Update(s) – Things went better last week, the week I’m writing about, than this week, the week I’ll be writing about next week. These updates would go better if I wrote them on Sundays, which was my original intention. Last week (May 26-June 1) I got stuff done, including paid work and writing. This week (May 2-May 7, the day I’m typing this) I finally started cleaning the weeds out of the yard and wrestled with a bad bout of constipation, culminating in a two-day descent into computer game hell once again. However, I got back to the writing this morning and I’m confident I can get the paid work done before deadline, so it’s all good. Next week I’ll see about getting myself back onto a less confusing schedule.
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As I feared, my last posted topic may have had internet repercussions. Over the last week my readership dropped alarmingly. Even the Hong Kong bots deserted me. Traffic’s slowly picking up again, though, so maybe it was just a glitch. And Switzerland’s still there. (waves) Maybe I’m just being paranoid.
To summarize, with clarifications: I am not against racial and sexual diversity in my reading and viewing material. I’ve included diverse characters in my own works, but only if it enhances the plot. I wasn’t planning on adding other races to the cast of my current book, but the Token Black Mercenary character started developing a personality, which led me to the conclusion his writer must have been a black man. This gave my main bad guy, the greedy, self-absorbed editor, the excuse to fire him for the crime of Writing for a White Audience While Black. The editor does a lot of reprehensible things, but that one should guarantee his infamy. It also made a crucial info source black as well, because he was the fired writer’s nephew and had actually met the two other writers the detective’s looking for. Plus it solved a background issue of my story being set in Philadelphia. Philly, like most major cities, is a melting pot of what Star Trek used to refer to as “infinite diversity in infinite combinations.” If I hadn’t included at least one Person of Color in the cast, it really would have been a fantasy.
What I do object to is having diversity forcibly crammed down my throat, in the form of a constant stream of feisty Girl Bosses who can do no wrong (think Mary Sue, but as a lesbian POC), or race- and/or gender-swapping established characters in the name of “equality” (Doctor Who; Thor: Love and Thunder). I tune in to see Superman stopping bad guys, not Superman’s young-adult bisexual son sexting with his gay boyfriend. Yes, that scene appeared in a comic book. There are exceptions: My Adventures with Superman, the Adult Swim cartoon, is a true delight, even though Lois Lane is now biracial (she’s half Korean, according to the producers), and Jimmy Olsen appears to be permanently black, continuing the race swap initiated by the CW’s Supergirl show. That’s because everyone, regardless of skin tone, still remains true to their original characterizations. The writers clearly respect the characters and their history. That isn’t always the case. When the writers start using someone else’s characters to pound their pet agendas into our heads, it’s time to close the book or turn off the TV. Or get the hell off the internet.
But what really ticks me off is what may be the true motivation behind the surge of inclusivity, at least for the corporations that own the IP rights to all these characters getting largely-inappropriate makeovers. As with everything in a capitalist society, it all comes down to money.
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Three real-life stories, two of which happened to me personally, two of which deal with diversity…at least on the surface. Story 1: Back around 2008 I lost what turned out to be my last full-time job when the company, a printing firm, sent its work to India. This was also around the time the economy tanked, and finding jobs was a chore. I got lucky and signed on for the US Census, essentially a two-year temp job with no benefits but great pay. When that ended I still had unemployment to tide me over while I started a new job hunt in the slowly-recovering economy. I found two possibilities on the internet: a newspaper editorial position that, from the location and description, sounded like my old newspaper job, just under new management. The other was a writing job I’d applied to years ago but didn’t get; I think I may have botched the interview. Both were the types of jobs I’d been doing for years, had an interest in and experience with. Both ads contained the lines Recent graduates encouraged to apply. Experience is fine, but not required.
In short, they’re not looking for pros. They’re looking for young and cheap. Preferably women, because women traditionally get paid less. That’s how I got to be an editor in the first place. I wasn’t young, but I had no experience and would accept pittance wages to get it. The other woman, who had experience, wanted more money. Guess who got the job. Now I had experience and needed full-time work. Good luck with that.
