Widening the Scope Pt. 2: One of the best posts to come out of Tumblr

So, people may have noticed I've started using Tumblr again. It comes and goes ;) I wrote this post because I saw something on Tumblr a couple of months ago that I didn't simply want to disappear as so many things in Tumblr do.

Already this month, I've written about strength as it relates to characters who are male and female. Now I want to pay attention to a different kind of diversity and, dare I say it, one that is closer to my own heart.

When I was a teenage bisexual girl, I found that there were a lot of books that related my experiences with guys, but none that would give those strange and outlandish feelings I had for girls any credence. Oh, there was Sarah Waters and the book that the BBC mini-series brought out into the spotlight, Tipping the Velvet.

(Also Fingersmith and, to a lesser extent, The Night Watch.)

That was... kinda it. More commonly, there were starting to be books that would feature a side character, or best friend of the main character, who was gay. I think that Holly Black's Ironside was the first book I read where the gay side character featured in a romantic relationship of his own. 

It's not a fun feeling when you pick up a book only to find that the characters that should be there for you to identify with, at least in some books, simply aren't there. 

Polyamory is the other minority that just doesn't get a lot of play in books though, I will freely add, that it has gotten better already since two years ago when I wrote this post.

I mean... people are actually talking about it now. O.o 

Which brings me to the Tumblr post that inspired this babbling:

Hi Sarah, I really appreciated your response on asexual representation and was curious about your thoughts on the lack of poly representation in YA lit. (read more)

What follows is a well considered question asking to the cultural attitudes that may still too much influence what can and can't be published in YA literature. 

What Sarah Rees Brennan did was reply with her own carefully considered responses, even going so far as to post, 

Here is a non-comprehensive but awesome list of YA books with LGBTQ and poly characters I found! http://goforitgenevieve.wordpress.com/2013/07/22/long-post-about-lgbtq-and-poly-too-ya-fiction-is-long/ (Linking to this one rather than the one at gayya.org because it has a few indicators of favourite books and content, but gayya.org is fantastic and amazing and everyone should read it!) ... So these are my (imperfect!) thoughts, summed up with I think it can be done, has been done, and I truly hope it will be done more.

Which even I didn't know about, so I'm more than happy to share about it here.

As if that wasn't all amazing enough, Melissa Marr weighed in with her own opinion:

"I’m always happy when folks comment on the poly resolutions in my Wicked Lovely books.  Yes, Radiant Shadows has a poly resolution.  So, too, does Darkest Mercy.  Sometimes the answer (in both life & fiction) is that what looks like a “love triangle” is actually NOT. Sometimes a person can have a healthy, happy relationship with two other people." (read more)

When people pull me up and ask me why I read so much YA fic, why I think it's so important: this. This is the answer to all those questions.

"If you're upset, make art."

There's been a lot of upset about the results of the Australian election just past. As an Australian, I feel like I ought to weigh in on the conversations that are going back and forth, but "weighing in" makes me feel like just another grumpy person who is less informed than a lot of the people talking up and down about politics right now.

Also, I don't think anyone follows this blog, my Twitter or Goodreads to read about politics.

So instead, I've been burying myself in books and music and waiting for the initial rush of opinion to die away. Only then, tonight, there was this:

I've watched this through twice already, and each watching just makes me want to watch again. In this video are so many of the points all of my friends have themselves pointed out in their displeasure about the current Australian government, but with one major difference:

"If you're upset, make art."

Strangely enough, this isn't the first time I've heard such an idea. Even more strangely, the first time I heard it, it was Neil Gaiman who was speaking it in his Keynote Address 2012. I was similarly inspired back then.

"Make good art. 

I'm serious. Husband runs off with a politician? Make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by mutated boa constrictor? Make good art. IRS on your trail? Make good art. Cat exploded? Make good art. Somebody on the Internet thinks what you do is stupid or evil or it's all been done before? Make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, and eventually time will take the sting away, but that doesn't matter. Do what only you do best. Make good art...

And now go, and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make good art."

It's little wonder they are perfect together. 

