Summer Heat

Where boy and boy meet

The concept of Summer Heat came from a place where I never truly expected it to. I left my old job in May and started my new one a week later. The sudden change of occupation and the feeling of being less stressed brought something different to my world.

My fiance and I were in a good place. There was no bickering. He only wants what is best for me. My dear friend from school, whom I’d known since the first grade, was the one who was able to help me obtain the new job. In the middle of working throughout the day, we would talk about political struggles and basic human rights. We talked about queer rights and her love for Harry Styles. (She’s a proud Larry if you get my meaning)

I think it was then that the story began to… mull in my mind. It was summer. July and August are always scorching in Georgia. The things that we talked about, especially from my own personal experience as coming out as gay to my religious family began blossoming into a visual story for me.

I started one day in August. These two characters found their ways into my life to tell me their story. Two teenaged boys, complete opposites, fall in love after a chance meeting. Bill, who would be a junior in high school, and Tommy, who would be a senior, popped into my mind. One is book-smart and loves to read; the other is athletic and smart in his own way. I wrote some of my own high school fantasies within this novel. Scenes and scenarios that I wished had happened to me while I was questioning everything about myself.

Once the characters came into play, I knew that a story would ensue. I began to world-build. I know that world-building is something difficult for some writers; that believability to make their fictional place real to the audience. I grew up in a small community that had only one stop light in the entire county. I used this as my fictional town of Rosewood, which is not a city (that I’m aware of) in the state of Georgia. The story is set in the backdrop of 1979. This is definitely a year that I am not familiar with seeing that I’m a ’90s baby. The research part is fun for me. I get to see exactly what was playing on TV on a specific day and time, what TV shows were popular, what books came out, who was president of the United States, who the Atlanta Braves played against on July 17th. I have always found that world-building and characterization the easiest in writing. It’s just the story/plotline that decides to show itself as difficult.

The more I wrote, the more I became engrossed in Bill and Tommy’s love story. I saw the waves of these two characters struggle with their own identity and their own home-life struggles. Something that I have seen as a trend is dealing with childhood trauma. Many people in the LGBTQAI+ deal with this trauma. The back and forth between parents and themselves.

During my time writing this novel, I took a class on publishing at South New Hampshire University. I found myself talking more freely about my new novel. I suddenly found myself with the accursed writer’s block. I made it to the rising action that would move to the climax of the story, but from there I stood at a crossroads.

For me this writer’s block didn’t stem from stress or fear, as most writer’s blocks do. This stemmed from how do I finish this story.

Many comments in my class stated that they were tired of seeing this overkill of a queer character sacrificing themselves to move the plot forward. It is an unfortunate truth for some people who “unalive” themselves because they cannot live the way they need to, to be who they are. I’ve never actually noticed until recently that queer characters in movies or TV shows tend to be either villains or killed off first.

I didn’t want that for my story. Death in the queer community is already too much. Sometimes we need happy endings to stories. And that is what broke me out of my writer’s block: Happy endings.

Be sure to purchase either an e-book copy or a paperback copy of Summer Heat. I can’t wait for you all to read it.

Spread love not hate,

Ethan Bridges-Garcia