I attended an open-mic night hosted by a statewide writer’s group the other evening. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a while but, like so much in our lives, it’s something consistently put off. It was open to the public and one could read whatever work, or section of work, that they wanted. Prose and poetry were both acceptable.
It’s incredible to me the pride people have in their work. There was such a great diversity of it, and diversity of quality within it, and yet people stood by it. The boundless limits of human creativity, or the lack of it in some, was on display and it was mesmerizing. Inspiring even. Maybe I’m so blown away by it because there are times, I feel sheepish about my own writing.
Fantasy.
It’s very easy to be genre-ist about Fantasy. (I’m not sure that ‘genre-ist’ is a term, I think more people would call it genre bias but we’ll go with an ‘ist’ word and stop hyphenating it. Genreist. It looks German. Let’s roll with it.) It’s easier than ever to be Genreist about fantasy in particular because it, like superhero movies, has risen and then spectacularly fallen in the public eye by way of movies and miniseries. It’s ‘been done,’ I guess you could say. To quote the Epic Rap Battles of History:
“Kings, queens, dragons, dwarves, horses, fortresses, magic, and swords. You Hob-bit my whole shit, you uninspired hack!” -J. R. R. Tolkien (Not really.)
My own writing.
I don’t suppose the fact that writers have doubts is news to anyone. There’s a wonderful nagging feeling in the back of our minds that, well, maybe our minds aren’t that great. At the very least perhaps the way we express ourselves isn’t that great. Of course, there’s even a debate on when and how to call yourself a writer, an author.
You have to write, obviously, not just outline and plan and world build and scheme. (I’ve frequently come down with worldbuilding addiction syndrome a few times but the trick is to use it to get re-inspired to write. It’s actually an effective way of fighting the dreaded Block). But I think there’s more to it than that. Sitting in the fourth row of that open mic and listening to people read poems of swan-centric reincarnation, of women getting revenge on monstrous men, of the adventures of a mystery-solving genealogist what I was most impressed by was pride and self-promotion.
It’s a lot like how really the only thing that makes something a country is recognition by other countries. Seriously, look up what defines a country sometime and be ready for all the glorious fighting on the internet. There’s no agreed upon number of countries in the world because of that fun recognition thing.
Looking at you, Sealand.
I think I need to get better at self-promotion, and it starts by declaring myself a writer, and a fantasy writer at that.
Oh, look! I’ve a book coming out this year.