American Whitney

On Saturday, I admitted that I used to write fanfiction, and there were other things I’d wanted to include in the post but didn’t have the space. This is one of them.

Writing is writing, no matter where you start.

Things posted by a teenager just embarking on their writing career will usually be riddled with spelling errors, unrealistic characters, and have no understanding about what an adult life actually is. If the teenage author happens to write RPF (real-person fiction, a subset of fan fiction involving the actors themselves), somehow there will be many pregnancies that occur. You get a baby! You get a baby! Everyone gets a baby!

I left an online forum when it seemed as though one actor was single handledly fathering the next generation of children with under-aged mothers. While I get the appeal of the particular actor, but it was a more than a little disturbing. And no matter what the older forum members said, these young teens all insisted that sex + love = baby. (I really hope these girls changed their minds by the time they actually started having sex)

The teenage writer’s stories usually feature Mary Sues. My definition:

A Mary Sue is a female character (though male versions do exist) added to a fanfic that is of the author’s creation. Not all original characters are Mary Sues. A Mary Sue is unique in that she usually has a name worthy of a Harlequin novel, eyes of an unusual hue (violet, white, or any color described as “unlike anything ever seen before”). She manages to become central to the plot, and possesses skills that would rival everyone from the original movie/book.

In a Harry Potter story, she is smarter than Hermoine, and also possibly be the Chosen One. Or if this is a Slytherin centric story, some family with closer ties to Voldemort than Draco’s family. Also, she’s likely an American girl. Just to make her stand out more at Hogwarts.

In Pirates, she would be more of a budding feminist than Elizabeth (who let’s admit, is a bit of a canon* Sue), better at swordfighting than Will and better in bed than Jack Sparrow, even though she’s just young and was probably a virgin when the story began.

No matter what the fandom, everyone can’t help but fall in love with her.

Lest anyone think I’m being unfair, I wrote a horrible novel with an “original plot” when I was 12 or 13. I lifted ideas from just about everything I’d read up until that point, so it’s hard for me to actually use the term original. It was set in some vague point in history that wasn’t Medieval, but wasn’t Renaissance either. Oh, I don’t know… the Disney Days of Yore, where it’s sort of Dark Ages, but nobody is dying of the plague. It was set in France, but I knew nothing about France, so it was more like what I knew from German Fairy Tales. I believe there were twins girls separated at birth- one who was rich and one who was poor. The poor girl was even the rich girl’s handmaiden and nobody noticed that they were identical. Worse yet, I gave everyone ridiculous names that I thought were clever. There was a Frenchman named Monsieur Anly. So when you wrote it out, it was M. Anly. No, no copies of this exist.

At 16, I wrote a spy short story that was not as bad, but certainly was cringe-worthy now. Being a spy story, the plot was fairly cookie cutter, but most in the genre are. Mostly it suffered from a lot of “telling” and not much “showing.” However, a teacher of mind raid the spy story and told me that I would never be a writer. Which actually led to me not wanting to pick up a pen and write for years. I told myself that I didn’t have it in me and focused on other things. (That would be when I started playing role-playing games, yes the kind with dice, and ran a game with a colossal world. I was writing, but I didn’t realize it at the time)

I’m sharing all of this, including my own horrible stories because part of writing is being able to draw from your own observations about human nature. The more you experience and the older you get, the more you have to draw from. And no, you don’t have to experience it all personally.

I knew a girl from the fanfic community who had a novel published by a real publisher by the age of 18. I was 24 and as jealous as I could possibly be about this girl’s talent. Looking back on it now, I realize that she’d spent the two years I’d known her devouring other people’s fiction- the writing of older women who understood real heartbreak. She had to have spent at least an hour a day reading other people’s work and personal journals and learning from those who were older than her. I know she spent at least five or six hours a day writing her own work. She always asked for critiques (most people posting didn’t want criticism at all) and found “beta” readers (aka editors) whose work she admired, and who she thought had points of view that could help her learn more. She wound up where she was because she worked to get there, and worked hard. She had to have spent at least 4,000 years in the time that I knew her writing- and she’d already been writing regularly for years before. I remember all of us being surprised that she was only 16 when she joined the group.

