Science Fiction and Women

Two months gone on my pledge to read science fiction by women for a year, I'm already struggling. Part of this is my challenge at internet searching. Part is the inclusion of fantasy with SF. Science fiction has subsets. Speculative, utopian, dystopian, and other -ian(s). SF written by women does not always have women protagonists, and some men have written good SF featuring women. I picked up a couple of books by new SF women writers, and if the thing starts out with a rape or a beating, I'm done. Aren't there other ways to launch a woman on an adventure?  I read Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, and she raised the bar to the stratosphere. I'm going to have to forget Breq in order to appreciate another SF story fully. Today I'm trying to find a critical anthology like Marleen Barr's Future Females, written and collected in this century. What I learned so far: utopian SF is the way women have to imagine a future that is not what we think we will live to see. There are no adventure stories featuring women because a women stepping out her door ala Bilbo Baggins will not regret she forgot her handkerchief. She will regret stepping out. No road trips, starship launches, stranger in a strange land for women. Nope. No unescorted trips to a border town on a mission of mysterious, possibly nefarious, assignment. Nope. An excellent example of this is James Tiptree Jr (Alice Sheldon) "Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled with Light!" Sheldon channels the exquisite joy of freedom, and then flips the illusion on its bloody head. Powerful storytelling. Utopian dystopian. We need a new genre. Freed from the criteria and criticism of male-dominated labeling. Oh hell, we need a new culture. Where's the hope in this one?

What's A Girl To Do?

Writer Holly Robinson's (no relation) blog post on January 26, reposted on Huffington Post on the 27th How Old is Too Old for a Main Character? is a response to a Fay Weldon article in the NY Times Sunday Book Review A Writer of a Certain Age which is unfortunately blurbed on google the author remembers when looks started to matter in publishing.

Weldon claims–in writing right out in front of everybody–that women want to read books about their younger selves. Hogwash. I read books about women of all ages, men of all ages, horses of all ages, dogs, history in all ages, wars in all ages. Weldon cannot possibly know what women read. That's men that want to be their younger selves, Ms. Weldon. No woman I know would go back if given the opportunity, but every one of my brothers would. Robinson writes that yes, more women than men buy books, but more under 45s buy books overall. That does not mean that the women under 45 are all reading fiction featuring 20-something women. The Bowker link Robinson uses doesn't go to Bowker, so I'll look that up later. But this may be like the more cat food is bought than baby food trope. Yes, under 45s may buy more books. Parents buy children's books, buy gifts. Regardless of genre, Weldon is out of shape stating what age female character any woman wants to read.

And how infamously addicted we are to facing facts bravely about how unmarketable older women are. Both women indicate that they are okay with the status quo–because they have to be. Robinson takes a moment to talk about her older female in her book, and writes that she will continue to write women of all ages. But both women writers sigh when mentioning that agents will tell you not to write older women because publishers won't publish those books. What's a girl to do? is implied, but nowhere written. Robinson goes so far as to share with us what a nice guy her agent is. Weldon's unforgivable action is that she is a teacher and she warns her girl writing collegiates away from writing older women. With this she moves from facing facts bravely to being a spokesperson for the patriarchy. You can give a nod of complicitous assent to the ongoing exclusion, suppression and outright prejudice against women creatives, but you damn well better not teach it to the young women launching their lives. That's how we got suppressed in the first go.

