{"id":306,"date":"2009-07-05T10:52:08","date_gmt":"2009-07-05T17:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ajllewellyn.com\/site\/2009\/07\/05\/306\/"},"modified":"2009-07-05T10:52:08","modified_gmt":"2009-07-05T17:52:08","slug":"the-storytellers-creed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ajllewellyn.com\/site\/2009\/07\/05\/306\/","title":{"rendered":"The Storyteller’s Creed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nCurrent mood:\u00a0\u00a0energetic
\nCategory:<\/strong> Writing and Poetry<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It’s my turn to blog at Seven Wicked Writers and here is what I posted:<\/p>\n

By A.J. Llewellyn<\/p>\n

I was on an author chat the other day and a woman who\u2019s never read gay erotic romance\u2026anything gay for that matter, asked me if my books have happy endings. I wrote back, \u201cYes!\u201d<\/p>\n

She seemed stunned. I was surprised by her reaction. \u201cBut Gay men are so promiscuous. They can\u2019t be faithful,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

I wondered how many gay men she actually knew and decided she probably reads the trashy\u00a0supermarket magazines where gay and straight celebutantes hop on and off each other like fleas. Sure, I know a few gay guys who play around, but I know plenty of\u00a0straight guys who do too.<\/p>\n

Most of my gay friends are in longterm, monogamous relationships and work hard at them. They are my inspiration. When I was a young adult, I worked for\u00a0a company here in L.A. that sold products online, most successfully late\u00a0at night when lonely, insomniac people feel their money burning a hole in their pockets.\u00a0 I worked the phones, armed with a computer. We were shown a demo of the ad running that night. We\u2019d all groan when we\u2019d see it was an ab\u00a0cruncher – people who buy those want to talk to you for hours about their problems. People buying the onion chopper were more business like\u2026whatever. We were armed with the ad schedule across the country and banged out those orders like crazy\u00a0when people called in to\u00a0liberate themselves from their money.<\/p>\n

The pressure was intense. My paycheck was deducted if I took more than a minute to respond to a\u00a0call and if I took more than three minutes with each customer. My eyes would fly between the electronic clock on my phone bank and the computer, where I typed in the customer info.\u00a0So many times people\u2019s credit cards were maxed out\u2026or they couldn\u2019t find them\u2026man, people are dumb!<\/p>\n

But I digress\u2026<\/p>\n

I worked a horrendous schedule,\u00a010pm\u00a0to 4am.\u00a0During my two breaks, the women I worked with –\u00a0there were\u00a0twelve women and two men – sat glued to their romance novels in the break room.\u00a0They passed a few well-thumbed paperbacks onto me. I remember reading one by Betty Neals set in Holland. I have to say Betty influnced my own work all these years later because her detail on Amsterdam was rich and had such texture\u00a0to it, I felt I was there.<\/p>\n

For the fifteen minutes I raced through a couple of chapters,\u00a0I was there with the heroine, walking those cobblestone streets, sipping coffee in ancient cafes. It was a blessing to be carried away on such a carpet ride and those books got me through one of the most stressful jobs I\u2019ve ever had.<\/p>\n

Gay or straight, I believe in happy endings. I used to pine for my breaks so I could back to those books we all passed around. Let me tell you, those women\u00a0I worked with would have been pissed – PISSED – if the hero said at the\u00a0end, \u201cYou know what bitch, you\u2019re cute but\u00a0I\u2019m just not that into you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Readers want happy endings\u2026there is a formula and I believe a happy ending is essential. If I want an unhappy ending, I\u2019ll call up my last ex boyfriend to remind myself how happy for now<\/em> feels. Or I\u2019ll just read a different book.<\/p>\n

Because I believe in The Storyteller\u2019s Creed. I follow it. It is my law:<\/p>\n

I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge,<\/p>\n

That myth is more potent than history, that dreams are more powerful than facts,<\/p>\n

That hope always triumphs over experience,<\/p>\n

That Laughter is the only cure for grief.<\/p>\n

And I believe that love is stronger than death.<\/p>\n

Aloha oe,<\/p>\n

A.J.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\n\n
\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\nCurrently\u00a0listening:
\nGently Weeps<\/strong><\/a>
\nBy\u00a0Jake Shimabukuro
\nRelease date:\u00a02006-09-19<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Current mood:\u00a0\u00a0energetic Category: Writing and Poetry It’s my turn to blog at Seven Wicked Writers and here is what I posted: By A.J. Llewellyn I was on an author chat the other day and a woman who\u2019s never read gay erotic romance\u2026anything gay for that matter, asked me if my books have happy endings. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-category-writing-and-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajllewellyn.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajllewellyn.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajllewellyn.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajllewellyn.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajllewellyn.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajllewellyn.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajllewellyn.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajllewellyn.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajllewellyn.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}