Failed Writer's Journey: Politics is Part of Writing And Other Various Quick Hits

Insomnia is killing me, so this will be short this week. I half wanted to just start serializing my last completed work so I wouldn’t have to think. Of course, many people, all the finest people, big men with tears in their eyes, come up to me and say “Sir,” they always call me sir, “Sir, you don’t think anyway,” so maybe its moot.

We are apparently in another round of “should writers talk about their politics,” and, as usual, it strikes me as weird. First, everyone should be able to talk about their politics. We live in a democracy, so politics is kind of important for people to discuss. You don’t have to, if you don’t want to, but it is probably good for the body politic.

That doesn’t mean it’s good for you, of course. Talking about politics can irritate people or even get you fired. No right to free speech if you are employed. (Which, while no free speech right while employed is bad, some limitations on employee speech make sense. A vet shouldn’t have to employee someone who publicly agitates for the “Kill The Puppies Now!” party (I am pretty sure that’s a real party in the UK)). Or, and this is what the kerfuffle is about, people could boycott your books. Why take the chance, the argument goes.

As a writer that thought makes me sad. You always want the work to stand on its own, but I understand. I am certainly less likely to return to JK Rowling’s work now that I have seen some of her recent behavior, for example. But I really think that most writers’ voices are influenced by their politics. Perhaps it is just because of the stories I write (sarcastic little tales of killing monsters and fighting capitalism. I need that on a t-shirt), but I really think that the author’s voice inevitably contains aspects of their politics. Because politics, in the end, is largely about how you interact with the world. And that is going to come through, at least to a certain extent, in the work. If you don’t like my politics, in the long term, I don’t see how you are going to like my work.

Rowling is a good example of this. Whatever she has turned into, the books themselves have some excellent messages about treating everyone decently and fairly. They also directly attack the notion that one’s birth should matter to one’s life. But. But they also have an entire race of bankers that can argued to be largely Jewish stereotypes. And she marks an entire House of children as untrustworthy because an ugly, talking hat put them in that House. That kind of essentialism is pretty ugly. The good and the bad, then, are both present in her work so it’s not surprising to see both come out in her politics. What you do with that information is up to you, but it’s always been present, I think.

Some more quick hits:

• Publishers and authors are suing to stop Florida’s book banning law. The law is terrible, resulting in entire categories of books, such as those dealing with LGBTQ+ material, essentially being outlawed. I hope the publishers win.

• But hey, sometimes the good guys do win!

• Charlie Jane Anders has an excellent article about genre and likeable characters.

• Umm, what?

Weekly Word Count Update

About 75 pages. I finished the script and have it set for a table read by the group in early to mid-October. I tried, as suggested, to lean into the dark humor, but I suspect I am only funny in small doses and to look at. This feels more like Ishtar 2: Broken Clocks and Rusty Daggers than a Cohen brothers’ flick. Ah well. Still a lot of fun to play around with a different format.

Have a great weekend, every one!