I started reading Pope Joan the other day, hoping for a book that didn’t have a rape in it, since every other piece of fiction I’ve read in 2013 has had either a rape or a character’s recounting of her past rape. I thought I’d be safe reading a book about a woman everyone thought was a man.
Not so much. But that’s not my point. (By the way, there’s a GANG RAPE in this book as well as the murder of a pet. Fun times.)
My point is how weirded out I was to get to the part where the character, a smart little girl, is taught to read by an older brother who scratches her lessons out in the dirt of the pig pen.
I was weirded out because one of my unpublished novels has the exact same scene. Granted, my character isn’t a pope. But she does, like Pope Joan, grow up to become a doctor.
I’ve never read this book before, in fact I hadn’t heard of it until about three days ago. So I didn’t copy her scene. Nevertheless I can’t deny how many similarities there are between that book and the book I was writing a few years ago. For the record, that’s also the book I’ve set aside when I found out that everyone was writing books about the Amish. I wanted a book about an Amish girl who grew up to become a doctor, so it’s different from all the “will she leave the church and marry the Mennonite farmer next door?” that’s out there now. But I still felt derivative.
I think these two things–the constant rape and the oddly similar dirt alphabet scene–are part of why I’m having trouble writing. Because everything feels the same. I don’t know that I have anything new or interesting to say. I don’t know if my Amish are any more value to society than Beverly Lewis’ Amish or if my Welsh physician/mermaid is any different from any other Welsh physician/mermaid. I do know that there is no way I’m putting a rape in any of my books and so I think maybe that violates some modern rule about publishing.
I’m also staying away from Facebook because I’ve been told that people do not enjoy reading my Facebook Status Updates. Which seems, in the main, to be an odd complaint when they could just unfollow me. But whatever. This society and its ettiquette are all foreign and mostly peculiar. At least to me. I still live in a world where people aren’t getting raped every time they turn around. I also live in a world where people don’t use rape as an entertaining diversion. Most people, anyway, I hope.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
If you stop posting on FB because other people don’t enjoy reading your status posts, the Terrorists win. (I find your posts feisty, opinionated, salty, challenging, thought-provoking. In other words, I find them delightful, a breath of fresh ‘I think for myself’ air.)
So I guess what I’m saying it just because some schleps are vocal detractors doesn’t mean all of us feel the same way. Think about us. (More to the point, think about /me/!) 😉
What Johne says!
Well, y’all have made me feel both gratified and a little guilty. I promise I wasn’t meaning this as one of those “take my ball and go home” posts. It really was only a “this is what’s in my head and may explain my absence if people are looking to see why I’m absent.”
I figured since I’d posted recently about being depressed and folks had responded about that it would be a wise thing to explain my absence in terms that didn’t leave people wondering about my present mental state.
All that being said, Tim reminded me that if I went on FB at my desk (I usually post from the Mobile app) I could set it up to just hide my SUs from the complainers. Since they’re professional and personal contacts I can’t block them. This is a good solution.
So I’m back with the salty opinions. (Whenever anyone says “salty” now I think of Chef on South Park. My mind is brokeded.)
Also, think about this. How long ago was Ecclesiastes written? And there was nothing new under the sun then. My dad and my brother can guess within five minutes what’s going to happen in a TV show or movie.
So, the truth is that you don’t have anything new to say. But you’re not giving yourself enough credit for your own interesting voice. We might all be telling the same stories, but only you can tell yours your way.
I mean, after all, isn’t reading in a pig pen the plot to CHARLOTTE’S WEB? That doesn’t mean you don’t do cool stuff with it.
Heh. Bart and your dad and me. That’s one of the things that’s been worrisome. I can’t watch NCIS or the Mentalist anymore without knowing by the first commercial who did it. It’s annoying–both to me and others in the room. 🙂
But you have a good point. Actually several good points, what with Ecclesiastes AND Charlotte’s Web. I had SO not even thought of Charlotte’s Web. 😉
I think you should stop posting status updates to FB (well, actually I don’t care about that) and start posting them to your blog instead. Then I wouldn’t have to rely on my husband to pass your status along.
But, really, what B said. And more than having your own voice, you seem from your brief list to have more interesting plot twists and concern for character development than some of the offerings you’re comparing yourself to. (I mean, one of my favorite novels of the past few years was In Great Waters. Which if you want to be reductionist is just another mermaid story, but is so much not that that I was considering categorizing it as alternate history science fiction, even with the people who live under the water etc. So saying you were working on “just another Amish girl” story sounds wrong to me.) What you should be doing is getting your fiction out there, so the next time you invent a compelling scene that someone else coincidentally will also invent, everyone will know you got there first.
Facebook will get really boring w/o you. In fact, it has gotten really boring lately, anyway. But once all the interesting people leave, I can’t think of a reason to stay.
So, I guess putting a word HTML tags isn’t as funny when you can’t see the gag. Trust me, it was hilarious… 😉
I believe you.
Take a deep breath, and shout this:
“THE HELL WITH YOU WORLD! MY VOICE MATTERS!”
Then reminds yourself that you will always, always be better than James Patterson, and get back to writing. Works for me.