I like to keep my eyes and mind open for any stray ideas and thoughts, for opinions that might affect my own.
For a while now, I’ve been watching on Twitter as more people call for diversity, for all the groups that haven’t had a voice to speak up. People of color. Disabled. Adopted. LBGQTA (I don’t know all the letters, so forgive me). Those suffering from mental illness. I like this. As an artist and a writer, I believe art is the perfect place for new voices and those voices will add a lot to the world.
However, as a white, middle class…boring whoever. I can’t add a lot to those voices.
Or maybe I can…
I am about to begin writing book three in my DOORS series, the first of which will be published…eventually. And I’m glad that it hasn’t been. Because I have a bit to rewrite.
All the talk on Twitter, pointed to me being stuck in one way of thinking. Stuck. This is not good. And because of these new thoughts in my head, I am rethinking one of the races I created. The Dorn.
As I wrote book two, the Dorn people started talking to me, telling me so many things about their home, their lives, and themselves. They are not born. They are given life by energy and are pulled from the rocks of their mountain home.
So why, in book one, did I write male/female Dorn? I know why…because that’s how it should be. Except no, it doesn’t. On the Dorn world, there is no procreation. Therefore, two genders isn’t necessary. So I’m changing it. And it feels right to portray them as who they are. It feels good to listen to them and learn about them. All the worlds out in the universe aren’t going to be like ours. I’m good at making up interesting worlds and beings, of thinking up new cultures and creatures, of building worlds not like ours…but I didn’t see how I was stuck in giving all the races two genders, influenced by what I know, by the life I have lead.
To be honest, when I wrote the female Dorn, they didn’t quite fit, but I thought they had to be there. And why hadn’t the Dorn told me this before? Because they’re mean? Maybe, but their true purpose in the series has been revealed and it’s bigger than I originally thought. But no I’m not telling…
From listening to others, I have learned, grown. I see how I was stuck in one idea and am crawling out of that rut and seeing the possibilities.
And this has allowed me to listen to all my characters. My main character has revealed her own truth, one I am happy to let her live.
When Doors edits appear in my in-box…I am prepared to right this wrong, to let these people be who they are.
Kinda like what we all should do in real life. Acceptance: good in books, but AWESOME in reality.
Kathleen Palm 