Writers are a funny breed.
Virtually every other art form has a million approaches, and no one seems to question this.
Perhaps it's because writing requires some degree of education, and holding a reader's attention for possibly many hours to read an entire book involves creating more fascination than a 45-second TikTok video of a hot young chick swallowing whipped cream.
Whatever it is, writers seem to always want to be right about what writing well requires (note my audacious use of an adverb there).
I suppose I am no exception. Carry on.
This is a topic that certainly applies beyond writing, but let's start as authors.
I had a book publicist who told me I shouldn't swear and shouldn't post any opinions, because it might lose me an interview or a reader. Perhaps she is right, but on the other hand, it might also gain me a reader.
At the end of the day: I don't really care. I trust my books will sell based on the quality of the writing and its contents, not my views. I mean, I'm not running for office lol.
I think being authentic is way, way undervalued, ESPECIALLY FOR WOMEN. How dare we say what we really think? We are raised to keep our opinions to ourselves-- it would be unladylike and offensive to do otherwise.
I was raised with the same direction in this regard as all y'all. I mean, my mother died when I was five, but the one thing my father was somewhat obsessed with was "how to behave in polite society." He'd worked in the State Dept., after all.
The only thing he cared about in my wedding planning was that I had a receiving line. That really summed him up in a nutshell. Protocol and order.
Right.
I am a funny person, because in some ways, I am actually very traditional. The ways in which I am untraditional are mostly untraditional haha--I love to shoot, I speak my mind, I am very, very bad at following orders.
Many years of being told how to behave made me go the other way as an adult. I don't think it was an instant process, but here I am on the back nine, not really giving a shit what anyone thinks about the fact that I like to speak my mind.
If we don't speak our truth as writers, who will? I would like to see more women be more outspoken, and not just the insane libs like AOC and the screaming loon who is the Palestinian Congressional bitch from Michigan.
And I am very happy to see that more conservative women ARE speaking up, like Riley Gaines and Mace from South Carolina.
So I will take my chances on losing readers, because honestly, who cares? I don't think trans men who think they're women or pro-Ham Ass idiots are probably my reader demographic anyway.
Speak up, ladies. Be bold.
As Goethe said, " Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now."
Can you even imagine a woman writing about the quest to find a man of means as part of her personal journey now?
Back in the early 19th century--when Jane Austen wrote most of her now-iconic novels about impecunious young women of good breeding but dire prospects--this was a reality for the gentry class. If you were a woman, who you married framed most of your life, and it was a decision not to be made lightly for that reason.
If you could happen to find a really rich landowner who was also hot, slightly edgy, and a tad vulnerable beneath his dour exterior (Mr. Darcy), well--why not? And if he fell in love with you despite himself having far better financial prospects (because even rich men had to think about the astronomical expenses of maintaining an enormous, drafty estate and manor), so much the better.
And they all lived happily ever after.
Now we are swimming in stories about equity and diversity that have about as much romantic jjzzzjj as a Walmart greeter.
As with almost anything else, literature has had its soul sucked out by the DEI movement. I attended an online authors' conference today where a publisher spoke with glee about an upcoming book about a transgender kid. Is there really a big audience for this? Are plain ol' straight kids who know what sex they are even allowed to celebrate that reality anymore? I wonder.
I grew up reading great literary fiction like Dickens, Tolstoy, and Harper Lee. Life was certainly not easy in the times these authors wrote about, but they managed to portray it with some kind of dramatic elan that made it delicious to read.
Now authors would be told to refer to poverty as "experiencing financial insecurity," which just doesn't roll off the tongue the same way.
Looking for love? You are "emotionally underserved." Beautiful? "Visually privileged." A bastard? "Born into nuclear insecurity."
DEI is killing the fucking English language, and if authors don't push back, who will save it? I implore writers everywhere to reclaim language like a buried treasure, polish it up and put it back on display, before the linguistic Titanic on which we are all sailing hits its last iceberg.
One that even climate change won't save.