Steve Milliken

I’m a native Southern Californian.

I dreamed of becoming an actor, comedian, and a writer. I also wanted to be a waiter so I could eat everything on the menu, so these ambitions coalesced well until I scheduled my mid-life crisis and became a high school English teacher, and then a writer….

For me, it’s an opportunity to create humor and make people laugh.

I was the class clown in high school, and I continued to be the class clown as a high school English teacher! Growing up gay as a baby boomer was traumatizing, so I made people laugh so I wouldn’t get bullied.

I began writing humorous essays shortly before I became an English teacher. I sent emails to a group of high school friends after our 30-year reunion. They were so much fun (and funny) that friends told me I should save them and turn them into a book of humorous essays. One friend told me I wrote just like David Sedaris, and I had no idea who he was! I began reading his books and thought I could do the same thing. However, since being a high school English teacher was so work intensive, I only wrote a couple essays per year, but once I retired, I realized it was time to get it together and so I did…. So basically, my book took 20 years to write!

When I get an idea for an essay, it’s usually something I’ve told as a funny story to friends. I eventually write a rough draft, always aware that writing is rewriting. Depending on the event I’m recounting, it can take days or even weeks to finish an essay. Even then, I’ve gone back over the years and revised my essays. I’ve participated in a few writer’s workshops which were incredibly motivating since many involved on-demand writing. I’m fortunate to have a mentor, and she gives me constructive feedback. One of the most important things she’s taught me is to remember “advancement, momentum, and headway” as hallmarks of good writing. Writer’s block is a tough one. Writers can think of anything to do but write. Considering I’m a slob, I’ll sometimes spend hours in the kitchen or doing projects around the house that don’t really need to be done. But eventually I’ll get to the computer…. Now that I’m retired, I haven’t got that many excuses, but I nevertheless seem to find them….

I don’t incorporate much research as all my humorous essays are from real experiences. I’ve had to do quite a bit of soul searching since I’m usually the only source of my subject material. Since I’ve finished my book, I watched many YouTube tutorials about book formatting and now book promotion, so I’m still learning in that regard. The learning curve for book promotion is steep for Steve!

My book title has a subtitle which is equally important: (a collection of humorous essays about being gay and finally finding my way). One thing I’ve learned is that when a reader sees your book cover, they must know instantly what your book is about. Late Bloomer Baby Boomer doesn’t really indicate what the book is fully about, hence I added the subtitle. Not all my essays made the cut for my final manuscript, but most did. I needed to find my writer’s voice and after hiring a book editor who didn’t really get me and tried to steer me in the wrong direction, I wrote many pages about how he was wrong, and in the process of telling him who I wasn’t, I discovered more clearly who I am! I never sent the email to him; and even though I paid him a few hundred dollars, it was an invaluable experience considering what I learned about myself and my writer’s voice. I finally found a terrific book editor whom I used to perform with; but even then, I was still evolving as a writer. I saw a YouTube tutorial stating that a writer needs to reread his manuscript several times before uploading it to KDP. I thought I’d just be looking for typos, but I wound up rewriting almost every essay. One essay took me two weeks to rewrite! In the process, I learned how to be my own book editor, or so my wallet tells me….

I’ve gotten numerous responses. Some say it helps to bridge the generation gap between the younger gay generation and the older gay community, it inspires people to celebrate life’s second chances, and it can encourage readers to continue their own paths to figure out who they are. In addition, people tell me that they laugh out loud sometimes while reading the book. Joan Rivers once said that making someone laugh is like giving them a mini vacation. I’m passionate about making people laugh, so this is the response I enjoy the most. The original title for my book was Learning with Laughter. It seems to be my credo….

Amongst other issues, writing about my coming out process has surprisingly been quite a challenge. The coming out process never really ends for gay men, but we keep chipping away for greater self-acceptance. I continue to grow and make mistakes, so the process of writing enables me to keep growing even though I remain a kid at heart.

I tend to do this naturally. I seem to find humor where others don’t. I once took an acting class 40 years ago and performed a serious dramatic scene. The teacher said she’d seen the scene performed dozens of times, but she had never seen the humor in it before my performance of it. While comedy is instinctual, it usually stems from an emotional void in childhood. You can’t learn how to be funny, but if you’ve got it, you can develop it like going to the gym, but in this case it’s more like a psychological jokey gym. When I was a teacher, I always felt a unique bond with the class clowns in my class and encouraged them to develop their own unique sense of humor, motivating them with insightful, academic approaches to wit, and imaginative techniques about how they could become even funnier, despite how adversely this could affect my ability to teach. I’m a giver….

As I stated before, advancement, momentum, and headway are crucial to the writing process. I love figurative language, especially alliteration, and will use it excessively such that I need to revise my writing to make it flow better. Sometimes it’s like killing your offspring, but it’s a necessary evil. But this only comes about with the rewriting process. On a first draft one needs to write “without the judge” so you can get all your ideas on the page without limiting your vision. I always told my students that writing is rewriting but in the initial stages organize your thoughts and be sure to get all your ideas on the page first. Sometimes events and moments are extremely funny to me, but if they’re not universal, they need to be discarded; unless I can figure out how to make it universal. Sometimes there is, but it’s not always evident at first. It’s always good to ask advice from friends and colleagues, and hire a book editor. A writer often loses objectivity because we get so close to the material. Sometimes we can regain this objectivity by talking about it and bouncing ideas off others. Often we are actually talking to ourselves, which is essential as well.

Don’t take 20 years to write it like me! I mostly give advice on being funny, but it’s important to jot down ideas when you get them, otherwise you’ll forget them no matter how funny or memorable you think they are. Nowadays with cellphone notes app, I’m constantly making audio messages of all my thoughts and ideas because I know if I don’t, I’ll forget most of them. When I get enough ideas and ways to embellish a story, it’s time to organize them and get them on the page. Of course, it’s also advantageous to have lived a certain amount of time to have a worthwhile life to write about, so I’d also recommend becoming a senior citizen….

It’s important to be disciplined and to have something you feel passionate about that you want to share. Goals are great to keep one motivated, and even if you don’t achieve them fully, at least you’ve made some progress and that counts as well. A sense of accomplishment is highly motivational. It’s part of learning how to be your own best friend. Performing generates instant gratification, but with writing you need to put in the hard yards for delayed gratification. It helps if you’re passionate about your subject as well.

Right now, I’m mostly focused on book promotion, booking public readings, and navigating social media better. In addition to writing a press release, I’m going to be creating single images of my new book cover alongside selected quotes as well as scripting short reels where I find a stand alone quote from my book that’s laugh worthy to promote my book as a “coming attraction.” These are clearly a different genres of writing and what a writer needs to do once his book is published. It’s like learning a foreign language, and so far, I’m not very bilingual, but I’m becoming more bi-genre….

To be honest, I’m still trying to figure out how to navigate the promotional and networking opportunities within AllAuthor. I’m stretched in so many directions trying to reread my book to find independent quotes to include in Canva images to use for social media, researching online publications for book promotion opportunities, and navigating social media which are all efforts to transition from an unknown to a known author. It helps that I know I’ve written a great book that’s loaded with laughs. I’ve used the weekly downloadable images your site sends me to download, but I need to become more focused and utilize all that your site has to offer. I’m not good at navigating Twitter, so it’d be great if you could provide the same service for Instagram. Since I need to become more aware of all that your site has to offer, I think I’ll make it a goal! Thank you for providing this platform for authors.