Weeks 27 & 28 - Vindication

 

Update – First of all, I want to thank however many of you—yes, even the bots, and especially you, Switzerland—are actually reading this thing. I’m sorry I’ve let you down. This was supposed to be a blog about me trying to write a book a month over the course of a year. Mostly it’s been one long whinefest of me making excuses and the various creative ways I’ve discovered how to procrastinate. Every now and then I do actually write something, and I did sub the book I’m STILL working on, so it hasn’t been a total loss.

But there’s not much of an update to give because over the last two weeks I haven’t done all that much. June pretty much got eaten up by a mass of overlapping paid assignments—which, to date, I haven’t been paid for. The publishing house is HQ’d in Texas, which has been having problems lately, with hurricanes, flooding, power outages and heat waves. For all I know, the owner is one of the millions of Texans currently without power. Or maybe the bank they use to transfer my money has fallen off the grid, or been washed away. Meanwhile, my ten-year-old furnace has picked right now to have an expensive breakdown, so I could really use that paycheck. Those of you with jobs, start saving NOW. You’re going to need that money down the road, because Social Security won’t pay enough to live on. Assuming it even still exists by the time you turn 65.

I have been going through my old notebooks, and I have uncovered a couple of ideas I want to explore and maybe even turn into quickie books for much-needed cash. But first I have to write them, which for me is clearly the tricky part. I want to say I’ll get my butt in gear and do better, but I can’t give any guarantees. Remember, I’m a writer. We make things up for a living.

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While screwing off watching YouTube one day—one of the reasons I haven’t written anything but flash in the last two weeks—I came across this video, “My Ex Literary Agent Told the Truth” by a writer going by BBG. The words “literary agent” grabbed my attention so I tuned in. I’ve forgotten how to make links and don’t want to bother with experimenting, so just go to YouTube, type in the title in Search and it’ll pop up. That does work.

Briefly, here’s his tale of woe: his agent invited him out to lunch (her treat, even) and told him she might be able to sell his fantasy book to a subsidiary line of a major Big 5 publisher. However, he would have to make certain changes: 1) change the B-plot romance to a gay relationship and make it more important to the story; 2) de-age the adult protagonists to better fit a Young Adult/New Adult audience; and 3) emphasize the writer’s own sexuality (which he didn’t go into, but let’s assume it’s not straight) when marketing the book. Nothing was said about racial diversity, but that’s okay. If there aren’t any main characters of color, they’ll just put something symbolic on the cover. Worked for Twilight.

In short, the publishers weren’t looking for well-written books, they were looking to check trendy boxes. As the agent told the writer flat out: “They have a quota.”

At which point I nodded my head at the screen and uttered a sigh of relief that I’d missed out on the Berkley open call. I wasn’t being paranoid or defeatist. My adult-themed fantasy with the straight, white male protagonist and his romance with an equally straight white woman is probably unsellable in today’s market, at least if I try to go through traditional publishing. It probably wouldn’t even make it past the query stage. Maybe not even past the agent stage. Not without serious rewrites. I do have a tough prominent female character who, if you squint hard enough, might pass for a lesbian, but since the only other woman in the book is technically her sister there’s no chance for romance there. The new lead would have to be the black kid, the nephew of the writer who created the only black character in the story. Nope, hold on a sec. He’s straight and male. Better gender-swap him. Now the black writer’s niece and the blonde white lesbian can have a steamy romance while solving the mystery. Hell, we don’t even need my original straight male lead.

Yeah, that’s not happening. If you want to read that other book, somebody else will have to write it. I’m sticking to my story as originally conceived. My book would not have been chosen as is, not by a major publisher. And it wouldn’t be my fault. I have been vindicated.

Not that any of this makes me feel any better.

As for the writer in the video, he couldn’t make the changes either. The required changes would have gutted it and destroyed his whole intent. It would have been an entirely different book. It wouldn’t have been his anymore. In the end, he walked away, and so did his agent. At the end of the video we’re told the agent left the industry. She couldn’t sell books any more. Not original books by original writers. Not unless the writers were good at churning out generic box-checking diversity books because that’s all publishers want right now. I’m not sure if it’s what the readers want. If I knew what the readers wanted, I’d be writing that.

Because that’s the only way this climate is going to change. Somebody’s going to publish something that’ll become the Next Big Thing, and all the other publishers will scramble to become the first to be second. The books they’re publishing today will be sitting on Barnes and Noble’s discount shelves, or languishing, barely touched, at library used-book sales.

I hope that writer in the video writes that book. I’d rather it be me, but—well, go back and read the update. Or maybe I can fix that. Who knows? I’ve got the rest of the year to get my act together. See y’all next week.

 

 

Week 21 - Diverse Thoughts

 

Update – Finally, something succeeded. I did, for starters. I began making a short daily schedule with time earmarked for writing, dealing with the paid work, and doing mundane chores. And it flippin’ worked. I started writing again. I got the paid assignment done ahead of schedule. I took time out at the end of the day to wind down and slept a whole lot better. Then I took the weekend off for Memorial Day and fell right back into my unproductive habits. I’m going to call that my vacation. I get another assignment tomorrow so I’ll be going back to the now-proven plan. I’m going to get another sub out in the mail by the end of June. This I swear!

