Women: More Than a Fad

No surprise: I write female narratives.  And these days, we deem that ‘popular’ and ‘oversaturated.’  Good.  But wrong.

I grew up reading, purposefully, female centered fiction and besides being a chore to find, do you know what I saw?  Hero journeys.  The same hero journeys taken by men but rendered with a female.  A woman was simply a place holder following along a very male stereotypical journey.  There was nothing particularly ‘female’ about the journey and she was singular.  They were little variation.  They were Xena.  Or polite librarian types.  I gobbled these stories up because they were all that I had (and trust me, I LOVED Xena), but these women were not me.  I wasn’t this warrior woman and since that was all that I saw in women centered fiction, I somehow felt that I wasn’t the right kind of woman.  I thank the writers for these warrior women and I walk in their great shadows, but no one was publishing us other girls.

But say what you will, there is more than one brand of female protagonist.  There are girly-girls.  Tomboys.  Amazons and delicate flowers.  There are revolutionaries and pacifists.  Princesses and knights.  Punks.  Preps.  Nerds.  Scientists.  Artists.  We are as varied and plentiful as our male counterparts and until just recently (we’re talking in the last few years), we have haven’t seen them.  Now we are beginning to peek at the buffet of the types of women who had lead their own story.  We finally have a voice and we are all rushing to use it…  at the same time that publishers and agents are saying: we’ve had enough.

Seriously?

Are we mainstream yet?  No.  We are a fad.  Will I be called ‘popular,’ ‘overdone,’  and ‘normative’ because I write straight, white women?  Yes.  And that’s degrading the fight I still take up because we are NOT mainstream, even as the media tries to say otherwise.  We are still ‘other,’ and special’ and a fad that people are suddenly done with because ‘there’s just too much.’  We are given separate shelves called ‘women’s lit’ (what is that?  There’s no ‘men’s lit’ section for their fictional journeys).  We are still a subsection of fantasy, paranormal, realism, political.  We shouldn’t be a subsection.  Until that happens, we are still ‘other.’  We are still a fad.

But that’s not why I write female point of view stories.  I write them because I am them.  I write them because, for me, to try and write as I do (a very personal, character driven voice), I don’t feel as if I can ever adequately write from another viewpoint.  Of course I can intellectually know the history and current struggles of another race, gender, sexuality, and as an actor, I hope I can embody (at least in the case of the last), these things.  But writing?  That’s personal.  That’s thoughts on a page and I can’t even begin to do those beautiful experiences justice, at least as a point of view character.  I simply don’t want to write falsely.

So…  you’ll come at me with this: how can you write things such as death?  I will argue that I don’t.  Not really.  I write it poetically, gruesomely, beautifully.  It’s not honest, just emotional and we can all do that.  In that respect, yes, I can poetically write another perspective, and I do.  My worlds are populated with variation.  It’s just that right now, I want to write my women.  I want to make sure that girl’s have someone, all of them.  We don’t have that yet.

I write straight, white women, but I also give them nuanced, varied and diverse friends that are women and boys and villains.  I can’t write their perspective but I can still give you them.  I can give you an elegant, learned African American girl in 1870s Detroit (they happened!) or a male Samurai vampire (I hope anyway) or a Viking woman (note that I didn’t automatically say: warrior).  Their voices are strong but my perspective is me and there’s no shame or wrong in writing it… be it a straight, white boy or a homosexual Indian boy or a Mexican-American girl.  Write you and be damn proud of it.  There’s a place for it and we all stand side by side as crazy writers.

I, for my part, will give you women until women are all colors and sexuality, including white and straight and we are more than just a fad; until we are the norm.

I write women.  I write to be more than ‘other.’

Why Gay? Why Brown? Why Now?

I write brown boys.

I write gay boys.

I write brown, gay boys.

Why?

Good question! There's a perfectly logical, deeply personal explanation as to why I select brown, gay teenagers as narrators for my YA/MG contemporary realism. Within children's literature there's a wonderful essay by Rudine Sims Bishop entitled "Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors".

Take a look.

I believe strongly in this concept. Thus my aim as a creator, a writer, a contributor to the vast, incredible, fundamental world of children's/YA literature is to create books which act as mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Take my current work-in-progress as an example.

