Marc woke suddenly. It was now a normal occurrence for his eyes to flash open three or four times a night, his body shaking, his mind crawling with the images of the nightmares that wouldn’t leave him alone – even after sunrise. Rolling out of bed, Marc kicked the sheets away from his feet and scratched the tangles in his hair. He needed a haircut.

Shaking hands brought a cigarette to his mouth, but where the tobacco was usually comforting tonight it only added to his tremors. The nicotine was bitter in his mouth and he was in the bathroom puking up what little he’d eaten in the last few days before he even registered his knees on the cold tile. He tossed the cigarette into the bowl and flushed before leaning back against the wall and catching his breath.

Nothing made sense anymore.

Not even his once comforting, drug induced dreams. Once full of inspiration and expectation they were nightmarish – Leslie floating before him, hanging from a noose of her own making, their child in her arms. He reached and reached, running toward her, but always she was beyond his grasp. Always, the baby was kept from him. His father mocked him. His band fell apart. Jared turned away.

Groaning, Marc pulled himself to his unsteady feet. Holding onto the wall, he tottered into the dark living room and collapsed onto the couch. The remote was in reach and he turned on the television and nearly puked at the sudden blue light that invaded the room. When his eyes adjusted, he started flipping stations.

An infomercial.

A late night preacher who sounded remarkably like his father. “Give up your demons. God is waiting. Accept Jesus Christ into your heart and he will save you.”

“Send me a check that’s worth your life savings and I’ll make a point to belittle my gay kid and remind the world that he’s the reason AIDS is rampaging the country.” Marc answered back to the slick minister.

But he watched. He watched the faces of the enthralled. There had been a time when he felt like that, when he hit his knees and knew that God listened to his prayers. When he’d held Jared’s hand and kissed him good-bye and believed that Saint Peter would be welcoming him at the gates of heaven. A time when he truly believed that Christ had died for his sins. Now he didn’t know what to believe. Prayer didn’t work. He closed his eyes to only find terror or, worse, the dark void of silence. Hell itself. Separation from God. His rosary was cold and lifeless in his hands. The crucifix on the wall was a symbol of horror and death instead of the reminder of the sacrifice Christ had paid.

He couldn’t take it anymore.

He flipped.

A rerun of a news program. Yet another debate about homosexuality and AIDS and parental rights. And eyes that he’d inherited staring at him from the television. His father’s millionth interview about religion and good upbringing and how Leslie was being taken advantage of by a media Marc knew she was using and wrangling just like she did everything else in her life. He couldn’t take closing his eyes and seeing Jared gazing back at him. He couldn’t take the questions and the comments and report after report about his drug use.
He couldn’t take the protestors he knew would be outside the stage door at the show later tonight.

As he heard his father launch into the now familiar tirade about how worried he was about the souls of the young fans of Time Machine, Marc turned off the television and again the room was bathed only in the green glow of the numbers from the clock on the table. 4:15 am. Testing his strength, Marc rose again. This time his stomach had settled – the nightmare now replaced by the truth of his daily life. He needed to get out. He needed to run. To fly. To do anything but sit in the stench of the apartment. A quick change into clothes that didn’t smell of bile and sweat, Marc was down the steps of the apartment and onto the dim West Hollywood street. Cautious steps became a light jog. The light jog became a trot. The trot soon broke into a full-fledged run. His muscles burned from ill use. His lungs protested the sudden need for air. The nicotine dragged his system down. The lingering effects from last night’s drug-induced stupor made his vision wander and more than once he tripped over nothing. But he ran. He ran from his father’s voice and from Leslie’s using him and the child who deserved better parents than a drug dealing mother and a dead beat father. He ran from the days spent alone in his bedroom, days spent staring at the ceiling, waiting for oblivion to take him. He ran from the nights on stage, from the devoted fans and from the dogged protestors who were determined to destroy him. He ran from the lyrics that were the same night after night and the fans who didn’t care that they hadn’t written anything new since before Jared died. He ran from the memories of his own rebellion, a rebellion acted out on stage to thousands of cultish devoted who had then grown up and had children and learned the truth about war and life and the responsibilities of their own children. They wanted to bang their heads and then get up in the morning and go to work and pretend they were as appalled as their office mates at the scandal revolving around Time Machine. He ran from his own half finished lyrics, lyrics that tended toward government overthrow and the overthrow of religious fundamentalism more than they ever had in the past.

