When I sent my first book out on the query-mobile, one of the common reasons for rejection was they wouldn't know how to present it to editors. The genre wasn't cut and dry enough. Not quite science fiction, not quite literary fiction, not quite suspense or spiritual or speculative. It is not quite any of these and mostly all of them.
The problem is, I write about what interests me and I can't separate life into such neat categories.
I love exploring both science and spirituality...
they are inseperable to me.
My books will always have an element of both because I love that they are two different languages speaking the same truths:
"Things derive their being and nature by mutual dependence and are nothing in themselves." -Nagarjuna, second-century Buddhist philosopher
"An elementary particle is not an independently existing, unanalyzable entity. It is, in essence, a set of relationships that reach outward to other things."
-H.P. Stapp, twentieth-century physicist
In Memoriam: Janet Reid
6 months ago
10 comments:
I like this reaffirmation of who you are as a writer. Hold fast to the profession of your faith, you seem more than hardy enough to pay for the consequences of it. My hat is off to you, madame. Kudos.
Unfortunately, I think the consequences are a small audience. So, it comes back to the question of: to write what I want or to be read?
Ah, yes, there's that little bugger, isn't there?
I no longer look at it in those terms, and I don't think you should either. I look at it more in these:
do I want to be a rabbit, read now and soon forgotten, or do I want to be a tortoise, read less as a flashing star, but read well into our tomorrows?
Maybe I make neither, who knows, but I'd rather at least try to carve my name in the granite of time, than have it written on the pages of the New York Times. Then, again, BOTH would be better, I know. LOL
That fine balance is the key, huh?
And one not so easily found, though, either, I guess. Maybe we should find a couple of others of like minds and form a search party to find it. :-)
What, they're too dang lazy to create a new genre? Sheesh! You'd think they'd WANT more money and prestige.
lol, Christian. I feel like I'm being chased around by a little person with a big stick, yelling "back in the box...back in the box."
If you cover any aspect of spirituality ... as long as it's open-minded ... I might have a suggestion.
But, yeah, everything in this country has to be black or white or nice and tidy and explainable.
I agree with PP, do your thang and let it unfold.
If you found Nagarjuna you're definitely headed in a wise direction.
Though my subject matter is different, I resonate with your question. Write what I want or write to be read?
My gut response is: people are open and hungry to explore life that is not separated into tidy categories. We don't experience life this way and when the books out there present life as such, it fails to satisfy. Now if only publishers could see this. . .
I know little of science but from what you have shared here, I'm hooked! So keep writing. Teach me; open new doors and allow us to see this world as only you can.
I completely sympathize with you.
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