Category Archives: LGBT

Reading the tea leaves for 2012

Well, hello there, readers. It’s been a while! Rather than sit here and give excuses, I’ll just apologize briefly for being not the best blogger lately. It happens. I’ve been blogging for a long time, when you look at the big picture, and well, sometimes there just isn’t a whole lot of time for sitting down and pondering the writing craft these days between family and the full time job and other things. But it’s not like nothing is happening. So here’s a bit of what’s been happening about these parts.

First and foremost, I’m currently heading into week 25 of my second pregnancy. And I’ll tell you: being pregnant does a number on your brain. Not only do you lose gray matter (like, your brain loses weight… so trippy) but hormones coursing through your body can change your personality (not to mention that your kid’s–and by extension your mate’s–DNA floats around in you permanently). For me, I’m under a nice, warm blanket of calm. If there are stresses in my life, I just seem to let them roll off my back. Oddly enough, stress tends to fuel my writing, both fiction and blogging and otherwise. I don’t feel that desperate need to create because, well, I’m creating. Right now. The little one is currently almost a foot long and weighs about a pound and a half. She’s a squirming, somersaulting, dancing little creature who, quite honestly, takes up most of my thoughts during the day. (No, I’m not writing SF right now… why do you ask?)

I’m okay with not writing a ton. Instead, I’ve been reading. As far as publishing and writing go, 2011 was not productive. Not in the output sense. But I haven’t stopped reading. In fact, I’ve read more in the last year than I’ve read in the last 5 years combined (in no small part thanks to my commute and the suggestions of my dear friend Samuel Montgomery-Blinn in the realm of audiobooks). I think of it in much the same way as I do my pregnancy: I’m feeding the creature. The best books I read this last year were Howards End by E.M. Forster (which will forever move me), The Age of Innocence  by Edith Wharton, Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor and The Magician King by Lev Grossman. Yes, that’s an unusual cross-section. But each of those books spoke to me in a really important way that will, undoubtedly, impact my writing permanently.

There’s also the book release. Pilgrim of the Sky has been let out into the wild, flying like the skylark. Overall, I’ve been thrilled with the reception, and have learned (mostly) how to ignore and move on from the less enthusiastic reviewers (how on earth someone mistook my book for YA, I will never know…). Which, thankfully, have been mostly the exception. A first book out there in the real world is a scary thing, but I’m glad to have gone through the experience. I’ve got a post brewing about the book that answers, hopefully, some of the questions/misconceptions people might have. If you haven’t had a chance yet, you can check out some of the reviews posted recently! (There’s a few I know of that are waiting in the wings, and I’m trying not to be impatient!) Additionally, I was interviewed by the Outer Alliance about the queer aspects of Pilgrim of the Sky, and how Maddie’s sexuality fits into the book as a whole; you can hear the interview here. (Additionally you have until the 16th to enter the contest for a signed copy of the book by yours truly.)

Not to mention that, along with the other GeekMom editors, I’ve been working on the Geek Mom book! We sold the book to Crown Publishing a few months ago and are swiftly approaching our deadline. So I’ve been immersed in geeky child rearing, projects, and cooking. Not a bad thing, but definitely doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for even more writing.

The good news is that I’ve settled on my next project (or rather, which project to continue) when February is over and our deadlines are met. Not sure how much writing I’ll get in, what with the brain the way it is, but it’s worth trying. I’ve also started taking a look at some of my back-log of novels and considering What Next To Do. Surely I can’t keep sitting on them. That does no one good!

To everyone who’s supported Pilgrim of the Sky – thank you! I can’t say it enough. My friends, family, and beyond have helped make this experience truly memorable. And it’s just starting, y’know? Here’s to 2012 and beyond.

Coming out in Character

For Coming Out Day, 2009

Peter was “born” sometime in the second half of 1999, likely toward winter. I remember that first scene very vividly. I saw him wrapped in a brown cloak, his hands wrapped around a staff, a tuft of his sandy hair protruding from the hood. He was standing by enormous bronze gates, cast in the torchlight, keeping watch: yes, my first original protagonist of my first original (non-collaborative) novel, then titled, The Gatekeeper. He started out as the savior of the world and ended up its doombringer.

Yes, much about Peter has changed in ten years, and since then his world has become home to The Aldersgate and The Ward of the Rose (albeit a Great Collision and 400 years later). But as of last April, though I’d finished a (fourth… fifth?) draft of his book, Peter of Windbourne, I was not happy with it. Something was bubbling somewhere under the surface that I couldn’t root out, couldn’t figure out. And so, instead of flogging a dead horse of the manuscript, I abandoned his story for a while and moved forward in the timeline, beginning The Aldersgate.

