writerly ways

[cornerofmadness]

I decided to tackle a slightly charged topic this time because it's been eating at me.



Matters of racial identity. These are becoming more and more a concern of any author. There is both good and bad to this. Most of us only know one, maybe two identities intimately and everything else is hopefully a researched guess. There is a tendency to stick to one’s own cultural/racial identity when writing and run the risk of being accused as bigoted when there isn’t diversity in your writing. On the flip side, you try to be diverse and get accused of being racially insensitive.

In a perfect world, people are people and everything else would matter less but this is a far from imperfect place and many of us take great pride in our ethnic backgrounds. There is nothing wrong with this. On the other hand, there are a whole lot of authors out there more than a little afraid of ending up on the bad end of race!fail blogs.

Why am I bringing this up? It’s one of the things that have put a real halt on Machiavelli Moon. Fifteen years ago when I wrote this originally, I would have worried less about this, right or wrong. However, now I’m more than a little paranoid. Moon has a deeply embedded component of Lakota heritage. I did my best to research it and have my own personal experiences from my time as a part-time reservation doctor. I feel in love with the culture but there are two things weighing on me now. 1) no matter how much I’ve researched it, I’m still an outsider 2) I don’t want to come across as a Caucasian woman fangirling Native Americans. I want it to be as true to the cultural as I can make it.

Oddly, if Caksi was merely a Native American cop and his culture didn’t come into that much I would worry less. But the culture does play a role. I want it right and I feel very uncertain of myself. Ideally I would like to find someone inside the culture to look at it. I had even thought about contacting someone at Sinte Gleska University to read the novel. I hesitate mostly because I do not know if I could afford to hire someone to do it and for that matter, last I looked a lot of the professors were still outsiders culturally/racially (though that has been years ago. I probably SHOULD look into this more fully).

It has gone a long way to killing my enthusiasm for working on this as much as I love the story. I’ve given more thought to finishing my two YA stories where ethnic background plays less of a role. Has anyone else felt this way? Do you not worry about it as much? Have I made a mountain out of a mole hill?

I just I just feel that we’re a long way from the beautiful Vulcan ideal of ‘infinite diversity in infinite combination.’ We’re still more polarized and it seems to be getting worse rather than better. A decade ago if you asked me what my biggest worry about this novel was, that wouldn’t have been my answer. Now I find myself almost afraid to keep editing and trying with this story even though I feel I did a good job of being fair to the cultural without fangirling it and idealizing it. I could just be far too close to it to tell.


On a lighter note here's something from Writers' Digest (includes at least one agent search engine) top 10 productive time wasters for writers

I didn't write much and literally nothing for my help_japan claims(I'm so sorry) but I did get some done for my space pirates.


yearly word count -

22840 / 125000 words. 18% done!

Comments

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

This is why I like dealing with fantasy. I'm not too worried about what my people look like, coloring or anything else aside.

I'd like to see Machiavelli Moon published, seriously. At least Caksi has a personality beyond the "Handsome Lakota Man" that appears in romance novels.

[sillymagpie.livejournal.com]

I can understand the cautiousness about dealing with race. Perhaps a professor isn't the best person to read your novel...would someone else from the reservation be able to review it?

Thanks for the writing sites!

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

I have thought about that too but it's like who? I'm not even sure where to start. I could look for cultural centers and ask them I suppose.

I mean, for all i know the Lakota would view werewolves as products of evil and that would need to be worked into the story as more angst for the male lead

[silvrethorn.livejournal.com]

If Tony Hillerman could write all those Chee and Leaphorn novels without being Navajo himself, I don't see why you can't write Lakota characters. MM isn't anchored by Lakota characters, and you aren't writing an insider novel about Lakota life, culture, or the reservation experience. Your central characters, if I remember correctly, are European, and since you're writing mostly from their viewpoint you're writing the Lakota characters from an outside perspective. I would be very surprised if anyone took offense at this arrangement.

That said, this fear is exactly why I'm contemplating taking kenjutsu lessons. There is automatically going to be suspicion of an author writing about another race/culture who has no first-hand experience of that culture. You have bona-fides through your work in South Dakota. I have no credentials where Japan is concerned. Years of research, sure, but that's nothing beside being able to say in my author's blurb that I'm a fifth-dan kenjutsu master (mistress?) and a practicing Zen Buddhist. Anything less is going to get me dismissed as an amateur, a fangirl, or both. (I don't know if you saw it, but when I posted my "hook" in that contest a few years back, someone immediately commented that a samurai-ninja story was an interesting concept, but only if it was a researched effort and not the work of some anime fan who'd watched too much Naruto.)

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

yes which is what my YA is, fantasy...

thank you. I'm glad you think so

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

well yes there is that too, though he wrote those books 20 odd years ago or more and it's only been recently that I see people getting attacked left and right if they DO or if they DON'T use people of another race.

But you are right. The lead character is pretty much me, Italian. Sulien is Welsh (and at least now i can almost speak enough of it to ask for beer). I HAVE considered not using their Lakota names and just use the angelo ones. sigh

and yes I see YOUR dilemma too

[silvrethorn.livejournal.com]

Oh, this stupid race stuff has been around for 20 years, and probably longer. I had a friend who attended the prestigious Clarion Workshop more than ten years ago, who was appalled by the vicious sniping among fellow attendees to the tune of "How _dare_ you write a black/gay/female/handicapped character if you aren't black/gay/female/handicapped yourself?" We wondered together what that left for fiction writers to write, according to her workshop fellows, if we as white, female writers were forbidden to write anything except white, female characters.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

*nod nod*

I've always thought so. :D

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Fantasy stories?

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

and then you get the why aren't there black/white/yellow/red people in your fantasy stories? All elves aren't white, dontcha know...

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

"I have green characters! That should resolve the issue."

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

there yuo go

[silvrethorn.livejournal.com]

The scary thing is, I think Clarion _was_ a fantasy writers' workshop. Tina did write fantasy, and got her invitation to the workshop through placing in the Writers of the Future contest. Her experience doesn't speak well of fantasy/sci-fi writers, at least the kind who attend prestigious workshops.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Oh, I remember that now. Vaguely. I think that was after Tina and I had stopped communicating, but I heard about it from either you or ysabela.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

honestly everything I've ever heard about Clarion was either pompous, narrow minded or both

[hierath.livejournal.com]

It's got werewolves in it, right? So it's not TECHNICALLY strictly true to life.. You could play up the whole "well, it's obviously not completely the same as our world, because it has werewolves in it! angle, and therefore people might be a bit different... I understand wanting to get it right, but I think if you do err, the people who enjoy it will give you some leeway, and the people who don't, won't.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

you're right, i could definitely do that too.

I respect the culture enough that I definitely want to do it right but you're right as well, haters are gonna hate

[spiderling.livejournal.com]

I totally get this, the first Carmine story doesn't have a single white person in it!

But I think at a certain point you have to quit worrying and write what you want. People will always bitch. If it isn't one thing it'll be another.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

and knowing people someone will object to that.

I'm just looking for the best idea on how to make sure I've done MY due diligence with this.

[spiderling.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you have. As long as it isn't overly romanticized or offensive.

There isn't a way to be 100% sure about anything unless you got every member of the Lakota Nation to sign off on you book :)

Relax! Hell you LIVED there!

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

this is true. Actually I DO want to be sure I have the language right in the very few places it is and I also need to give Deadwood's police force a call to doublecheck my facts there too

hmmm there IS something to be said about writing pure fantasy...