So, write and read. As much as you possibly can. The more you write, the better you’ll get. I only wish that I hadn’t listened to that horrible teacher of mine and lost years to my own insecurity.

If you want your own community to join in, there are lots of writer’s communities springing up on the internet. You can find self published writers on Twitter and Google+, and I’ve seen a lot of the same love that I found back in my fandom days. It’s all there. But most importantly, write!

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*Canon – Canon refers to the original material in a book, comic, television show or movie. It’s what is explicitly said. In Star Wars, it’s canon that Alderaan was destroyed by the Death Star.

If you’ve hung around the internet long enough, you’ve probably heard about fanfiction. Where writers take an existing work (book, comic, movie, television show) and write stories about it. Sometimes of an adult nature. Sometimes smashing together “fandoms” (the distinct properties) and coming up with something new.

Yes, I wrote fanfiction. You can shake your head all you like- just stop if your brain starts to rattle around. After Pirates of the Caribbean came out, I had an idea for a spinoff adventure and started writing it. In doing so, I got involved in fandom and learned a lot about writing. I had access to people (mostly women) who wrote all sorts of things, used fanfiction to experiment in styles… it was pretty great. (It wasn’t all great, but that’s a post for another day)

After awhile, I no longer felt the siren’s call of fanfic, and had a lot of projects of my own that I felt brave enough to tackle. I slowly left the communities, though I do keep in touch with some of the writers I was close to.

Here’s the list of the fandoms I played around in. I wrote some things in Pirates, King Arthur, Once Upon a Time in Mexico and Kill Bill. And Supernatural (the television series). Nearly forgot about that one. I didn’t write a huge volume of fanfiction, either in frequency or length. I knew women who wrote epics every single week- I preferred to write the occasional “ficlet.” I also didn’t finish a lot of what I wrote, as the folder of WIPs (works in progress) I found on an old computer backup can attest to. That is still a bad habit of mine.

As proof of my past, I offer two short bits from two different fandoms. Both were written in 2004, though the first I edited a bit today. There was one sentence that had always bothered me, and I realized why this morning.

Read More…

We’ve all heard the adage, “There’s no such thing as bad PR.” And in some fields, it’s true. In the entertainment industry, a negative news story is less likely to have a long term effect on someone’s career. (Unless you’re Lindsay Lohan, but that seems to be more of an addiction problem than a PR issue)

But for everyone else, it’s a lie.

Bad PR exists.

Not that long ago, Jenny Lawson (better known to you as The Bloggess) got an email pitching her pantyhose as a style fad (as seen on the Kardashians!) so she did as she always does, replied with a link to a page that explains that she’s not interested and includes a picture of Wil Wheaton collating paper. A VP of the PR company hit reply all (which of course means that she got to see it) while calling her an f*cking bitch and The Bloggess shared it. He had to shut down his Twitter account and illustrated what we all thought was the worse part of the PR field.

And this week, Penny Arcade shared an email thread between a customer and Paul of Ocean Marketing about the status of an order. The jist was that the customer had bought some during a pre-order where the delivery window had been specified as late November to early December. When that was nearing a close, he emailed to ask when the controllers were coming, since he was counting on them for Christmas. From there on, it spiraled into a customer service nightmare, where Dave wasn’t getting any answers and Paul treated him like an idiot. When Dave replied back with a fair email detailing where Ocean Marketing had failed in their response (which he forwarded to notable people in tech outlets including Penny Arcade), Paul began to thank him for all the free PR.

After Paul gloated that he’d be going to PAX East, “Gabe” aka Mike Krahulik, responded, saying that PAX was his convention and Paul then proceeded to rant about how that couldn’t be true. So Gabe posted Paul’s information. And Reddit quickly revealed that the content on his website was plagiarized from other sites (even the About Us section), and forced him to change his Twitter handle.

