A Finer-Grained Identity
Friday, 3 June 2016 12:37![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lea_hazelThis week was the one year anniversary of my becoming a full-time writer (in mentality if not in paycheck). Looking back on the good and the bad is sobering. On the one hand, I did not produce as many stories as I would have liked, or expected. My quality of end product is lacking. On the other hand, I can look back on a work of original fiction that I posted a year ago (Hail the Hunter) and think, "wow! that was a long time ago."
I consider that last one to be a pro. Feeling like my work is outdated, or not good enough, is an idea that I've learned to interpret positively. It means I'm growing as a writer. It means I'm challenging myself, stretching my wings, and noticeably improving my craft. This is a good feeling -- once I've learned to condition myself to the response.
As a writer I strive to dig up the things that, as a reader, I've found wanting. At first this was female characters. I'm talking fifteen or more years ago now. Gradually this changed to include more complex, multiplicitous ideas, character ideas and worldbuilding ideas, and how those elements can be woven into a plot in a way that profoundly affects the role of conflict and resolution. My stories have a recurring problem of having too much of the former, and not enough of the latter.
It's important to me to consider intersectionality of identity from a point-of-view broader than my own personal experience, and to reflect this understanding in my stories. On the other hand, as a reader I value the "by for and about" works that deal with an internal perspective. Why would I consider a personal perspective good... except when it's mine? I suspect the problem is actually deeper than that. Some of my identity markers are non-normative, and some of them are... really non-normative.
Which is to say, I have a "bullshit SJW Tumblr fifteen year old" identity. After about a decade of being an out and proud bisexual, you'd think I would be better at owning up to that. Or maybe ten years of being out and proud wore down my defenses, and now there's nothing but raw nerve to touch whenever someone says "there's no such thing as". And so when I sit down and think about writing a nonbinary POV character my brain freezes up. When I consider the possibility of writing about aromanticism, I produce nothing but incomprehensible drivel.
Strange Horizons called out for stories about queer identities, in the broadest possible sense of the term. I started two stories for it, and finished one. The call specifically name-checked writing about human characters, on Earth, which is a thing I have mentioned repeatedly as being very important to me, on a personal and creative level. At a time when nonbinary or bisexual characters are overwhelmingly alien, fey, or otherwise inhuman. But I sit down to write it myself and I just seize up. I don't know when, if ever, I will be able to achieve this magical thing. Not even for something readable, not even for an end product. Just something that clearly answers the basic definition of what a story is.
This subject is emotional to me, so most of the above is probably a meaningless mess of words. I will look back at it late rand be probably horrified. I just need to get it out right now, because it's been gnawing on my mind.
I consider that last one to be a pro. Feeling like my work is outdated, or not good enough, is an idea that I've learned to interpret positively. It means I'm growing as a writer. It means I'm challenging myself, stretching my wings, and noticeably improving my craft. This is a good feeling -- once I've learned to condition myself to the response.
As a writer I strive to dig up the things that, as a reader, I've found wanting. At first this was female characters. I'm talking fifteen or more years ago now. Gradually this changed to include more complex, multiplicitous ideas, character ideas and worldbuilding ideas, and how those elements can be woven into a plot in a way that profoundly affects the role of conflict and resolution. My stories have a recurring problem of having too much of the former, and not enough of the latter.
It's important to me to consider intersectionality of identity from a point-of-view broader than my own personal experience, and to reflect this understanding in my stories. On the other hand, as a reader I value the "by for and about" works that deal with an internal perspective. Why would I consider a personal perspective good... except when it's mine? I suspect the problem is actually deeper than that. Some of my identity markers are non-normative, and some of them are... really non-normative.
Which is to say, I have a "bullshit SJW Tumblr fifteen year old" identity. After about a decade of being an out and proud bisexual, you'd think I would be better at owning up to that. Or maybe ten years of being out and proud wore down my defenses, and now there's nothing but raw nerve to touch whenever someone says "there's no such thing as". And so when I sit down and think about writing a nonbinary POV character my brain freezes up. When I consider the possibility of writing about aromanticism, I produce nothing but incomprehensible drivel.
Strange Horizons called out for stories about queer identities, in the broadest possible sense of the term. I started two stories for it, and finished one. The call specifically name-checked writing about human characters, on Earth, which is a thing I have mentioned repeatedly as being very important to me, on a personal and creative level. At a time when nonbinary or bisexual characters are overwhelmingly alien, fey, or otherwise inhuman. But I sit down to write it myself and I just seize up. I don't know when, if ever, I will be able to achieve this magical thing. Not even for something readable, not even for an end product. Just something that clearly answers the basic definition of what a story is.
This subject is emotional to me, so most of the above is probably a meaningless mess of words. I will look back at it late rand be probably horrified. I just need to get it out right now, because it's been gnawing on my mind.
no subject
2016-06-04 04:57 (UTC)Anyway, good luck.