The Many Faces of Writers

After a long day of productive writing on a fun side story, I felt that intense urge to prematurely share the adventure... Once more hitting that frustrating wall belonging to every serious writer who self-publishes to market rather than throwing their first drafts on WattPad--I just can't. I can tell a friend or two, but the intimate thrill of the writing must still be refined into its intended finale before I take that leap.

The paradox begins to twist into my thoughts. Even though I blog in first person about myself or my methods, etc. I begin to feel as if my truest voice is growing in my fiction, my ideals, my most faithful words, my endless love for creation. I feel the frustration and confusion of reality start to untangle, the complex becoming understandable, my connection to reality stronger through my interpretation in fantasy. I don't feel this need to transform reality to cater to me, but rather, I become more peaceful in the acceptance that I can't control anything completely. I also have no temptation to disguise my real-life ideals, politics, or preferences to subliminally teach people or, worse, recruit them to think like me, or guilt my readers to agree with what I think might be good or bad.

Perhaps even more strongly since I've seen writers insist that writers have a responsibility to educate, when nothing can be further from the truth. Can it be a responsibility? Presented as non-fiction, certainly, but even then, it falls under personal responsibility for each person to remember you absolutely cannot believe everything you read, no matter how it is presented. Biases will always exist that will saw away the best intentions into so much dust.

For some in a state of mental simplicity, zen, whatever you want to call it, the easy answer is that all voices coming from you (barring crippling schizophrenia) are your true voice. However, I feel as if there is always a voice I associate myself with more and it's not always the one in our shared reality. Don't get me wrong--this isn't about retreating from reality. I can literally feel my brain working more clearly, cleverly, calmly in certain states. More often than not, it's while exploring internal processes than external stimuli.

Since I'm back at writing, I'll leave this at that. Thanks for reading!

Fantasy Vs. Reality

I spent a brief stint cruising around writing and fan groups, trying to gather popular and unpopular beliefs in everything from writing to content to subject matter. While there is little of it that can actually be substantially helpful in a themed post, I was thinking about one subject in particular that solidified why I like to focus on made-up places.

Even I had the faux confidence of a world traveler, researched a place top to bottom and/or wrote about any place I've actually lived, people seem to trip over the fact that any perspective is still an experience limited to that person. Rather than taking it as such, I've seen people over-dissect writing to confuse the lines between fact and opinion. You might remember a trip to a deli on the corner of 7th and Elm in a town you lived in five years ago, but write a present day piece, not knowing that deli either closed or relocated somewhere in between. Someone will always fixate on it to the point where you try to steer clear with a polite thanks but it's not the feedback you're looking for.

These examples aren't personal, but the and again, a writer looking for specific feedback on style almost always needs to type up a paper on what they're actually looking for. A fictional story, even set in a real place, however badly remembered, tends to attract the geographically obsessed. Immensely helpful if that's what you're looking for, but when the comment thread blows up in a million wrong directions, sometimes I just can't blame a writer for deleting the thread and starting anew with tighter requirements.

Really, it's okay to just loosely base most fiction on real places. The Simpsons never specified which Springfield it was supposedly based off of, so it's no wonder fantasy so often uses crazy naming convention to avoid real-world distractions, so to speak. Even so, I've still seen enough fantasy forums where people conspire over what parts of Europe a map resembles or what Russian family certain characters mimic. While some of an author's parallels are deliberate in which models they use, sometimes they can't say for certain where they drew the logic. It's just as likely that they watched another fictional movie based off of a real history. Histories, especially the most intriguing events, seem to inspire many an artist to exaggerate over an exaggeration many times over.

While I certainly use deliberate models, they tend to be isolated to a place or a person while any extending parallels happen to be a natural coincidence of the logic. Psychology and human potential is not limitless and there are simply actions that are more likely than others. Even the unlikely follows a natural logic.

There's no real way to wholly avoid speculation (and as a writer, it is certainly flattering to inspire a talking point at all) but I like the freedom of not being restrained to recorded fact. I do have some stories that touch down on Earth from time to time to time, but I try to steer away from current settings or politics because I find those shouldn't be confused as central to the stories I'm writing. Once people can nail down a place or person, the race to find the flaws begins.

Fantasy is never immune, especially when you pull in a mainstream audience. Though I can certainly understand why popular writers often avoid these forums or even come into Q&As with a specific list of questions they aren't going to answer. By all means, speculate away but in all honesty, most prolific writers have moved on to another story, another world, and even when they're still working on a spanning series, there's very little chance they're going to backtrack over a perceived error, no matter how big. There are few things that survive a long editing process that weren't skipped over time and again for a reason. 

I don't do fantasy just to avoid researching real world places. Rather, I don't use real world places so I can focus more on the themes. There plenty of times where I have to leave scenes thin until they are better researched or thought out. That isn't truly minimized even in total fiction. However, I find it more fascinating to focus on the potential of a place rather than a prefab one.

That's not to say I'm not up to the challenge of that someday. My Dreampunk Chronicles dance between this world and another. As a fairly new published author, I'm not niched into anything just yet. However, I still like this playground and, considering the amount of work that goes into each book, I could very well be in fantasy land for at least another five years. I'm not aching to use our world as a primary setting and even then, I'd have more fun with historical time periods rather than anything too current.

There is no serious book effort done without challenge. I'd never assume fantasy or reality or their hybrids are somehow on different difficulty levels. It's just different and the main difference, the reduction of established parallels, is my main temptation.