Paul attempted to apologize to Gabe, by saying that he didn’t know who he was and asked him to call off the internet mob. Apparently I’ve been apologizing wrong- you’re supposed to admit that you never would have done X if you only knew that your target was someone, at least according to Paul.

Of course, asking Mike/Gabe was pretty silly. There’s no real way to stop an angry mob once the torches are lit. He was fired from the account, and after being publicly shamed by most of the people he said had his back it’s unlikely he’ll work in the tech field handling PR ever again.

So why am I bringing this up? Not long ago, I saw a friend retweet an author saying that you should remember that there’s no such thing as bad PR, that even a bad review is getting your name out there. Which is half-true.

Bad PR won’t hurt you if it’s about a product (well at least if it’s a product that can’t kill you). You can always write a new book, or make something new. But if the bad PR is about you specifically? It’s not so easy to start over.

Thankfully, bad PR about yourself is easy to avoid. Don’t be a jerk. And never send off a quick response, especially if you’re annoyed. Blog comments and emails aren’t private. It only takes a moment for someone to share them, and then… you never know what’ll happen next. Maybe it’ll be ignored, but if it’s bad enough, people will share it. That’s what the internet does. It’s what Facebook and Twitter have made second nature.

From past incidents, I’ve learned that you never respond to bad reviews. It will end badly, even if you’re a published author. Especially if you’re a published author. People will think what they think, and hopefully you can learn something for your next project (or fix an error in a file, if that’s the case). But realistically, once a project is out of your hands… you’re done. Succeed where George Lucas has failed, and once something is done, even if you think a scene is weak resist the temptation to change it. (Honestly George, it doesn’t matter that technology wasn’t where you wanted it for the original Star Wars trilogy- we already love it. Stuff fussing with our memories!)

Not too long ago I blogged about expectation and rating things, a post which stemmed from reading about a self-published author who posted a missive about how to review a book on her blog. A woman who felt like you should be generous with your 5-star reviews on Amazon, especially if you know the person. And that as an author it was your job to game the review system to get your book noticed.

It’s hard, we all want to succeed- but it took that one post for a lot of the writing community to roll their eyes and say that she was giving them a bad name. Especially those who put a lot of thought into their reviews. Every explanation she had for why she had meant her post to be taken differently (as explaining the system, not saying that you’re entitled to review everything highly) just seemed like backpedaling to try to keep an annoyed mob away.

My rule of thumb is that I never publish a blog post without stepping away and coming back. I usually read it out loud to help catch errors that I missed while reading it. If it’s blogging about anything that upset me, or replying to an email or comment that drives me up the wall… I do the same thing. I wait until I’ve calmed down before sharing it. Just to make sure that what I post is what I mean to say- and that I’m not asking to become the next flameworthy target. While I haven’t put a project out there yet… I know I’m going to check my reviews. But I vow to never respond to them unless I really think my response is a good reflection on me and my work. It’s just not worth it to lose my cool and my reputation.

In short, just follow Wheaton’s Law- Don’t Be a Dick. It’s amazing how far that’ll get you in life.

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Oddly, I had this post schedule to go up later today. And I saw this post tweeted by a woman who reviews books. Yes, it’s an author who saw a negative review of her book and decided to go off on anyone who gives negative reviews.

Remember, reviews are not for the person who created it. They are for the people who might want to buy. They’re based on an opinion, and if you can glean something useful… fine. If something didn’t ring true to the reader, then it didn’t- it doesn’t matter if it was based off your own life. Going off on a rant and calling someone beyotch for not enjoying your book in a rant that doesn’t contain any paragraph breaks isn’t going to help you sell your next book. (Update: She felt bad about calling the reviewer beyotch, but not so much about insisting that negative reviews don’t serve a purpose other than to hurt authors’ feelings. Then she started deleting comments, and now she’s deleted the original post, which is why I’m linking to a screenccap rather than the blog post. Update to Update: Apparently she deleted the first version, but I believe it’s cached in Google already)

So really, if you can find a way to reply with dignity, do it. If not, just move on!

