Trevor Donovan, Thomas Caplan, The Man Who Wasn’t

Here’s a very recent article about actor, Trevor Donovan, and the novel, The Man Who Wasn’t, by Thomas Caplan. According to the piece below, the book is going to film and there’s a strong possibility that Donovan will get the lead role.

The books follow movie star Ty Hunter, an A-list idol whose past as a covert operative leads to his recruitment by the President of the United States to stop the trafficking of illicit nuclear weapons, re-igniting a clandestine career where Hunter’s fame becomes his cover. The first book, The Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen, was released in 2012 with a forward by former President Clinton. The proposed series would be based on The Man Who Wasn’t, the upcoming second book.

I believe this would be the first book in the series, with more to follow. Even though I never actually saw any of the Beverly Hills 90210 episodes, I think most of my blog readers will remember Donovan for his role as “Teddy Montgomery,” the gay character. He’s straight in real life. (I know people don’t like labels, but I also know that’s not how the world works and I live in the real world.) I’m not too familiar with Caplan’s work, however I did come across this interview blog post that’s interesting.

I found this particularly true. It’s a book I’ve read, and continue to read, just for the way the very first page was written. There’s nothing as clean, simple, or concise as this.

Are you also an F. Scott Fitzgerald fan?

Oh, yes indeed. I have been since I read This Side of Paradise at the age of nineteen. The Great Gatsby is my favorite American novel, but then that’s true of many writers. Only people who have tried over and over again to do it know how hard it is to create prose that seems so utterly without effort.

You can read more about the film, find more links to Donovan and Caplan, and see comments, here. 

Gay Men and Straight Women

I really didn’t know how to title this part of the post, and I really, really wanted to link to this article today because it’s something that I don’t see very often. I can’t say I agree with everything, however, I can, indeed, understand everything he says. I’ll post a few excerpts and comment after each. Then I’ll post the link below. Keep in mind the article was written with a sarcastic tone. If I have to explain that then you might as well just skip this completely.

I’m a gay man and I love when women say to me, “Let’s go shopping!”

Frankly, I never get this from women and I don’t think Tony does either. That could be partly because I despise shopping for anything, and partly because the women might suspect I would laugh in their faces if they asked me a question like that. It’s just never happened to me.

I love how straight women determine when gay men are attractive and when they are not. No self-respecting woman wants an ugly gay.

I’ve actually posted about “dad bods” and I’ve had straight women tell me they can’t wait until this “trend” is over, without even realizing how awful that sounds. Evidently, they aren’t as fond of “dad bods” as gay men are, and they’d rather see those photo shopped images of perfect men with bulging muscles and those “washing board abs.” Yeah, that part was sarcasm, too. I know what “washboard abs” are.

I like that gay men can be “fags” and “queers” instead of just people. I like that gay men are taken at the value of being a token in a group of friends, or as the person you go to when your man won’t watch a musical with you. I like knowing that if a gay man makes it into show business he has to hide who he really is because of fear of being boxed in and unable to take on roles that are seen as “straight.”

I think we all know how I feel about words like “fag” and “queer.” I think the part about being in show business and being gay speaks for itself without comment from me. That’s just a fact of life for some people. It’s not just show business. It’s in corporate, and everywhere. Here’s a shock: it’s even in book publishing.

You can read the entire piece, here. As I said, I don’t totally agree with all of it and I think that’s because I’ve always taken a more aggressive approach to things like this. A lot of gay men, especially younger gay men, haven’t reached that point…yet.
 

Jane Litte On Subscription Services

I could have left this comment on the blog post I’m linking to now, however, I have my own blog and my own readership. Why bother when I can share it here? I also think it’s news, especially the part about Amazon’s new payment system.

The gist of the piece is about whether or not subscription services can afford romance readers. Litte questions this partly because romance readers are such voracious readers. I know, first hand, that gay romance readers will often read five or six e-books a week. From what I gather, they are full length novels, not shorts. I don’t think I’m exaggerating either. One of the reasons why I do freebies all the time is to give readers a break, because I know they appreciate it. They tell me all the time. I get DMs on Twitter after I release a new installment of The Rainbow Detective Agency asking when the next book is coming out. This is a good thing; no complaints from me. 

However, the most interesting part of the piece is about Amazon.

Amazon was able to adapt by paying authors less (and I suspect that KU payments will continue to decline overtime) but Scribd’s response was to cut the part of the membership body that was bleeding them money.

This sentence about Amazon paying authors less sparked an interesting conversation on the comment thread. You have to read through them to see what I mean, but several in the comments didn’t agree with Litte. I personally think it’s a little too soon to disagree with Litte on this one, and I don’t always agree with her.  I can’t go into detail about what I’ve heard…because, obviously, that would be hearsay.

However, I’m not hearing good things from other authors. And they don’t care what Joe Konrath has to say on the matter.

In any event, you can read it all in detail, here.  

More On Rosie O’Donnell

There’s more info on the missing, and found, daughter of Rosie O’Donnell.

Rosie O’Donnell is now tweeting about Steven Sheerer, a man from Barnegat, New Jersey, who ET can confirm is the man her previously missing 17-year-old daughter Chelsea O’Donnell was found with on Tuesday evening.

Rosie linked to a 2012 article about Sheerer getting charged with third-degree possession of heroin with the intent to distribute, third-degree possession of heroin, third-degree endangering the welfare of a child, and possession of drug paraphernalia.

I posted about this yesterday. If you scroll down to the previous post you’ll see.  What I still don’t understand is the time frame. The kid goes missing on Tuesday, a week ago. The police don’t start looking for her until Sunday, six days after she’s missing. And a week later the missing kid turns up in NJ. As I said yesterday, if my kid were missing on Tuesday the police would have been looking for her on Tuesday night and I would have been tweeting that as far and wide as I could the instant it happened. I would have been maniacal.

The rest is here. It’s just not making sense, or maybe I’m just working too much on The Rainbow Detective Agency.