I continue to be popular with Hong Kong bots, and my US numbers are starting to jump from single to double digits (10 counts as a double digit, remember). My reader from Switzerland still shows up occasionally, and there’s a new one from Singapore. I can’t believe I don’t have more traffic from Russia; I thought they had bots that hit blogs for a living. What’s the holdup, comrade?

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I could have had a second sub this month, but didn’t find out about the opportunity until the deadline had passed. Maybe that was a good thing. I’ll let you folks be the judge. The publisher was Berkley Books, a division of Penguin Random House so it’s legit. They had a three-day open window, same deal as the one I entered: synopsis, set number of opening pages. More genres, though. Mine’s a mix of a couple but still would have fit. Except for…

After the fact I went on the site and checked their specs. It was pretty much the same as the one I entered, with one additional paragraph that included the words “diversity” and “fresh new voices.” That right there told me all I needed to know, and what my chances would have been. They want publishable (and hopefully sellable) books, but that’s secondary. Their primary goal is to show how progressive they are by checking as many diversity boxes as possible.

I am a woman. Once upon a time that by itself would have made me a diversity hire. However, just being a woman isn’t good enough any more. Gay is the in thing now. Or being trans. Or being a person of color, as long as it’s other than white. If you’re a black trans lesbian with no previous experience, you can write your own ticket. Don’t believe me? Check out who’s been writing Marvel and DC comics for the last five years. In addition to being female, I’m white, straight, and over the age of 50. Strikes one, two and three right there. My book’s protagonist is a straight white male doing traditional straight white male things (he’s a private detective). Forget about getting a turn at bat; I’m not even going to make it to the plate. Not at any publisher that openly states they’re looking to include inclusivity.

What I’m about to say is going to be offensive to a lot of people. Fortunately, most of those people are on Twitter/X, which I’m not. I doubt if any of them are reading this blog. I should be safe enough to speak my mind.

Here’s the deal: I’m a white woman. I grew up in the ‘60s in white suburban neighborhoods in a lower middle class white family. This continued into adulthood, by chance more than choice: I moved to Amish country to be close to a job and just stayed there. Not much racial or gender diversity on display here. That’s my background, that’s my comfort zone. It’s what I know. Writers are always told to “write what you know.” When I write, all my characters start out white and straight. Except when I’m writing M/M romance; then they’re white and gay. Or nonhuman. But that’s a whole other topic. The point is, white and straight is my default mode, and that’s not in fashion right now. What, and who, I choose to write about may cost me sales, or even publishing contracts.

But here’s the thing. I’m not against diversity. I grew up reading science fiction, where all the nerds and misfits hung out. All the ideas conservative mainstream publishers wouldn’t touch were crammed into one little genre. So were all manner of writers, of varying skin tones and sexual persuasions. Nobody really gave a damn, as long as they told a good story. Yeah, women still had a better chance if they used initials or unisex pen names, but that was fading out by the ’70s. Mostly. J. K. Rowling’s publisher advised her to use initials because they were afraid boys wouldn’t read a book written by a woman. Again, I digress.

My characters start out white and straight. That doesn’t mean they have to stay that way. I’ve already had characters swap race and gender while I was writing. My M/M romance Belonging was conceived with a traditional straight man and woman couple until I discovered Supernatual. Then it became secret Wincest fanfic. It was my best seller to date, by the way. I “cast” Sam and Dean in another book. Dean made it through intact, but Sam turned into a brownskinned man. His character just worked out better that way. I’ve got another book, already written, in that stalled series of mine, where a character who was meant as a walk-on tribute to Buffy the Vampire Slayer morphed into a bisexual Pacific Islander/Hawaiian woman and became vital to the plot. I was really proud of myself for that one. I was checking diversity boxes that didn’t even exist. That was a couple years back, though. Pacific Islanders have their own tribute month now, shared with Asians.

Maybe I could have sent that one to Berkley’s open call. I don’t think it would have helped. Because, in spite of her inclusion, the lead is still a straight white male, in love with a straight white woman. (Who shapechanges into a rattlesnake. Where’s the reptilian shapeshifter representation? Huh?) I’ve already got plans to give Hawaiian Girl her own story, but that won’t happen until after the series is over, and the series heroes are all straight white males. With guns. From Texas. I think that project may be doomed.

Too bad. That’s how I conceived that series, and that’s what I’m sticking with. Same for the detective story. It was supposed to be an all-white cast, but the mercenary characters’ series had been created in the late 1970s, so their number had to include a token Black member. He ended up adding to the story, and necessitated a race change for another character. None of that changed my lead, who will remain straight and white. Nor would it have swayed the editors, whose quest for good books is just a smokescreen for an opportunity to virtue signal.

Books aren’t supposed to be about representation. They’re supposed to be about the story. If a trans black lesbian writes a compelling, superior book, by all means snatch it up and get it into bookstores. That’s what you should have been doing all along. Quality books by any writer deserve to get a shot. Those books enrich us all. But if you’re going to pass over good books in favor of box-checking, or force changes to a story in the name of “representation,” that’s not diversity. That’s tokenism, and that doesn’t help anybody. Least of all the writers and the markets you ignored for decades and are now trying to court because it’s trendy. And now that I’ve successfully shot my budding career in both feet, I’ll shut up, like a good little straight white woman writer. See y’all next week.