Alright, it's time to come clean.
The last two blog posts I kept more or less meaningless because I was still getting a feel for how open I was willing to be about things to you guys.
You see, throughout my college career I've realized that several of my interests are not exactly... popular in a college setting.
First of all, as you're all aware, I am a science fiction writer. As such, I am aware of the "Sci-fi Ghetto" that such works tend to fall into in the minds of many educated people. Science fiction is considered "genre" and "formulaic", and are not often considered among "serious literature," but relegated to "petty entertainment."
I don't accept this concept of what I write, and certainly won't give up science fiction because some people have a problem with it. At the same time, this perception has made me self-conscious. I have become defensive about science fiction, but paranoid about other interests that might mark me in the minds of my professors and fellow students as a childish person who doesn't take what I do seriously enough.
I am a tabletop role-player. I used to play "Dungeons & Dragons," but between the changes made to the game, and in my own growth as a gamer, I've somewhat left it behind. I've since gotten more involved with Legend of the Five Rings, a roleplaying game set in a fantastic amalgam of anchient china and feudal japan, and Shadowrun, a cyberpunk fantasy set in 2070 with megacorporations, shamans, mafias, trolls, cyborgs, and dragons. (related to but much better than the video game by the same name.)
I'm not going to hide or lie about spending a significant portion of my time and effort coming up with pasts, motivations, strategies, and personalities for imaginary samurai, mercenaries, and other assorted overblown character types. To a degree this is simple entertainment, but in it's most primal form, it's storytelling, and I enjoy it for the same reason I enjoy writing.
Some people might think less of me for my hobbies, but if they do, it's their loss.
Well, I hope reading Stephen King taught you not to care what other people think of your subject matter. I know that I don't. I want to write about what I want to write, but I do have to decide on what I want to share. Writing anything is good practice, at least, even if it's not going to be successful for a wide audience.
ReplyDeleteI guess part of our responsibility is to make things interesting for people who don't normally like them. I think some people might not like science fictiony things because they aren't "real," so I like to try to make them as realistic as possible.