I clicked on the Apply Now tab for the newspaper job, only to learn it was already filled, probably internally. I sent a resume to the other one. Never heard back. They probably saw the writing-related experience I had and decided I was too rich for their blood. I eventually got my work-from-home job, so things worked out, more or less.
Story 2: It’s a few years later. Harlequin, the romance publisher, was looking for editors for Carina Press, which I think is an e-book line. They had a list of qualifications that my work-from-home job had given me some experience in. The pay sounded a lot better than what I was getting. They also used the “recent grads” line, along with a new one encouraging interest from members of “traditionally marginalized groups.” Again, experience was welcome but its lack was not a deal breaker, and diversity was a plus. I sent in my resume, answering all the questions. And got a reply: “We’re not going to interview you.” It’s the only line I remember from their response. Not even: “We had 1000 applicants who live across the street from our offices” or even “We’ve decided to hire last year’s interns.” My application itself got shot down in flames. I wish they hadn’t responded at all. Nothing like asking about a job and getting a smack in the face for it.
Months later, I checked out their “meet our new members!” page to see who’d won the lottery. It looked like they did hire a lot of interns, or people who actually knew their way around a publishing house. Can’t fault ’em for that. Some of their hires had pronouns, like “they/them”. Hey, if you’re qualified, fine. What you do on your own time shouldn’t matter anyway. But my favorite part of this story is what happened some weeks afterwards. Both the editor and the assistant editor (I think, but can’t recall for sure, if she was the one who responded to my application) were abruptly fired. The editor was on vacation at the time. She’d been there for years and had built that line from the ground up. She was also probably pulling in a higher salary than the new kids would be getting. Last I heard, she was marketing herself as a “freelance editor” and offering paid tutorials in editing. She’s not young and cheap any more, and probably not diverse either. Such is karma.
Story 3: One of the writers at DC Comics—Zack Snyder, I think, I don’t feel like double-checking—[Correction: I ended up looking it up; Scott Snyder is the comic book writer. Zack (no relation) is a director who has done DC-related movies] had been running a workshop in comic book writing for several years before I learned about it. I applied for what turned out to be the last one. Only a set number, maybe ten, would be invited, but some of those lucky few would get jobs writing for DC. I was always more of a Marvel fan, but what the hell. I always wanted to write for comics. This could be my last shot.
Well, it missed. I didn’t get picked. I did not get to take part in the workshop. In the end, Snyder picked a trans woman. Most of his previous picks were people of color, trans, black, and any and all combinations thereof. Word is that Snyder, himself a straight white man, was deliberately seeking diversity hires to broadcast his “wokeness” and secure his own job. Hell, if I’d known that was a requirement, I could have faked being a lesbian. I even supported the Harley Quinn/Poison Ivy ship before it became canon. But there y’go. Now DC Comics is in the dumpster and the writers are begging their fans for money to pay their bills because wages are even lower than they were back in the 1990s, when comics were popular. And good. And yet these people are still getting assignments, although the work’s drying up as the backlash sets in. I probably get more from Social Security than they do writing for comics. I think I may have dodged a bullet here.
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All this is why I’m glad now I missed out on the Berkley open call. That “fresh, new voices” bit was the warning shot: published writers, fogies over 40 and white folks stay away. We’re not looking for good books; we’re looking to check boxes. Quality is an afterthought. My guess is, advances are going to be a lot smaller than they were ten to twenty years ago. Assuming they even pay advances. If it’s e-books, they offer a percentage of net sales. Either way, the publisher’s going to make money; you can bank on that. The writer? Maybe not so much. But with very few exceptions, that’s always been the case.
And yet I persist. There’s nothing much else I can do. I’m no longer young and cheap, and I’ve always been boringly white and straight. I have become unhireable. Might as well go out doing something I enjoy. And no, I don’t mean playing computer games. See y’all next week.
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