megwrites

Dear Colleen Lindsay,

I have been following the comments that you and others have made in this post made by Rachelle Gardner concerning public complaints by writers. My opinions on that can be found in other entries, if you feel like reading them. That's not here what I came to talk about.

I came here to talk about this comment that you left further down the page, the one that says (emphasis mine):

I actually didn't go into anyone's journal. Google feeds locked posts into the Google reader willy-nilly, regardless of whether the post is locked or not. I found out it was a locked post simply because I tried to reference it again to show a colleague from another agency who was also mentioned in the post and I was unable to access it through LiveJournal.

You may be loathe to point this out so I will: I just did you and every other writer a major public service by letting you all know that even if you think something is private, it can sometimes still be seen by Google Reader.

Here's a Xanax and a glass of water. Chill, please.

Colleen

This may be the scariest thing I've ever done, but I need to tell you that this is not okay. I realize that I am probably very much putting whatever writing career I might have had in jeopardy. I realize that I could face a lot of consequences for saying this.

I'm willing to live with that.

I don't know your personal life all that well, besides what you Twitter or blog, so I don't know if you've ever had cause to be someone who takes Xanax or a medication similar to that.

But I do know many friends and family who have. Including me. I'm shaking right now, because I really don't like to admit that once upon a time, I had to be put on psychiatric medications when I was a kid. I still feel ashamed of it. It was a long time ago, and I try not to think about it or about how hard I tried not to let anyone know about it because, well, letting the kids at school know you're on "crazy pills" is asking to be teased.

I saw what happened to the one other girl in school who let the secret slip. I heard the "crazy" jokes and the "psycho" remarks. I heard the "she must be off her meds" remarks if she dared to show her hurt, her anger, her frustration. I got lucky. I kept my secret and was taken off the meds quickly. To this day, the thought of ever having to go back on them make me shake. Like I'm shaking right now.

I'm no longer on any psychiatric medications, but I know so many people who take such things. Including, yes, Xanax.

Those people, those friends and family, don't take it because they're high-strung and just need to "chill". They don't take it because they're bitchy and whiny and weak. They take it so they can function, so they can lead healthier lives. It is not due to a character flaw - it is due to a disorder, a disability.

The act of admitting you need help, especially with a mental disorder, is terrifying for so many people. There is still a lot of stigma surrounding it. When you admit that you have or still do take those drugs, you're opening yourself to a lot of scorn, to people who trivialize your condition, to people who think you're just whining and complaining, to people who think you're less trustworthy or intelligent because of it.

This isn't about writers or agents or the gripes between them. I don't care about that right now. I care that a professional that I respected so much has shown such profound disrespect, intentional or not, to so many people I care about.

You're a highly visible figure in the publishing world. One look at your blog or your Twitter feed shows that a lot of people watch and listen to you, and when you say such things, you give a silent nod to ablism to all those people watching. Yes, their actions and words are their responsibility. You can't control what other people do. But you can control what you yourself do, and what you condone.

I'm asking that in the future that you think about the things you say publicly, even in moments of great irritation (however justified) and the impact they will have on others. It is something that I think anyone who blogs, tweets, or comments should think about before they hit "post".

I'm keeping this letter open because I think that you are not, by any means, the first or worst in the voices of people who also encourage a culture of ablism, whether they mean to or not. I think we all need to talk about this, need to talk about ways we can change our words and behaviors so that we're not holding people down, disrespecting them, and making their lives harder.

Perhaps open letters on the internet are also unprofessional, perhaps bringing this out into the open is unprofessional, perhaps air my past is unprofessional. Well, maybe professionalism isn't all it's cracked up to be. And I'm not a professional. I'm just some nobody, unpublished writer with stories to tell who sees other people with stories -- and selves -- that are scorned, hidden, disrespected, ignored and thinks that it shouldn't be that way. I think that comments like yours only make it harder for those stories and those selves to come out honestly, openly, and with the dignity they deserve, and that shouldn't be.


Thank You,
Meg Freeman

Dear Writers, Editors, Agents, and Publishers of Urban Fantasy,

I don't know if you've seen this here, but you need to go look. Your audiences are speaking, and you need to listen. People are getting frustrated with the Urban Fantasy genre, and in this economic climate, you need our dollars. You need us, the readers.

But I don't like to bitch without offering suggestions, so I thought I'd offer up a helpful, numbered list so that you have something to refer to when you're writing, editing, representing, or considering taking on an urban fantasy book.


