I read the emails readers send me and respond to same. I also read the comments on my blog on both the website and my Facebook page, responding where a reply seems to be in order. \u00a0(Initially I wrote \u201ccalled for\u201d but prepositions are not to end sentences with. \u00a0So endeth the grammar lesson for the day!)<\/p>\n
Some of the e-mails leave me inspired \u2014 like the one from the guy who wrote a couple of weeks ago to say that reading about Beau\u2019s struggle with sobriety caused him to seek treatment. That one put tears in my eyes.<\/p>\n
Some leave me floored \u2014 like the one from woman who wrote objecting to the fact that Ali Reynolds\u2019s twin grandchildren are named Colin and Colleen which, according to her was a cutsie Fifties style of naming. \u00a0I replied\u2014politely and with some humor, I thought \u2014 by explaining writers write what they know. As a product of those selfsame fifties, I came from a family of seven children where a clear majority came with J names \u2014 Janice, Jeannie, Judy, Jim, and Janie. (Where Arlan and Gary came from, I have NO idea!) \u00a0My character naming critic immediately responded by sending me a list of \u201cacceptable Irish names\u201d along with their accompanying meanings. Wait, wait, wait folks. \u00a0I\u2019m the writer here. \u00a0I get to give my characters their names. \u00a0I did not write back a second time. \u00a0My rule of thumb is to respond politely once, but after that \u2026 it\u2019s anybody\u2019s guess.<\/p>\n
And some of the emails leave me downright confused. \u00a0On the one hand I have a collection of e-mails from people saying they won\u2019t read any more of my books because I\u2019m obviously promoting the \u201cgay lifestyle.\u201d I confess that in my books, as in real life, there are various gay people who are a: living their lives and b: doing their jobs. (Ali\u2019s wonderful majordomo, Leland Brooks, comes to mind.) What goes on in those characters’ private lives is really none of my business and none of my readers\u2019 business, either. The same holds true for my heterosexual couples. \u00a0For instance, something is obviously going on in Joanna Brady and Butch Dixon\u2019s bedroom because they have one kid and are closing in on another at the moment, but I didn\u2019t see it happen, and neither did you because I\u2019m not in the business of writing show-and-tell sex scenes.<\/p>\n
The irony is, I also have a collection of e-mails accusing me of writing books that are homophobic. \u00a0(Lesson to self. As President Abraham Lincoln once said, \u201cYou can\u2019t please all of the people all of the time.\u201d Or, as Ricky Nelson sang in Garden Party: You see, you can’t please everyone, so you’ve got to please yourself.)<\/p>\n
So this week I received an e-mail that gave me a brand new perspective on all this backing-and-forthing. \u00a0It came from a woman in North Carolina who said she knew she was gay from the time she was nine years old. She also said she\u2019d been married twice and divorced twice\u2014once to and from a man and once to and from a woman. She concluded by saying, however, that if she ever met a guy like Butch Dixon, she\u2019d marry him on the spot. \u00a0So there you are. \u00a0That one made me LOL, as the current saying goes.<\/p>\n
Last night, at an event here in Tucson, I met a woman I\u2019ve known casually for years. In all that time I\u2019ve never asked or even thought \u201cIs she or isn\u2019t she?\u201d (See paragraph four above\u2014not my business.) At the end of the evening, she (please pardon my pronoun confusion here) introduced Bill and me to her \u201cwife.” I\u2019d say they\u2019re both in their early sixties. They\u2019re clearly happy to be newlyweds and still in the process of sorting out last name issues.<\/p>\n
Bill and I congratulated them and left with the hope that they\u2019ll live happily ever after.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not promoting the \u201cgay lifestyle,\u201d so much as it is living and letting live.<\/p>\n
It occurs to me that there’s not nearly enough of living and letting live going around these days.<\/p>\n
Try it; you might like it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I read the emails readers send me and respond to same. I also read the comments on my blog on both the website and my Facebook page, responding where a reply seems to be in order. \u00a0(Initially I wrote \u201ccalled for\u201d but prepositions are not to end sentences with. \u00a0So endeth the grammar lesson for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsBA-ly","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1337,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336\/revisions\/1337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}