Mirror: It is the first book I've both written and read (repeatedly, I might add; I'm not done yet) wherein a black, gay, non-urban male protagonist narrates his story, shares his perspective. However, my goal isn't simply to present someone in YA fiction whose voice I've not heard. A novel's primary objective is to tell a story; a good novel's primary objective is to tell a compelling story. Good. Compelling. This is what I require of fiction I read. Why not require it of fiction I write?

Many might see this "mirroring" of myself as a selfish ambition. To fill my personal library with books I've written which mirror boys who look like me, act like me, feel like me seems indeed self-centered, self-focused, self-analyzing. While this may be true, a grander purpose affords any writer of what those part of the We Need Diverse Books initiative have taken to calling Mirror Books. Purpose: to fill other libraries--kid libraries, teen libraries, adult libraries--with books I've written which mirror boys who look like you, act like you, feel like you.

There is this bizarre notion amongst literary people, readers, writers, and critics alike, that upholds equal access. What do I mean by this--equal access? What does "accessibility" really mean? Writers as diverse as Stephen King, E.L. James, Anne Rice, John Irving, and even J.K. Rowling all write what we assume are "accessible" stories. They're popular, right? Everyone's reading them! Who hasn't poured through the entire Harry Potter series over and over again? Who hasn't heard of, either film or novel, Interview with the Vampire? Who, by now, hasn't at least run across several wary, strange conversations concerning "them Fifty Shades of Grey" books?

Notice something here. Popular = Accessible.

Strains of this can be witnessed in children's/YA literature too. The Percy Jackson series. Twilight. Cassandra Clare and her Shadowhunters (The Mortal Instruments series, The Infernal Devices trilogy, the upcoming The Dark Artifices series et al). Fantasy, in general, tends to yield greater popularity than even the ever-burgeoning field of contemporary realism. Legions of new readers latch hold of debut fantasy/sci-fi series such as The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Grisha Trilogy, The Throne of Glass series, etc.

Popular.

Nothing wrong with popular. In fact, as Anne Rice often advocates, when one author succeeds so highly we all succeed. More teenagers reading YA books means more YA imprints seeking/publishing YA authors. But these popular stories have their price. Of them all, none can be named wherein anyone other than each series' heterosexual white protagonist (male or female, doesn't seem to matter) represent popular, "accessible" titles. This, combined with an aged, ragged history of publishers/editors/agents admonishing authors to alter main characters' 1) sexuality or 2) race or 3) disability/mental illness, mixes for a dangerous solution.

If popular equals accessible and popular is singularly (wholly) represented by straight white protagonists, then popular equals straight white protagonists.

Let's be fair. The bones of American culture are Sexism, Racism, Heteronormativity. It is only natural such a culture flexes its straight white muscles by utilizing each facet of our Puritanical, Patriarchal society. This social upbringing alone explains our avoidance of cultures and subcultures which do not appreciate or uplift straight, white concerns.

This, at least, explains necessity for Mirror Books. But the discussion widens here, as it must.

Bear with me.

Windows: Let's recall, as stated above, a novel's primary objective. To tell a story. This is not enough. For me (for many), a good novel must also tell a compelling story. How then, if said story isn't "accessible" or considered "accessible", does one tell a good, compelling story? What facets must we require of a good, compelling story?

The simple answer to this is that each reader brings his/her/our own imagination to each novel. Half of what we see is dictated by the words the author selects to fill the page, the other half is dictated by the reader's imagination. To quote Rudine Sims Bishop: "Books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange." My books, though they tend to be works of contemporary realism, strive to represent all these aspects--reality, imagination, familiarity, and strangeness. To some, my gay brown boy narrator, is reality; to some, he is wholly imagined; to some, he is achingly (perhaps refreshingly) familiar; to some, he is strange.

To some a mirror. To some a window.

To all?

"Accessible".

Sliding Glass Doors: Rudine Sims Bishop is one whip-smart lady. Let's hear what she has to say on Sliding Glass Door Books.

Here she is:

"These windows are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author. When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror. Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of the larger human experience. Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books" (Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors, paragraph 1).

