I don't know about you but 2024 has already been crazy busy for me. If you're a Gay man who has been struggling to find love in your own busy life, I have a Valentine's Day present for you. Personally, I can't believe we're only seven weeks into the year! In that time, I think I've done more than I did during all of Covid.
I hosted a Midwinter/New Year's Eve party for all of the students whom I have mentored in Uncrossing Your Roads since I launched the course. That party was amazing! All the students flew in from various parts of the world just after their family holiday celebrations and spent the New Year with me and the local witches here, in North Carolina. Then, after they left, I immediately got to work on forming a publishing company called Riverboat Publishing in order to publish my next book, which just came out this week (right in time for Valentine's Day).
That's actually what this blog post is all about. The book is called Gay Love Spells, and it's available on Amazon in both ebook and paperback formats.
Now, instead of just announcing the book's release, let me do what I'm best at and tell you a story. This story is about how the book came to be, so get a cup of coffee or tea, cozy up, and let's have a bit of a chat.
After my Midwinter/New Year's Eve party, I really thought about the need for this book. While we all had a great time celebrating the season with each other, one topic kept coming up over and over again. That topic was love.
Love seems to be ever-present on the minds of Gay men around the holiday season, and our own celebrations were no exception. Nearly 70% of my students who attended this year's celebrations were dealing with issues surrounding love in one way or another. In fact, this has been a topic of discussion among many of the students over the years.
So when they left to return home after the New Year, I thought to myself, "Self, this is a huge problem. Wouldn't it be great if I could get a love spell book out before Valentine's Day and help Gay men navigate this differently?" So, that's exactly what I did.
I cleared my schedule of everything except for continuing to teach the guys and going to the gym, of course. (I'm still training for a bodybuilding competition.) Then I set out to solve the problem.
It has always upset me that it is so difficult for a disproportionately large number of Gay men to maintain lasting loving relationships. (Hookups are easy. Sex is always available, but to establish lasting relationships seems a bit like attempting to boil the ocean.) However, if it were as simple as just cast a love spell, this wouldn't be as big a problem for Gay male witches as it is for "the muggles." (Forgive the Harry Potter reference there.) I needed a different approach.
Never one to be daunted by a seemingly-insurmountable problem, I decided to come up with an answer about why Gay men struggled so much. The first couple days were hard. I got almost nothing accomplished on this task, which was great for my workouts, but it was extremely frustrating for me as a writer.
Maybe it was my daily meditations. Maybe it was the work that I'm currently doing with my ancestors. I don't know, but somewhere early in January, something changed. I had an ah-ha moment. (To be continued …)
