He can dream that he's joined that small circle of people who are writers. He can imagine someone's reading his work, that someone was sitting with him at a campfire that he had built all by himself and listened to his words as he spun his tales.

In fact, in a while, perhaps a long while, our author will achieve that final, quite overwhelming pleasure of his craft. He will get an envelope in the mail containing something forwarded to him by The Journal. He'll open it up and inside will be a letter from someone who's especially enjoyed his story.

When our author reads this note about how much his words meant and how well they told the story, how much the correspondent understood what was being said and how long he'd waited for just that tale to be told, then our scribe can be happy and-no longer needing other proof-know that that he is an author.

Because getting a letter like that is an affirmation more powerful than any other he'll ever receive.

And this, too, gentle reader, is sometimes how it really happens.

In my years as an editor at The Advocate and Mandate, among other periodicals, I was astonished by how far many writers would go to hinder the publication of their work. They seemed to believe that the editor owed them something, or that putting together a publication had nothing to do with a work week, schedules, or any other real issues.

That is simply not true. The story of our associate editor had much more to do with the realities of the publishing world-including book publication-than all the romantic notions authors have about their art.

There have always been books and magazines for potential scribes which could have eased many of the rough spots on the road to publication if they'd been read carefully and their advice followed. Some are rip-offs; other are classics. But none have been available which would meet the needs of one certain group of people: gay writers, and in particular, gay writers who were interested in exploring erotic subjects.

Lars Eighner explains it all for you.

Lavender Blue: How to Write and Sell Gay Men's Erotica is one of those acts of love that gay men commit for one another. Another person might have been willing to write a short essay on hot writing and then tell you to go and read someone else's book on the craft. But not Eighner. He has done nothing less than create a gay Chicago Manual of Style.

While the obvious potential reader of this volume will be that gay man who's interested in pursuing at least a part-time career in writing, I hope it reaches more people than that. Because, while the book is a step-by-step guide to the profession of writing, it also demystifies the act of writing.

We all have stories in us. It is one of the worst things that has been done to us as gay men that we were told that our stories don't count. We were especially told that our erotic stories don't count. That is not true. That is a lie which has been a large part of making us feel unable and unwilling to reach for our self-pride in many other ways.

Our stories are our history. Our experiences are the things that draw us together as a people and then, as a people, separate us form the rest of society. There are those of us who are writing as many stories as we can and doing it as well as we can. But there is always room for more.

I hope this book encourages anyone reading it to try to put down his story. I hope it shows him the way to do that as well as he possibly can. I hope it tells him at least some ways by which he can best share that story with the world. To commit oneself and one's life to paper is not just an act of craft-though it might be-and it is not only a matter of craft-though that has a definite role in the matter. Writing out stories is also an act of courage, it is a means of sharing parts of ourselves with one another, and it is a way to leave a mark on the world.

John Preston
Portland, Maine
August, 1986

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