Dress-ups and the Joy of Writing a Handsome Character

Dearest Bookworms,

Warmest welcome to the members of Voracious Readers Only who got a copy of Crossroads of Desire this week. I’m thrilled to be able to write to so many people each week.

A special thank you to Katie at @katiesbooklist for the wonderful 4-star review on Instagram, as well. I enjoyed reading Katie’s comment on my sentences and how some of them read oddly: I do experiment with unusual cadences and antique sentence structures, with no lofty goal in mind, only linguistic curiosity. For these stories of Quin and Leon’s life, I approach language as a material to be draped over thoughts and ideas in different ways, slowly and attentively, with sometimes unexpected results. A little of this sort of thing goes a long way, of course.

I’m amazed and delighted that so many readers want to spend more time with Quin. Slowly elaborating his mid-life suits my scarce energy levels at this point in my mid-life. This week I most admire his ability to know when to please others and when to be selfish for the sake of the small glimmer of self-worth he cherishes.

I also admire his love of beautifully tailored clothes, and one of the joys of getting to know Quin better is dressing him! He has a love of couture, but didn’t indulge it in New York. In my writing session yesterday I almost got to the moment of dressing Quin in this heartbreaking Brioni outfit (heartbreaking because I’ll never wear it):

Quin’s body is not much different from this gentleman’s, slender and trim, beautiful in a casually sculpted way, and well-defined for the sake of the pleasure his clients get from touching him. A strong man wrapped around you and holding you still can be the purest pleasure when your body won’t cooperate with your desire.

With love,

AR x