June 24, 2006
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dom does not mean selfish & greedy
Had a sex date with Will yesterday, and because I’ve been kind of
ambivalent about the whole thing, I requested a scene of my choosing
last week: The Strange Man. But Will, natch, made it all
about him, and came in with a veritable laundry list of what *he*
wanted. The Strange Man, for you latecomers, is a little drama
where Will plays a guy that “Will” has sent to see me and has told that
he can use me as he pleases. Maybe I’m being picky here, but I
would expect Will in this scene to adopt a different persona and to
come in with some novel ideas that the Strange Man wants which are
really calculated to work for me. It’s my scene. Instead,
he basically play-acted during the making-out portion of our program,
which was the part that really got me turned-on, and then required me
to do things that were either his usual preference or that he’d told me
he was interested in. Plus he whispered a whole other scene he
wanted done after this one, which means that only half of the date
would be devoted to “my” scene, etc. I just kind of quit in the
middle, after he came. I had absolutely no interest in doing even
one more thing, not touching him, not coming myself, none of it.
I wanted to be elsewhere. I felt used. I also still have
the “disconnect” problem, where everything with us is so
compartmentalized that nothing even hinting of sex hapens outside these
dates, and I feel like I need to get aroused on cue, which doesn’t
always work. And he’s not helping.I could bitch about a lot of specifics, but I don’t think I need to
obsess on this problem. Already, he’s focused on sex to the point
that it’s worrisome to me, and to the point where again he seems
careless about the friendship. But I’m also realizing that this
is his natural state, and I’m not going to nit-pick him into
changing. I think I may just have to stop fucking him, and see if
he becomes a good friend again or if we just lose interest in each
other.I still feel really excited about my work. Someone else from
another one of the big imprints asked me for a copy of 2012
yesterday; the buzz is starting to build, the book is continuing
to sell, my author is happy, my boss is delighted. It isn’t yet
the hit we need for “Team T____,” but it might just get there.
Found out yesterday that the book placed #14 on the Booksense (indie
stores) bestseller list for Southern California, tho it was mistakenly
classified as “fiction.” (My guess is that it’s harder to place
on the fiction list than on non-fiction.) I’m working on press
for the new tour cities; I mailed Durham, NC yesterday, and will start
working on DC, Philly and Boston this coming week. T____ is also
doing two other marketing mailings (to book stores in a couple of
categories that might be lkely to stock the book). Ben overheard
me on the phone with Pinchbeck yesterday, and said afterwards, “He
should be sending you flowers! you’ve really gone above and
beyond…” I don’t know if I’ve gone above and beyond, but I do
know I’ve done the author and the imprint the favor of taking this book
very seriously and believing in it. T____ has some books that are
dogs and no matter what you do for them, they won’t perform.
(Helen Reddy.) Maybe some of it is knowing what books are
potential performers and putting in the work on them. I have two
more in my sights: The Power of Kindness, my little inspiration book (Town and Country is considering serial rights), and This Time I Dance!, my
new age-y career-change book. (David Lynch’s book, I think, will
be less hands-on, since he already has a PR team and has approval of
every bit of material we send out. David Lynch’s book’s success
will depend more on *his* Team Lynch, and his using his fame and his
book to push TM may be its undoing — the book, not TM.)Black Like You is getting
decent reviews and some nice radio interviews, but the cover turns
people off. I think it’ll go down as a well-thought-of book, but
not a big seller. I think Ben is stepping back from it a bit,
letting me set up interviews (when Ben is bonded with a book, he
handles everything personally), and moving on to his next possible
performers. His next couple of books don’t look to me to be big
sellers: one on how the religious right is targeting gays (which
looks to be a good book but probably a weak seller), and one slightly
snarky memoir by a straight guy with AIDS called My Pet Virus,
which I think is kind of a weak book, tho the author is a popular
campus speaker and may do well with college kids. I have some
dogs coming up, too: a reprint of some freemasonry stuff by a
noted kook, a reprint by the Church of Religious Science guy, a
philosophy book somewhere between pop & scholarly called Why Can’t We Be Good (which I think is a quality book that won’t sell).
