How To Turn a Straight Civil War Story Into a Gay Victorian Romance in Just Twenty Years – Part Two

What happened was a tsunami of words. The Olivetti electronic was replaced with Computer No. 1, no speakers, a floppy drive, a diskette drive and a small screen. The heroine in the story disappeared, only to reappear later as Kit’s friend, an actress. Kit St. Denys began to “bestride the world of the book like a Colossus.” (Apologies to Bill Shakespeare.)

The 20th century was winding down when the pudgy middle-aged-and-almost-old author rewrote it for what she thought was the last time. Now it was a gay Civil War love story. Probably unmarketable. She was also fearful that, without the input of gay people, she would inadvertently be writing stereotypes and if there’s anything she hated, it was stereotypes. But where to find Real Gay People? By a weird coincidence, her best friend had moved to a city that actually had Real Gay People. Said friend discovered a gay men’s book club, which, skeptically, agreed to read the book. The author was scared, afraid they’d dismiss it as pure dreck, and stereotypical dreck, to boot. But – they loved it! They absolutely loved it and wanted to know how soon they could buy it.

When she came out of shock, she read it again and realized that there was still something seriously wrong with it. As in, Seriously Wrong.

It’s like this. There are some remarkable and even some great authors of Civil War fiction. The pudgy rapidly-getting-old author ruefully realized she wasn’t one of them.

Solution: rewrite it. Again. Shift from the American Civil War to the Victorian Theatre World, where there were also violent passions and rivalries. Voilà!

OK, it wasn’t quite that quick or simple. No “Voilà!” moments. The shift meant throwing out hundreds of pages, doing lots and lots and lots of new research, and checking the research.

A new Millennium began. The author crossed over from Middle Age to Border-Line Old. A second computer was bought. Before the Victorian version of the book was finished, she had consulted dozens of books, hundreds of reference articles both online and in “the real world,” and made revisions, revisions, revisions. And then she edited the final revision. And then revised the final revision which was now the semi-final revision. Then, lucky enough to find beta readers—blessed beings who belong amongst the angels—she edited the revision of the revised final revision! (Hah! You never knew that writing fiction was such work, did you? And none of that, by the way, is exaggerated.)

But at last The Phoenix was finished! It was published by Lethe Press February 2009.

And the evolution only took twenty-plus years.