If I'm not careful, my rationale will turn into a rant.
Mute is not aimed at the age range who are generally figuring themselves out. It's 16-25, it's a crossover book. I started it before I even considered what living life as a queer woman would be, and it shows. I couldn't understand why Anthony was so scared to come out, as he has erased himself from his family - he is a vacuum, he is the island that no man is supposed to be - but I understand now. You can be 100% ok with what you are, and it still fucking hurts, and it still fucking terrifies you. Anthony's sexuality is key to his character because it holds him hostage.
Jamie's sexuality is key to his character because it holds him hostage.
He is getting death threats. That is the start of Mute. He is getting death threats. Don't tell me that a straight, relatively attractive, 6'7 man who plays pop-rock music would get death threats.
He doesn't have a breakdown because he is gay.
He only has a breakdown because he is gay if you factor in the fact he's just leaving a bad relationship. Not an abusive one, or a toxic one, but the sort you have in your twenties.
If he's having a breakdown because he's gay, then Toby quits music because she's straight.
I want Mute to be labelled as "a gay book". It might hurt my publishing chances, but, you know what? People publish gay books. When I was at school, it was hit and miss - you either picked up a gay book, which was full of sex, terribly written and all the characters were stereotypes; or you played russian roulette with the straight books and were completely surprised if a character turned out not to be.
I still remember being so surprised that the main character of The 19th Wife was gay. And sure, it wasn't relevant to the plot at all - he wasn't even kicked out of the commune for being gay (ironically, he was kicked out for being straight, iirc).
Ellen Page came out yesterday.
And the fucking world is talking about it.
That's the world I'm writing about. I'm writing about the straight-default, the place that suggest you keep it quiet to sell more songs, the fans who turn on you as soon as you suggest you're gay. And for fuck's sake. Jamie's a gay white cismale, with a proven history of being able to sell out venues, and I bet he'd have an issue booking some places.
I'm writing about the world I immersed myself in when I was a teenager. Where we imagined that all these pop-rock boys weren't "playing up" the stage gay, but they actually were.
Don't tell me one week I have to decide "what kind of gay" Jamie is, and offer me a choice between David Bowie and Nick Cave, say that Jamie has to be fey, he has to be pretty, and then turn around the next week and tell me that his sexuality can only be tenuously linked to his character.
Jamie is not fey. He might be boy-band pretty, but he is straight passing. He wears hoodies and jeans, shaves intermittently, goes without showering if he can. Jamie is inseparable with his best friend. Growing up, they had the same interests. At no point would you be able to point to them, out of context, and decide which one is gay - is it the short one with the manuscript sleeve tattoo and the glasses, or the tall one with jeans that don't really fit him and a terrible habit of picking at his bag straps.
(I mean, sure, the fact that they make out probably doesn't help, but Toby gets what Toby wants.)
I am tired of being told that my characters' sexualities should only be a side note to make them seem "normal."
I am not straight. For the most part, I don't want to be seen as straight. I am queer in a dress, I am queer in jeans, I am queer in my fucking pyjamas.
Writing Mute is teaching me about myself. Being in a relationship is teaching me how to write.
Jamie is gay. And he'll mention that to you within ten minutes of meeting you.
Because it's part of him.
