Day: June 12, 2013

Smart Advice from Smart People

All Writing is Political

I’m about to commit a metric butt-load of white-male-privilege sins by being a white-male-guy whose linking to another white-male-guy saying sensible things about writing and feminisim, but just this once I’m going to be okay with it. Chuck Wendig wrote a post about Sexism and Misogyny in Publishing. It got some responses, ’cause Chuck knows his shit when it comes to building an audience on the internet, and so people link his posts around. Then he wrote a response to the responses, and called out this particular piece of bullshit in a way that had me punching the air like a madman. “BUT IT DOESN’T SERVE THE STORY!” Worst excuse ever. I hate this excuse. I hate it like I hate the DMV, hemorrhoids, airline travel delays, and bad coffee. I hate it because it suggests that writers are not in control of their own stories, that they are merely conduits for some kind of divine unicorn breath, some heady Musefart that