Having my Cake and Eating It Too Now that my novel Wind Follower is published and I've created a Native-Americanish Asianish hero to fall in love with my dark-skinned character, I'm working on my new WIP, presently called Inheritance where another new guy falls in love with yet another dark-skinned character. Yeah, I've got issues. Truth to tell: I've got this hankering for flesh. White flesh. It's kind of vampiric, I know. It shows up in my love for a good -- I repeat "good" -- cowboy flick. If the main character isn't a cowboy, then it's got to be some homespun cornfed type. For my own sanity and self-respect, I'd like to think that this particular issue isn't peculiar to me. I suspect that black girls, Asian girls, Native American girls all have this love for cowboys, the mythic great American ideal. After all, they hook into our testosterone. They ride a horse well. (uh...really well.) And although we've all been subjected to all those old movies where the blonde squinty-eyed Stenson-hatted guy always chose the blonde haired preacher's daughter over the raven-haired but fallen saloon gal...we pretty well knew that we weren't in his rodeo, his range, or mountain...brokeback or otherwise. It's kinda like what Cher (of Sonny and Cher fame) once said in an interview...how she liked Snow White because Snow White was the only black-haired Disney animated character. So yeah, there probably are all these dark-haired women wanting the cowboy to pick the dark-haired girl. Well, It's a rejection issue. A societal rejection issue. Not that we always wanted the guy, but as minority gals we were more than aware that the homespun guy in all those American flicks just didn't want us. Heck, he wouldn't see any beauty in us. And if he did, he certainly wouldn't marry any of us. It's a rejection issue that any ethnic woman writer has to adapt to. And I mean "adaptation" literally. My movie life has been spent saying two things. The first: "Sure the main character's cute but, he'd be prejudiced in real life." The second: "Okay, that was a nice movie...but what if the main character was black?" Yes, let me see... What would the film "Single White Female" be like with emphasis on the "white"? I could go on. But you get the picture. So, there I was working on my new novel when who should present himself? A homespun type. A guy named Danny who is neither slender nor stocky but with a body --well you know-- made for sin. Could I do it? Could I create the love story that would challenge all those Janet Oke Lifetime movie love stories I'd fed on? Nah. Within three months of thinking about this character, he had turned ethnic on me. Part Chinese and part Native American. But he was still homespun. From an upstate New York farm community no less. He was also politically incorrect. Very. Almost...well, almost...racist. Of course I wasn't really surprised at this. I'm always trying to create an all-American cowboy and no matter what the Black Gang -- as Bujold calls the muse-- rears its serious little head and twist things about. Lord knows why. Maybe I still don't think a cowboy would want me...uh, my character? Maybe I've outgrown that part of me that wanted them...the way they were. Either way, the Black Gang is reluctant to do it. Again, I feel the need to sound saner that I probably am so I'll just restate that I've noticed this kind of thing in stories by other women writers of color. The girl is mother of the woman, as they say. And adaptation seems to be the best choice for a reluctant adult woman writer who used to daydream about cowboys who would have nothing to do with her. Making the guy ethnic, I can have my beefcake and eat it too. Engrossing, perceptive, earthy, and provocative, Carole McDonnell's debut novel, Wind Follower is a soulful, mythic epic of race, class, and cultural divisions that speaks volumes to the important questions of our day. Her lead characters, Satha and Loic, are vividly depicted, fully realized in this magical world. She can write scenes that plug completely into all of the key emotions of the reader, alternately spellbinding and disturbingly masterful.Robert Fleming, author of Havoc After Dark and Fever In The Blood Buy Wind Follower on Amazon |
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Is it wrong that I want to make out with your cover?
"The girl is mother of the woman..." I'd never heard this saying, but I love it. Great post!
Also, that cover is totally gorgeous, although, unlike Anton, I don't feel the need to molest it.
Hi Jaye and Anton:
Everyone LOOOOOVES that cover. And would you believe I totally hated it the first time I saw it? There was a previous version....where the gal looked all coy and demure. Yep, i liked that one. But then the Borders folks said they wouldn't take it with that cover and the character had to be a bit more aggressive. (Yep, I got into a snit about white folks always wanting to see black women as aggressive.) Of course now I love it. So, yeah, it's okay to want to make out with the cover. Beware of paper cuts, though.
Hi Jaye: The "original" quote is "the child is father of the man." I kinda just flipped it.
Juno never has guys on their covers. At least not so far. But I definitely know what Loic, the male main character looks like. At least my dream actor to play Loic. For a gander go on over to http://fictionbeyondtheordinary.blogspot.com/2008/01/dreamcast-for-wind-follower.html and check out Takeishi Kaneshiro... the actor I'm presently jonesing for ...uhm...I mean the actor I'm presently jonesing for to play Loic.
That is a striking cover.
Great guest blog. Thanks for taking the time to write. That was a good view into a sane author's mind. We don't get that much here.
trust me, TM, sanity is not my forte. Pretending to be...is
BTW, I felt absolutely overjoyed when I saw this on the Great American Country website.
It's a video called Country Girl and it connects to that longing we ethnic types have when we see all those nostaligic homespun stories.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d89e6w405sc
The great thing is that the video is a bit of a milestone because it's a Black female country and western singer. It made me feel perhaps a little less insane (about my hankering for pale flesh) and a little more "representative."
I don't want to sound as if we black authors are not sane...but there is definitely a sense of not quite belonging to the greater culture...and so wanting to be part of it...in our own way. (Sorry about all these ellipses in my posts, btw. It's something that drives my editor and critter-friends crazy.) -c
I cannot write without ellipses, so I don't even notice.
I think your perspective is refreshing...so often there are societal barriers to freely exchanging thoughts on topics such a race. So it's nice to have a forum like this.
Besides, sanity...overrated.
Aw, tm, you wouldn't like us if we were sane. Quit flirting with the guest blogger.
Carole, my Grandpa was a HUGE Charlie Pride fan. It wasn't until I was much older that I realized Pride was unusual in the country world. That's a great video!
I only flirt with one woman, under threat of death. She's a lovely olive-skinned woman of Italian descent.
Race is one of those issues that fascinates me, but as someone with foot usually near mouth, it's something I don't talk about often.
A few years back, there was a country singer who I enjoyed during my brief period of not pulling out my hair at the twang (I am from an upstate farm community, after all)...Black guy, he was a surgeon, I believe, who had always loved country and wanted to give it a try. I wonder whatever happened, but then again, remembering his name would help.
Hi TM: I remember that black singer/surgeon. I, too, have forgotten his name. I kept saying to him (in mental conversations) "You FOOL! DO NOT, DO NOT, give up your cardiac practice!" But did he listen to me?
My favorite country singer is Dwight Yoakam...who has got to be one of the best songwriters. He also has a really neat butt in really tight jeans.
Here is what I consider quite possibly the greatest kiss-off song of all time, Ain't that lonely yet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrgIBc2iJrA
Race is an interesting issue, definitely. I totally hate discussing it...but seem to be fated to keep discussing it. Like always wanting to do lovely beautiful stories and always having to put some perverse twist in it. A counter-phobic personality I think. I post a column called Faith and Collor on sundays at www.allaboutrace.com
Drop by anytime.
Hi Carole - thanks for swinging by, I really enjoyed your post.
Still, I'm afraid I can't condone all this country music chatter. ;)
Mark:
You just made me laugh so hard. Wow, that was good for the lungs. I DO know what you mean, though, about country music. Baroque poetry and the fine line between banal-crap and telling phrase aside, there isn't much to discuss when one talks about country music. Alas, though, I've got to listen to it cause main character listens to it. And I have to pump my heart and soul full of Americana.
Would it help matters a bit if I tell you that if I'm not listening to country music or a christian television station I'm listening to some true crime show on A&E or Discovery Times or to Chiller or the SciFi channel. A lot of evil happens in small towns. Hauntings too. Hope that helps matters a bit.
Cleve Francis.
I remembered and googled him. He's back to being Dr. Cleveland Francis. It's a good story, in that it's interesting, but there are hints at unsubtle racism. And by "hints" I mean "huge flaming neon signs."
Mark, think of it as research. How can you appropriately satirize without some basic foundation? Of course, I have on my ipod listening to the tragically hip's "grace, too" as I write about country, so...I dunno.
I love old-school country, though. Hank and Patsy singing about cheatin' hearts and being so lonesome they could cry...ah. If you're in the right mood, there's nothing better.
Thanks Carole, that makes it all better.
I'm going to cleanse my mind with a trio of A&E's INTERVENTION.
Ah, tm! Those hints...those subtle and unsubtle signs! I could tell you stories. Cause it's always a question of: what the heck is going on here? If you hang with black writers etc, you'll also end up surrounded by that strange anxious if. One is never ever quite sure why a book doesn't succeed, why an editor has rejected a story... why why why?
I swear! In some black scifi or black children's book writers' groups there is always this question. And one ends up with the "The white man is out to keep us down" viewpoint. Or the "Let's totally live in our own world and self-publish because we don't have to join their clique" viewpoint. Or the "They just don't believe we can write" viewpoint. Or the "they will only accept us if we sell out" viewpoint. Or "they don't know how to market us and they aren't willing to risk money on us" viewpoint. So the opinions are all over the map.
Lord knows why Cleve didn't sell as well as he could have. I remember Paula posting on her blog that booksellers weren't/aren't enthused about Wind Follower. I mean....where do they put a Christian multicultural fantasy?
I thought...duh? Where do you put a nordic or gaelic fantasy? In the SpecFic section, or course. But as always there were the issues: Do black folks read specfic? (Alas, most black folks read read mainstream contemporary stories.) Certainly not in the Christian section. (Alas, many Christians black or white, do not like specfic unless it's Left Behind and some even go so far as to say it's satanic. And many Christian books are aimed for a market below the Mason Dixon line. Not that all conservative Christians are prejudice...but hey...let's not kid ourselves.)
So I totally understand what Dr Cleve Francis went through. I can only hope he won't bear any bitterness about it. Unfortunately, many of us black folks are pretty wounded racially...and alas, grudges are hard to shake off. Especially when there's a cause and a hint that perhaps there's been some injustice played against our career. -C
Suddenly realized I ought to add this ps.
I'll just add that it isn't only minority writers who get all paranoid about what the larger world is doing to or with their work. I blog over at http://blog.lostgenreguild.com/ and they are often just as bad or worse about discussing how to infiltrate the greater publishing world. While there issue is generally secular versus mainstream... instead of minority versus mainstream... it's still about being on the outside looking in and wondering if they want to be "in"...and what they should do in order to be "in."
Jeez Carole -
I so wasn't expecting you to out my secret love of Thor's thighs (that's right - t squared), but you really hit the mark.
BTW . . . isn't it National Ellipsis Week?
Hi Dveiums. I had to out myself...alas, ended up outing others too.
-C
Why would you want to hide a love for Thor's thighs? They're MAGNIFICENT.