My name is Michael Salvatore Mammano. I am a writer. I've been published... sort of... but mostly I've been hungry and poor... and often without heat in whatever apartment I'm living in. This blog is not about literary success. That's something I'm still working on. It's not about the result; it's about the process.
Now, everyone's process is different. What's true for me won't work for some people, and that's fine. My personal motto is "whatever gets you there," and indeed, while my opinions tend to be very strong, they are just that: opinions. I would urge anyone reading this not to dismiss anything they might find of value just because we disagree on other points. Take what you need. Leave the rest.
While this blog was largely created to create a professional identity separate from my personal life, there are some things about me that I will put out there, as they inform who I am, what I write, and how I write. So, here are a few things you might want to know before we get this party started.
I am fascinated by adolescence. Always have been, always will be. For no other period of your life do you get a free pass for how you dressed, what you said, or how you behaved. There's also no other period where every detail, every action, no matter how insignificant, has weight. Everything is epic. Everything matters. Drama isn't something teens create. It's something they can't escape. Adolescence is also a time when everything exists in absolute terms. Moral ambiguity is an adult construct, one we need to develop in order to cope with the realities of life. Teenagers don't have that problem, and so it creates an atmosphere of heightened tension, temptation, and consequences. For these and many other reasons, I love to write about teenagers, and in fact, about 80% of my work is about them. For this reason, much of my work could be classified as Young Adult Fiction, and I have no problem with that designation, but given my tone and content, I think it would probably be more accurate to say I write adult stories about teenagers. It's a subtle distinction, but nonetheless significant.
My work tends to be rather homo-inclusive. As a gay man, in my world view, there's always at least one gay person in the picture. It doesn't mean I'm going to shoehorn a gay character into a work just to have one there, but then again, to me, having gay characters around is just as organic as having straight characters. I have little interest in telling stories where gay people have no place or relevance. There are already enough of those out there. That being said, unless a story is about a group of gay characters (and I have more than one), the cast will be fairly straight-heavy, as the human population, well... is.
On the matter of diversity in general, I tend toward it. If I can diversify by changing a character's race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation, I'll do it so long as that new background doesn't derail the character in any kind of fundamental way. I mean, I'm not going to make a Klansman Asian, even though that would be really funny. I'm not about tokenism and I have no desire to create a Benetton ad, but there are enough straight male WASPs in fiction. It couldn't hurt to trade out a few here and there for a little variety.
I love red hair. Love it. I guarantee you will find at least one character in any work of mine -- could be a guy, could be a girl, could be a major role, could be a cameo -- sporting the ginger. It's my own way of signing my work. Think of it as the Where's Waldo? of my writing.
I think epic. I once had an idea for a short story. It is now a planned pentalogy of novels. I shudder to think at what would be involved in the realization of an idea that had been planned as an epic from day one. So, when I'm discussing an idea for one of the TV shows I've come up with and I'm talking about something that happens in Season 5, rest assured that I'm actually thinking that far ahead. I don't know how not to.
Lastly, I'd like to talk a bit about a term you will hear me use with a fair degree of frequency. That term is "the conventional wisdom." For those who don't know, the conventional wisdom is, for the most part, opinions that have been put forth and generally accepted as truths on the merit of their popularity. Popularity has never been a yardstick by which I've measured my beliefs and/or actions. Never will be. As such, there will be times when I challenge the conventional wisdom. I think you'll enjoy them.
That about does it. And now, on to the blog!
Looking forward to this blog, Michael!
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