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No, that’s not a typo. I was reading for my Native American lit class and an article used the word “naive,” which suddenly seemed quite funny for being one letter off “native.” “Naive American Lit” could almost be a moniker for Native American literature.
I say this because we’re reading The Education of Little Tree, a book that tells of a boy who goes to live with his Cherokee grandparents. As it turns out, the book was written by a former Ku Klux Klan member. Yet the book portrays the Cherokee “Way” (always capitalized) to be a good thing, espousing a strong environmentalist ethic and intense suspicion of the “guv’mint.”
The funny thing is that once you’ve been dialed into Native American lit, TEOLT reads more like a list of Indian stereotypes, spending far more time attacking government and championing individual liberty than dealing with Cherokee culture or customs in any significant way. In short, the Noble Savage becomes a springboard for a political agenda that has little to do with historical accuracy or issues native tribes have dealt with for the last hundred years.
Yet it turns out the author is 1/8th Cherokee. Does this matter, yes or no? Problematic? You betcha. This is the kind of thing that makes Native American lit fascinating to me, because there are no right answers and there’s lots of contentious ground.
More on my creative crisis. For the last couple years I’ve been writing short fiction that’s targeted my “dream markets” of F&SF, Asimov’s, and Realms of Fantasy. When I first started writing, I wrote whatever came to me without any thought towards what I would do with it. Post-Clarion, I sort of abandoned that scatter shot method and really concentrated on those big f/sf markets, studying what kinds of stories they published, and whether I might not channel my creative impulse into stories I felt were akin to what was appearing in their pages. I’m really starting to second-guess this approach.
Five of the seven stories I’ve sold were written either before or during Clarion, before I got “smart” about markets. The other two stories I’ve sold were not to F&SF, Asimov’s, or Realms. In short, this “writing to market” has been a failure.
Which has really gotten me thinking. Pre-Clarion, I didn’t even really know what constituted sci-fi and fantasy and just kind of let my imagination go with whatever interested me. I think this is a better place to be, and it’s a place I’m trying to get back to. And learning about art movements from the earlier part of the century has also impacted me—for instance, I see much of my work leaning toward surrealism, which is sorta fantasy, sorta not. (Note the titles of the aforementioned magazines are not “Realms of Surrealism” and “Surrealism and Science Fiction”)
Point being, there is nothing wrong with these magazines and what they choose to publish. However, my creative impulses don’t always result in stories that are fit for the f/sf world. Instead of censoring my imagination, I need to just let it all hang out and get back to not worrying about where to send my stories. I’ve also been told that it would be better career-wise if I had a diverse range of publications, not just those in the main f/sf mags. No time like the present to begin the diversification process.
I have produced some stories that I enjoy very much yet they’ve been bounced by the big markets (and some smaller markets). Are there flaws in them? Probably , but stories with flaws get published all the time, and what one person calls a flaw another person finds interesting. The key is finding editors who are in tune with what you’re up to, and I need to start seeing if my work appeals to people outside that very small group I’ve been targeting.
Like everything in this writing biz, everyone’s experience is a little different. When I wasn’t getting anything published four years ago it was because I wasn’t writing professional-quality prose. That’s not my problem today. And if this “write what interests you” phase fails as well, then I can move on to the “misunderstood artist” phase without any regrets…
Current Mood: A Bit Melancholy About the Whole Thing | 
One Comment
Funny you should write about this—I was thinking about something similar tonight…sort of. At a concert of Citizen Cope, he seemed free with his range of octaves, his tempo, and completely in control. His recorded material is much less so. While good, the over-produced music lacks all of the spontaneity that music IS. I hardly want to listen to his albums anymore, probably the antithesis of what he had in mind.
Let your writing be both inspired and rough. Perfection is only a time-tested, hindsight analysis that is comparative to far more than itself, which is unfair if done too soon, but necessary in the grand scheme.