Welcome to my profile! Add this book to your library for profile updates beyond what I announce:
❖ Progress reports on my ongoing projects
❖ Announcements of new things I'm writing behind the scenes
❖ Rambling about anything from queer rep to c...
"So here is why I write what I do: We all have futures. We all have pasts. We all have stories. And we all, every single one of us, no matter who we are and no matter what's been taken from us or what poison we've internalized or how hard we've had to work to expel it –
– we all get to dream."
N.K. Jemisin
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I have a bias against my own identities.
This is a hard thing to admit, and it always has been. Nobody, I believe, actually likes to come out and say they've always quietly side-eyed other people like them. Maybe been slow to approach those with whom they share some marginalization or intersectionality. Maybe judged them harder than they would anyone else. Maybe they steer clear of books written by or about or featuring people who share their identity. Maybe they avoid writing those books themselves.
The writing community is full of these kinds of writing crossovers. Queer authors defaulting to straight characters and vice versa. Queer authors defaulting to differently queer identities, but never their own. POC authors defaulting to white ones, disabled to non-disabled, women to men. There are a plethora of reasons it happens, and internalized stuff is not always part of the picture. There is a certain freedom from judgment that comes from defaulting to a "safe" option of character identity, and the cruel reality of our world's marketing biases can tie a career to that choice. There's also emotional labor involved in writing and sharing one's own identity, and nobody is obligated to take that labor on.
All I'm saying is, there can be many layers at play... and I know I'm not alone.
I answer yes to all of that first paragraph. Less so than I used to, but I started this post with an N.K. Jemisin quote because she put into words what I was struggling to capture otherwise: the poison we internalize and how hard it is to expel it.
Back to those identities.
I've sprinkled this throughout this book, but I'm laughing now because I realize that my never having said it outright is just another facet of this whole debate. I am an aroace trans man on the autism spectrum with a smattering of other neurospice that's most likely dyscalculia (numbers dyslexia... yes, I'm in engineering. long story) and an audio processing disorder. Without going into detail, integrating with society has been a lifelong process for me, and there's a lot going on in my brain.
That's putting it lightly.
One of the fun things about this combination of identities is that they play off one another, and many are double-edged swords. If you've read my Q&A and hadn't gathered already, writing is an autistic special interest of mine, which is a large part of why I write so much, so fast. I've got a view of both sides of the gender spectrum. And let me tell you, learning to write romantic plots when the aro, the ace, and the autism are all working against me has been... a ride. A fun and rewarding one. But let's just say it's a good thing I respond well to challenges.
