Sunday, April 25, 2010

Random writing post. Perhaps i will resurrect the blog?

I've always been a writing and reading nerd. I remember sitting happily in corners reading my child's illustrated large print dictionary straight through, letter by letter, sounding out each word and trying to remember it all.

My writing process around this novel has caused me to consider some truly new aspects of writing. Essays and poetry come comparatively easy to me; fiction was a whole new and initially daunting prospect. Ok, I want to write a young adult post apocolyptic disabled trans genderqueer novel. Or three. Hell, why not go for a trilogy? Ok. Now where do I start?

Fiction has led me to hang out for hours with my characters, learning about them, marveling about how they seem to change the story all on their own. But I'm a, let's say, naturally discerning individual. I need details. Who are these kids? I think about the "message" and the "big ideas" i'm trying to convey by telling their stories...What are issues I want to see explored in my favorite genre that are questions in my life? How do these kids show us ourselves? I want to talk about ableism, how it functions around us; I want to talk about the brilliant resistance of people who go through trauma and oppression and abuse, and show how resilient and unapologetically fabulous we can be. And I wanna write that for a young adult audience, when I felt that if only I had a reflection in what I was reading like this, things may have been easier.

Luckily, I have a natural craving for solitude that lends itself well to the writer's life, because I've spent days only talking to people I made up in my head. And fiction is immersive. Surprisingly so. I finally understood that answer that I'd always found a bit pat and hard to grasp, when authors who inevitably are asked, Where do you get your ideas? would reply, I just listen to my characters, the stories write themselves.

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