Reviews. They’re both a nuisance and important. Especially for a self-published author who are trying to earn a living by selling ebooks. Or if you’re Anne Rice, occasionally you vent at Amazon reviewers who disliked your book.

Why am I sharing this? An author posted a blog with guidelines about how to post reviews on Amazon- which mostly seemed to say that if you posted anything less than a 4 or 5 star review, you were being rude to the author. There’s been a fair amount of backlash (this is an excellent post on it, and this is as concise as you can possibly get on the subject), and the woman has been backpedaling a bit.

But as I thought about how ridiculous the situation was, I realized that it wasn’t just for her suggesting that you game the system or seeming to imply that if you aren’t going to rate your friends as high as you possibly can that you just aren’t friends. It was her expectations of what was a fair review.

By her guidelines, you should review a book like you would any regular product. Like a pair of jeans or a toaster. Was the book everything you were promised? She suggested you give it 5 stars. Was it just a little off? 4 stars. And so on and so forth.

When did we skew our ability to rate things?

Back in high school, I was in the honor’s track. Where A’s were handed out like candy, even if I turned in what I felt was mediocre work. By the time I was in college, A was meaningless. It wasn’t something to strive for, or an achievement. It was a reminder that the bar was lowered somewhere along the line.

Elsewhere in the world, most people get C’s. Not because they aren’t smart. But because a C is average. It isn’t nearly failing, it is quite simply what everyone is expected to get or know. Getting A’s are nearly unheard of in some schools in Europe.

One of the first times I got a performance review for a job, I was having the scale explained to me. Satisfactory, which was in the middle of the performance scale, I was told was just that. It meant I was doing my job well. Outstanding meant I was going above and beyond, and Exceeds Expectations meant that I was walking on water. It was refreshing. Knowing that it was unlikely for anyone- even a good employee like me to get an Exceeds Expectations made me feel like my evaluation actually reflected me.

The strangest thing about all this is that we expect people my age and younger to have inflated self-images because we’ve been told how awesome we are since we were little. The woman who wrote the blog post is a baby boomer, and has tried to use this as an excuse. Like she didn’t think her blog post would get that much attention. She didn’t think other Boomers would know how Amazon ratings worked, so she was explaining it. Right. Which is why she started off her post by saying how if a friend gave her a 2 star rating, they weren’t really a friend at all. She also said she was mentioning higher ratings because Amazon won’t recommend books with low star ratings (that’s in the comment section of the first reply post I linked), but actually didn’t mention that anywhere in her post- which is interesting information. (On the whole Baby Boomer thing, my mom is a Boomer and is extremely internet savvy. She would never have posted something on the the internet that she wasn’t prepared to stand behind. Or try to use her age as an excuse.)

Realistically, she wrote a post saying that if you want authors to love you, you should stroke their egos by giving them well-written and highly rated reviews on Amazon. She might say otherwise, but that’s what it is.

But if you do that, you’re doing everyone a disservice. I’m guilty of saying that something is the “BEST EVAR” when it’s just enjoyable. We love superlatives. But when you rank thinks as being the Top when you just mean to say it was a decent book- who are you helping? Nobody, really. We can all learn from bad reviews- not the “I bought this because I thought it was a spy novel and it was a cookbook” type of comments. But from the ones who thought plot elements were confusing, or that some parts weren’t explored enough.

For me, the satisfaction is in finishing it and putting it out there. Having it be well-liked would just be icing on the cake.

Am I alone in thinking that we need to stop grading everything on a curve? That it’s okay to say something is fine instead of needing to gush about it?

Day 28 of NaBloPoMo

Here I am, trying to write a blog post that has nothing to do with my kids or being sick.

I’ve started a few posts, but as I start typing, I hear her purr in the background. One of the characters from the thing I shouldn’t be writing at all, my literary equivalent of a little bit of candy after dinner.