Voice

Voice is larynx vibration. The etymology of the noun voice could be from the Old French voiz, Sanskrit vakti, Greek eipon, Prussian wackis, Olde English stefn. Utterance, cry, speech, say, call, word. Voice is speaking an opinion out loud. Voice is an author's style, a writer's unique storytelling, a storyteller's gift to the world. I have an issue with voice. On many levels, during what may be many lifetimes. And I'm being shoved into solving this, beginning in intense therapy over years, and now by the universe. This morning, as I composed myself to write, I looked at npr's site and found a First Listen from Sean Rowe's The Salesman and the Shark. He was self-conscious about voice and would erase tapes with his voice on them, leaving only the music. He has a new album with his gorgeous voice all through. Researching background for the novella I'm writing, this morning I googled at-risk children. Link to link traveling, I found a reference to adult children of narcissistic parents (I am one) and read that a daughter who hasn't sorted this stuff out will go from bad relationship to bad relationship looking for a powerful person to grant her voice. I have to grant myself voice. I have to be the powerful person who gives me what I need. That's what I'm mulling, battling and stumbling through. It is a compelling journey. An old soul can be just a slow learner. A woman once read a brooch I have. She said she saw an old woman on the ice, a tribal leader, but she could not tell her whole truth. She said this while holding her own throat tightly. I had written a story about a shaman on the ice, a tribal leader. I thought it was a made-up story. The woman who saw the elder on the ice said it was me. What strikes me now is not the idea of past lives, but a tribal leader not being able to tell her whole truth. If it was a past life, then I've been stifling my truth for lifetimes. I guided a Share Circle in June about using voice. It was scary, but I did it. Since June, I receive at least one message about using voice per day. I don't think I've got the lesson learned yet. And I don't know what the Source wants me to do. But I'm observing, and trying, and that's the best I can offer just now. The change from then to now is that I am excited about what I'll find, what depth of me I'll discover, what I have to say that may be needed in the world. That is awesome. Perhaps that is the lesson. We have choice. We have free will. We can grant ourselves voice, and then use our voices to make our world more loving, more truthful.

Writing Books Written by Women

Natalie Goldberg. How could I have forgotten Natalie Goldberg? Wild Mind. Writing Down the Bones. And I found on my goodreads list, If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit, by Brenda Ueland. I need to read it again, because although I raved about it, I do not remember it. Brain fade. Power save. I'm going to find it right now, and buy one. And if I forget I own it, I'll buy it again.

Books on Writing Written by Women

A screenwriter shared with another screenwriter a list of writing books. All were written by men. Since I was cranky about this sort of thing at the time, I tried to find more books about writing written by women; more than those I know and own and appreciate. Until I find more, here we begin. Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way. Francine Prose, Reading Like a Writer. Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird. Carolyn Heilbrun, Writing a Woman's Life. I looked up Frances Marion, a woman who made a fabulous living screenwriting in 1920s' Hollywood. She published a book in 1937 How to Write and Sell Film Stories, and I just put a hold on it from Hope College. I LOVE Michigan's library system. Web wandering, I found Leigh Brackett, a woman writer with a long career in many writing genres, including screenwriting. Unknown yet if she wrote anything about the writing process. Stay tuned. Keep writing!

Unblocking Mature Woman Writer's Block

I had writer's block for about 35 years. When I was 9 I wrote constantly, entered writing contests and won sometimes; wrote, directed a school play in 5th grade. Went to college in English education so I could write more, better. Then I stopped writing. Work, goofing off and life kept me busy. Easily explained and understood. In 2006, I started writing again. In 2008 I published my first novel. I've been writing on scraps of paper, in composition books, gift journals, with screenwriting software, and on the refrigerator since then, but cannot move past snippets. From July to October last year, I could not write at all. So what do we do when we can't write, when it is what we need to do passionately? We talk about not writing. We read other people's craft. We meet. We fidget, play the tape loop about failure over and over in our heads. We judge, criticize, rewire neurons, and report failure to our creative synapses. This week friend Susan and I talked about this. We are aware of the usual suspect excuses: time, subject, interruptions, discipline. Same old, same old. We came up with a couple of insightful ideas. We're smart, educated, were not born yesterday, and know what good writing is and does. We know that good writing is putting the truth and heart on the page, connecting with empathy and understanding to the reader. It's the writing we like to read, and the writing we like to do. But. What if our children read it? What pain will we cause those we love? What in our past that we believe readers might appreciate do we not want to talk about? How do we move past not wanting to tell bad stories on ourselves, even if we think it might be funny to a reader? Can we be completely honest? If I cannot refer to myself as aging, or older, or an elder, what does that say about how truthfully I write? If I avoid pain in the present, can I write despondence with honesty? Can I bleed on the page? Does my therapist know I'm stymied like this? Is there a creative writing shoehorn? What's the 10k volt creative jolt I need? Can I pay for one more writing workshop? What Susan and I decided is the same methodology that worked when we were 9 years old. Practice, practice, practice.