I had honestly given up on Peter, thinking his story to be that dusty tome of a novel never meant to see the light of day. Except, as I started work on The Ward of the Rose, his story started once again to surface… in my dreams, in my writing. I realized there were questions I had left unanswered that directly related to the story of The Ward of the Rose and, to finish that book off, I had to revisit Peter again. Which meant another ground-up rewrite; which I’d done countless times already.

I won’t pretend that Peter’s story is particularly unusual. It’s heroic fantasy, though without Elves and Dwarves and “easy” magic. There are swords and prophecies, alliances and sworn enemies. It’s about family and friendship, belief and blasphemy, outside and inside. But, all that aside, the relationships in the book, the characters, are always what made the story move for me. And yet for all my writing and rewriting, there was a note off in the chord that took me years to decipher.

And then I realized part of the problem. Peter didn’t like girls at all.

I remember mulling about the house after I realized this. No, it wasn’t the first time a queer character made their way into my writing. But it was the first time that the sole-POV did. It made for some challenges but…

What struck me most clearly was how unimportant it seemed in relationship to everything else, and yet (paradoxically) how much of an impact it had on Peter as a character. As I rewrote again, the story arc didn’t change; Peter was still working in the same capacity as before. Except his motivations changed. His reasoning behind things changed. The intensity of his emotions had to change, the way he viewed other people. Once I had figured out his sexuality, a great deal more about him became more obvious to me, much of which I had abandoned in earlier drafts for a stock lead character.

The result is that the last draft of Peter of Windbourne has a very different leading man. Seeds of the same character exist, but Peter and I have a connection that even ten years of working through couldn’t account for. I finally have his entire motivation boiled down into one sentence: Peter wants love and knowledge. The shades of those two desires change throughout the course of the book, and at times, writing it has been far more emotionally draining than anything else to date. But it’s far better for it.

No, writing a gay character doesn’t give me any kind of real-world cred. It doesn’t mean I know what it’s like. But it gives me a window into a soul, however contrived, and I think it brings me closer to knowing, to imagining what it would be like. That’s the beauty of writing, isn’t it? Exploring what cannot be explored in this world. The story is more complete now that I have a full view of my character. Whether I wasn’t brave enough before to go with what was clearly there from the beginning, I don’t know. It’s a journey and, technically speaking, the longest writing journey I’ve ever been on (the island on which the story’s set technically appeared in ’92).

But I’m glad for it. It’s the story as it should be, as it was meant to be.

A SF/F writers LGBT alliance group?

I’m not going to talk about what happened this week. But I am going to talk about what should happen, and what needs to happen.

Immediately after reading the rant by said individual, I went on a search. I wanted to find a group of SF/F writers, from all walks of life, who support LGBT issues, particularly in SF/F literature, and join up. I didn’t think this would be hard to find, and assumed that there was some magic place for support, celebration and the furthering of such material within the community already.

I was surprised not to find anything. And it occurred to me that if we’re actually going to make a difference in the SF/F community, and the writing community at large, then we, as writers who support (and as I said before, celebrate) differences in gender and sexuality, then it’s our frakking responsibility to have our own group. Because a hundred united voices scream a whole lot louder at once than intermittently.

Here’s what I envision:

  • A group of writers from all walks of life–gay, lesbian, straight, bi-sexual, transgendered–dedicated to ensuring that all voices in SF/F are heard, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. Further, an understanding that one’s sexual orientation and gender are not perversions of a “norm”–they are simply shades of what make each individual, real or fictional, beautiful.
  • A site created for the encouragement, recognition, and celebration of authors, bloggers and writers willing to portray those subjects in text and make contributions to the literary genre/community.
  • Proud badges to display on websites/blogs, etc.
  • Some kind of pledge to uphold the ideas, and offer support in times of crisis and in the face of bigotry.

I think it’s also important to consider this to be a group that is solely for something, rather than reactionary. It would be a safe haven. A place of peace, support, respect, and education. Being a part of this community would mean engaging in respectful dialogue intended to educate. We’ve got to be better than the opposition; we’ve got to make them look like the hate-filled, bigoted jerks that they are by simply refusing to stoop to their level.

I’ve said before that I believe SF/F to be the best genres for the advancement of LGBT issues because, come on people, we have the chance to bring it out of our own world! We can, with the stroke of our pens, create entire worlds where we can do and say things that could never fly in our societies. It’s a chance to rewrite it as we want, and that’s some incredible power.

Now, this is my hope. Maybe there’s a group out there that I’m missing. If I am, please correct me and let me know, and sign me up. If not, then I’m making one. It’s especially important to me that this be an alliance between LGBT writers and straight writers, because together I believe we really can make an impact.

If you’re interested, or know of any people interested, in working to help create such a place online, let me know. You can email me at natania.barron @ gmail.com, or DM or @ me on Twitter.

The most solid comfort one can fall back upon is the thought that the business of one’s life is to help in some small way to reduce the sum of ignorance, degradation and misery on the face of this beautiful earth. – George Eliot