While I’ve always written (including a truly atrocious spy novella in high school), I spent almost a decade running an online Star Wars RPG- which was a huge writing jam between friends. While I guided some of the adventures, I also got to play a chunk of characters. It was fun.

The game ended (mid-adventure, unfortunately) and now I’m left a character that simply will not go away. I’ll write one thing, and there she is- whispering in my ear and stroking my arm (at least that’s what she’d be doing if she was a real person). “You know you’d be having more fun if you write me.”

Usually she’s right.

But sometimes I want to write about serious things and struggle to make sure I’m getting those posts right. And there she is, lurking in the back of my mind. Trying to distract me.

I suppose the point of this post is to wonder if I’m alone in this. I’m off to feed the muse tonight instead of the novel. If I can finish her story, maybe she’ll leave me alone.

Oh who am I kidding- another character from another project will probably just take her place.

Day 15 of NaBloPoMo

My name is Whitney, and I’m a procrastinator. (Hi, Whitney)

Time and time again, I start an ambitious project with a deadline and then keep convincing myself I still have time to finish it. This time, it’s two Halloween costumes that I have to have finished by Saturday afternoon. So far I’ve copied the pattern for the shirt (I spent $12 on that pattern, and it looks like one I’ll be able to use as they get older. So I’m not going to chop it up when they’re tiny). Tonight I’ll make the pattern for their vests and pants. (Want to make your own patterns? For $5 you can buy a roll of art paper at Michael’s in their kids’ section. It’s meant for easels, and only 18″ wide, but it’s a snap to tape parts together and it’s sturdy enough that it won’t accidentally tear like the regular pattern.

Thankfully, I’m not new to sewing. Once I get everything cut, assembling it will be a snap.

The downside of putting off buying everything for sewing costumes is that in the end, you’re stuck with buying what will work- at a price that’s usually higher. Had I started to assemble these during the summer like I’d originally planned, I could have looked for fabric in Downtown LA where it’s unbelievably cheap. Heck, I would have had time to distress them so they didn’t look brand new.

Oh well, lesson learned. (While I put off my original costume concept- which was going to be Sheik from Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, I do have enough bits and pieces to actually pull together an awesome Halloween costume. I think you’ll like it.)

Though I do have a bit of good news to report. I’m on day 6 of my first week of the 250 word challenge, in which I write 250 words, six days a week. If you look at the bar to the right, you’ll see that I’ve already exceeded it- and I still have one more day in the week. It resets on Friday. So at least there’s something I’m not behind on.

Another bit of good news? The Oldest Kidlet actually slept through the entire night. You’d think this is crazy for a 6 year old, but for the last year he’s woken up at least once a night for almost the entire year. Heck, I might use the humidifier every damn night if it helps him hit a deeper sleep.

Here’s to hoping that everyone out there has a productive and happy Wednesday.

Any procrastinators out there? Anyone recovered from this maddening curse? Feel free to commiserate or share your tips.

While browsing through my G+ circles, I found a link to this page- the Inkygirl Wordcount Challenge. With NaNoWriMo on the horizon, she created a slightly different challenge to help motivate people to keep up with their writing.

Instead of 50,000 words over the span of the month of November, she set up a challenge where you can pick a daily wordcount that you’ll accomplish six times a week. That way you can still have a rough day or a busy day during the week and it won’t tank your confidence.

There were three flavors of the challenge. 250 words, 500 words, or 1000 words. Since I’m still having problems getting myself writing something regularly (other than blog post I don’t publish), I thought I’d choose 250 words and start from there. After keeping that milestone for a few weeks I’ll try to bump myself up to 500, and then keep going until I hit 1,000. I have no time limits on how long it’ll take me to get there. But I intend to make this a reality.

So what counts?

I’m not going to count blog posts. This blog, I update out of love. As far as word counts go, this will be strictly fiction.

So there you have it, Universe. I’m doing my best to make this work.

It’s raining here in SoCal- the first real rainstorm of fall/winter, and a welcome change from 80-90 degree heat. I drove the kids to school, through throngs of drivers who tried to go the speed limit or higher on slick roads with not so great visibility- and a bunch of drivers that insisted on driving without any lights on. I survived, obviously.

Now, not that long ago I was ousted as the mayor of our local Fresh & Easy on Foursquare. Since I was hungry on the way home and didn’t feel like cooking, I stopped in to pick up some chicken salad. I checked in and I snagged that mayorship back.

I got home, discovered that our power was out and did what anyone would do. I checked Twitter while I loaded the fiction I’ve been working on up on my laptop. That’s when I saw… this (sorry, I compiled it Twitter style, so you have to read it from the bottom up).

Finally. A worthy opponent.

The power is back on (obviously, since I’m updating here- it’s just too hard to edit pictures on my phone), but I have to say that the hour and a half I was without power, I was unbelievably productive. Guess I need to just shut off my net access more often.

Last week, I logged onto Twitter to find this tweet (retweeted by a cartoonist/writer I follow):

Lynn linked to this post, which discusses the payment model with big publishers. Namely the fact that when it comes to ebooks, the publishers make big bucks simply because they don’t have to pay for printing or distribution- but don’t pass over anything additional to the author.

While this is certainly sad for writers, to say that you’re going to stop buying all ebooks is a bit distressing.

Ryne Douglas Pearson (@rynedp) is one of the writers that I adore following on Twitter. He was the first published writer I followed on Twitter that followed me back, and well, the man loves bacon. Recently, he’s been promoting the fact that Amazon has one of his ebooks for free. And was giving away another of his ebooks. In his blog, he recently wrote about getting back publication rights for his out of print books, which are or soon will be released as ebooks. So obviously, ebooks work for him.

And for new authors, bucking the publishing houses seems to be the way to go. I follow a lot of writers who have gone the indie route, and all of them have raved about people finding them through ebooks- that they simply needed to invest some money in an editor and in the formatting of the ebook, and they’ve done quite well. An indie author I follow, Nancy Kelley (@nancy_kelley), said that to her it doesn’t matter how the book finds its way into someone’s hands, that it’s fine with her. That ebook or paper, the book has still found its way to someone.

Others have raved about using free ebooks as marketing tools. Where you give away your ebooks in the beginning to help build a fan base. For a lot of independent authors, the thought is that the ebook is the best marketing tool. If someone downloads a free ebook, they’ll be more likely to pay for one of your books if they enjoyed it. Others hope that if someone loves the ebook, that they’ll buy a hardcopy of the book.

I do understand Lynn being upset that publishers are cheating authors of profits. Unfortunately, publishers are aware that their role in the writing world is in jeopardy. While of course everyone wants to be published, there simply isn’t enough money in the market to justify taking on lots of new talent and marketing them. So they’re going to cling to whatever profits they possibly can.

But I don’t think the answer is an all out ebook ban. I know that I’ve tried out ebooks for new authors that I wasn’t sure about, and if I liked the book, it goes on my to buy list. For me, it’s the same as going to a used bookstore and picking up books from local and unfamiliar authors. If I liked the book, I usually start looking for more books from the author in regular bookstores or online. While I don’t actually have an ereader yet, I use the Kindle app and have found it to be a good way to “test drive” new talent. While I might not want to spent $5-$15 on a physical book I might not enjoy, I’ll certainly buy a ebook that’s anywhere from free to $5. If I didn’t like it, then I delete it and I don’t have to figure out what to do with the book I didn’t really enjoy.

Personally, I plan on self-publishing my novels. My goal is to write, be read, and hopefully make my life a bit more comfortable with the book sales. While I would love to get an agent and a publisher, I’m just not sure if that’s where the publishing world is headed these days. Unless they learn to adapt.

Thoughts? I’d love to know what you think.

