Rick Beck
100 stories, 876 chapters and 3,762,629 words
Send Rick an email at quillswritersrealm
@yahoo.com
Proudly presented by The Tarheel Writer - On the Web since 24 February 2003. Celebrating 22 Years on the Internet!
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Rick Beck 100 stories, 876 chapters and 3,762,629 words Send Rick an email at quillswritersrealm @yahoo.com Proudly presented by The Tarheel Writer - On the Web since 24 February 2003. Celebrating 22 Years on the Internet! Tarheel Home Page |
Before the year 2000, in the age of HIV AIDS, we were queers and faggots. There was no LGBTQ+, no gay literature to speak of. There has been a Renaissance for twenty-five years. Thousands of gay authors have written our history, but now, it looks like we are heading into a new dark age.
If you aren't a fighter, find the fighters. Assist them. If we join with the black movement, women, indigenous peoples, and minorities interested in establishing their civil rights, the table will be set for us to all stand in unity as a force. Our Destiny is in our own hands, not in the hands of the hateful and mean spirited. If we stand together, we can't be stopped.
Today, we have a history and stories about who we are as a people.
Our history can be found at sites like, Tarheel Writer, Castle Roland, IOMFAtS, Awesome Dude, Story Lovers Home, Gay Demon, Gay Authors, & Tickie Stories. Protect these sites. Preserve gay literature.
Talk to someone over 50. They can describe how hated LGBTQ+ once were.
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Happy Anniversary to Me
In January of 1997, I had been writing for a couple of years, after losing my truck driving license because I could not pass the eye test. I'd written "On Winning" by then, and I had written "Autumn Allies" and "Fleeting Fall." I had a computer for two years, when Windows 95 hit the market, access to what wasn't much of an Internet became easier.
I'd lived in California and I moved to Alabama to be a writer, because it was cheaper living in Alabama. In January of 1997, I went in search of gay love stories on that fairly new Internet. January, February, and into March, I tried to find any gay stories at all by searching the Internet. I came up empty.
On March 30, 1997, I ran across a website, Nifty Archives. There were 4800 of what they called stories. They were the worst kind of child porn. I never got past the first sentence of even one story. To describe it, each seemed to be about twelve year old boys falling in love with a middle aged man.
Give me a fucking break!
I left Nifty Archives and I went to wash my hands and use mouthwash. Those writings were that horrible but, it struck me, as I went back to my search, if they'll post that crap. If I wrote a gay love story, maybe they'd post that.
I sat down the day I found the Nifty Archives and I began writing Billie Joe's Journey, of Billie Joe's Journals, 3 books. That day I was writing for people like me. At first I called it, It Happened on a Bus. A gay boy decides to run away, after his best friend commits suicide, because he won't live in a world that hates him for being gay. Neither him or his best friend knows they are both gay. Billie Joe decides to run away. He's going to find out what being gay means.
Billie Joe doesn't have far to go. On the bus, he is taking to supposedly spend summer vacation at his brother's in Seattle, he meets Carl. Billie Joe meets his first gay man. Carl is seventeen, in the army, and on the bus to Seattle.
I wrote the first chapter of Billie Joe's Journey the afternoon of March 30, 1997, the day I found Nifty. At 3 that afternoon, I sent the chapter to the webmaster of the Archives.
Then, I had a thought. What if no one reads it. I know I could write. I didn't know I wrote anything anyone would want to read, but I was giving it a shot. Immediately I begin to worry. What if no one writes my email address. I won't know if I can write or not. I vowed to never check my email again.
My vow lasted until eight o'clock on March 30, 1997, I went to my email inbox. I had twenty emails. Today, with over a hundred stories, most novels, and adding up to close to 4,000,000 words, I don't get twenty emails a month, but email was the coin of the realm in March 1997 and I got twenty emails.
Okay, I could write something gay men would read. I continued writing Billie Joe's Journey and then I began writing Discovering Gregory. I was averaging ten to twenty emails a day in 1997.
On that first day, after writing that first chapter of a gay love story, each of those twenty emails contained the same phrase, "Don't stop writing this story."
I haven't stopped. I continue to write four to five to six hours a day, depending on the day and the mood of my computer.
This week I've been writing for gay literary sites for twenty-eight years. I am about to post my 4,000,000th word for people like me. I've decided I should croak about the time I hit 5,000,000 words. So, check me out at Tarheel Writer, tarheelwriter.com.
I've been trying to write a story describing all the ways there are to be gay, and put gay people, LGBTQ+ people, where they can be found. EVERYWHERE!
Because we have entered troubled waters, it's up to each of us to preserve our history as told in stories at gay literary sites.
Happy Anniversary to Me!
Peace & Love,
Rick Beck
A Civil Discord
Rick speaks his mind about violence, guns, shootings and more. When is someone going to stop the madness?
The Complete Works of Author Rick Beck
Proudly presented on The Tarheel Writer with the express permission of my friend Rick
Presented with recent works first by category, so check back often!
Spotlight
Rick's latest work
"A Skater's Mind"
by Rick Beck
11/? Chapters posted (44,745 words)
Yes, this is a work in progress
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Our main character Zane, who prefers to go by Z, moves from Massachuttes to California his senior year in high school. He leaves what is known for the unknown, but he gains an opportunity. Z can finally be himself in the laid back, accepting world of California. He loses his love, Free, to the Navy, but finds a new friend in Skip, who introduces Z to surfing. Skip is a great friend, who gives Z the what not, but says he's in love with another boy. So Z goes on a seach for love.
"An Oyster Man"
A Joe Buck Tale
by Rick Beck
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Joe Buck makes a run from California and Florida, back to familiar stomping grounds when Joe was a youngster. Along the road near where Joe spent summers at his grandparent's home, Joe comes across an roadside oyster stand and get's more than lunch. Enjoy!
"Ryan Wayne White"
American Hero
by Rick Beck
Ryan Wayne White (6 December 1971 - 8 April 1990 - 18 years old) was an American teenager from Kokomo, Indiana, who became a national poster child for HIV/AIDS in the United States after his school barred him from attending classes following a diagnosis of AIDS.
"A New Home For Sampson"
A complete Christmas story in one chapter (3,648 words)
I see myself in so many of your stories, and not being out, it has helped me get through. My daughter has come out to me as lesbian. She reads and enjoys your stories too, and we talk about them, your realistic characters and real plots that aren't just a way to write about sex. My daughter is about halfway thru Bonner, and came to hug me 3 times so far with tears in her eyes. I have just finished binge reading all your stories on Tarheel and enjoyed them immensely. Your stories echo my thoughts on the way "gay" works, in real life. I went to an ATOS convention in New York in June of 1969. One week before the riots, my friends and I were "socializing" with the drag queens in the Stonewall. Sometimes life throws "interesting" tidbits your way. Thanks for your work, and please keep going.
"Ahead of His Time"
