I'm trying to change my life and circumstances.
I'm doing it because something has to change in my life. I can't go another year on Social Security, $800 a month to support myself and my disabled wife. I can't go another year asking our best friend and live-in the care provider - borderline disabled herself - to pool all of her money she gets for feeding, bathing, dressing and everything else she does for me just so the three of us can survive barely above the poverty line.
I'm doing it because I'm tired of having three pairs of pants and one pair of socks. I'm doing it because I'm tired of having a dishwasher that doesn't work. I'm doing it because I'm tired of owing my incredibly awesome landlord well over a year in back rent accumulated over the last four years ever since my appendix exploded and our finances went down the drain. I'm doing it because we've lived for too long in the kinds of conditions that people shouldn't be expected to live in simply because the disabled are all but invisible in society.
That last reason, by the way, is why I'm doing what I'm doing the way that I'm going to do it.
What was the last disabled character you saw on television? Better yet, were they played by a disabled person? There's a term in the disabled community called cripface, or gimpface, which refers to an able bodied person playing a disabled person in a TV show or movie.
When was the last time you read a book that had a disabled character in it? I'm not even talking a lead character, just a supporting one.
Sure, we make good soundbites, good human interest stories where everyone can smile and talk about how brave we are and what an inspiration we are before they put us on a shelf somewhere to be forgotten and go back to their daily life. We're good at making other people feel good. Most of the time, it isn't about us.
This is Ester Vasquez:
Ester hunts demons and monsters, protecting the unaware masses from the darkness that lurks in the shadows.
Ester is in a wheelchair.
This is Sammy Lutui:
Sammy is Ester's best friend and live-in care provider. A giant of a man, he's a 6'8, 350 pound Samoan.
Sammy is gay.
How many times have you read a story or seen a TV show where the two leads were a disabled woman and a gay man?
In what I'm describing as Buffy meets Ironside, that is exactly what you get. Hellwatch, my supernatural horror novella series, breaks a lot of new ground in a genre that has grown stale in recent years. But don't just take my word for it:
“Urban fantasy has been somewhat overrun lately with vampires, werewolves and the various men and women who love them. It’s hard to find a new angle on what seems to be a now-familiar subject and even harder to make that angle fresh and interesting. Larime Taylor succeeds at both with his new serialized book, Hellwatch.”
-Corrina Lawson, Wired.com’s Geek Dad blog
I only have two talents, two real skills in this world, my words and my art. I can't flip burgers, I can't change a tire or fix an engine, I can't build a house or even run a cash register. I can string words together in creative ways that tell stories, and I can illustrate them. That's all I've got.
So as many of you know, I've decided to write a story about a character I can relate to. It's the kind of thing that Stephen King, Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman or any of a number of other horror and fantasy writers might write, and could certainly write better, but not from the perspective that I'm going to. They don't know what it's like to be in a wheelchair, they don't know what it's like to struggle to do the basic things that everyone else takes for granted. They can tell wonderful stories of angels and demons, magic and monsters, fear and redemption, but they don't know or understand the world that I live in and the way that I see it. My disabled protagonist is going to do the same things that every protagonist does: she's going to struggle, she's going to fight, she's going to love, she's going to hurt, she's going to lose, and she's going to persevere despite it all.
So I'm going to use the two things I have, my words and my art, and I'm going to do something you rarely see in fiction or popular culture. I'm going to tell the same kind of story that any other writer might, but I'm going to tell it in the way that only I can. I'm not going to do it to get rich, or to be famous, or to create some kind of role model or icon for disabled people to look up to.
I'm going to do it because it's all I've got, and nobody else can.
I'm going to do it so that maybe a reader somewhere will treat the disabled person in their life a little bit different, see them as more of an equal.
I'm going to do it so that maybe other disabled people will do it, too, and disabled characters won't be such a rare creature in popular culture.
I'm going to do it because I don't know what else to do and I can't continue to live like I have for the last 10 years. Something has to change. Something has to give. The walls have to come down, even if it means I run over them with my wheelchair head first.
I'm not going to change the world, just mine.
But I need your help.
My project over on Kickstarter only has three more days to reach its goal, and this is where you come in. I need backers to help me make this happen. If I'm going to go forward with this series, I'm going to need a new computer (mine is literally about to die), the proper software to format high quality, professional looking ebooks, something to pay my editor, and preferably something to get help from a publicist. I'm almost halfway to the goal, but time is running out.
I humbly ask for your assistance in making my new career get off to a successful start, and for making the possibility of a book series where a disabled woman and a gay man can be the heroes of the day into a reality.
You can download the first episode for free at the links below. Thank you very much, and I appreciate your time and consideration.
PDF version
EPUB version
MOBI version
4:11 PM PT: Please note: This is a relaunch of the original Kickstart - if you pledged before, it failed, and you'll need to pledge again!
4:37 PM PT: If everyone who pledged originally repeats their pledge this time, I'll make my funding goal. Unfortunately I'm missing a number of my initial backers this time around. If you're out there, please repledge!