I've had an on and off again relationship with Amanda Palmer for years. I loved her during the Dresden Dolls. I didn't like Evelyn Evelyn so much. I've had friends as conflicted as I and yet, after this 'song', I think this signals the beginnings of another 'on' part of the relationship. 

Just thought I'd make this my very short platform on the subject. 

Fuck this! (aka: The Writer's problem)

This is actually not the first time I've dipped my feet into the waters of writing. Why have I returned, you ask?

   

I'm real good at talking to my friends and helping them come to 'epiphany' moments. "Oh, I realise this was what was getting me down," or "Damn, I really didn't think about it like that, but..." 

My partner is this really inspiring man who sees what he wants in front of him and immediately starts taking strides towards getting it. This isn't without faults -sometimes he pushes too hard, sometimes he falls too low when someone tells him he's dreaming too high- but he takes this stuff in stride, and keeps going. Always keeps going. I kinda look at him in awe. 

A good friend just posted the list of Hugos and associated prizes winners, and I realised, I want to win Best New Writer one day. That friend and I have come up with a harmonious deal between us that we will keep each other posted and then keep out of the way during each others' chosen years. 

A friend that I work with has just released a book of short stories on Kindle.

   

I've had it in my head for so long that I'm not going to be a 'Worthwhile Writer (TM)' unless my work is picked up and recognised by a publishing house and, because of that, have sat there on my thumbs and done very little about it. 

This is particularly daft because I have been picked up and e-published over in America several times and, for the last five years, have belittled that achievement because 1/ it was genre writing, and 2/ it was e-published. 

Then there's this stigma about self-publishing that this exists even though it seems to become less relevant the more technologically savvy and e-book reader reliant we (even in Australia) become. However, that stigma seems to be mainly to do with the quality of editing that these self-published books have. 

It was already so hard to get yourself picked up by a publishing house when I was in high school; it's about a hundred or so times more difficult these days. And then, even if/when you get picked up, there are the internal politics of most publishing houses that will put the books/authors that are more known against the unknown writer of dubious sales. I've even heard of someone's book being accepted and then never published, though the house ended up keeping the option for the rest of the two years of the contract. 

Don't get me into the fact that, in this day and age, any aspiring writer -or any writer at all, really- needs to get hip deep into their own marketing/publicity side. Again, unless you are a well known author, the majority of publishing houses just aren't going to do that for you. 

I look at all of this and I wonder what, really, is the good of waiting for a publishing house to sit up and discover me? 

I have these amazing contacts and friends from my e-publishing times, and have since made many more. 

I have a workshopping circle I meet with most Tuesdays, and several people who have either established proof reading business or upcoming ones. Hell, the number of people I've had offer just to read my creative thesis as experience for their proof reading business before the end of the year has astounded and flattered me. 

I have this wonderful idea for a series of hand bound chapbooks that I've been sitting on for almost a year now (okay, there have been reasons, and perhaps even this close to the end of honours is not the best time for me to be picking this up again but, so, whatever..)

Not to mention the many friends that have come up to me over the years and said that, if I ever do get any of my work published, even self published, that they want to read it because I'm one of the few amateur writers whose work they already enjoy. 

So, you know what? I have a goal ahead of me. And that goal is made up of a whole bunch of teeny tiny little steps that may, one day, lead up to that great big goal in the sky: Best New Writer.

Times you realise your magic life is not appropriate to your actual life...

Sitting in the office of one of my university lecturers yesterday, I'm frantically scrambling to write down notes towards all the comments she's giving me on my essay outline for Tennyson's 'Lady of Shallot'.

There's a pause. Either she's gathering her thoughts or she's waiting for me to catch up with my note taking. I don't really care which one as I'm using the time to scribble down the end of my last thought before she starts talking again.

"You're going to have to explain why the Tower does not signify change..."

And then my mind does something like this:


.... before tuning in again to realise that what she's actually talking about is a comparison between the tower and Camelot in 'The Lady of Shallot', also known as the topic I'm writing my essay on.

 I thank god that the only thing that signalled this break in my concentration was my pen pausing over the piece of paper I was writing on, before kick-starting back into note taking.