A warm welcome to author Elliot Joyce joining us today to talk about new release “In The Desert”.
Welcome Elliot 🙂
Hello, I’m Elliot Joyce the author of the upcoming novella, In The Desert. The story features one of the hardest characters I’ve ever had to write, Felipe Nieves, who is a Mexican-American Catholic who loyally goes to Boy Scouts every week and crosses himself when he enters his Abuela’s kitchen because of the cross hanging above the doorway.
Felipe is not what one might think of as a traditional mlm romance protagonist. He is comfortable in his sexuality — straight — and he is part of two historically homophobic organizations. But there are queer Boy Scouts and queer Catholics and people who are a queer Boy Scout and Catholic. And that’s who Felipe is, even if it takes him time to realize that.
It was important to me not to make the story about homophobia or transphobia, so I wanted to set up a situation in which Felipe can be all of those things mentioned above but still have a happy ending with Wren, his love interest. But part of writing a believable happy ending is making sure that the audience cares about the characters too.
Like most characters, at first Felipe was very one-dimensional. He liked video games and other nerdy things, he joked around with his friends, and he did his homework and that was about it. And at a surface level, that’s still who Felipe is. He plays a lot of video games, he reads a lot of books, and he spends time at the mall with his two closest friends. In the name of avoiding spoilers, I won’t tell you too much about his emotional journey, but his development led me to write perhaps the most emotional scene that I’ve created so far.
But I didn’t come entirely empty handed. Here’s a short excerpt about Felipe, so that you can get to know him as well as I do. Cheers, and thanks for reading!
Felipe drove himself home and carefully pulled up in the driveway, cutting the engine before it could wake up half the block with all its sputtering and choking. He kept quiet as he walked inside, noticing Abuela was already asleep if the lack of lights was anything to go by.
It wasn’t surprising. The meeting had turned into a s’mores fest, with Kyle refusing to eat anything with a single molecule of sugar while the rest of the troop chowed down. Wren and Chris had to leave relatively early since their dad didn’t want to drive so late, but Felipe had somehow managed to instill the better qualities of burned marshmallows onto Wren, so it wasn’t a loss.
The sugar was keeping him awake, though, and Felipe knew he wasn’t going to sleep anytime soon. Still, high energy or not, it was simple enough to sneak into the house using his phone light to navigate the piles of magazines Abuela kept.
I should tell Raquel. She can convince Abuela to get rid of some. Felipe froze, hearing something from the other room. He scoffed when Bribón slinked in, blinked at him, and then kept walking, having apparently decided that this human wasn’t worth her time.
Stupid cat. He loved Bribón, fur clumps and hair balls and all.
The kitchen was just past the maze of Abuela’s things, and he paused at the archway. An old wooden cross hung there, one that Abuela swore her abuela had been given when she was married. Felipe’s mother was supposed to have it, but according to Raquel, Abuela had demanded it back when the kids had all been legally put under her care.
Sometimes Felipe felt sad that things had ended up the way they had, but other times he remembered how close he and his siblings were and knew in his heart that they wouldn’t have been if they had stayed with Mama and Papa. Besides, Abuela was the best person he had ever met, and he couldn’t conceive of a nicer person raising him. Still, he tried not to think about it.
Crossing himself, Felipe passed into the kitchen, shaking the brief melancholy off. He mentally added a Hail Mary for gluttony as he went to the fridge. After a moment’s hesitation, he grabbed a Fanta and a few cheese sticks before heading to his room.
To his utter unsurprise, the precarious piles of papers that he’d left on his desk had fallen over, no doubt influenced by Bribón’s meanderings. A few dozen worksheets and bits of homework now covered his floor, lying on top of the layer of dirty clothes that had begun accumulating. Felipe sighed and put the Fanta on his calc book. It was unlikely to get toppled over on the sturdier surface, and Felipe knew, from experience, that it was a pain in the ass to clean soda up from his floor.
Lots and lots of experience.
During the process of picking up his English, history, chem, and Spanish homework, Felipe also found three dollars and a Peoria Library copy of The Golden Compass that was probably way overdue. He put the book with his other, less overdue library books, pocketed the cash, and sat down at his desk.
He took a sip of his Fanta and stared at his homework, trying to decide what to do first. Thinking that the easiest would be the best, he pulled his Spanish assignment over and began looking at it. Considering he grew up speaking Spanish, he probably shouldn’t have even been required to take the damn class, but Felipe guessed he couldn’t complain too much about an easy A.
His phone buzzed about five minutes later, and he sighed. I should ignore it, but he reached out and unlocked it.
About In The Desert
Can a Navajo trans teen and a nerdy Catholic find the place they belong… and maybe themselves? In the desert, anything is possible….
When Wren came out as transgender before his senior year, it cost him most of his friends. His father hopes joining a Boy Scout troop might help Wren meet other young men his age and be accepted for who he is.
Felipe Nieves wants the new guy in the troop to feel comfortable, and he reaches out to Wren. They become fast friends… with something more beneath the surface. Those feelings confuse Felipe, since his religion considers this a sin—and he’s always assumed he was straight—but he can’t help pining for Wren. Asking him out will take courage, and getting together won’t be easy… but through their friendship, both young men might find their identities… and learn to embrace them in a unique coming-of-age story set against the beauty of the American Southwest.
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Elliot Joyce is a social-media obsessed, selfie-taking millennial and he’s proud of it. He can usually be found in his room playing D&D or in a theater lurking on the catwalks. Sometimes he even writes.
Other notable facts include the fact that he’s bisexual, he cannot juggle, and he regularly trips over thin air. Catch him on tumblr or really any social media, he spends enough time on it.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/eleldelmots
Tumblr: http://theonewiththewords.tumblr.com
