"Waking Up Bear"
A couple of days ago in the mail I got my two contributors' copies of the new anthology Bears, edited by Richard Labonté (Cleis Press, August 2008). Before you order your copy I'll remind you that this anthology is a collection of gay erotica, and the subject is bearish men, about whom I like to write, as you may know by now.
My story (by my fictional self Jay Neal, of course) is called "Waking Up Bear", which also happens to be one of my favorite titles. As I described it on Jay Neal's website:
Stephen and Barry have been together for over a decade without major drama, until one day Barry wakes up to find out that he's turned–overnight!–into a bear. Major drama ensues, but life returns to domestic tranquility through the agency of bear-spiritualist Onslo Bigpaw.
It seems almost a miracle to me that this story ever saw the light of publication since it is itself a drama that has stretched over at least the last six years.
Sometime in 2002 or 2003 I had the beginning idea: a pair of buffed, suburban A-gays live a peaceful existence until one wakes up one morning, inexplicably transformed into something husky and hairy exceeding his worst nightmare about not going to the gym. It had good potential to examine some interesting relationship issues, social stereotypes, and indulge in a bit of humor, too.
Rather quickly I wrote the first 1,000 words of a planned 3,000 or so. Then I stalled. I got Barry and Stephen to a certain point (the breakfast table) and then I had no idea what happened next. Absolutely no idea. Well, I had some ideas but they were all worse than awful, or maudlin, or trivial and uninteresting.
And there they sat, 1,000 lonely words, for something like 3 years. At intervals, maybe once a month, I gave the situation some thought but how to continue eluded me.
Then came that interesting and productive time in December, 2005 when I was mostly confined to the living room couch, recovering from my broken leg. Around 2 or 3 in the morning, when the house got very quiet, I could hear the muses whispering. In one period of about 2 weeks I wrote 5 stories (for a total of some 15,000 words). One of those was the ending of "Waking Up Bear"
In an earlier story I had introduced a character I'd become fond of: Onslo Bigpaw,* and he turned out to be the character to help me end the story. His card reads
Onslo Bigpaw
Bear Psychic & Spiritual Healer
“Why Settle for a Medium
when you could have an Extra-Large”
Finished at last! In 2007 I saw a "call for submissions" for an anthology in preparation that was to be a collection of bear stories with supernatural elements. What better place! I sent the story along. After not too long I heard from the editor, who said he liked the story but it was more sexual than he'd wanted, would I consider changing it?
Thus, it seemed, I had returned to the story that would never end, but it didn't happen that way. I thought for a short while and came up with an idea for a delightfully romantic but still relevant ending to the story, so I rewrote the final 2,000 words or so and sent it back to the editor. I never heard from him again.
Well, these things happen. So here I had this story that for years I could not find the ending and now it had two. At the beginning of this year I took both of them out again and looked critically to try to identify what I thought were the strongest parts of both versions, and then I retained those elements, merging them and rewriting what came after that first 1,000 words, ending up now with a third version and something closer to 5,000 words.
And then I heard that Richard was putting together this Bears anthology and, for various reasons, had to do it on rather short notice. Did I have something? Well, yes, it just so happened….
And so "Waking Up Bear" finally has a final form. I am relieved.
———-
*Yes, I chose the name "Onslo" in conscious homage to Hyacinth Bucket's brother-in-law. [Yes, I've updated the next day the spelling of Hyacinth's last name to make it correct. I can't believe I got it wrong the first time. It must be time for me to review "Keeping Up Appearances".]
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on Tuesday, 2 September 2008 at 23.30
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What a pleasent surprise….finding out that Onslo is free at last! I didn't realize that one of my favorite stories had lain fallow for lo these many years. Congratulations on your latest publication….now we just need to have an anthology of Jay Neal stories so I can have them all under one cover.
Hugs all around!