M.J. Pearson's Backstory

Discreet Young Gentleman, by M.J. Pearson

When people ask where my ideas come from, I’m usually unable to puzzle it out. A single iron filing leaps onto the bar magnet, and before you know it, the thing is absolutely covered with bristly fuzz, and heaven knows how it all got there. But I can say with perfect confidence that the inspiration for my new book Discreet Young Gentleman came to me on the way home from the grocery store.

See, I was lost. It happens all the time. Just a couple of miles from home, and I take a right when I mean to take a left…and before you know it, instead of the well-ordered suburbs of Indianapolis, I’m in a cornfield in Brown County. A simple 15-minute jaunt becomes an ordeal of an hour and a half. And the ice cream melts.

Okay, I’m dyslexic. It’s fairly mild, in my case. East/west, left/right. Happily enough, it doesn’t interfere with my reading (although quickly-glimpsed signs can be a real hoot if I’m too tired to unjumble the letters into their proper order). Death, though, to the person who filled our lower-case alphabet with so many freaking tailed letters—believe me, the phrase “mind your p’s and q’s” always made perfect sense to me, because it’s a rare day when I can get them straight when writing by hand. Throw in b’s, d’s and g’s and you’ve got one hell of an entertaining shopping list. Touch-typing, however, is for some reason not affected. So most days, it’s not a big deal. I cope.

But in the car that day, I was in tears of frustration at being lost—again. Damn the suburbs. Damn I-465, a loop around the city where the opposite of West isn’t East, but South. If only I’d lived in a simpler time, in a village small enough to memorize the whole of it… Then common sense slapped me up along side the head and suggested that before learning disabilities were diagnosed and understood, life might have been harder, instead. Much harder. My dyslexia is annoying at times, but it hasn’t upset the course of my life. Just suppose…

And so Rob, the titular “discreet young gentleman” of my new gay historical romance, was born. Thanks to me, Rob was unlucky enough to grow up at the turn of the 19th century, when I imagined that his teachers would think him stupid or lazy for not being able to form his letters correctly, and his fellow students would mock him endlessly. Why, the boy couldn’t even follow a simple command to hitch up Bessie on Curly’s right and go plow the north half of the east pasture! What’s a gorgeous-but-lacking-in-self-esteem young man to do but turn to prostitution to make a living? (We may now pause briefly for the inevitable “dyslexic prostitute” jokes: Why can’t a dyslexic prostitute make a decent living? Because nobody’s going to pay fifty bucks for a bowl job. Why did the dyslexic prostitute end up black and blue? He kept yelling “Cuff me! Cuff me!”)

Now that that’s out of our system, back to the story. Sometimes it takes a damaged person to reach out to one. Dean Smith, Earl of Carwick, has been rassling his own demons, struggling with a sense of childhood abandonment and a dislike of his own physical appearance. It’s only when Dean and Rob team up to find the person responsible for disrupting Dean’s engagement to a wealthy heiress that the two men slowly learn to value their real gifts…and each other.

For me, that’s the chief joy of writing—you get mess up people’s lives, and then make them all better by the end. It’s the best feeling in the world.

That, and finding your way home before the ice cream melts.

Learn more about Marly Pearson' by visiting her website or her site on myspace.

Comments

[Brittis]

Lovely backstory!

Why did you call him Dean? I always thought that was an American name. Is it an aristocratic name?

[Lynn Sinclair]

Award goes to Marlys for the best 'where did you get the idea' story.

Lynn

[MJ Pearson]

Hi Brittis! There's a very particular reason why Dean is named Dean, but you'd have to read the book to find out...

And thanks, Lynn!

Marlys (MJ)

[Lisa McMann]

This is a great way to start off a Monday. Very entertaining, loved the jokes!

[Valerie]

HI guys!THERE is a great site with cool music where you can find the newest albums. HAve fun there!!!

[Robert]

Managed Hosting, Colocation and Data Center Services by victoryushchenkonashpresudent ...