The Book
by Giulianna LamannaRecently, an old friend stumbled upon this blog and e-mailed me. We hadn’t spoken to each other since we were about 12 years old, so I was put in the unique position of penning an autobiography - if only in my head - with a span of age 13 to 19. It made me realize how completely my teenage years were engulfed in a single project, in a frustrating, hair-pulling, nail-biting, horrific beast that has stalked me from year to year, never letting me rest. I call it The Book.
The Book first came to me at age 13. That’s when I got it into my head that I should write a novel about a Christian fundamentalist boy realizing that he’s gay. At this point in time, the only thing I knew about Christian fundamentalists was that they always ruined everything. I had this vision of history, stretching all the way back to the Paleolithic, in which every time anything good happened, the Christians would come and mess it up. “Hey look, I invented fire!” “In the name-ah of Jesus-ah, put out your demonic flames-ah!” All I knew about homosexuality was the usual array of liberal talking points (Born that way! Celebrate diversity!) and a vague sense that The Man was Keeping Them Down. So naturally, the intuitive next step for a straight, atheistic eighth grader was to write a novel on the subject.
This wasn’t the first time I’d embarked on an epic writing project. Around age 6 or 7, I wrote and illustrated a picture book about a girl and her pet blue horse. I don’t recall much about this book except that it was the last book I ever finished and it featured a scene in which the girl snuck her horse onto an airplane by painting him brown and folding him up into the general size and shape of a suitcase. Later, at age 9, I started - and came darn close to finishing - an awful novel about a 200-year-old maple tree that was about to be cut down. The idea was that the book would consist of stories about people in American history that had lived near the tree and done various things involving the tree, except I didn’t actually know that much about American history and also most of the stories didn’t have anything to do with the tree, as I was too lazy to come up with those kinds of plot twists.
Then, at age 13, I met and married a 13-year-old gay boy named Asher Denmont from Illinois. Only he recently turned 16 and his name changed to Jesse Bulford and he moved to Arizona. Okay, so maybe I’m not literally married to him. It’s more like he… attached himself to me. And wouldn’t let go. For five long years. As you recall from reading the last paragraph, it wasn’t too unusual for me to come up with ideas for novels. Hell, sometimes I’d even start writing them. But Asher/Jesse… this little bitch just wouldn’t leave me alone. He stalked my thoughts and dreams, demanding rewrites and scenery changes and new characters. The little diva.
I officially started work on his story at age 14, wrote half the book, threw it out, re-wrote that half, threw that out, changed my mind and freaked out, got a new copy from someone I’d asked to critique it, and decided that I’d better publish what I had before I got depressed and threw it out again. I was 16 at the time. All of this made perfect sense to me.
So I repackaged it as a “trilogy” so I could pass off this unfinished half as “the first episode.” I “self-published” it (read: used a vanity publisher) under my great-grandmother’s name. Once again, I was 16 and all of this made perfect sense. I’ve since considered trying to pass a law against allowing teenagers access to vanity publishers. Then I remember that I’m an anarchist and I’m philosophically opposed to laws in general and maybe the only way to learn anything is to humiliate yourself over and over and over again in the most public manner imaginable.
As it turns out, I really should have thrown out the manuscript because it was really, really, really bad. Instead, I called iUniverse and asked them to stop printing copies (print-on-demand is a wonderful thing). Then I spent the next two years in a kind of drunken haze, not knowing what to do or whom to write about or whether I even should keep writing. Even as I considered singing instead, or maybe just changing my name (again) and running away to some deserted island to eat fish and coconut, Asher/Jesse (who from here on out will be called “Jashee,” or possibly “Jesher”) wouldn’t leave me alone. He snuck his way over to me and whispered sweet plot outlines in my ears. With his siren song he drew me, slowly but surely, back into the razor-lined tentacles of The Book.
In a few days, I will return to The Book. I have no choice. As you can see from my recent series of short, largely pointless blog posts, it is eating away at my brain. I’m going to try to write another rough draft - and finish it this time - for National Novel Writing Month. See if I can cough up a decent, usable first draft by Thanksgiving and have it all polished up by… I don’t know, Easter? Maybe I’m insane. Maybe I’m wasting even more of my time on an unpublishable pile of cow pie. All I know is, this is the only way to shut Jesher up and get him to leave me alone. I’ve spent so much time and energy on him (If I spend just one more year on this, I’ll have spent a full 30% of my life on Jashee.) that I can’t even imagine working on another book. Maybe I’ll finish The Book and I’ll hear the faint sound of another character wheezing in the shadows, ready to come up behind me and strangle me in its grip. Maybe I’ll go spend some much-needed time with the men in white coats.
Whatever happens, wish me a safe journey. I’m going in. And with any luck, I’ll come back out alive.
…and that’s my excuse for not writing any blog entries in November.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 29 October 2005 @ 3:01 PM
im really excited for nano-wrimo, too! weeeeeeeeee
Comment by Scott — 29 October 2005 @ 5:45 PM
Hmmm…
I’ll bet living with Jason crystallized the shamanistic framework of this whole deal - crystallized what you couldn’t otherwise pin down for 5 years: Do this book or die.
