[Technicolor Musings] Gay Geek Short Stories

Earlier this year, I promised myself that I would self-publish a novel on the Kindle Store. While most of my writing interests have been focused on the areas of science fiction and fantasy, I've also tried my hand at a few LGBT-themed stories. I haven't had as much success in that area, but then I've certainly been making progress.

by gwilmore

My self-publishing plans have yet to get anywhere solid though. Real life got in the way given our various theater ventures, our trip to Singapore and all that fun stuff and now it's November and I still have no book ready for publishing. I could just blame life in general. Or I could blame the eternal enemy of any writer - the combination of lack of time and the writer's constant need to re-write.

Finishing is always the biggest challenge of any writer.

So I'm back to trying to think of a way to get myself published, and perhaps a short story collection / anthology may be the more reasonable way to go. While I still want to get a novel published, it'll take a lot more effort and focus compared to what I have available between work, my geeky life with Tobie and my gay life with Tobie. And yes, those aspects can exist together and yet separately as well.


So my main idea is to write a collection of short stories about gay geeks - as slightly strange a subject this may seem to some. Gay geeks exist - for example there's me, my boyfriend and a couple of our friends. But you don't see many books or movies that focus on gay geeks as a separate group or a "sub-culture" (for lack of a better term) to explore or focus on.

So my basic concept at this point is to write (or collect?) a bunch of stories about gay geek lives. And as you very well know (or should know) that the term "geek" can apply to any number of diverse interests, which makes for a lot of potential stories.

by spike55151

To illustrate, we could try to look at different types of geeks and how they might encounter one another. One story could cover CCG players meeting up either at a tournament or a local game-playing hangout location. Two MMORPG players could be rivals online but find out they click in person. The comic book store owner who finds a customer attraction despite his interest in comics that he doesn't like. Or toy collectors vying for ownership of a rare figure at a swap meet. And of course maybe cosplayers who continually try to one-up one another. list goes on and on.

My partner suggested that perhaps this could become some sort of a series of short story collections. So the first book could be about first meetings. The next one could focus on the romance. Another book could be about break-ups. Stuff like that. But that my be putting the horse before the cart in terms of this project. Best to try to get one book out before going too far ahead in planning and focus more on writing.

by twelve17

So here's me asking for a little help from my fellow gay geeks out there. What stories do you want to be told? What kind of stories would you like to read about gay geek culture? Let me know what your ideas are so I can try to tackle them in a story or something.

Or better yet, if you're a writer who wants to try to write a story for this collection, let me know as well - my contact information is also available on the site. I'd love to collaborate and we can probably figure out revenue sharing should this project actually get off the ground.