This Is A Man’s World…Or Is It?

Growing up as a tomboy, I didn’t understand the need to restrict girls to certain career choices, and boys to others. I wrote since I was old enough to crawl out of the womb, and the stuff I chose to write about was always a bit…non-girly.

My first book, at the ripe old age of 5, was called “Life On Mars,” and documented, in Crayola Crayon drawings, my imaginings of what it would be like to be an astronaut (one of my many childhood career dreams, along with jockey, mounted policewoman in New York City, Flipper the Dolphin, and Nancy Drew) living on the hostile red planet. My mom, bless her heart, was good enough to make a nifty cover for me out of cardboard and shoestring.

It never got published.

 But from that point on, I wrote about things that might normally get labeled “masculine.” As a teenager, I wrote horror and science fiction short stories, and even got a few published. Into my 20s I wrote screenplays in the genres of action, thriller and science fiction. Today, as a widely published non-fiction author of 12 books, not one of them can be described as “girly,” although many of my readers are women just like me, who never really thought there should be a divide.

I write today about the paranormal, cutting edge science, unknown mysteries and even quantum physics. I am one of few women writing such books for the mass market, and believe me, I’ve been criticized for it. If only those same critics knew I was also working on a horror script in development, a science fiction adventure that has just been optioned, and a middle grade novel series written with my son with a definite science fiction edge, they’d shake their heads in dismay. I believe somewhere in my long writing career, I did write a romantic comedy, but guess what? It was set against a sci fi backdrop.

My favorite commercial writers are guys like Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Charles de Lint, and women like J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer, who write, in my opinion, in a way that appeals to both male and female readers. But one has to wonder, if Stephen King were a Stephanie King…would his horror go over so well?

I hate to be judged on my gender. And I’ve had those thoughts many women writers have, who like to write the rougher stuff…should I use a pen name, or change my name outright, and make it sound unisex? Should I lie to my readers and take on a guy’s moniker? I chose not to simply because my agent and manager would kill me if I lost the platform I have built over the last decade, with readers who know me and know my talent. “They,” my keepers tell me, “will buy your fiction, even if it sucks. They don’t care what you look like. They already like you!”

Still, am I truly going to be taken seriously if I keep writing stuff that normally comes out of the mind and imagination of a guy with a much different set of reproductive parts?

It doesn’t matter, though…because a long time ago, when I was struggling to find my voice, I realized my voice was struggling to find me…and be accepted by me. I already knew, in my heart and my gut, what I wanted to write. Science, science fiction, horror, thrillers, action stuff where you blow up everything in sight…big epic monster movies and apocalyptic dramas…even with romance thrown in for good measure because, after all, I am a girl.

When I sat down to write something new back then, it never came out as flowers and romantic dinners and kisses and finding “the one.” Even today, when I ponder my next project, it usually involves something quite different, something my guy friends would label as “man-zone stuff.” But I’ve learned over the years that not only is that acceptable, but that more and more authors of either gender are bending the rules and writing whatever turns them on…not what their body parts or traditional norms dictate.

The truth is, I tried writing softer stuff once, and it was awful. I tried toning down the action and scares and thrills and the writing fell flat to the ground, gasping for breath and pleading with me to stop, STOP, STOP!!!!! being something I clearly was not. It is actually like romance, if you stop and think about it. The best love relationships happen between people who are being themselves, and letting each other fully express who they are. Waving their freak flags high and proud. Only when we feel safe and secure in our own identity can we feel safe and secure with someone else. Even our readers.

Writing is like that, too. We must wave our OWN flags, no one else’s. If we do pick up someone else’s flag, a strange phenomenon occurs…the wind falls flat and our flags droop. Nobody wants to see a droopy flag, let alone read droopy writing.

 I am now a proud woman writing whatever it is I feel the urge to write. Does that mean that if I wake up someday with the sudden desire to write a romantic comedy dating movie with lots of flowers and pretty locations and kissing and goopy declarations of love and happily ever after endings for all, I will shun that desire? No, not at all.

But don’t be surprised if I throw in a monster on the loose, some car chases, and an apocalyptic zombie/vampire/alien invasion to spice things up a bit.  I have to wave my flag, however freaky it may be, and hope that somewhere, readers see fit to salute it.

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Marie D. Jones is a Bestselling Author/Screenwriter/Producer/Speaker/Researcher/Radio Host

Find our more about her on her website: www.mariedjones.com

 

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Category: Being a Writer, Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing