I’ve been, perhaps without good reason, trying to establish a tie between the (for lack of a better term) critical writings I’ve been doing here, and the kinds of things I try to accomplish in my creative work. I think my contact with and involvement in the Outer Alliance is probably responsible for this bit of introspection, but blame isn’t really required.
I’m a very political kinda of guy, right? I mean, I think about things very politically, I think there’s a lot of worth in thinking about how class, economics, and power dynamics (probably in that orders of priority.) I think that talking to people about political ideas, about how to change the world, and share these ideas with people is really a rather huge core of what I’m doing with this blog, and related projects.
When talking with OA people, I’ve realized how, at least superficially, my writing isn’t terribly political. I think I’m bold about addressing some of the intellectual ideas that I think are important, and there are ways in which the stories I tell are political on some level, but for the most part, I think
This gets me into all sorts of “art is apolitical” and “art transcends politics,” trouble, and I don’t think that’s exactly what I mean. Of course art is political, even my stories--which can’t omit to having overly complex political thoughts during the writing of the texts--are quite political. But I think the politics is the kind of thing that happens to a story when people read it, not during the moment of writing. When I’m writing, my experience is usually much more along the lines of “how do I get this character out of, or through, this scene,” and not how do I resolve this political crisis. As it were.
I think a few OA folks probably read this from time to time, and I’d be interested in hearing what they think about the juncture of “politics” and “writing fiction.” Thoughts?
Onwards, and Upward!