Happy Friday my lovely bookworms, it’s nearly the bank holiday week and half-term for many of us. It feels kind of strange doesn’t it?! But I will be enjoying it by escaping in literary worlds of new found favourites and enjoying the sunshine. I digress, Today I’m merging two of my features, Let’s Talk Books and In the Mind of an Author for an exciting post. Don’t forget to head over to Emily at A Short Book Lover to see her pick for Let’s Talk Books.
Let’s Talk Books, formerly Let’s Talk YA, is a weekly series where we are highlighting particular books (Teen/YA/ Adult etc) coming out during this time, we will review, or get bookish content from authors and so much more.
This week’s pick for Let’s Talk Books is another upcoming Pride book from the author of Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts) – its CAMP by L.C. Rosen. Lev has come on my blog to talk about his state of mind writing his new book. Before that here is a little bit more about his book.
Camp by Lev A.C. Rosen Published by Penguin on May 26, 2020
Amazon | Book Depository | Waterstones
Goodreads
From the author of the acclaimed Jack of Hearts (and other parts) comes a sweet and sharp screwball comedy that critiques the culture of toxic masculinity within the queer community.
Sixteen-year-old Randy Kapplehoff loves spending the summer at Camp Outland, a camp for queer teens. It's where he met his best friends. It's where he takes to the stage in the big musical. And it's where he fell for Hudson Aaronson-Lim - who's only into straight-acting guys and barely knows not-at-all-straight-acting Randy even exists.
This year, though, it's going to be different. Randy has reinvented himself as 'Del' - buff, masculine, and on the market. Even if it means giving up show tunes, nail polish, and his unicorn bedsheets, he's determined to get Hudson to fall for him.
But as he and Hudson grow closer, Randy has to ask himself how much is he willing to change for love. And is it really love anyway, if Hudson doesn't know who he truly is?
In the Mind of an Author with L.C. Rosen
I’ll be honest, the mind of this author is not a pretty place right now. A couple months into social distancing, with constant jackhammering out my window as an audible manifestation of my anxiety about the pandemic flooding the world… it’s not great. I haven’t written in ages. I sit down and try to focus on writing and my brain becomes fuzzy with noise. I’m getting better – I can read now – but if you’re reading this hoping for inspiration at this time of constant clamor, my best advice is to give yourself a break. But maybe you’re more curious about the state of my mind when I wrote Camp, my new book. Those were happier times.
I’m not going to say my mind was an image of clean precision back then, but I definitely found writing easier. Camp was inspired by a simple idea: I wanted to write a Rock Hudson/Doris Day style 60s sex comedy, but I wanted it to be queer, contemporary, and YA. Okay, so maybe that’s not so simple, but I love those old movies, I love a screwball sex comedy dependent on disguises and playing with power dynamics, and after Jack of Hearts (and other parts) I wanted to keep exploring the way life can be for queer teens after coming out – I always want to explore how coming out isn’t the end, but the beginning of the story. Luckily, those two ideas come together really well – those old movies, after all, are about the battle of the sexes, about power dynamics between men and women during 2nd wave feminism. So I took that idea and made it about masc/femme dynamics in the queer community. Then everything clicked into place for me. But it actually took a while to get to that place.
I think for me inspiration comes in the forms of little ideas that spring up in the void of my mind and hover there, like bubbles, floating around. One idea isn’t enough to start a novel on its own, though, so they float there – often for years – waiting. The wanting to do some variation on a 60s sex comedy had been there for years. But while I was doing publicity for Jack, I was told during an interview how interesting it was that I’d made a femme guy desirable. I honestly hadn’t thought too much about that – when I think about teen boys and desire, I think of it as being… not too specific. But as we talked more about it, I understood what he meant – society says femme guys aren’t hot. That conversation formed a new bubble in my brain – a new idea floating around. I wanted to write something about masc/femme stuff, about the desire-ability of masc acting gays, and how ridiculous those divisions are. Those two bubbles – the 60s sex comedies and this masc/femme exploration – they were drawn to each other like molecules forming into elements, and they clicked together into a bigger bubble, the real start of the novel. That’s when I had what I’d call a real idea, and not just something I wanted to write about someday. I had something that could sustain a novel.
Once that happens, the bubbles start joining pretty quickly, usually. So there was another bubble that just said “summer camp” that joined up, and soon there it was: a 60s sex comedy, but at a modern queer summer camp. It made perfect sense. But I had to wait for the right inspirations to appear and come together. Before that, it was just vague stuff floating around in my mind, waiting for enough other ideas to link up with it work. I don’t force things. But I do know when they go from “vague idea I’m interested in” to “book idea.” That took some practice to learn, time, and a lot of half formed books I tried to write (I have a lot of summer camp books that just didn’t come together before this because I just wanted to write something summer camp related, which isn’t enough of an idea for a book). So, my biggest advice is to write stuff down – stuff you want to play with, and re-read that list regularly, see if new ideas connect with old ones. Don’t force anything. Ideas will become ready to be books when they’ve grown enough.
I really enjoyed this piece from Lev, I felt he is refreshingly honest and funny. Head over to Emily’s blog for her Let’s Talk Book’s pick. Let’s chat will you read Camp?
I can’t wait to read this. CAMP is out May 28th.
