Prose and Prejudice: My Battle Against Hate.

It's been a while since my last post because inspiration for a topic has eluded me. Anyway, it's about time I made an appearance. I tend not to blog for the sake of it. I imagine that would make for pretty boring reading.

Yesterday, I was just about to write a check-in post about what I've achieved with my writing over the past week or so. Basically, I've just been plugging away at the novel editing, making steady progress (which I hope to keep up when I go back to my day job on Monday.) Then, I moved on to what I hadn't achieved; the neglect of my blog and the fact that I still hadn't done any work on children's books.

I put my lack of creative output down to a negative mindset. With all the unkindness and sheer ugliness in the world at the moment, a dark cloud has been hovering over me. In particular, all the racist and transphobic people of the world have crawled out of the woodwork in response to Black Lives Matter and Pride month respectively. What's more anti-trans people feel all the more validated (not that they needed any encouragement) in their harmful rhetoric because of J. K. Rowling's anti-trans tweets. The hateful comments from cis men are bad enough, but then we have TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) implying that somehow the trans rights movement is in some way harmful to their own gender identities. 

Look, as a cisgender female and a feminist, the idea that trans rights would in any way threaten women's rights or women's safety doesn't ring true. To my mind, it's just an excuse to marginalise some people in the way that all women have been marginalised for centuries. The hypocrisy is astounding. But I digress.

When I thought about all this and the pain I was, and still am, feeling on behalf of my fellow humans, I realised there was a way to lift myself up and out of my melancholy state. Instead of soaking in all the negativity and evil in the world, I could put some positivity into the mix.

In my last post, I wrote about using writing and other art forms to help change the world for the better. The most effective way I can think of to change the world is through education. Unfortunately, many adults are too stubborn to accept that their deep-rooted beliefs might be incorrect. They don't want to read anything, scientific or biographical, which would open their minds. They don't see anything wrong in their unkind words and behaviours and they'll defend their bigotry to the death. If we want to make future generations better, kinder and happier than ours, we need to introduce the right kind of ideas and values to children. Time for me to pick up writing children's books again, then.

This in mind, I've started to write a book which aims to promote racial equality. After that, I intend to write one addressing tans kids with the aim of helping such children feel seen, and cultivate understanding in their peers. This would create inclusivity on two levels: the acceptance from writer and book characters and acceptance from their own friends.

If these books get published, I'm going to get a lot of hate for the second one, I know I am. But I can't let that stop me. It's no good me sitting over here, literally in tears over how cruel people are to one another if I'm not willing to do anything about it. Just starting to write the first one has cheered me up because I feel like I'm being proactive and my work might actually make a difference to someone someday. I'm willing to take some shit from narrow-minded people if it helps just one child through a difficult and confusing time. 

Frankly, if any adult challenges my attempts to try and make the world a less scary place for some children, I would seriously question their humanity. I mean, who wants a child to feel isolated, lost, abandoned and bullied? No-one I want to know, that's for sure.

So, there we are; a brief summary of what's been on my mind and what I'm working on right now. To anyone who's feeling down about the world, like me, hang in there. There's a lot of hate out there, but try to remember there are still a lot of us who love and care about people. If we all do what we can to spread the love, maybe we can tip the scales.

V.