1. An ex-friend once insulted me by calling me “boy-crazy” and I decided to end the friendship, however casual, then and there. It was partly because they were older than me yet resulted to name-calling when I divulged a personal conflict to them, but it was more so because they seemed more inclined to label than to understand. I’m quick to let go of people who offer me little support or companionship but make light of my attempts to seek what I need. I’ll readily claim that flaw.
The identity of this person doesn’t matter—I’m more interested in themes and patterns than I will ever be in calling out individuals—but they continue to represent a persistent fear of mine: that my desire for romance will make me look frivolous. Even though that desire is grounded in the desire to be seen and understood and is very similar to the reasons I write. Accordingly, my tendency to lean on romance as a principal conflict is likely due to my understanding romance in fiction as an easy proxy for self-actualization.
There’s a related Zadie Smith quote I’ve been trying to find—I think it’s from Changing My Mind:
Since the beginning of fiction concerning the love tribulations of women […] the “romantic quest” aspect of these fictions has been too often casually ridiculed: not long ago I sat down to dinner with an American woman who told me how disappointed she had been to finally read Middlemarch and find that it was “Just this long, whiny, trawling search for a man!” Those who read Middlemarch in that way will find little in Their Eyes Were Watching God to please them. It’s about a girl who takes some time to find the man she really loves. It is about the discovery of self in and through another. It implies that even the dark and terrible banality of racism can recede to a vanishing point when you understand, and are understood by, another human being. Goddammit if it doesn’t claim that love sets you free. These days “self-actualization” is the aim, and if you can’t do it alone you are admitting a weakness.
Emphasis mine.
Romance in YA fiction often works along similar lines where the multiple options in a love triangle represent the different selves that the protagonist can choose to become. I’ve also read (wish I could find this essay as well) that Jane Austen’s work and other Regency novels function similarly, but the choice of partner is even more weighty in that it was one of the few choices women had at that period. The nature of her chosen partner would set the tone for the rest of her life in all ways from class to community.
While the shape of female life today doesn’t hinge so heavily on whether one is partnered or unpartnered, it does still reshape it radically. Personally, I think that one’s choice of partner can be an assertion of values.
I think that there are endlessly many ways to choose a partner and that the inability to understand what someone’s partner offers them is, in part, an inability to understand that person.
I think that people best grow through interdependence and every person I’ve been with—yes, even the “filmmaker” with a lisp and too strong a taste for alcohol—has offered me something I needed at the time.
I think that community/family/friends/partners cannot easily substitute for each other and that it’s unkind to tell someone they have to make that substitution if they don’t want to.
Most importantly, I think there’s nothing wrong with wanting romance, especially if you already have family, friends, and community.
Anyway, I could never be boy-crazy because I’m panromantic.
2. I hope that if any friends are reading this blog, they recognize my no-friends jokes as Maya making light of her weak social skills, indelible (albeit unoriginal) sense of loneliness, and frail support network rather than taking it as a personal insult. It’s almost a fun little paradox: my close friends accept me enough to let me joke that they don’t exist, but my colleagues are insulted unless I call them friends to please them.
(Side note: Don’t worry! Even I have tact enough to call colleagues and acquaintances “friends” as a politeness. Even I can follow American social norms.)
This habit of mine is similar to how my partner puts up with me claiming that I will leave him for PinkPantheress or SZA or whatever out-of-my-league Black girl I’m currently entranced by. This joke is better the less attainable she is—ideally, there’s an age gap, an ocean between us, and she’s in a serious relationship of her own. Ideally, she's two-dimensional and maybe even part monster. Ideally, I will witness her on a screen or a stage and then return to my partner’s place to give him ten times as many hours of my finite life. If my actions show love, can’t my words remain jokes?
Honestly, I’m jealous of Hitori Gotoh’s friendships. I know, I know, they’re anime schoolgirls so of course they can do unconditional acceptance to an extent no living human can. But it would be nice to relax a bit more, let my honest anxiety and despair show without watching my back for insult, offense, and misinterpretation. I want to be honest with folks that I am still learning to trust others, feel safe, and develop intimacy. But it often feels like others want me to perform a wellness I haven’t yet achieved.
jk! I didn’t mean any of that. I’m fine, actually.
3. I’m surprised I can’t find any mention of the Fowlerian Engine online.
Does the internet not know what it is? The Fowlerian Demon? Named and developed by Karen Joy Fowler? Taught to us by Clarion instructor Andy Duncan? Practiced by Kelly Link? Who got it from Kate Wilhelm? Who co-founded the Clarion Workshop? And called it collaboration with Silent Partners?
In any case, I don’t think the engine/demon is mine to share but Kelly Link describes the process pretty well in the linked interview. Kate Wilhelm’s linked excerpt is very helpful too, and now I’m tempted to buy the whole book, Storyteller.
PS: Wonderbook is a perfect, wonderful, best possible craft book for speculative fiction writers and I want to recommend it to everyone.
PSS: my Silent Partner is a chaos agent who has to rubber-duck through ideas, so she’ll/I’ll sometimes say ridiculous things because I can. My partner calls this “just saying stuff,” like when I threatened to get him invested in the sport of Kabaddi or decided to become the Superpopeimam who peacefully presides over all the Abrahamic religions.