Because, Charlie, okay?

I've been thinking about writing this post for a while now. I've been debating it, back and forth with myself, for like, a month. I'm warning you right now, that this is going to get messy and personal, so feel free to hit that "back" button if you don't like messy and personal.

I freely confess that I'm posting this on Christmas Eve, because I like to think less people will read this right now. That they will be happily consuming eggnog with their families and not see my little blog post floating around the big orange sea that is Wattpad.

Deep breath.

Here we go.

WattBlog Entry #1 –

On Why I Will Write (and Continue to Write) LGBTQ Characters:

*Warning: MILD SPOILERS FOR BRIGHT, BOOK 2

Why did you make them gay? Why couldn't they just be straight?

I've had this question more than once. A few times from readers, and most recently...from a family member, after I told them about my WIP (work in progress).

I want to answer this question. But it's a subject that matters so much to me, that sometimes I can hardly articulate myself. Isn't that funny? That you'd be so passionate about a subject that you can't say WHY you're passionate about it? Maybe this is why many of us are writers, not public speakers. Hmm.

Anyways, I decided this would be a good place to start for my Wattblog. A place I can write out my thoughts on this. A place that I can point people toward, when they ask the inevitable "Why did you write this character as queer?"

There's a lot of talk about diversity in the book world, particularly with some of the events of this past year, it comes up time and time again in the writing community, which has primarily been run by straight, white, cis people (and in the highest positions, usually men). That's changing. Slowly, painfully...but it is changing. People are standing up.

The "old boy's club" mentality is slowly shifting, people aren't as afraid to speak out anymore. Of course, we've still got a long, long way to go.

This post is going to be specifically about LGBT characters (I'll be touching on authors and characters of color, and the #OwnVoices movement, in my next post. I've been reading some great books by POC authors, and I'm excited to recommend them).

Queer characters have a special place in my heart. I wrote my first bisexual character in Bright, here on Wattpad. It's never explicitly stated that Olivia is bi. She doesn't come out and say "Hey, I think I'm attracted to Sage too" but...it's there. And personally I think it's pretty dang obvious.

After I posted the second book, I got an email from a reader thanking me, telling me how much she loved the Olivia/Sage storyline, because she so rarely got to see herself represented in the things she reads. I'm not going to lie, there was ugly crying after I read that letter. Because I, like that reader, wished I had LGBT books when I was a teen.

I didn't have them though. Not even one.

It was because LGBT storylines were even more rare when I was a teen. It was also because my ultra-conservative family would NOT have been okay with me reading a book about an LGBT teen. I was taught that being queer was not okay. It was wrong. It was a sin. I was taught that those feelings were unnatural.

When I was a teenager, my first crush was on a boy. We went to church together. He was sweet and awkward and Christian, just like me. I was sure we were going to get married. I liked him on and off from the first time I met him (I think we were 13 maybe) to when we both stopped homeschooling and went to a "real" school for grade 11.

I liked boys.

When I was a teenager, my second crush (shortly after the first one) was on a girl. I liked her freckles, and the way she laughed. I did not think we were getting married. I thought something had gone horribly wrong inside me. I hid all of these feelings. I cried. I panicked.

I liked girls.

In my mind, something was obviously wrong with me. I thought I was broken.

I was constantly afraid of going to hell. I had my first panic attacks over this fear when I was 15. They lasted for years. Years of lying awake in terror. Years of dreaming about a girl (even in the most platonic way) only to wake up tangled in my sheets, sweating, terrified I'd been sinning without meaning to.

Now I am reminded of LM Montgomery (author of Anne of Green Gables) whose husband became so convinced he had (or would someday) commit the "unforgivable sin", that he tormented himself slowly over the years with the guilt and terror, became so ill over it that his wife had to care for him. That she made most of the household income. He became a terrible, miserable person over this.

How different would things have been if I'd had teen literature with bisexual characters? I don't know. Maybe I would have questioned my guilt and panic earlier. Maybe I would have been comforted by reading about people going through the same thing. Maybe I would have been that person writing to an author, telling them "thank you for writing that, it helped to see myself in your story".

I'll never know.

All I know is I'm not that scared little kid anymore. And I'm done keeping that version of me secret, of being afraid to share that part of myself. My relationship with religion might be confusing and tangled and a little worse for wear, but my relationship with myself isn't. Not anymore.

I told part of my family all of this last month.

Suffice to say, the conversation didn't go well. I knew it wouldn't. But I'm done hiding. So yes, I'm going to be writing queer characters, I'm going to tell their stories. And if I can help ONE reader, if I get ONE letter saying "thank you for writing characters like me", then it's worth it.

Because we don't have enough queer characters, and the ones we do are tossed away after their love interest picks the opposite sex. Or they're killed off, or they become straight when they meet the "right person" (Hollywood sucks so hard for doing this. I don't care how dreamy Vin Diesel is, she's not going to suddenly DE-LESBIAN herself for you. I mean, seriously?!)

We deserve great queer characters in fantasy and science fiction too, don't we? Where is Lesbian Katniss' and gay Harry Potter? Where is bisexual Percy Jackson? Why can't we have characters that aren't an afterthought, or dead after three chapters?

We do have some great rep out there, things like The Scorpian Rule and The Raven Boys, but we do need more. 

And there you have it, my answer. That's why I'm going to keep writing LGBT characters. 

I hope everyone's Christmas is going well, and that all of your presents are suspiciously book-shaped, if ya know what i mean ;)

Happy Holidays, fellow Wattpadders!