Just a Sci-Fi Kid Like Me

via The Mary Sue.

We in the book community are in the middle of a sustained conversation about diversity. We talk about our need for diverse books with diverse characters written by diverse writers. I wholeheartedly agree.

But I have noticed an undercurrent of fear in many of our discussions. We’re afraid of writing characters different from ourselves because we’re afraid of getting it wrong. We’re afraid of what the Internet might say.

This fear can be a good thing if it drives us to do our homework, to be meticulous in our cultural research. But this fear crosses the line when we become so intimidated that we quietly make choices against stepping out of our own identities

And let’s say you do your best. You put in all the effort you can. But then when your book comes out, the Internet gets angry. You slowly realize that, for once, the Internet might be right. You made a cultural misstep. If this happens, take comfort in the fact that even flawed characters can inspire. Apologize if necessary, resolve to do better, and move on.

I wish this is something more creative writing teachers would bring up.

See his obit at Locus.

He is probably most famous for, depending on your age, Camp Concentration or The Brave Little Toaster.

My favorite of his works was with his partner Charles Naylor: Neighboring Lives which was a fictionalized set of vignettes of the major Victorian writers and artists. Carlyle was there, and Rossetti, and Hunt and Carrol, etc.

The 1993 Encyclopedia of Science Fiction wrote "Because of his intellectual audacity, the chillingly distanced mannerism of his narrative art, the austerity of the pleasures he affords, and the fine cruelty of his wit, [Disch] has been perhaps the most respected, least trusted, most envied and least read of all modern first-rank sf writers."

He "died by his own hand" as they say. He will be missed.

I like getting the mail when I come home in the evening. I particularly like it when I get reading material and not spam. Today I got the new issues of The American Archivist and Realms of Fantasy, and because I am me I tossed TAA on the couch and opened up RoF.

RoF has a story by Way Jeng called "Somebody Desperately Needed to Be Neil Gaiman."

What would Neil Gaiman have done if he were sitting where I was? Probably start writing a story. He'd have one right away, no problem. He was Neil Gaiman. He could do that sort of thing, being Neil Gaiman and all.

[...]

It was not easy being Neil Gaiman. I suspect it's not easy to be anyone, except possibly one of the homeless people by the train station. You don't have to do very much at all to be one of them.

It's a really well-written story. And of course, the rest of the mag isn't that bad either.

Later,
me