It Was The Year Of Exposure

 
Hey, you write like a girl.

SciFi SF Publishing said to the writer. In 2009. Oh sure it was couched in today's doublespeak terms - too elegant. But this speech is not top-secret, for your eyes only, you need a key to gain access to the cypher book.

Can't find a link to it now, but this reminds me of the story of a black writer who submitted a story and was rejected, then based on the code in the rejection letter, resubmitted the exact same story, with the characters race changed from black, to white and had it accepted.

It reminds me of Millicent Black's fight. (And yes, I'm not linking, you'll have to search engine fu).

As a reader, this stuff is angering and offensive. As a writer, however, it changes my point of view around. A lot. Whose standards am I trying to live up to? My own? Or old dead self-centered white guys? Am I respecting my own creative process or beating myself up for not following their guidelines on how to write and what to write. Who is that internal editor lashing away at my work? Where did it come from? From what seed was it born?

Am I paying attention to what I want and what I like? Or have I, despite my struggles to rid myself of that ideology, still been subconsciously trying to cater to 'what sells' and 'what would be accepted'. Which would explain my anger and disappointment and sometimes boredom.

If anything major has changed for me in 2009, I am grateful for the repeated reminders to set my own goals. Because that childhood goal, that glittery point is more and more revealed as fool's gold; fool's gold plugging a fault line of structural instability and possible rot.

Non White Futurism & Fantasy.

I have to remember that.

Non White Futurism & Fantasy and Intersectional Speculative Fiction.