He ran from Jared’s half-formed and half-forgotten ideas, ideas that were now the basis of his own raving lunacy, a lunacy he kept hidden far away from the eyes of his band mates. He ran from sentimental dribbling that had no place in his mind. Words and chords turned angrier and angrier and angrier.

He ran until he found himself again at his door, sick with exertion. How many miles had he run? How long had he been gone? Stumbling through the front door, Marc collapsed onto the couch, gasping for breath, unable to even get up to get the water his body desperately needed. He didn’t remember closing his eyes, but when he opened them again, he felt cleaner. He’d finally come to a decision.

Where can I find Shadows in the Spotlight?

Twitter: @shadowspotlight

Livejournal: http://crossingthegate.livejournal.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shadows-in-the-Spotlight/279396118798317

Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/rqtah/what_if_youd_had_the_chance_to_pass_or_fail_harry/

Wordpress: http://vegawriters.wordpress.com/

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13511789-shadows-in-the-spotlight

G+: https://plus.google.com/u/2/114927325314335224149/posts/bVeipQcf5aQ

Archive of Our Own: http://archiveofourown.org/users/vega_voices/works?selected_tags[]=2692

Where ever you choose to hang out, Shadows is there with you and there will be more to come!

What if you’d been on the committee that made the decision to publish Harry Potter? The Hunger Games? Even Twilight? What would you have said? A resounding yes? A hearty no? What comments would you have made? What connections would you have wanted to make with the authors? What if you had been the one to help unearth a superstar?

Now, you actually have that chance. Pubslush is a new kind of publisher for the 21st century. Readers decide what books get published, and for every book sold, a book is donated to a child in need. By the people, for the people!

The process is simple. First, authors submit ten pages and a summary of their book. Then, Pubslush lets you, the reader, browse the submissions based on your preferences. You read a brief overview, and if it strikes your fancy, you click through to read a more in depth description. If you’re still interested, you read an excerpt. And if that leaves you wanting more, you support it (which is committing to preorder the book)! You don’t get charged unless the book is published, so there’s no risk. And for every book sold, Pubslush donates a book to a child in need.*

The key however, is support. Reader supporting writer and the writers cannot do it without your help. Publication doesn’t happen without preordering. Writers have 120 days to secure 1000 of those preorders and then, the publication process begins. But what’s great for you, the reader, is that if you pledge to support a book, you get the recognition of discovering something great.

So what does this have to do with me?

Well …

Inspired by the music of Queensryche, Iron Maiden, Queen, Metallica, Judas Priest, and more – Shadows in the Spotlight is the story of Marc Gadling, a young musician who is navigating the waters of the emerging metal scene in Los Angeles, the gay counter culture in the city, and the rising fears of what came to be known as HIV/AIDS. It tells the story of his family – the brother who loves him unconditionally, the lover who dies too young, the best friend who is the silent sentinel, and the young prodigy who proves that even after death, there is life.

Here’s how it works. Shadows in the Spotlight is one of the books available for preorder on pubslush.com. If you like what you read, place a preorder as a promise, a promise that you will purchase this book once it is made available to buy. The thing is, this book cannot get published without your preorder and time is running out. If you’re wondering what you’re getting, Shadows in the Spotlight has a proven track record. An excerpt was published in the 2010 QSalt Lake Literary edition and it won the Honorable Mention in the 53rd Annual Utah Arts Council Fiction Writing Competition (2011).

For the past 40 days, support has been growing. But it isn’t enough. 958 preorders are still needed in the next three months to secure publication. If you like your books peppered with heavy hitting doses of rock music, fairy tales of boys who make it big, and stories of how family is formed through passion and not blood, take note of what Shadows in the Spotlight has for you.

http://www.pubslush.com/book/view/198

*Language taken from Pubslush.com’s website.