It is not enough for any book of mine to reach the shelf as simply a mirror. It is not enough for any book of mine to reach the shelf as mirror to some, window to others. Remember, a good story is also compelling. Good, compelling fiction functions primarily as a sliding glass door. If the reader is barred from "access" into whatever world--"real, imagined, familiar or strange"--the author has conjured, a story yet exists. Perhaps a Mirror Story. Perhaps a Window Story. Or even a Mirror-Window Story. Yet, the inability to shove in the lock, grab hold of the handle, and fling open that sliding glass door proves the malfunction of what otherwise might be a good, compelling, "accessible" reader experience.

I want nothing to do with any story I write that cannot serve as a Sliding Glass Door Story. Indeed, my goal is higher. I want only Mirror-Window-Sliding Glass Door Stories to fill the pages, the shelves, the imaginations each reader of mine encounters. I want only to write Good, Compelling stories.

"Accessible".

  

Paper People Unite!

Paper over E-book every time.

Every time.

Swiping your finger across a screen can't hold a candle to the feel of a page in your hand with the smell of new (or ancient) pages.

While they are not the easiest to transport, they are also not susceptible to being destroyed and loss forever by being dropped or getting hacked and a good old memory wipe.

Paper for life.

Paper vs eBook

My father is a printer.  One of the best at what he does, really.  So I have grown up around the art of printed works and when the first debates about whether the Kindle would destroy the print market and therefore my father’s job, I was firmly on the print side of the debate.  I fought back against the cold, detached feeling of purchasing an online copy of a book when holding one and smelling its pages was so much more rewarding.  Yes, I was Rory Gilmore from the Gilmore Girls.  

But then I studied abroad in beautiful Dublin, Ireland.  I had one suitcase of clothing and one with books (and a few other accessories).  I HAD to have my books with me and the impracticality of that travel arrangement hit me.  If I wanted to be a successful actress (and I still do, don’t get me wrong) and work in film (again, still do and one day will be there), then toting around a hefty bag of books through the airport was not going to be practical.  I was going to have to bit the bullet and get an e-reader.

I got a Kindle for Christmas.  One of the 1.5-2^nd generation ones and at a click of the button, I had a book at my fingertips.  The accessibility got me.  Hooked me.  I had access to the entire Amazon collection, not just what was in the store… and to be honest, this might have stemmed from the fact that every bookstore in reasonable driving distance was closing and I couldn’t live without my fix.  I needed my books.

With the rise of the tablet and iPad (I have a mini) and the Kindle app, I can carry my books with me no matter where I go.  If I’m at work on break, a book is at my fingertips.  If I’m sitting in a café waiting for someone or my next engagement?  I have a book.  I just have to download it. 

Young authors have a chance to get their work out there with ebooks.  Self-published have a greater market they can reach.  There are some really great things that come with the convenience of an ebook.  I wish I could sit here and say: no!  eBooks are bad.  Buy print!  But I can’t.  I can’t because I have a large ebook collection and I have a growing physical library. 

Now, where does that leave me in this debate?  Firmly straddling the line.  Don’t get me wrong, I adore a physical book with the pages in hand and cover jacket and the process of finding its place on my overcrowded and full bookshelf (I do need another).  I will one day have a room of books to call my library.  It has always been a dream.  But do I love that I can click and get a book I’ve been searching for and can’t find?  Yes.  Do I love that when I’m broke, I can find a book on my wish list for a discounted price?  Yes.  I can’t, in good conscious, say no to something that may reach out to those who can’t afford a book but have a phone and a free Kindle app or iBook app and can click on that $.99 or $1.99 book and READ.

So we should continue to do both, in an as environmentally friendly way we can… because the book lovers and history needs the physical representation… and because we need the access to books for anyone and everyone including the busy office worker to the kid who can’t get to a store but has an app.  They are both books.  I want to support both.

V-Day Short Story: Before the Dawn of Battle

We can all blame Nathan for coming up with the idea that we write a short story on the theme of Valentine's Day and set in this new world that is being created by the three of us.  I love a good short story challenge, don't get me wrong.  My current project that I'm querying began with a short story scene and exploded from there.  It's just... Valentine's Day?  Ugh.

