Archive for the 'Publishing' Category

Stalled and New Project

Magic Resolutions stalled as I experienced what I would call burn out–I was cranking out words for the sake of cranking them out which was leaving me with not a very good book. Other problems arose such as the first book being rejected by a number of agencies and realizing that the first chapter needed edits, but not having the heart to fix it.

Also, I’m a little on the fence about the publishing industry.

So, that leaves me with Narrow Birdcage, which unfortunately isn’t a brisk writing exercise. If anything, it’s painfully slow. It’s not writing like I expected and I’m trying to fill in the gaps by watching Historical Asian dramas left and right. Some of them are a bit more close to the time period than others, but mainly I’m mining out for political drama ideas. I kinda suck at Political stuff, but if you suck, there is only a chance to get better….

Meanwhile, I’m letting my unofficial unpaid Writing Assistant, who is on sabbatical handle sorting the corrections. (She nominated herself to the role.)

Why I became a Writer

When I was little, I wanted to be an actress. I actually believed I could do it–why not? I loved stories, I liked being in the front, I liked performing. But my white mother, who had adopted us said, “You know that you’ll have a hard time because you are Asians. Asians don’t like actors.”

Of course this was racist crap she’d pulled out of nowhere, but me, being young and without positive Asian role models (Let’s get serious, when the only Asians you know are male martial artists, you really don’t get anywhere.) I believed her. Now that I’m older I kind of regret that I believed her, especially with the history later on with her shooting down pretty much every attempt I did unless it was to her benefit.

So I thought I need an art where it will be blind, where I can be acknowledged not for my face, but for you know, my genuine talent. I was quite fed up with being put down as the *only* Asian in an all black-white non-Hispanic school. I was sick of the fact that racism teaching besides the black-white relations didn’t exist. So I wanted to believe hard and well that I could escape that. I mean, Look Amy Tan could do it, right? (from my teens)

So I worked my butt off to get rid of my Koreanisms. I worked extra hard on my grammar to meet the White Middle Class American standard, which I really still don’t quite understand why it has to be that way. (Beyond the cultural anthropology class that told me it’s because those white people are in power and you have to play their game to get anywhere.) I read a lot.

And I chose my genres. I didn’t like dead bodies. So Mystery was pretty much out. I like watching them, I don’t like writing them. I didn’t like Literature because my teachers wrote some horrid stories they called Literature. I loved fairytales and folktales to death. I wanted to do that. And I liked Science and I liked Jane Austen muchly (before the 90′s boom.)

Alright! Science Fiction and Fantasy it is–mix in some women’s fiction once in a while and I’m a happy camper. Sometimes I would write general fiction too.

I settled on these because of the exact nature–you can build up cultures, pull mythologies and you can discuss social issues through these mediums in ways that make people think about the world around them. Plus they were difficult.

Oh, how naive was I…

Firstly, I realized somewhere early in the game that most of the characters were white. I tried to fix that by reading non-England-based fantasy. I picked up the likes of Morgan Llewellyn. I searched for African-based tales and Native American (various tribes), but found none. Flustered and frustrated, I did manage to branch out from the American standard fantasy. I got some books written by people who were not solely American. I tried my hardest to branch out and read stories from India, and anyone of any color rather than white. I preferred the stories without women clad in armor, or men “protecting” “weak” women. My success–mixed. Still, the majority of my shelves were white. (In fact, the first Asian fantasy authors didn’t come out until my childhood was over. Sadder still)

No characters were non-white–but look, I have African tales, Egyptian tales, Greco-Roman tales, Norse, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Iroquois, and many other nationalities on my shelf. What gives? I have tales from every corner of the globe and I collected more from Discovery shows. So then, why are the majority of the characters white?

No matter, I thought, I can fix this. I can turn this around. After all, this is fiction. You have green men and purple and so on. Inserting some human non-white characters can’t be that hard. So I read harder on racial issues.

Cue the advent of the Internet. I found that the authors that I did pick up were in large sample white. Why were they all white or near to it in Science Fiction and fantasy? Was it because I had neglected to try to find some non-white characters? No. Was it because I hadn’t tried hard to look around against the standard? No. It was because the bookstore wasn’t stocking them. What the hell?

Furthermore, I found that Michelle West was the only Asian I had on my shelf in sff and all the collecting I had done in my youth towards Science Fiction and Fantasy was all white. This should not be so! I love world mythology. I had made a point of it–why was this? And it turns out that very few PoC’s in Science Fiction and Fantasy get published.

Which is two strikes against me. I’m a PoC, who wants to write about PoC’s and non-medieval European fantasy/Science Fiction. And somehow the industry has based itself around White people. OMG, the whole point of Science Fiction and Fantasy seems quite defeated with that.

Cue my utter frustration.

Add to it the Avatar, the Last Airbender incident, which many people, both PoCs and Whites thought we’d ditch, say after 1970 or so, and I realized race was very much an issue. Add to it the race fail of Ursula LeGuin, where her clearly non-white characters were cast white, and the whole fail over the “Post racial” and it sent my mind reeling. WTH is wrong with this industry?

I love this industry to death in many ways, but seriously, this is like epic fail level. You add the Race fail of 2009, and it’s very very clear that we got a lot of work to do.

Oh and I’m sure somewhere out there some person is going to stick their ore in and say, “OMG, you aren’t a *real* Asian because you’re adopted.” To which I’ll say, then, why do guys feel obligated to cat call me on the street and ask, “Can you meet me at home and call me Master?” Yeah, I’m not “real” Asian because I don’t fit your neat stereotype. Nice, way to go.

Maybe I should have become an actress instead, at least I’d have expected the stupid racism then. Three strikes against me, but I’ll still win this game. Hey, at the rate of the industry, I may be the first Asian Adoptee Fantasy author published in the US ever.