Do I start now or wait until the apocalypse is over?
You know what makes me laugh?
And by “laugh” I mean “chuckle knowingly but shake my head.”
The idea that being hopeful is naive, childish, starry-eyed, PollyAnn-ish, or whatever disparaging term you use to tear down someone who dares to do something you’re too afraid to do. This makes me chuckle or perhaps snort in a knowing way, like, buddy, you think this is easy? You think I don’t know exactly how fucked we are? I know. And I’m not cowering in the corner, terrified (usually). I’m not looking for scapegoats, blaming immigrants or “the gays” or the youth for “ruining everything.” I’m not giving up and descending into utter despair because we’ve fucked the planet and ourselves, baking in temperature rises that will literally cook some of us to death while we’re each consuming approximately a credit card’s worth of microplastics a week.
Being hopeful now, in 2022? That’s a muscular, badass act of intestinal fortitude. GTFO with your disparagement.
The adaptive strength that people are showing right now by continuing to march ahead—with all our woundedness and exhaustion and mental health issues—is the kind of thing that gives me hope, as well as being powered by hope itself.
It’s the kind of thing that keeps me writing hopepunk. Because we each have a part to play in this massive adaptation that humanity has to undergo, in order to survive. I’m a storyteller, so my part is adapting stories to give hope, comfort, and inspiration—to shine a light on the path forward.
And the naysayers, the ones who try to tear you down as you craft your cozy stories of cooperation and compassion, the ones who say “you’ll lose readers if you write that kind of thing”…
This is me, laughing.
Because you don’t deter storytellers—not the sort who endeavor to write something called hopepunk—by saying “you’ll drive away readers if you don’t stick to convention.”
Convention is already in the rear-view mirror, friend. Catch up.
And all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, all the attempts to drag the world backward by punishing those you have the power to punish, will not reverse the spin of the Earth or turn back the clock.
The only path is forward, baby. Get on board, cuz we’re only getting through this together.
From December 4, 2020:
Writing in Uncertain Times
| (Real Talk: When are things ever certain?) When I first imagined this hopepunk series over the summer, I thought I would finish all four novels before the election. *pauses for strangled laughter* It was important to me to write it during that uncertain time. I thought once the election was past, things would become more certain, and I wanted to create during the uncertainty. That was an important aspect of it. But now that the election is past (yes, it is, ignore the drama*), I’m glad it took me longer than I expected to write that first one. And that it’s taking me longer on the second one as well. There’s a sea change happening right now, and that movement is a whole new type of uncertainty. A shifting of tectonic plates that is both sudden and stretched out. 2020 will be a year that’s studied in the future—right now, we just have to survive it. Far too many people, every day, are not surviving it. (The US just hit a grim milestone of the largest number of COVID deaths in a single day: 2,777**) It’s important to me to create in the midst of this. That may sound strange, but the urgency that drove the first book is still there. The second one is taking longer than I’d hoped because I’m having to process a lot before the words can get on the page. I find this happens often—that I delay writing things (or hurry up and write them) because some part of me knows the time isn’t right (or the time is right now). It’s an unexpected part of being a writer, this intimate connection with the world. I’m amazed that ten years into this writing gig, I continue to discover new things about it. We have some dark times ahead, friends. Please continue to stay safe (yes, I know precisely how difficult that is, how long we’ve been doing this). The vaccine is on the way. 2021 has much promise ahead. Let’s get there with as many of us still here as possible. Peace and Love, Sue *oh, my sweet summer child of Dec 2020, you had no idea the drama yet to come **a number that hit over 3300 deaths per day in January 2021 |