At least that's what I thought but then I readjusted my mindset.  This was a beautiful challenge.  I rarely like to write romance or romantic relationships (that are outright romantic).  I never feel like I nail them.  While I don't believe I did it this time, I gave it a shot...  It isn't outright romantic but this challenge has shed some light on a relationship in this upcoming story...and it is sweet and challenging and soft at times, and that's okay for two warrior people.  I like it.  I hope you do too.

Before The Dawn of Battle

We had a pile of furs beneath us and I had stuffed a few extra behind my shoulder blades to prop me up a bit more.  Fire crackled off to the side, glistening off the sheen we had developed on our skin. His leg was entwined with mine as our hearts slowed and our breathing returned to normal.  His head rested on my chest, though my small size hardly provided a good pillow.  I toyed with the strands of his sandy brown hair, usually so neatly plaited and smiled a bit.  These loose strands were my doing, however, if it was a competition, he would have won; my shoulder length hair was a mess.  

credit

Feeling my eyes growing heavy and desperately wishing to stay awake, I pulled myself out from under his bare form.  We both seemed reluctant to meet the cool air that floated around us, but he let me go.  I snagged a rough, woolen blanket with my toe, swinging it in the air and catching it.  As I walked, I draped it around my naked form, feeling like a Greek goddess, even amongst this hard, wooden and fur shaped world that sprinkled snow around me at all seasons of the year.

He watched me, heating up my back, as he lounged in our pile of furs.  He dragged a pewter plate of hard breads to his side and tore off a piece.  His silence was deafening and I pretended to ignore it until I was seated in the curved chair behind my enormous wooden table that served as my desk.  Back home, the desk would have been covered with a computer, notebooks, figurines and my beta fish, but here, my desk was covered with parchment maps, wooden representations of the clans and various other tools I had yet to master.  I stared at them while he, munching on bread, stared at me.


I had never been any good at silences, so I picked up a wooden piece in the shape of a large pony and twirled it about my fingers.  “Hypothetically, what does one do the night before a game changing battle?”  The light played off the wooden horse, casting shadows on the map.

In the edges of my vision, I saw Einar toy with a torn piece of bread, just as I was toying with the figure.  “When my father was Dral, before you, Valktara, he would enjoy his night between the legs of many women.  It was I who sat staring at such a map.”

My head bobbed, my messy curls having grown long enough to dance in my face.  “So what did you do?”

Einar shifted a bit, setting aside the plate and popping the last piece of bread into his mouth.  It was a decidedly less attractive move than those I’d seen in the last few hours but I pushed the thought quickly aside.  He searched for his own woolen blanket and settled on a long enough cut of fur to wrap around his waist as he gathered himself and walked over to my side.  His broad shadow fell across the known world of The Nord and its clans, mingling with my own slender one.

Gently, he lifted the pony from my fingers and set it back into its place.  “I spent every hour until the great sun touched the first blades of grass staring at such a map as this.  I played out every scenario and I threw a great many pieces into the fire.  In the end, I chose the advice of my generals and had only an hour of fitful sleep.”

I let out a long breath through my nose, then smoothed out the edges of the heavy parchment maps.  The woolen blanket fell from my shoulder and into my lap.  I didn’t mind; I let his heat slide from him and into my back.  His lips tickled my shoulder before his shadow and his warmth passed around me.  He went to the fire pit and stoked it.

“Einar,” my voice was soft and trembling.  “Where you ever afraid?”

He didn’t look at me, but he paused in his work.  “Always.”  Then his eyes, the color of the fresh morning sky, seared holes into my soul.  “And you should be too, Torny.”

The use of my name shocked me.  He never used it, always referring to me as my title.  I wanted to beg him to use my real name given to me by my real parents so far away in another world and time.  I couldn’t, of course.  The Clan Mother had proclaimed me as such and so I would remain. 

“Why?  Why should I be afraid?”

His answer was a long time in coming.  “Oma has blessed you, it is true, but for how long?  I have seen many die in battle, including my own father.  They showed no fear until the blade was through their chest.  It was their undoing.  I don’t wish the same for you.  Even a slave can wish his mistress this.”

I held his gaze, though my heart skittered like a rabbit.  “I’d rather a man wish a woman.”

“Then I wish it.”

