Sarah Marks came out to me on a sunny Tuesday
afternoon as I was driving back to the office after lunch.
It had been a long and circuitous journey with
Sarah and I thought I knew everything about her. To say I was surprised is
putting it mildly. At first I didn’t believe her. She was making it up to get
attention. Then I felt protective. I didn’t want people making fun or shunning
her. As is the case in the complicated relationship between author and
character, sometimes everything isn’t known up front and the mysteries lie in
the subtleties. PLEASE HOLD was supposed to be a New Adult, Romance about the
world of high-level, Hollywood studio executive assistants. A quirky tale about
one women’s struggle to divine guidance.
So, with turning signal blinking in the left-hand
lane, waiting for the red arrow to turn green, I had some time to think.
Why now? When Sarah and I started this journey
together around nine years ago she was most certainly heterosexual. As a writer,
I pride myself in knowing all there is to know about my characters, especially
the protagonists. How could I have missed such an important detail?
Our journey together started with a massive and
jubilant download of 28 pages written in one session. From there the story
flowed beautifully and for several years progressed nicely. Then I hit a wall
and, try as I might, nothing seemed to help the movement of the characters or
the story. Finally, I put the book down and I wrote and published an
award-winning Young Adult, Science-Fiction series called the MOA books.
It bugged me to have to put PLEASE HOLD down
but, as the Moa Series began to gather steam with awards and publicity, I let
go of finishing the book—at least for the time being.
Five years later, I felt a calling to begin
writing PLEASE HOLD again and, up until the coming out at the streetlight
moment, I wasn’t sure why.
Stopped at the intersection, red left turn
arrow barring me from any forward movement, I retraced my mental steps over the
previous nine years in writing PLEASE HOLD. There were very subtle hints and
the more I explored and investigated, the more I realize the information had
been there all along.
The minute the light turned green, I ran back
to my desk ready to begin the arduous task of heavy editing. However, as I pored
over the story, I discovered something incredible. Very little was different about
Sarah Marks. The relationship that I’d written was, if anything, more intimate
and honest. Nothing about her trials or story or any of the other characters
needed changing. Not one single bit. The more I read, the prouder I became of
Sarah. It was as if her world opened up something beautiful about human nature
that I’d been trying to express in PLEASE HOLD and now that message was clear.
Human is human. Love is love.
The next step came when I gave the manuscript
to a gay male friend of mine to read. I wanted to make sure that I captured the
world appropriately, kindly and as inoffensively as possible. Although the
visceral descriptions were born from first-hand experience during my work at
Fox Studio, I am a heterosexual and wanted to make sure I was writing in an
authentic way.
“You know, after reading this people are going
to think you’re a lesbian, right?” He said as he patted the manuscript gently.
In that moment, I realized something about
myself and about Sarah. She had given me such a gift in allowing me to write a story
that portrays a woman who hides nothing of herself and, at the same time,
struggles with her turbulent past and challenges at work. Sarah showed me that
nothing precludes you from being human.
I nodded to my friend and said, “I don't care.”
