For the Writers Who Keep Going
Finding a way back through the mess
“I’ve always felt like I had something to explain to the world
that most people just didn’t understand.”
In 1998, I started my first novel. It was called Closet Monsters. (Prepare yourself. I’m going to use that title a lot. It’s just that good.)
The first line you just read:
“I’ve always had something to explain to the world, blah blah blah…”
It was the first line from that book—from that dreadful, try-hard, wonderful book, which took around five years to finish and required zero research. Good thing. In those days, research meant libraries, card catalogs, interviews, etc. But this was a novel, so I would only need to conjure things… mostly from my own life. And I did. Always have.
Back then, I used the word “crap” a lot. Used it nineteen times in Closet Monsters alone. I wanted to cuss, but since I was a good Christian boy, I opted for cussing adjacent.
In the end, I think that book would’ve made a good after school special.
What was it about?
I’m glad you asked.
A six foot one inch seventh-grade girl who doesn’t make the junior high basketball team and finds out her mom isn’t her real mom and finds out her best friend was molested and sets up her favorite teacher with her least favorite teacher and adores her “cool” pastor at church and ends up in the arms of her arch nemesis.
It wasn’t The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. More like The Girl with the Temporary Tattoo—but still, I was writing that shit down.
Fifteen minutes before sitting down to write this essay on writing, I was watching a Joan Rivers roast on YouTube, then fell down a rabbit hole about Jerry Lewis—the original Nutty Professor and Muscular Dystrophy Telethon comedian whose old movies were a huge part of the Saturday afternoons of my childhood.
But before that, I was sitting at this kitchen table in front of my computer and said to no one in particular…
“I don’t know what to do with myself! All I do is write and hope something happens. What if I keep hoping until I die? What if that’s the plot—me, writing and hoping and nothing?”
I needed to say it, because I was so sick of hearing myself think it.
If that makes sense to you, hang tight.
Back in 2016, I got a book published. Spiritual. About God. I was still a good Christian boy back then, though less good than when I wrote Closet Monsters. Meaning, I’d started cussing by 2016, though still not having sex with men. But once I did—once I came out of the closet (monsters)—all my readers ran for the hills. And I suppose, why wouldn’t they? I wasn’t who they thought.
It’s fine. Strangely, I never cared. I cared that they were mad, sad, aflame with devastation. I just didn’t care that they unfollowed, unfriended, or blocked. Most of them were “the public.” Very few were real-life friends, so it was okay.
Because of my new gay-vibes—sleeveless shirts, sparkly belts, pierced ears, and sex with men—my publisher put my God-Book out of print, even though it was selling well. But like I said—fine. Because every day, I was feeling more and more like Harvey Milk in the biopic when he says, “I need a change.”
God. Did I ever.
I kept writing and writing some more, and eventually wrote a self-published memoir about coming out, losing my sister to breast cancer, and losing the first gay relationship. (Triple threat.) I considered throwing in something about my return to musical theater after twenty-five years, but thought it might muddy the clear theme I’d pulled together: Gay. Breast cancer. The great unsmittening.
After losing that first gay relationship, I found myself in dating hell on the apps. (Iykyk) Eventually I landed the real Chris Evans and decided to write another book—this one about how to gay-date and find the gay man of your dreams… mostly by being civil on the apps, civil in relationships, until you form a civil union. (If you so choose. Which I did.)
That book: How to Find and Keep a Gay Man: 69 Spicy Tips for Lasting Love is due out in April of 2026. It’s the new me. The cussing me. The gay me. And still… the writer me.
Writing. It’s been with me for three decades.
If you just did the math on my “1998” reference from the beginning of this essay, you might’ve noticed the timeline doesn’t add up—that it hasn’t actually been three decades since Closet Monsters. That’s because I skipped over the pre-Closet Monsters era, when I was in college, writing under the pen name Spencer A. Hawley, taping bad poems to my dorm-room door for all my hallmates to read… and, ideally, find Jesus. (I was the BEST CHRISTIAN.)
Why the pen name?
Because “I wanted God to be glorified. Not myself.” Which was code for, If people hate these lugubrious poems, I don’t want to be held responsible. So I let Spencer shoulder the blame for my horrific verses about giving my all to the God of the universe—long before giving my all to gay men.
Which brings me to this.
Writing has been with me nearly as long as I can remember. So I shan’t wonder if it’s credible. And I don’t need it to be lucrative, though I really hope it will be. Because even if it isn’t, it’s been a best friend to me.
The thing about that is, writers often struggle with self-esteem. But this writing beast within is me. It’s stood by me. It’s shown me the path forward. Shown me where I veered off course. Helped me find a better way of living. Helped me be honest. Helped me love better, live better, be better.
It will always be worth it.
Writing has stood the test of time. It has added value and purpose to my life. When I’m bored—write. When I’m lonely—write. When I can’t find my way—write. When I am so hurt, so broken, and entirely too lugubrious for my own good—write.
For me, it is the way.
And here’s the kicker: I don’t have to depend on anyone for it. It doesn’t require a team, or a meeting, or even money. How many things can we say that about?
We are the luckiest. Period.
Never feel bad about it
Never question it.
Only… love it.
Maybe that’s what writing has always been for me. A way back through the mess.
“After that, we started back into cleaning out the closet. It seemed overwhelming. There was so much stuff in there—it was packed full. But with both of us working on it, I knew we’d get through it all. Together.”
That was the very last line of Closet Monsters.
Over the years, I’ve made more fun of that book than I ever should have. But for me, it was the beginning.
Me. And writing.
We’ve gotten through it.
Together.
