I wonder if any readers ever noticed that I changed my subheading on this blog. It used to say An Aries Knows (everything). I was poking fun at myself, and in my About Me section, I stated that I didn’t actually know everything but kept my mouth shut about those things I didn’t know.
I’m not sure when in 2019 it became An Aries Knows (some stuff). It was in keeping with my lifelong philosophy that “the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know” vein.
To be clear.
I don’t know it all.
I can’t know it all.
I don’t want to know it all.
I do want to keep learning.
There was a morning in 2016 when I sat on a patio in the shade, surrounded by beautiful plants and drinking coffee, and I confided to Geri, and I believe Stacey, that I felt guilty for not always using my voice on things that matter to me. On this blog, specifically. Also, however, in conversations. Often it’s because I don’t give quick, snappy answers to complex issues. I don’t talk in soundbites. For one thing, I’m Southern. We do okay with sassy comebacks, but the soundbite is not our way.
I don’t remember Geri’s exact response, but she reminded me that sometimes there are other ways to heal the world. It was okay to be who and where I was. It was comforting, and it also helped me put something in perspective. What I was struggling with was silence after a long time of advocacy.
I spent the 1980s trying to get my own personal shit together, sometimes in a very small world, sometimes in a larger one. Period.
I spent most of the 1990s advocating for a marginalized population (LGBTQ) and another group that included some of that population (HIV/AIDS). This was mostly pre-Internet (at least in my world), and I used my voice at my jobs both as part of diversity groups and as an individual employee. Sometimes being an ally means speaking up and out for people who can’t for very valid reasons. The reason I felt confident in doing this was because beginning in 1989, I read every book I could get my hands on–nonfiction, biography, memoir, fiction–about realities surrounding the LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS communities. There were also in my own life a number of people who were friends, acquaintances, and colleagues who helped me learn and grow and see.
In the first decade of the 2000s, I was using my voice as a fiction writer to create characters and stories where a reader could find love, tolerance, acceptance, friendship, kindness, and hopefully some humor and a bit of wisdom. That is also the decade I was on message boards and then began blogging, first on LiveJournal then here on Word Press. My voice was therefore using the written word, one way or another.
In the second decade of this century, through my volunteer work and employment with an animal rescue group, I supported and advocated for the voiceless in Houston’s homeless pet population. I also spent a lot of time on art. I have no regrets about any of that, but I did very much miss writing fiction. I need to write. It’s part of my lifelong identity. I didn’t know where to find the time or energy to attempt writing fiction again. I would dabble in it here on the blog, for example, in efforts like my “Pet Prose” posts.
I decided one way to ease back into writing without being frustrated about not having much time for it, or having to endure gaps between writing sessions, was to take some old, unpublished manuscripts and rewrite those novels (there are three) from the perspective of a brain and heart more or less three decades older. I knew the characters. I knew the plots. But how would the novels change based on how I’ve changed?
Immediately in the first novel, I identified things that displeased me about my characters. I realized though my plots weren’t all bad, there was way too much plot, and also, I’m a different kind of storyteller now. Am I better? As a writer, I say yes. As an editor, I shrug. I know the things I do that won’t fly in the publishing world. But the marvelous thing is, once I realized I was writing the novel I wanted to write, for the sole pleasure of writing it, I stopped caring about traditional publishing. Oh, the time may come when I reach out to my editor, but if he says no, then I’m fine with that. Will I self-publish? I hope to, if only for the few people who I know might enjoy what I’ve done.
I didn’t reread any versions of the first novel. I wanted to write clean, not getting bogged down in what I’d done before. Along with better character development, I knew for sure one thing I’d gotten wrong. I was fairly meticulous about research of the entertainment business, particularly music and filmmaking. I wanted to place my novels firmly in the era they were set. That meant I had to consider big things like the Vietnam war and how those impacted the entertainment industry in general and my characters specifically.
It was hard to acknowledge what I’d dodged before. For the time and place my books were set, there was a hell of a lot going on in this country socially and politically, and considering the backdrop of my characters’ regions, families, friends, and professions, I couldn’t ignore gender, race, or sexual orientation. I’m not writing a sociology text. I’m not a political scientist. I’m a fiction writer. I had to find a way to organically weave these bigger themes into my characters’ lives.
I refreshed my knowledge of things I knew (from my life, reading, and education) and sought information about things I didn’t know. It was mind-blowing to be reminded again of all I don’t know. So, so much.
Will I use, am I using, my voice again? Yes.
Is it easy? FUCK.NO. That’d be a discussion for another time.
Do I know everything? Not by any stretch of the imagination.
Am I learning? My Instagram tag line has from the first been, “Always learning.”
Will I get it right? My Twitter tagline has always included, “Writer and editor. I read a lot of stuff on here I don’t get, but I always know where the apostrophes go.” I’m confident the apostrophes will be right. As for the rest of it…
Do I guess a lot? I do. I will do my best to make informed guesses.
