—it’s probably quite a shock to hear one of the story’s main “characters” (not the one doing time for killing a drug dealer) is not only alive and well, but enjoying a successful career as a writer to boot.

Former “Club Kid” James St. James’ first foray into the literary world came with 1999’s Disco Bloodbath—his account of the events that lead up to friend and fellow club denizen Michael Alig’s murder of drug dealer Angel Melendez.

Fans of the witty prose St. James displayed in Disco Bloodbath should be happy to hear his second outing as an author, Freak Show, will be hitting bookshelves around the country in a matter of weeks (May 17, to be exact).

Although St. James once again called on past experiences to pen this tale of an out-of-his-element gay youth, the resulting read is a lot lighter than what was found within the pages of Disco Bloodbath.

St. James recently offered up a few minutes of his time to talk about his new novel, his writing process and his feelings about being called a “club kid” after all these years.

Bryan Ochalla: Freak Show is heading to the stores as we speak. I’m guessing you’re spending a lot of time promoting it?

James St. James: Well, unless you’re Mary Higgins Clark or Jackie Collins or Robert Ludlum, no one pays for book signings anymore. So I’m just going to go out and be like Jacqueline Susann and drive cross-country and sell it myself.

What I’m trying to do is book Party Monster events at clubs around the country so I can schedule book signings at the same time. It’s a good thing the kids love Party Monster as much as they do—it’s something I can always fall back on.

BO: Is it weird having that “Club Kid” moniker hanging over your head all the time?

JSJ: I’m 40 years old and I really don’t want to be a club kid anymore. I don’t want people to call me a club kid either. I’m old, I’m an old man. It’s like the Backstreet Boys—I’m sure none of them like being called “boys” anymore. There comes a time where you just want to break away from the “kid” thing. Of course, if I can use it to get around the country and promote my book, I will.

BO: Going back to that period in your life—what caused you to write Disco Bloodbath in the first place? Had you written before?

JSJ: Ten years before Disco Bloodbath came out I wrote for every bar rag and ‘zine that I could. Most of the time I wrote for free—a lot of little columns. So by the time everything happened and I was approached to write the book, I had already developed a voice and a style. It wasn’t like that was the first time I had sat down to write something. The movie portrays me like I couldn’t write a sentence. But I was a writer all along—I just hadn’t been paid for it until then.

BO: How did Freak Show come about? JSJ: World of Wonder Productions approached me after they did the Party Monster documentary and said, “You have a really funny story, why don’t you write it up as a book and we’ll help you get an agent and a deal together.” They helped me get the deal for (Disco Bloodbath) with Simon & Schuster.

After that, I started working on their blog, The WOW Report , and Mark McVeigh (a senior editor with Dutton Children's Books) called me out of the blue and said I had a voice that might appeal to teenagers. He wanted me to try writing fiction, so I wrote Freak Show.

Most of it is my experience—I had a boyfriend on the DL when I was in high school. And the start of the book is my first day of high school: I walked in and thought I was Rosalind Russell—“Isn’t this fabulous darling?”—and everyone’s mouths just dropped open. From that moment on I was the least popular person in school.

I used those kinds of experiences to start things off and then just kind of wove the rest of it in.

BO: What were you trying to do with the book? Were you trying to teach serious life lessons or did you intend for it to be mostly humorous?

JSJ: After Party Monster came out on DVD, I started getting tons of letters from gay teens. I’ve always been a bit horrified of them—I didn’t write Disco Bloodbath for teens, I wrote it for the catty queens in New York who I was trying to explain the story to. It never dawned on me that teens would read it. So I was a little horrified that they were reading it and not getting the right message. A lot of the ones who write me idolize Michael Alig and seem to think being a drug addict is fabulous.

I didn’t write the book to glorify murder and drugs, so I thought this book would be a chance to write something for the kids that was in the same spirit as Disco Bloodbath—about being yourself, being an individual—but didn’t glorify the bad stuff. I wanted to show people you can be a drag queen and not be a drug mess.

BO: The book is hilarious. Did you enjoy writing it?

JSJ: Enjoy writing? No writer enjoys writing! I’m like Fran Leibowitz—I’ll write a sentence and then take a two-week vacation because I’m so proud of myself. I have to reward myself for every word. After every paragraph I say, “Oh, now I can go buy some cupcakes” or something like that.

I pretty much have to be dragged kicking and screaming over to my computer. I’m not somebody who enjoys writing. It’s something apparently I can do, and I’m being paid to do, and so I have to do, but actually sitting down and doing it is horrible. Blech.

BO: So I’m guessing it took you a long time to write the book.

JSJ: Years! Really, it was a long process. I finished it, but then we decided to chuck the entire last third. I took it in a really different direction and I had the character running away from home and living on the streets as a drag prostitute and then getting raped by a bunch of bums and dying. The publishers wouldn’t let me do that. It started out as a fun little book and then I made it horrible. So we chucked the last third of the book and I had to try again. That added an extra six months on to the process, because I had to sit around for a few months asking myself, “What the hell am I going to do now?” Once I finally started writing again, though, I was very quick about it.

BO: Does all this mean you won’t be putting out another book anytime soon?

JSJ: You have to let the well fill up, because once you throw everything and the kitchen sink into a book, you don’t have anything else to say for awhile. Having said that, I’m supposed to be working on another teen book right now. I was supposed to have the first 100 pages done last month, but I didn’t do it. It was going to be about gay teenage zombies, but now I’m thinking of changing the zombies to werewolves. I’m all over the map on this one. Instead of writing, I’m shopping and going out a lot. I’m sort of in celebration mode right now. And once Freak Show actually comes out, I’ll be traveling around to promote it, so I won’t be writing then either. I guess it’ll probably be September before I actually start writing again.

For more on James St. James, check out his MySpace page at www.myspace.com/totally_james_st_james.

  Until next time!