Outlet

Greetings, Earthlings! Hope you have been enjoying the blog thus far.

In this entry, I’d like to focus on the actual writing aspect of my Lit activity. Putting together any sort of story and posting it online can serve a number of purposes. Those it does for me are as follows.

One aim to publishing a free story online is to provide Readers a bit of entertainment to occupy several moments of their free time—hopefully moments they won’t want back afterwards. What writer, after all, doesn’t want his or her Reader to be interested, even riveted, even engrossed? It’s what it’s all about, after all; if you don’t want your story to be read, why even post it?

I love my Readers, and I also love being able to create something that can be enjoyed in such a way. I’ve always wanted to be known and liked/appreciated for something...maybe even collect a few fans along the way. I used to act in community theater shows here in my corner of the U.S., but eventually I didn’t want to do that anymore. I was very good at it, but unfortunately it stopped being enjoyable.

The reason it stopped being enjoyable was because I couldn’t choose the productions that were being performed, and more often than not I was to portray the part of a villain, jerk or other unfavorable character. And for someone who hates the negative stereotypes that unfairly become associated with men in general such as myself, that got really old really fast. Unfortunately, such sources of fictional pop culture like this—especially situation comedies, movies, novels, advertising and the like, tend to really portray men in a terribly negative light. And as an M.R.A. (that stands for Men’s Rights Activist (yes, there are such male and female individuals)), I couldn’t appreciate that less.

Watching, listening to and reading these things enough, I began to realize just how off-kilter this whole system is in portraying the genders. And it couldn’t be less realistic at all, honestly. The fortunate part is, I think most people know and realize this, and don’t truly see real life this way. Most of us can recognize the distinction. At the same time, we still to this day are being slammed with them whenever we turn on the TV, go to the cinema or comb through the bookstore.

So after a while I began wishing things were turned back the other way. And I began thinking, the only way certain stories like this that I wished existed actually would...would be if I wrote them myself. So I started doing so, and more and more often.

This is the other reason I enjoy writing my Lit stories so much: it’s my outlet. It’s a way for me to get my frustrations out, to grind my proverbial axe, if you will. To get things off my chest. By creating a story in which things happen that ordinarily bother me, but turning them around in a way that doesn’t, this helps me deal with these things better. It’s like a form of therapy. Autherapy.

And I won’t lie by saying the gender dynamic doesn’t exist in my stories; it does. Most of the male characters in my stories (few though they are) are genuinely good, nice guys. Creating bad guy men characters is very purpose-defeating for me. If this makes the stories less popular, oh well. That’s fine. As much as the Readers and their opinions mean to me, I’m not going to go against my own principles to please more of them. I didn’t always feel this way, but at this point, if someone doesn’t like me for myself or my own literature, that’s okay.

This is not to say that all the female characters in my stories are evil, mean bitches; far from it. Most of them are just adorably sweet angels. The sad truth is, lots of people think a good story has to have some sort of a villain. I disagree. I don’t oppose the existence of villains, but the overabundance of male villains in any sort of fictional culture offends me. I’ve written lots of stories that have no villains at all, and they’ve turned out in my mind—as well as a number of Readers’—just beautifully.

This does, however, mean that when I have created villains or less than desirable characters, they have been female, for the most part. It doesn’t in the slightest mean I’m a misogynist, because I have just as many girl characters who are sweeter than sugar and spice. One day I just began wondering, what if all these stupid gender generalizations were turned upside-down? I still try to make them likable, though they’re evil villains. As an author, after all, you don’t want someone to hate your an- or protagonists, ideally.

I do hate being a man, honestly, and this isn’t exactly the place to elaborate on that, but this pretty much just goes back to my outlet of writing and getting these things off my chest. Fortunately for me, I seem to have the ability to shape things so that the stories are decently received—by those who have provided feedback, anyway.

So, this is one of the things that keeps me so obsessed with this activity. When I write stories that make me feel good and are skewed to my interests and appeal, and these stories are well-received by others, or “approved,” if you will, that’s a very hopeful feeling. It’s a feeling of validation and acceptance. It gives me faith that this fantasy world of mine—where we’re not mostly decimating men and glorifying women, and things are more equal—could one day at least be closer to reality.

I know in most’s opinions I’m being far too sensitive about this...I can’t defend these feelings except to say it’s just the way I feel. You know, everyone has something they’re especially passionate and adamant about. All I ask is that you don’t judge me personally for these feelings. If you don’t like my stories, that’s fine. If you don’t like me, well, frankly, my friend, that sounds like a “you” problem. If it makes you feel any better, I still like you.

Cheers! Thanks for visiting! —Smoke