A message from Shauna Brock (vegawriters)

So it hit me the other day, that the message isn’t getting out. So many people have come up and asked me “When is your book getting published?” When I ask them if they have pre-ordered it, they look at me blankly. So let me say this as plainly as I can: Shadows in the Spotlight CANNOT get published without your support. Here’s how it works. Shadows in the Spotlight is available for pre-order on pubslush.com. Pubslush is a social publisher that allows the reader, not the editor, to chose what is read. Authors place the book on the site, and you, the reader take a gander. If you like what you read, place a pre-order as a promise, a promise that you will purchase this book once it is made available to buy. In addition, for every book that is published, pubslush donates a book to child literacy programs around the world. Remember, this book cannot get published without your pre-order. Thank you for your kind words and your hopes for my success, but I need YOU to be an active part of that success. Thank you

http://www.pubslush.com/book/view/198

Do you ever look at your own hand so long that you start to see every pore, every skin cell even? Do you stare so long that you seem to be able to see right through your skin and you can see the blood rushing through your veins … it’s like … I can see the virus latching onto me … changing me …

The word gave it power. There is a part of me, honestly, that believes that Jared would be alive today if he’d never been diagnosed. The word gave it power, it gave his life an ending. Let’s be honest … you can have the world’s best attitude, and if you know you’re going to die, there is still this tiny part of your subconscious that eats away at you. You never know when IT is going to happen. You start to agonize, subconsciously, over what it’s going to feel like. I wonder if humans really aren’t immortal but because we named mortality, we gave that final moment a word – death – we are the cause of our own mortality. We live to die, and when you know you will die before you’re supposed to, it adds to that mindset. Eventually, that subconscious thought breaks through to the conscious level and it becomes an obsession. The word made it real. It gave them something to hate us over … words … Wouldn’t that be so ironic, if words were really the cause of human mortality? If it wasn’t the body giving out or the mind slowing down but if it was simply the power of the word? We have always been told we will get old, so we do. We’ve never questioned it.

So, if I’d never been diagnosed, would I still be dying?

We’ll never know now, will we?

But I don’t know. A dying man makes up a lot of shit in order to make himself feel better. I don’t know if I believe this or not, but I think there might be some validity to it. My doctors talk endlessly about having a “Good attitude” but they never actually give the attitude power by giving it words. Is it an attitude that will make me live? I don’t know. But, before I had to have that attitude, I was given a diagnosis. That diagnosis permeated my brain. It’s affected everything I do. I am going to live life until the very end, but that end has been proscribed by doctors who looked at blood tests and x-rays and gave what is living inside of me a deadly name. Really, if they’d called it Bob instead of AIDS, would it be totally different? How threatening is it to say, “I’ve got Bob.”

Why did those first humans name mortality then?

“Maybe fear. Something was happening to their bodies and they were scared of it so they named it in fear but maybe it was just a transformation to something else, to that mythical Nirvana that we’re still, tens of thousands of years later, in search of. But those first humans were scared, so they named it mortal and called it death.

I don’t know. It’s a theory, and probably a stupid one. But really, all we are, as humans, really, are theories. We’re six billion different theories, all operating with our own version of God and our own version of science. And before you tell me that science is the same for everyone, I’ll remind you of the idiots who think that the creation story in Genesis belongs in a biology class. Many of those idiots sit on the board of my son’s school, so I know they exist. It’s six billion different theories walking around on his planet and so far … none of us is really right.

Tino’s bar was a favorite of the underground – and of mine. When so many bar owners were segregating and not allowing for any openly gay behavior in their establishments, Tino really didn’t care. He didn’t stop fights but he didn’t do anything to start them either. He expected people to police themselves and if they were going to be blatant about who they were fucking, they had to accept the consequences. As a result, people mostly mixed and mingled, drank, bent gender, and the back room had been used by me (and many others) on multiple occasions. It was nice to just have a bar. No one cared either way. We were all there for the same reason.

( But there was more happening that night ... )

I never considered myself to be a feminist when I was growing up. To me, feminists were those women out of history. They didn't matter to me. Where were the feminists when I was going through what I was going through in school? Where were they when I told people what was going on and no one listened? That was my mindset. Feminism was a bad word. As a terrified sixteen year old kid, I didn't realize that the nurse at Planned Parenthood who helped me get the services I needed was a feminist. I didn't realize the doctor who hugged me after he was done discharging me was a feminist. I had no clue that the guy who took my hand and led me away from the world I had let myself get sucked in to was a feminist.

