Why I Write
The "Why I Write" meme has been going around this week. I didn't think much on the subject beyond a tweet. Then the other day, one of my critique partners emailed me. She has been dealing with academic flack over her choice to write genre fiction. Oh, did her email make me angry for her sake! I pretty much wrote a story to her in reply, and it occurred to me after the fact that it would make a pretty good blog post. Here it is.
My family comes from a pretty strong conservative Christian faith. I
fell heavily into the fantasy genre at age 12 and started writing
about magic and all sorts of things. Never bad characters,
though--even then, I wrote about healers practicing white magic! My
mom didn't mind this as long as my characters were moral. She felt it
wasn't the issue of magic so much as how it was used. My uncles didn't
agree. They both took me aside for very polite and concerned talks
over the years about magic and how the use of it could lead to hell.
They had blurred the whole writing about magic with the actual use;
the taint was the same for them.
I kept my writing more private and still read lots of fantasy.
Then at 18 at community college, I took a creative writing class. I
was so excited. I had immense respect for my teacher. I thought that
maybe this would finally motivate me to write the epic fantasy book
that had been in my head for years. Then one day before class started,
I was reading a fantasy book to kill the time. My teacher saw and
curled his lip in disgust. "That's not a real book," he said. "I'll
bring you a real book to read." (The irony is that the "real book" he
lent me was magical realism. I didn't realize that for many years.)
After that, I was lost. I stopped reading fantasy. I was embarrassed
about it. I felt like I was attacked on all sides. I really didn't
know what to read anymore. I went from reading probably a hundred
books a year to maybe five.
This continued for about seven years. Then I had my son and my husband was deployed in the Navy. I emerged from a dark and lonely time thinking, "You know what? I want to do what I want to do." I had already done Nanowrimo for a few years but then I resolved to make something that was publishable. I took on the 50bookchallange on LiveJournal and started reading again. I found myself drawn to fantasy
and this time I wasn't going to be ashamed.
Fantasy and science fiction were part of my imagination, of who I was,
and I had tried to deny that for years. No more.
My uncles and I have reached a respectful agree-to-disagree on the
subject matter. They are both very proud of what I have accomplished
and they have read my non-magical stuff and enjoyed it greatly. I just
don't ask them to read most of my fiction.
At 31, I can say I'm a proud writer and reader of speculative fiction.
My family comes from a pretty strong conservative Christian faith. I
fell heavily into the fantasy genre at age 12 and started writing
about magic and all sorts of things. Never bad characters,
though--even then, I wrote about healers practicing white magic! My
mom didn't mind this as long as my characters were moral. She felt it
wasn't the issue of magic so much as how it was used. My uncles didn't
agree. They both took me aside for very polite and concerned talks
over the years about magic and how the use of it could lead to hell.
They had blurred the whole writing about magic with the actual use;
the taint was the same for them.
I kept my writing more private and still read lots of fantasy.
Then at 18 at community college, I took a creative writing class. I
was so excited. I had immense respect for my teacher. I thought that
maybe this would finally motivate me to write the epic fantasy book
that had been in my head for years. Then one day before class started,
I was reading a fantasy book to kill the time. My teacher saw and
curled his lip in disgust. "That's not a real book," he said. "I'll
bring you a real book to read." (The irony is that the "real book" he
lent me was magical realism. I didn't realize that for many years.)
After that, I was lost. I stopped reading fantasy. I was embarrassed
about it. I felt like I was attacked on all sides. I really didn't
know what to read anymore. I went from reading probably a hundred
books a year to maybe five.
This continued for about seven years. Then I had my son and my husband was deployed in the Navy. I emerged from a dark and lonely time thinking, "You know what? I want to do what I want to do." I had already done Nanowrimo for a few years but then I resolved to make something that was publishable. I took on the 50bookchallange on LiveJournal and started reading again. I found myself drawn to fantasy
and this time I wasn't going to be ashamed.
Fantasy and science fiction were part of my imagination, of who I was,
and I had tried to deny that for years. No more.
My uncles and I have reached a respectful agree-to-disagree on the
subject matter. They are both very proud of what I have accomplished
and they have read my non-magical stuff and enjoyed it greatly. I just
don't ask them to read most of my fiction.
At 31, I can say I'm a proud writer and reader of speculative fiction.