Mel Keegan Speaks!

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Mel Keegan Speaks!
Interviewer:	Leslie Peterson
Interviewee:	Mel Keegan
Date(s):	conducted November 2002, posted online December 2002, has an August 2003 addendum, a December 2003 addendum, and a January 2004 addendum
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	original m/m fic, but also related to The Professionals
External Links:	Mel Keegan Speaks!
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Mel Keegan Speaks! is a 2002 interview with m/m pro writer Mel Keegan.

Intro

"Mel Keegan has been called 'mysterious' and 'enigmatic,' and it is unusual for an interview offer to be accepted! Leslie Peterson put a few well more often-asked questions to Mel, and in the the following pages, Keegan answers all."

Excerpts

November 2004

Some topics are Keegan's start at Gay Men's Press, some subtle nods to Keegan's fanfiction past, Keegan's fan casted art by Jade who is the same person as Keegan, Keegan's speedy writing, nods to several pro books that started as fanfiction (something that Keegan does not mention, referring it as residing in her desk drawers), and Keegan's excitement over the heady visibility and riches that self-publishing on the internet can bring.

How long have you been writing gay fiction?

For about twenty years, but the first letter I wrote to GMP was dated 1989. A genuine gentleman called Richard Dipple, then the editor in chief at GMP, gave me my first opportunity to see my gay ficton [sic] go to press. He passed away some years ago and is still missed.

How many gay novels have you written?

Twenty-six, including works in progress, but less than half have been printed. The truth is, I write faster than most publishers can publish. When GMP was bought by Prowler, then Prowler was in turn absorbed by Millivres, we went through a few years with a rather sluggish publishing schedule. The result is, I have several novels backlogged. The Internet, and DreamCraft's ability to do short print runs, offer a golden opportunity to catch up fast.

[...]

Your novels aren't as raunchy as they used to be...?

The simple answer is, I didn't want to repeat myself! There's only so many ways to write juicy bits, and I'm out of ways to phrase most of them. Then there's the complex reason: a number of potential readers can be offended by too much explicitness. As a reader I have no problem with hot fiction, but as a writer I admit, I do have reservations. My novels take MONTHS to craft. They're meticuloulsy [sic] researched and they're developed over several drafts to get to the version you see between covers. I'm genuinely reluctant to be categorized simply as adult literature; seeing that label, some readers won't even open the book ... but it's dimensions more difficult to craft the stuff I do than it is to write purely adult escapism. Something in the equation doesn't work out well for me there. I'll always keep the sensual side of the relationships in the books, because for me it's most often the relationships that make the story go. Many (most? All?) of my plots won't work if you take out the passion factor! I do a lot of thrillers, or if not thrillers, then stories where characters are asked to risk their all, life and limb, for a partner. You'd only do that for your nearest and dearest. But having said that, I do want to open the door to a wider readership ... *IF* I can manage that without disappointing the readers who've been with me all along. If the door doesn't open, I'm also very happy to settle down and "return to source," repeating what worked in years gone by.

[...]

You've been called the most annoyingly unprolific writer!

That's actually the reverse of the truth: "the most annoyingly UNPUBLISHED writer" would be closer to the mark. When you have a publisher who can only do a book a year, or one book in two years, you're pretty much stuck. You're also locked into your contract ... there's a clause in almost all publisher "boiler plate" contracts that says, in no uncertain terms, they have to have right of first refusal on your next book, or even two books. Publishers are not very negotiable on this question, and it means you're just about locked in to staying with the same publisher, no matter how slowly they crank out the books — until or unless something extraordinary happens to give you a bit more freedom.

[snipped]

To return to topic...!

The difficulties in nailing down book contracts made me probably the most prolific and least published gay-novel author working at this time. My new one for GMP is entitled NOCTURNE, and will be produced about 14 years after ICE WIND AND FIRE came out. It's only the ninth book in all those years, with a gap of four years since AQUAMARINE. The hiatus must have made many readers figure Keegan had given it up and drives a bus these days. Not true. In fact, I have about 12 books backlogged ... and DreamCraft are looking at them all, with a view to bringing them out back-to-back with the HELLGATE series, and in addition to the old titles which, when they fall out of print with GMP/Millivres, may not see light of day again (more about that later).

So how many books can we look forward to in the short term?

Depends what you mean by short term! In the next year, I'd like to see HELLGATE #3 ready to ship by Christmas 2003, and EQUINOX back in print. DreamCraft will have no problem with this, in principle. Then the unforseeable will crop up, Murphy's Law will slam into effect and slow everything up ... but you *can* look forward to seven HELLGATE books, plus EQUINOX and a third NARC book, plus two historicals and perhaps a fantasy, in about the next 3 years. I'm playing catch-up, having fun excavating through the desk drawers where most of my work of the last decade lives.

[...]

Against all of that, you've got the Internet. Just the other day I read of a woman who wrote a real-life experience diet book, took out a hotmail account and sold 1,000 copies of her book on the day of release. She'd probably been interviewed in local papers when the book went to press and the magic of the Internet did the rest. The hardest part about marketing on the Web is getting people onto the the site. If ten people find the site, one will buy a book, so you need 10,000 visitors to find 1,000 readers. DreamCraft is about to launch into a major ad-campaign for this site ... we're about to put the whole concept to the test. What happens in the next half year will, to a very great extent, decide what happens in the next decade. If DreamCraft encounters the reader-support we're all hoping to see, there's no reason why any of the books should be out of print, and no reason why new ones shouldn't be issued at regular intervals.

[...]

Did you ever think of writing, say, a 'simple' romance story?