I stayed where I was though I wanted to fold myself into his lean and marked arms.  “I have to do this.  I don’t get a choice.”

He nodded, tendrils of his hair passing shadows over his face.  “Then I will spend my last moments fighting to ensure that you never feel a blade right here,” he tapped his bare chest where his heart beat and where I had listened to his thump so many times.  “You are not of this world, Torny.  You should not die in it.”

My gaze turned toward the map and then carefully to the warrior-slave in front of me with fur wrapped about his waist.  He was wrong.  I might not have been born into it, but I was a part of this world now.  I loved him and I loved my people.

Research: Little Bit Conventional

I suppose I’m probably the most conventional researcher of the bunch.  I delve into history and extract from it the pieces that will ground and inform my work.  Sure, I could create whole worlds on my own, but where is the grounding factor?  So many forget about finding some connection to reality; even a dragon is based on legends we’ve created right here in our own world.  But for me… I would fly off into the far reaches of space if I didn’t base some of the ideas in the myth, legends, cultures of the world I live in: Earth.

I’m a history nerd, so of course I turn to history.  If I’m writing dystopia, I look to the political systems (I hold a degree in Poli Sci) and I extract the good, the bad, and the ugly.  If I’m working with fairytales, the source material sits next to me so I can constantly reference it.  I pull up images and articles, clothing, food, landscapes, everything about the culture that I’m using as a grounding foundation for my work.

In two current projects I’m basing a culture on old Norse and Viking history and legends, while the other is set in 1870s Detroit.  Are both works fantastical?  Yes.  Will I manipulate them?  Absolutely; one more than the other.  But these are things we have tangibility with and I always seek  that tangibility in my work.  I want the reader to be able to touch and smell and feel it and for me?  Bringing that real world aspect into it first lies in researching a culture that actually exists.

It’s a lot of work.  There are Pinterest boards full of images (I’m a visual person and need a visual representation to connect).  I have binders and word documents will little pieces that I find interesting.  I look up the clothes and figure out how to make them (and some I actually do make, yay! Reenacting, historical fashion nerd).  I find recipes and give them a try.  I look to films and television, however inaccurate, to find that certain feel to bring to whatever project I’m researching.  I find a way to immerse myself in the culture so that I can better write it on the page.

I don’t want to write a research paper; so much of my education was based on those, and I don’t like reading research papers.  A lot of fiction reads like a text book when an author wants to imbue their stories in their research.  I hate it.  So I do an all immerse research method so that I can write with feeling and perspective.  I want the reader to feel like they’ve stepped back into whatever landscape I have created.

With all this said: historically based fiction is terrifying for those very reasons.  It is why I take this research and twist it into the foundation of the fantastical.  I use my research as a grounding stake into this Earth so I can play with other realities, other histories and other worlds.  I may want to fly you away with me, but I want to be able to point back at home and say: here, don’t forget here.

Research! Research! Research!

I'm not good at it. Research isn't my strength. Here's the thing: when an idea strikes, my mind immediately sets to work creating characters, building a plot arc, configuring an interesting setting. 

I also write contemporary realism. Thus far, none of my stories have required much research. My current project has changed this.

But never fear! 

One of the things about research that always paralyzes me is how it puts an immediate stopper on All Things Creative. Usually, I cannot write while I research. Many authors deal with this as part of their writing world. With this project, I am lucky enough to keep writing as I research.

The above stack of books tackle: female sexuality, the transgender experience, feminism, and suicide. All these subjects and more (gender, broadly speaking) are themes writ all across my characters, and these books I know will inspire creativity in places I never might have gone on my own.

Also: Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon, which tackles childhood and the Nature Vs Nurture Debate.

Discomfort

I decided that this week needed this poem...

Art is about discomfort.
It's about the unknown.
Art is screaming insecurities into the void.
Biting your nails until they bleed.
Art is terrifying.
It's about jumping without a safety net.
It's about pushing against a wall
that you are too scared to build a ladder and climb over.
 Art is about creating in-spite and because of all these things.
If art were easy,
everyone would do it
and no one would bleed their soul
into the atmosphere.
When art is hard
and scary
and uncomfortable,
that's often when it is the greatest.

This is for all those who say:
I can't because it's uncomfortable...
even for myself.