Guest Post: Julia Williamson on What Being a Writer Means to Her Tackling the Bechdel Test while Preserving the Narrative Kindly Shut up About the Obama "Selfie"
Friday, January 31, 2014
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I don’t really know if I consider myself a "writer." I write on occasion. Whenever an idea comes to me, I write it down, then after letting it sit for a while I go back to it and see if it still holds the same magic for me as it did when I originally thought of it. If it does, then I work on fleshing out the idea. I do believe that not all ideas are gems, but I know after some thorough refinement which ones work and which ones don’t.

There’s no one thing that I’m inspired by, but if I had to say what inspires me the most it would be other children’s books. Graphic novels and some movies are also pretty inspiring, but it depends.

For me, the hardest thing about being a writer is the same thing as the hardest thing about being an artist: Finishing. I can’t count how many times I’ve started something then just let it die off. I guess it’s more of a matter of keeping my inspiration going for extended periods of time. It’s especially tough when I have a lot going on. Usually the summer time is when I feel inspired the most. I have plenty of time to relax and pretty much bury myself in whatever project I’m working on at that point.

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Julia Williamson was born in Poughkeepsie, NY in 1987. She received a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Visual Arts and New Media from Fredonia State University of New York in 2009. Currently she lives in Buffalo, NY with her wonderful husband, Brandon, and their over-active imaginations. Books she has written and illustrated include Little Pig, Little Pig, Throw! Rocco! Throw! and Dickens’s Mittens. You can visit Julia's professional website here.


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Monday, December 23, 2013
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I often worry about the impact my stories will have on those that read them. I worry that the need to root myself into everything I write will alienate people who don't share any common experience or worldview. I worry by writing what I know, I will push away those that I don't.

This is especially tricky for me because in my private life I aim to be as inclusive as possible. I find myself harboring bigotry for the ignorant and for the hateful, but, besides that, I do everything I can to approach situations and people by seeking to understand before I condemn, if at all I should.

I've written before about the Bechdel test and how it's a good sort of cultural thermometer. In the same stroke, I've tried to paint a picture showing how such a test is ultimately ineffective, but that doesn't mean its ideas are useless. Stories with varied characters, whether of different sexes, beliefs, backgrounds, etc., are important for the sake of variety and because those are the stories that aid us in telling the truth. Of course, the truth, at least in a literary sense, is more about intention than it is about factuality, but I digress.

The Predicament
I've been making some great progress with a short story I've had in my head for some months now. The main character, a young girl, has surprised me more times than I can count, taking on a life of her own, as our creations so often do. The problem is that I find her world populated by many of the same types of characters; namely, they're big, scary men with  a bone to pick with my young antagonist. Even if they aren't of the big scary variety, they tend to be male.

So, I find myself wondering: am I doing myself and the story an injustice by not populating it with other female characters? Surely, in the instance of the world being the main villain, the sex of the minor antagonists is superfluous at best, but what does it say about my writer's mind, my thoughts about the roles of the sexes in general, that the villainous nomads are all male?

The Double-Edged Solution
I want variation of character in all of my stories, but this decidedly monotonous representation of minor characters has left me to wonder what the implications would be on a bigger scale. What if, in this instance and others, having female characters or male characters or straight characters simply doesn't suit the story? Maybe what my narrative needs is a uniform type of bad guy. Does it make the tale inherently weak if it has no place for diversity?

This is something I've taken to calling the double-edged solution; truly, I want to satisfy the need for good female characters in storytelling, but if it doesn't serve the story, should I push to fulfill these sorts of "equality requirements" just because? It seems that forcing anything creative to fit into any kind of mold is the best way to stifle that creativity.

It's something I've thought about for quite a long time, and I've yet to come up with the answer to the question. I think that more stories should be written to fulfill the Bechdel specs, but I'm torn by the idea that they should all have to.

What do you think, creative community?

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 Charles Hayward is a web writer, short story author and novelist, and a social/political activist interested in furthering the cause of humanity, the well-being of the environment, and improving the world in general. His work has been featured on Examiner.com,Unplug the Matrix, and on the Japanese culture-themed blog They Call Me An Egg.


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Sunday, December 22, 2013
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Almost everyone has sat down in a moment of mental lust and tried to touch pen to paper or mash out a few meaningful words on the computer in an effort to express themselves. What makes them do this? Interestingly enough, I feel that there are three main reasons that people usually blame for their need to puke some words onto a page. These reasons are like a verbal color wheel, and can be mixed with each other to create art; well, let’s just say art is subjective.

  1. Catharsis- People need to emotionally purge themselves. Whether it is political venting, romantic
    woes, or purely the need to scream in the world of font to empty the head a bit, writing down anything usually has a draining effect. I have on occasion felt like I had to enjoy a proverbial cigarette after writing because I felt pleasurably spent. Sometimes writing is like a verbal shower that washes away the soil of civilization.

