I've been using this blog a lot more recently. I think the reason is just the fact that I'm thinking a lot more than I used to. I'm actually lying on my bed with the lights off just because I feel weird and slightly cozy right now but, as a consequence of my now being almost completely nocturnal, I am not tired in the slightest.
As a result I decided to make a list of what I think I'm hoping to get out of essentially being an artist for a living. What am I aiming for? What would I be trying to do? I came up with a few main points:
- Representation. No queer-baiting, no lesbians marketed toward men, just honest characters.
1) Portrayals of healthy polyamory which are not used as cheap jokes or seen as 'problematic'.
2) Portrayals of genderqueer/agender/trans characters which consistently use the correct pronouns, both in dialogue and in narration.
3) Portrayals of asexual characters without resorting to cheap stereotyping (e.g. androids). Not that androids aren't awesome or can't just be asexual, but robots and criminals are basically all we've got right now and that's... that's kind of sad actually.
4) Portrayals of aromantic characters. Sort of in general but mainly in ways which do not paint them as broken, bitter, depressed, loveless, etc. individuals or as someone in need of 'fixing'. Sort of ditto for asexual characters, honestly.
- Recognition
Now, that's one that I don't care for thinking about, to be perfectly honest. I feel like a glory hound, I guess would be the best way to describe it. There's a part of me that, if I wrote something, I want my name on it (well, the name I go by... since I go by it). But that feels really greedy, though I'm not sure why.
And that's really it. I mean, obviously, I want enough money that I can live comfortably and feed my little habits but I think that kind of goes without saying.
So, it's a pretty simple thing I'm striving for, all in all.
Maybe that's why it feels so difficult to figure out what I want from an artistic life. Because I don't want much in terms of numbers, but I'm wanting quite a bit in terms of larger social impact.
The question then becomes: Can I make any kind of a difference? Would inclusive books sell well enough that I could live through writing them? If not, could I make up the difference without a bunch of undue stress? I think that's why I'm sometimes less than inclined to work on my own things. I have no way of knowing if it'll work, especially given that people as a general rule don't really know what they want unless it's given to them and they can see what they do and don't like about it. That presents all kinds of potential issues. That and the fact that no two people experience their life, their world, and themselves in exactly the same way.
Of course, to use a Hemingway quote: 'The shortest answer is doing the thing.'
