Concerning my Inkshare
You all probably have noticed that I haven't said much about the recent tragedy in Orlando. Well, I have something to say now, and it's something I want everyone to hear.
Many of you are probably familiar with my Inkshare project: "Wings of the Pegasus". I've been trying to get this book published through crowdfunding for the past couple weeks. And today, after an e-mail conference with Inkshare management, I have cancelled this project.
My reasons for cancelling this project are not, as you may assume, because of my failure to achieve a multitude of backers these past few days. I am aware that I will most likely not receive 250 pre-orders by August 22nd, but if that were my only worry, then I would still stick with this project until the bitter end. My reasons for wanting to cancel my Inkshare are far more important than that.
Lucy Natsumi is gay. My 13-year-old protagonist is a lesbian, and she is not alone. Out of the 79 named characters in "Wings of the Pegasus", 4 of them are gay, 6 of them are lesbian, 9 of them are asexual, and 1 of them is bisexual. That's a little over 1/4 of my entire cast being proud members of the Q-munity. That's a lot, and to be perfectly honest, that wasn't even a number I was actively trying to reach. My goal when I set out to write "Wings of the Pegasus" was never to write a Queer Fiction story, but rather a Science Fiction story. So I didn't want to "talk up" the plethora of queer characters in my story because I didn't want to have my story stuck in a queer label. Queerness was, in my eyes, not important.
But just because it isn't important to me, that doesn't mean queerness isn't important to the world. It certainly was important to Omar Mateen. It certainly is important to every political pundit trying to weave a narrative out of the Orlando shooting. And it definitely is important to the millions of queer people in this world who live in fear every day. No-one deserves to feel that fear.
I believe that humanity can change for the better. I believe that we have already become a more tolerant world today than we were 100 or even 50 years ago. And I want to believe that this world is ready for a lesbian protagonist in its Juvenile Fiction. But I would be a fool to believe that I could publish such a story without a fight. I knew going into Inkshare that I would have to fight to preserve Lucy's orientation. I knew that I may have needed to compromise on certain measures, to bend so that I wouldn't break. But in the wake of this tragedy, I have realized that I cannot bend. I cannot alter one single queer character's orientation. I cannot cater this story to an older audience. I cannot, and I will not.
There is only one option that allows me to preserve every element of queerness in this story. I have to self-publish "Wings of the Pegasus". I know that doing so will be tantamount to writing my story on the sidewalk in chalk, in terms of how many people I can reach. But this is something I need to do. This is a story I need to tell. And this is a decision I need to make. I need to cancel my Inkshare project, and take my story elsewhere.
I don't want to be some kind of self-righteous savior. I don't want to proclaim myself as some great champion of queer rights. I still only want to write good Science Fiction. But this is a story only I can tell, and I have to tell it my way. I'll still be posting teaser posters for each of my chapters, but my Inkshare project is over.