1. When people say they're tired of the "kickass heroine" or "Buffy clone", what they're really saying is that they're tired of female protagonists who are physically powerful and have the emotional depth of a postage stamp. They're tired of heroines that are self absorbed. And when you have a heroine who acts and thinks as though all the world, natural and supernatural, revolves around her and her powers - that's self absorbed. When she looks at every attractive man as though, of course, he's going to be attracted in return, that's self absorbed. When she describes her clothing and looks in detail as though it could possibly matter that her pants are leather or her heels are three inches high or her hair is red - that's incredibly self absorbed.

1b. Enough with the "sass" and the "snark", or at least the feeble attempts at them. It's not funny, it's not amusing. Trying to be as colloquial as possible in a character's speech does not a great read make.

2. Diversity is important. Scratch that. Diversity is absolutely essential and needed. Needed beyond the telling of it. I'm not just talking about sticking a few more minor characters who are GLBT/disabled/of color in a book to fill a quota. I'm talking about investments in authors of color and GLBT authors themselves. Don't just look for stories that are about CoC's or GLBT protags or disabled or non-neurotypical people. Look for stories that are written by those people themselves. Commit to them telling their stories of the supernatural in their own words, without mediation by an outsider writer who may have more privilege and access.

2b. The next time I see a novel set in NYC where the vast majority of the characters are white? Somebody is getting it in the face. Hard. This is New York City, and we have so many different people here, and those stories deserve to be told by the people who they belong to. I love my city, and I will not have it whitewashed, straightened, and cookie-cut. This city has color. This city has sexuality. This city has ability and disability. This city has faith. This city has everything. Don't you dare try to act otherwise.

2c. Why, yes, I am angry. My question to you folks who write, edit, represent, and publish is: Why aren't you? You should be.

3. Put a moratorium on vampires and werewolves for a while. That's not to say that if you have a novel that's The Sound and the Fury for the supernatural, you shouldn't go ahead. But if it can be summed up with the words: "Heroine gets involved in magic, meets a vampire or werewolf and the sparks fly" - give it a pass. Actually, give it a one way ticket to the trash.

4. Fire the people in the art department and then set them on fire. With matches and gasoline and maybe some napalm if you can get it. For the love of all things good in the world, make the tramp stamps and the leather clad ass shots stop. Now. This epidemic of deeply sexist, horribly cliched cover art has got to end.

5. Do your research, do it right, and do it with respect and care. If you're going to use, say, voodoo as part of your supernatural world, make sure to do it right. That's somebody's faith, and they deserve respect. Ditto goes for grabbing other people's mythology and religions for your own without understanding what it actually means. "Well, the funny words all sounded cool and I'm supposed to be diverse, right?" is not a good reason for doing so.

5b. Accept criticism when you screw up in this area, especially criticism from the people who's faith, mythology, and culture you gakked in the first place. Accept it with humility. Accept it without condition. If your response to said criticism is not: "I'm sorry. I'm wrong. I will do my best to do better in future. Period, end of sentence.", then just keep your trap shut.

6. Think very carefully about your world building, about the structures, groups, and rules you come up with. Writing a fantasy novel (urban or otherwise) doesn't excuse you from believability. It doesn't excuse you from thinking about consequences and repercussions.

7. Think very carefully about your use of the first person when telling a story. Think about the flow of the story. Think about whether the middle of a scene where your protagonist is fighting for his/her life is a good time to go on a little aside about their oh-so-tragic childhood or their oh-so-wacky love life or their oh-so-sexy attire.

8. Enough with the tragic childhoods. Coming from an abusive/neglectful home does not make you cooler. It doesn't make you stronger, even. Sometimes it just makes you more broken and makes things harder than they are for other people. Sometimes it makes you weak and strange. Please, go talk to some actual abuse survivors before you consider penciling in a protagonist who is one.


So, in conclusion, it's time to generate new ideas, new characters, new thought patterns.

Yes, it may sound like I'm complaining, and I'm being harsh. But I believe in you folks, you literary folks of every ilk. I'm one of you. And I know we can do better. I know the stories are out there, the truly great ones, and I want to read them. I've heard the old adage, "Write what you want to read", but nobody can write everything they'd want to see.

Which means some of you have to, and I know you can.

Still Reading and Hoping,
Me