Last night, Gail Simone (the comic book writer/creator) tweeted the following statements. “DC, we need more female creators, stat. Really. Let’s make this happen.” (In the reboot era, there will be two. Gail and… trying to find the other name. Sorry!) “We all still want comics to be a meritocracy. But there are more than two female creators who are qualified and talented.”

Not surprisingly, this became a hot button issue as male creators and just casual fans added in their two cents. Some people who worked accepting submissions at DC and Image commented that only about 5-10% of the submissions were from women.

Which led me to tweet a bit, wondering about statistics. Usually with a pool of individuals, if you start weeding out the less talented, the percentage of the demographics should feasibly be the same. So it does seem a little odd that in all the books released by DC for the reboot, that only two women are involved creatively.

Bradley Timm (@DoctorFlux) and I started to talk. He wondered if it wasn’t a conspiracy, or if there just isn’t a general interest by women to write superhero books- if they’d rather write indies, pointing out that of the comic reading women he knew, that’s what they preferred to read.

So I looked back on my own pull list over the years. And admittedly, it’s a bit lacking in the capes department. I’ve tended to buy books that reflect what I write- supernatural books, indies, and the most mainstream books I own runs from are NextWAVE, Tales of the Unexpected and JSA. Considering that the Tales of the Unexpected run involves pirates and a Nazi Gorilla, I think that’s still not very mainstream.

Yet, I’m a huge fan of the DC trinity. I have seen every single episode of every Batman animated series (as well as the Superman adventures). I keep up with what’s going on – I just haven’t bought the issues. Why? There’s a lot going on. Both in the books and in my life- at the time I was buying Tales of the Unexpected, I was well, expecting my first son. Which meant I had to cut back a lot once he was born. Having bought the odd collection from webcomics in the time between, I’m easing back into it with the DC reboot.

Would I want to write comic books? Um, yeah. But I admit that my voice isn’t geared towards capes. Well, not unless I’d get to write something either like Tales of the Unexpected/Doctor 13, NextWAVE or Runaways. Okay, Runaways is a bit more mainstream, isn’t it?

I know a lot of women who write. And a lot who read comic books. For some, those categories overlap- and it’s true. I haven’t heard aspirations of writing books. Usually they just buy whatever Gail Simone or Amanda Conners’ are currently writing and talk about how great they are. Which they are. Now, I know there are more women who have created for DC and who write for comics currently still- they just aren’t on the books for the reboot.

So why? Is it a lack of passion? Is it weeded out of us as kids when we’re told to watch Disney movies instead? I bring that up because I know that I’d mentioned wanting to write James Bond novels when I was 14 and was told that nobody would buy a spy book written by a woman. So I wrote a spy novella my junior year and proved – that I wrote like a 16 year old girl who didn’t quite understand what she needed to to write something better. I wasn’t deterred and when I revisited the story years later, realized that it wasn’t that I was a bad writer. I just wasn’t ready for that genre. Now

Digression aside, though, I can see that in the 90s there probably weren’t a lot of people suggesting that girls think about writing mainstream comics. Which would mean that the women who might be sending in submissions for stories might not have been mentored the way that some of the male creators have been. It’s true- you find a lot of female artists in the indie category, and most of them have distinctive voices that don’t fit a typical superhero story. Nearly all the female artists and writers I follow list Disney and anime as the thing that inspired them.

Is it just a perfect storm of circumstances that are keeping women out of mainstream comics? It seems like it’s all part of the larger cycle of issues with Girls and Comics. Publishers complain that women just aren’t buying comics, but they don’t try to nurture all ages books or girl-centric books that would lure in all ages of female readers. And of the girls who read comics, if they’re mostly reading indy books- that’s probably what they’re going to want to write. So unless something changes, it doesn’t seem like the number of women who want to write superheroes are going to increase.

I really would like to hear your thoughts on this. Obviously, this isn’t something that I have the answer for- but something that I really think we should consider more. The more and more I think about it, the more I see the problem as two sides of the same coin. You won’t get more female creators in mainstream comics without having more female readers.