Every novel I've done has a romance at its core, and I like to think that if you strip the rest of the story away, the bare romance will still stand up well. The difficulty is, if you strip away the rest of the story, the romance is quite short, certainly not novel-length. Now, I'd have to go back in and expand the whole thing back up again ... and not do it with action, thriller, mystery or adventure. It'd be an interesting project! But I think there are writers who would make a much better job of this than me. 'Horses for courses,' as they say. I think I know what I do well, and I'd like to stick with what I do best, at least for the time being, when there are so many books left in the desk drawer!

[...]

"Here's the painting, kids." -- art by Jade

Yes, I like these characters a lot. The faces put to them, by Jade also help to bring them alive. I was finally pinned down and had to think what they look like! I nominated three cricketers, a footballer, two 1960s-era actors and a model out of one of the old Vulcan heating systems commercials! I was, frankly, skeptical about what in the world Jade could do with that motley crew ... and they wouldn't let me see the painting till at least all the cover elements were done, pending composition. I was stunned. To put it mildly.

Here's the painting, kids. You see if you can pick the sportsmen and actors. You'll be forgiven for not being able to pick the Vulcan commercial model ... it was 1972, and the commercial only appeared in Australian magazines. The fact is, you can't pick any one face any longer, and the end result is amazing. These faces <nowiki>*are*</nowiki</> Bill Ryan and Jim Hale, at least in my mind.

[...]

Tell us about the character faces on the new Hellgate book... They look familiar! (in another version of this interview, the question is "Tell us about the Travers and Marin faces on the new book!")

cover of the original "Hellgate" -- comments about the fan casting from the artist, Jade (Jade, Mel Keegan, and Jane of Australia are all the same people): "In conference with Mel, I went through a ream of sketches. A soccer player, two actors , and a rock singer all contributed to Jarrat's 'real' face ... and it took three actors and a rugby player to get Stoney down! Then the fun began." -- comments by Jade at MEL KEEGAN TALKS ABOUT DEATH'S HEAD

art from Empire Star #5 (1982) by Mel, writing as J.J. Adamson: it portrays Kevin Keegan (professional football player), Han Solo (professional scoundrel) and Luke Skywalker (farmboy and future Jedi) on the playing field; Kevin Keegan may have been the inspiration for one of of Jane's many pseuds, Kathy Keegan. Kevin Keegan (the football player, not Mel Keegan!) in this illo also looks a lot like Ray Doyle, though that might just be the hair talking.

They should! They're 'icon' characters which have been a staple of Television for decades. Gay adventures with a romance at the core have a great deal in common with the 'buddy shows' which have been so popular over the years. When TV producers are casting the parts for the characters, it's a 'given' that the characters (and by extension, the actors), must look in all ways different. From the mid-60s right through till the end of the buddy-show era, the favorite match was a taller, more robust guy and a slender, smaller one, and in virtually every instance, there was one dark and one fair, and almost always one with curly hair, one with straight ... is anyone old enough to recall Alias Smith & Jones, CHiPs, Starsky & Hutch, The Professionals, Battlestar Galactica, Blake's 7? Even as late as The Sentinel and Highlander the casting agencies were still following the tried-and-proven pattern. The fact is, it's also easier for the writer to nail down the characters if they look distinctly different.

When we're trying to plan the covers, I tell the artist what or who I think the characters look like, often naming a half dozen different faces ... cricketers, rugby players, actors, models. Then it's over to Jade, and the magic mouse-pen. The paintings take a long time and the faces are combined to achieve a final composite, and here's where it gets clever:

Three readers could look at the same character and recognize three different 'sources' for the face. The end result is familiarity, which is what we're looking for!

The faces on the cover of DEEP SKY are composited from four different sources ... I'll leave it to you, right here, to see who reminds you of whom!

May 2004 Addition

Keegan brings up some fanfic that has been repurposed: The White Rose of Night was originally a slash AU UFO novel written under one of her pseuds: Felicity Granger, and The Swordsman using another pseud.

YOU'RE A FANTASY DEVOTEE, BUT YOU'VE NOT WRITTEN FANTASY BEFORE?

On the contrary, I've written more than a dozen fantasy novels ... but GMP would never look seriously at them. My editor at the time, David Fernbach, told me he had "no affinity" for fantasy fiction, and when you're dealing with a relatively small publisher with a fiction list that's "personal," rather than a massive fiction-mill with a list that's purely commercial, intended to rake in dollars ... well, you fall into line with what your editor likes.

I did manage to sneak some fantasy past them, though! There's a rich fantasy element in WHITE ROSE OF NIGHT, which was finally printed by GMP in 1997... And there are also threads of fantasy in DEATH'S HEAD. But a fully-fledged fantasy novel was largely impossible via GMP. They'd done one, POWER AND MAGIC, a long time ago, and it didn't do too well in sales, which probably made them guess fantasy would be a poor seller.

They might still turn out to be right! THE SWORDSMAN is an experiment ... if enough gay-fiction readers like fantasy, and buy it, naturally we'll do more fantasy. If GMP turn out to be right, and gay fantasy is not a good investment, we'll turn our attention of other fields.

Five Minutes with Mel, Subject: Hellgate

Q: Where in the world did you dream this one up, and how?

A: The original idea grew and grew. I did the first version of HELLGATE way back in something like 1988, and like a good few of my novels, it didn't start out life as a gay book. I'd had fantasies about establishing myself as a writer in the mass-market back in those days, so most of my pro writing was aimed at that area. In fact, HELLGATE and the NARC books were totally wasted as mass market novels (esp. Jarrat and Stone ... what a crass waste it would have been if the original version had gone into print). The first version of HELLGATE was substantially different, and much simpler. I don't think a writer sets out deliberately to construct something this intricate and complex: it happens in the re-re-rewriting. HELLGATE has been through about four different forms (two gay, two not), and every time it was rewritten, I'd see new avenues to explore.