When I was about nineteen, I was hanging out on the crew bus during a show, and one of the women on the road crew was reading Judith Butler's Excitable Speech - A Politics of the Performative. I was this dumb 19 year old kid who had dropped out of school and when she was in school, she didn't pay much attention. But I liked to read. So, Katy let me borrow her book. I'll be honest, I didn't understand 99% of what was going on, but my world was opened. It hit me that night, on a bus somewhere between Reno and Salt Lake, what feminism really was.

In 2004, I became the very first woman signed to Skid Records. They'd had women in bands before, but never a front woman/singer songwriter type. It wasn't that they were actively discriminating, but they were in fact, ignorant. When I signed my contract, Craig (the CEO) came in to talk to me about what they'd missed. See, there weren't a lot of metal type chicks who weren't being recruited already by the other companies and they just didn't see the market in it. He apologized and asked me to help him change that. No longer dumbfounded, I told him they had made a mistake and now, we have twelve female fronted bands with the label and most of us are very successful and I am the only one who fits into the "long black hair, pale skin, metal chick" look that is so popular with the record companies right now.

But my history isn't what's important. Yes, now at 33, I know that feminism isn't about women, it's about equality. It's about destroying the gender binaries and demanding an understanding that all of us are different. It's about creating a dialog with our daughters. At 16, I was so sure my devoutly Catholic mother would kick me out rather than accept that I'd had an abortion, I ran away. If we'd found a way to communicate, I'd have known that she would have put her arms around me. No, she didn't believe me at first when I tried to tell her what was going on at school, but confronted with reality, she'd have come around. She's said that to me. Now, as a mother of a daughter myself, I can only hope that Adry and I keep the lines of communication open.

Today I did a Mom-Daughter thing at Adry's school. Yes, I am finally home from touring. I went in and stood there with the other mothers over punch and cookies. It was the usual mix and mesh. A couple of lesbian parents (this is Austin after all) and a couple of pierced dye jobs like me and of course the typical suburban moms with their sweater sets and one inch heels. In moments like that I always feel self-conscious. How is it that I am deserving of being with all these women? But to a point, we were all talking politics. Adry's in a pretty liberal public school, but you can't account for all parental politics, and yes, the subject of contraception came up. And this woman standing next to me who could have been a poster child for botox shook her head and said, "We're conservative. We're pro-life. But I'll be damned if Rick Santorum is going to tell my daughter what to do with her body." She looked at me then, eye to eye. Sweater set to faded tank top. And just nodded. She didn't say anything, but she nodded.

Most of us moms there worked and we talked to our daughters about our jobs. There were the secretaries and a couple of doctors and the athletic trainer got a lot of oohs and ahhs. I talked about being a woman in the music industry and how hard it is to be out there in the public. One of Adry's friends came up afterward and hugged me. That was when it hit me:

International Women's Day isn't about the past. It's about the future. It's about making sure our daughters have an easier road than we did. It's about knowing that Adry has the same chances to succeed not just as the boys in her class, but the other girls too. It's about knowing that my son will not only respect women, but respect himself within that respect of women.

Doing 100 in a 55 …

Those words are just sitting with me right now. Going over and over and over in my mind as I keep an eye on the kids. The baby is asleep in his little basket next to the couch, we’ve got ESPN on, the twins are playing with the Domino set Phil gave them for their birthday, and the oldest one is sitting at my feet, doing her homework.

( Where have I come from, where am I going? )

Sitting here on a tour bus in 1989, I can say with confidence that there are a lot of things I regret in my life. The eternal optimists say that regret is not worth the energy we expend on it, but that’s bullshit. We do things we regret, that is part of being human. I do not regret smoking pot or dropping out of college. I do regret my first line of coke, the first time I stuck a needle in my arm, and the many, many times I had unprotected sex in dark rooms with men whose names I never knew. At the time, I knew those actions were stupid. I knew that sharing a needle with a friend was dumb. I knew that spending good money on drugs meant I wouldn’t be eating. But I never thought the sex and drugs would kill me. I never in my life dreamed that my stupid actions would lead to my death. Like the rest of my generation, I lived in a haze of invincibility. My parents both coddled me and demanded my independence. I knew full well that I could do anything and everything and get away with it.

( And in 1980, I still believed it. )