Nerd Pretty

First off, I'm going to come right out and say I'm not beautiful. I know it's subjective and I'm not about downing myself either. Realistically, I have a classic look and can even be cute or pretty at times. I'm not here to lament being thrust into nerd culture because I needed an escape from looking like a cave troll. Maybe that's what makes some of the trolls of nerddom bitter-- that it was somewhat of a choice but more of a compulsion. That I COULD have been 'cool' because I'm not genetically unfortunate, maybe (at least aesthetically). At worst, I really haven't met that many people that give me shit for being a geek/nerd but when it happens, it's weird as hell.

No one is 'too pretty' to be a nerd. I realize you'll find a stereotypical pocket of elitist social rejects that think the only exception to the culture are the hot cosplayers that get hired to dress like their spank fantasies. Want but can't have and still bash them and other nerds-that-didn't-have-a-choice or some dumb shit excuse. Even when you can find countless devoted hotties, male and female, that genuinely enjoy the fandom (outside of being fit and hot) across social media, you'll still find this disbelief. They actually do more than spend thousands of hours making costumes for anyone else because they're actually fans that are doing it for themselves. Yes, maybe it turned out to be a lucrative fluke, but do yourself a favor, fuck off with the m'ladies and kind-sirs and talk to them like people and you'll find some actual fans.

Granted, you still get the 'nerrrd lol' girls who put on fake glasses and hold controllers wrong. It's mildly annoying but ignorable. However, this also set nerd girls back for a while, giving the treasure trolls license to think they could legitimize whether attractive girls could be nerds at all. They can and are and no one needs a gatekeeper to decide enjoyment. Elites are why games and fandoms die. You need the curious noobs to keep the numbers up and keep it afloat. Really, if a pretty girl wants to fake-nerd, enjoy the meme and be glad the name is crossing boundaries. We really can't be mad at 'impostors' because, like it or not, we depend on casuals too.

Here's another thing: most guys I've met, even when surprised, don't need any convincing and are thrilled when 'legitimate' female fans come along. Not all of them automatically set out to court me like I was destined to be their future wife (although you do get one here and there that clearly wants to skip over friendship or has expectations and it gets creepy, scary and even demanding, controlling and abusive if not shut down). I feel for the social rejects, but I think sometimes they get too comfortable in their escapes. They crawl out, demanding fantasy from reality and lose sight of why it's worth it to learn reality with an ounce of what they apply to the fantasy.

It's a strange mix out there, but even when girl gaming culture became widespread, there are still strange assignments I run into. Still people thinking I'm a casual Candy Crush kind of gamer. Young boys don't question young girl gamers but are pretty shocked that someone their mom's age actually loves PS4 and will forego sleep to marathon a great game. My generation of female gamers, if we didn't give up gaming for careers or families, are still seen as a rarity, something that may always raise eyebrows. The box just follows me, but I never minded it even when the occasional troll set out to de-legitimize it because fuck Halo and Call of Duty. If I want to shoot things, I play Uncharted. Preferences exist within a fandom and knowing a little about everything doesn't trump being preferential in a smaller sphere. Again, this is a nerd/geek distinction. Nerds tend to be strict fact-hoarders where geeks are content to latch onto certain aspects and lock it down. I'm willing to concede many people probably know more about a lot of things I love more than I do, but it doesn't take away from the many hours I spent investing in it for very different reasons and results.

I'm using games as the example, but it does go for comics, anime, books-- largely when my tastes don't fall into the pink feminine genres, bypass the happy medium, and end up in he-man territory. My tastes are everywhere and I'll always encourage people to try genres that wouldn't be their first choice. There's a lot of fun to be had in not being a genre purist. There's also gates to crash, trolls to butt heads with, and... quite frankly, I do hesitate to cluster with fans.

I'm sure you've come across it, but sometimes fandoms can kill the love for something. There's really nothing shittier than losing the love of something for being told how you should love it.

I could go on with all of the aspects of fandom/geekdom/nerddom that suck, but really, it's the aesthetic part that really only ever makes me self-conscious. People have to suspend disbelief when I warn them I'm a geek (sometimes a nerd). I don't really wear the uniform and I am not entirely socially retarded. I've been accepted just to be rejected when I don't want to be romanced either. My sexuality is something that makes every area of my life more complex. I'm not rejecting advances, waiting for a 'better' choice and it's hard for people to wrap their head around that too.

Ultimately, I don't care if you doubt that I'm a geek/nerd. Call it a privilege, but it's a compliment that someone is not automatically hostile, that it IS a choice to be a fan or a hermit or whatever label you throw at it. I'm happy that I can adapt and that I've also been able to continue my passion for things without needing permission. I don't feel the need to prove that I'm a bigger fan. I enjoy the hell out of Cons. I raise nephews that will never ever think that a girl gamer/fan is a weird thing.

I don't really need to fight the assholes on this because they defeat themselves over time. I would say I pity them, but that's condescending as fuck and they know damn well what they've chosen and what they have to deal with. They've found a niche for their outcast status and they also can't hoard it. In fact, deep down, they know they need people to love it despite their attempts to chase people off. In some ways, they probably think they're forging and tempering future fans, testing them to see if they have what it takes to carry the torch.

I'm cool with that. Perceptions tend to be stubborn, but they're not the end of the world. I know nerds/geeks really lamented how 'cool' nerd culture became, but we'd never have the explosion of fantasy and sci-fi on Netflix without the mainstream demand. And you can't say it's all watered-down garbage. The underground has seen the light. Game of Thrones has incredible computer graphics and one of the most amazing soundtracks. People either love it or hate it (and that goes for the books-- and not mutually exclusive) but each one keeps the torch lit for the next genre hits to have a chance.

Let's face it-- nerds don't really spend all that much time assessing other nerds. We've got fandoms to absorb, after all.