Well, maybe not so dire, but something to that effect, anyway…
Comment by JCamasto — 29 October 2005 @ 9:06 PM
lol, Jim.
Comment by Devin — 29 October 2005 @ 10:14 PM
Glad you got a laugh, Devin - but I was really trying to be straight. I was trying to draw a parallel with the shamanic sickness… and how lines up with (what I understand of) Giuli’s life.
Maybe I shoulda said: [i]Do this book or go crazy.[/i]
Comment by JCamasto — 30 October 2005 @ 8:26 PM
You and Jesse both. :::rimshot:::
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 31 October 2005 @ 10:14 AM
Heh. Oh well. I guess I don’t understand the “do or die” phenomenon, and I thought you were making a joke to that effect. ::shrugs::
And Guili… ::cringes:: that was really bad. Not punny at all.
… (ow, that one hurt to type.)
Comment by Devin — 31 October 2005 @ 10:21 AM
I thought it was Jashee from here on out… I see the crazy’s bubbling over…
Comment by JCamasto — 31 October 2005 @ 1:20 PM
Yes, yes, yes. Totally on your wavelength. If you don’t believe me, check out the website above.
Comment by Graham Jones — 1 November 2005 @ 5:13 PM
ur site sucks ass
Comment by bob — 30 January 2006 @ 9:57 AM
And that’s how you learn to write:
1. Do it.
2. *Burn it*
3. Do it again right.
Comment by speedbird — 23 February 2006 @ 4:20 AM
But seriously… (having read a few of your other posts)
Good writing comes from somewhere very personal. It’s not easy. There are tools available (like a protagonist upon whom you can heap the blame). I wrote a crap book once. Then I wrote a good short story (which hurt). Then I chucked the crap book in the bin and wrote a good book. I return to it now and then and it’s still good, to me at least.
And about two years ago I took a name that wasn’t mine and started posting on these sites. It seemed like the right thing to do.
Yours,
Swift White Swan
Comment by speedbird — 23 February 2006 @ 10:04 AM
Late update… the NaNoWriMo book didn’t go anywhere. I did come up with a bunch of new ideas, though, and now I’m re-writing the story as a screenplay. God knows why, because it’s even harder to sell a screenplay than a novel (and that’s saying a lot). I’m just so God damned sick of prose and I think it would work better as a movie anyway.
So if anyone reading this just so happens to be a huge Hollywood celebrity or owns a major film production company (or, more realistically, owns a camcorder and has a few thousand bucks to waste), there is a screenplay being written about a gay Christian teenager. Bear in mind that this subject matter is unbelievably timely and yet, miraculously, has remained completely untouched by Hollywood. Also bear in mind that every liberal in America is going to see it. Period.
Also, if anyone reading this is more of a theater person and might be interested in making it into a play, same goes, but there’s some weird stuff in it that may be difficult to do without special effects. E-mail me and… um… my people (i.e., me) will do (inexpensive) lunch with your people.
(Hey, a girl can dream, can’t she? How the hell else am I going to get rid of this thing?)
Oh, by the way… The Book is now called The Screenplay. It’s somewhat less monstrous, but not much. For more information, go see the film Adaptation.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 27 February 2006 @ 11:23 PM
“there is a screenplay being written about a gay Christian teenager. Bear in mind that this subject matter is unbelievably timely and yet, miraculously, has remained completely untouched by Hollywood.”
Saved, with Jena Malone and (of all people) MacAuley Culkin.
Sorry, I’m a nitpicker by nature.
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 28 February 2006 @ 1:01 AM
Saved is not about a gay Christian teenager, it’s about a Christian teenage pregnancy. The gay character is one of the most minor of the supporting cast.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 28 February 2006 @ 7:43 AM
And anyway, it’s a comedy. If you’re going to count comedies, “But I’m a Cheerleader” is much more relevant than “Saved.”
I could have sworn I used the words “seriously treated by Hollywood,” but I guess I didn’t…
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 28 February 2006 @ 11:21 AM
Oh yeah, make me the bad guy in all this. Working with you hasn’t exactly been a bowl of cherries, either, missy!
Comment by Jashee Denford — 10 September 2006 @ 4:01 AM
Oh, don’t give me that, you little whiner. I gave you everything! I spent hours counting out the green M&Ms in your trailer. I spent DAYS trying to track down the obscure European brand of bottled water you demanded, only to get yelled at for taking too long when I finally flew it in from Scandanavia.
Not to mention your obsessive religious fundamentalism. NO ONE follows ALL the laws in Leviticus, dammit! You know what? Sometimes you have to wear a poly-cotton blend! And if your author is a woman, you can’t take off for a week every month while she sits around in a straw-lined red tent. It doesn’t work like that, buddy. One of these days, you’re going to have to learn how to act like a professional.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 10 September 2006 @ 4:03 PM