  2. Expression-The need to be heard. From the time babies cry for everything to the time that kids babble on and never stop, we as a species have been creating a latticework of information exchange all in order to be understood. Poems, books, letters, even rage-flaming kids while playing online games, it is all done with the goal of being understood. This gets dangerous when the need for Catharsis bleeds into this; some pretty harsh things can come out of a letter meant to express oneself while venting. *cough*inebriated e-mails to your boss*cough*cough*

  3. Immortality-The fountain of youth may not exist, but it can surely be written about, and it has; this is why pretty much everybody has heard of it. If the fountain of youth were real, I bet it would spew forth ink, which is far more costly than water. When words are put to page, more than mere ideas are expressed, but the very mind, heart and daresay soul are silhouetted on paper. Reading and writing is interesting this way. When an author bleeds ink onto paper, he is really holding out his arms ready to receive a partner in a complicated dance of the mind. When a reader cracks open a book, they join the author in a waltz where the two minds join and create something new, an understanding born of two minds. Think of it as a mental love-child conceived from a mixture of thought and ink. In this way, the words of the author live on. Never in the same way, but proliferate like children, changing the world, making an impact one way or another. Sometimes, people like to pass something on.


Mixing these three can yield some amazing results, but can also create monsters, like Frankenstein, that venture out into the world and grow on their own. When Mary Shelly authored Frankenstein while trapped in a ski-lodge with her husband Percy, Lord Byron and John Polidori, she tapped into this color wheel in order to craft something that was definitely more than the sum of its parts. It grew but only because of a special blending of all three. I tend to incorporate all three in an effort to satisfy my own needs to bleed off a bit of my stream of consciousness along with the desire to pass on, well, something.

 Other than the three needs of inspiration I mentioned above, there are definitely more that can be added to the list, I am sure. I would love to hear about what some of you readers feel inspires you to write. 

Wayne Ceallaigh is a renaissance man. By day, he is a father, but when school lets out, he tutors children in Science, English, Writing, Philosophy, Religion, History, and sometimes Math. He specializes in special cases where grades need to go from failing to above average in a very short amount of time and getting students into the colleges of their choice. When the evening slows down and melts into the night, he writes game content for Glacier Studios. He is currently working on a project that puts the hero in a historically accurate Norwegian proto-Viking establishment where the Aesir and Vanir rumble the outer worlds and meddle in the affairs of Midgard. In his downtime, he likes to relax with his family or swing his swords in either the SCA or Dagorhir.

Currently, Wayne holds a B.A. in English with a minor in Philosophy and has earned complete doctoral credits in Contract Law, Criminal Law and Tort Law. He is constantly learning and loves to hear new stories. Don’t be afraid to comment on this post if you want to know more.
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Wednesday, December 18, 2013
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I haven't been doing this whole writing thing very long, at least not in the professional sense. I started very slowly in October of 2012 and since that time, there have been some things I've discovered that I never would have thought about when I was still completely green. These are the little things that can easily gnaw at you as both a creative professional and as a person; Many of these, perhaps, apply to other disciplines outside of freelance writing, but for me, these have been unique to my fledgling "wordsmithing" career.

Even if They Ask for It, Very Few People Want Your Opinion
This seems to be most prevalent when you take on ghost-writing projects, whether it's a novel, website copy, or what have you. Clients want exactly what they want, and they expect you to give it to them without a fuss. What you'll learn very quickly is that you can hand a client a piece of gold and have them sneer at it like it's actually horse droppings. You have to remember in these situations that there's a reason you're a writer and they're not. Swallow your pride, keep your nose to the grind stone, and other idioms implying that you need to simply soldier on.

Everybody Thinks They're Writers
The sting of non-writer folk telling you how to do your job and the rage that wells up inside you when accountants tell you they do exactly what you do will never really go away. Having said that, ridiculous responses from clients who hate Oxford commas, don't understand why semicolons are used, and are confused about the difference between its and it's (it happens) are going to be a regular part of your life. When these things happen, simply explain to your clients why you write the way you do; oh, and make sure you do it without any sarcasm.

People Expect Free Work
As a freelancer, there are few things you'll learn faster, perhaps, than the fact that people somehow view what you do as cheap work. There are times when this will manifest itself as low-ball asking prices for an assignment. Much more frequently, unfortunately, is a call or e-mail from a potential client offering only "exposure" in exchange for giving them hours of your life. It can be hard, even impossible, to pass up this kind of offer when you're starting out. It is unarguably hard to find writing work until you've built up some steam, but don't fall into this trap. If you do take a pro-bono assignment, make sure it's a short-term deal. (Note: This doesn't apply to work for volunteer groups)

You need only look around to find evidence that being a freelancer is only getting harder. There's an interesting Business Insider piece about the recent explosion in freelancing across the board. Pay may be rising and jobs may be more common but so, too, are the people you're competing against. Know what you're getting in for before you dive in, and make yourself a far better freelancer out of the gate.
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Charles Hayward is a web writer, short story author and novelist, and a social/political activist interested in furthering the cause of humanity, the well-being of the environment, and improving the world in general. His work has been featured on Examiner.com, Unplug the Matrix, and on the Japanese culture-themed blog They Call Me An Egg.

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