Follow the Rainbow Hop: GLBTQ Writing Katey-style

Today marks the start of Rainbow Book Review's inaugural blog hop, yay! Thanks very much to Lena Grey and Serena Yates of RBR for inviting authors and publishers to help celebrate their shiny new site. It's beautiful.

The topic for the hop is 'What Writing GLBTQ Literature Means to Me'. It's a topic that's at once so complicated and so obvious that I rarely say much about it, but I should, so I'm happy for the occasion. Please be warned, this will be a really personal post and way TMI, but that's the kind of question they asked, innit?

I was a bit of a late bloomer, as they say. I never had the interest in boys that my friends did--oh, I had pictures of rock stars on my walls, but that was as near as I ever really wanted to get--and when I dated someone, it was because, well, they asked, and they seem okay, so... I guess I should? (Someone get teenage me one of those 'I need feminism because...' signs, please.) I thought people were beautiful but had no interest in touching them, or, when I got a little older, I enjoyed and wanted sex for and of itself, but was never all that happy with a partner--or random fucking around. I was impatient with love stories because, I mean, seriously, what a load of crap. Blow some shit up, entertain me, none of these lies about true love, thanks.

Then in my last year of undergrad, something clicked into place, and I realized my lack of enthusiasm was because I hadn't been thinking about love and sex and even myself in a way that was at all natural to me--I'd been thinking about it how I thought I was supposed to think about it. No wonder I couldn't muster any real interest--it was being shoved into some weird little box for no good reason.

Not to sound melodramatic, because it really wasn't, but the realization that my brain is queer changed everything. Understanding and acknowledging how I worked, and that my way is just as valid as anyone else's, freed me to make myself, and future partners, so much happier.

In retrospect, I can see how perfectly obvious it is, and so can the people who were close to me growing up.  I also had plenty of friends who identified all over the spectrum once I went off to college, but-- Okay, I'm a super-proud lit nerd, and fiction is what gets to me the hardest and fastest. I can see the pattern of characters that captured my heart, of love stories that spoke to me, even the things my friends and I made up to amuse ourselves as kids. I often think that if I'd had more stories with queerbrain protags of all shapes, sizes, manners, genders (or lack thereof), and orientations, I might've come to that freeing realization a lot earlier. That's part of why visibility is such an important thing to me personally now. It's amazing how things have changed in just a few decades, and what we have access to now is so much more inclusive than what we had when I was in high school in the 90s--and bless the hardworking pioneers who've sacrificed so much to get us to this point.

Thing is, it can never be enough. Not until all viewpoints are visible, represented, part and recognized parcel of society's intellectual fabric--and not in a way that others and exoticizes. Yeah, I have QUILTBAG-identifying protags. And yeah, they love and fight and hate and fuck--or not--by the same basic human rules as het-norm protags. Because that's for real. So basically, I'm writing the stories I was making up for myself back then, the stories I wish I'd had, the stories that will always ring true to me. Stories where brains work either like mine, or in a way I recognize, that feels natural to me, that feels honest.

And yeah, my honesty isn't even close to heteronormative. Clearly. But I still think, hope, and know that it's accessible to every human, regardless of their own identity. That's the point.

As a side note: I have since discovered that there is such a thing as love and happily ever after. And that, my friends, is why I came back to romance with a vengeance, once I knew myself. Because it's honest, after all.

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After that absurd little confession, I think it's appropriate to give away an e-copy of By the River--which takes place in my hometown (if renamed). Might explain a few things you never wanted to know, right? You can check out the details on the book here, if you're interested. All you have to do is leave a comment  on this post (please include your email if it's not listed in your profile), and I'll let random.org pick a winner on the 27th, after the hop is over.

Don't for get to hit up the other blog hop posts, including the main one, for more opinions, thoughts, and giveaways. Oh, and also, the last day of the hop (the 26th) is the last day of the Equilibrium Birthday Giveaway, so check that out too and maybe score a print Equilibrium/Riot Boy copy while you're here.