Ask the Author: Walt Odets
Answered Questions (9)
Walt Odets
Hillary, thank you for your note, and I'm happy the book is proving helpful. I do not personally have access to the audiobook version of "Shadows," but it is available on Audible, for about $15. Here is a link for it:
https://www.amazon.com/Out-Shadows-Re...
https://www.amazon.com/Out-Shadows-Re...
Walt Odets
You can see more about the book at: https://waltodets.com/books/book-outo...
Walt Odets
Yes, I'm gay. You can see some of my writing here: https://waltodets.com/books/
Walt Odets
I have spent thirty years working in psychotherapy with gay men, and I usually understand the problems they present. These problems are not the product of being gay, they are the problems of a frightened and often hostile society that still cannot tolerate and accept natural human diversity. What I want to convey in "Out of the Shadows" is that gay men are not "homosexuals," they are men who feel emotional attachment to other men, and partly and naturally express that sexually. So the idea for the book came from my personal life experience and my therapy work with hundreds of men, and my awareness of the fundamental importance of confident self-identity and authentic self-acceptance. What it means to "be gay" needs to be rethought and reimagined, and the opening chapter of Shadows is titled, "Are Gay Men Homosexuals?" The answer is no.
Walt Odets
I go to bed at night, and wake up at two or three or four, or all three, to make notes about what I want to write in the morning. So I guess I get inspired by being asleep.
Walt Odets
I am in the final stages of "Out of the Shadows: Reimagining Gay Men's Lives," working with FSG and Penguin on the final proof.
Walt Odets
Human beings write for and about other human beings. Focus on introspection, for if you do not understand yourself, you cannot understand others. Then the old saw: write write write.
Walt Odets
Communication, and a sense of accomplishing something worthwhile and helpful to others. Aside from that, it's a lonely, dragged out, often-frustrating business.
Walt Odets
As a non-fiction writer, I've had little experience with writer's block, because I'm not "making things up." In preparing for a book, I sort out hundreds of notes into subject folders, and then organize the folders into a tentative order, which serves as a rough outline. "Out of the Shadows: Reimagining Gay Men's Lives" is the product of 82 note folders organized in eight chapters, plus an introduction and afterword. If I'm having trouble moving from folder to folder, or have difficulty finding an order within a folder, it is probably because I don't completely understand the issue I'm writing about. So I sit in front of the computer and think it through again. And again. And again!
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