Fear, Freedom and Banned Books Week)

Banned Books Week.

Celebrating the works of fiction and non-fiction that have drawn the ire of censors, Banned Books Week looks at a huge swathe of young adult titles as well as now recognised classics like James Joyce’s Ulysses and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

It’s a pretty impressive though not particularly exclusive club.

The reasons for banning books are supposedly for sexually explicit content, cultural insensitivity, unsuitability for the cited age group, religious or political view points, violence, or offensive language.  But ultimately, beneath all the complaints, what we really see when a book is challenged – or even banned – for its content, is fear.

Fear of the ideas a book contains. Fear of the ideas that inspired it. Fear of the ideas it might inspire.

I believe fear plays a crucial role in our relationship with books, one writers and readers must all be aware of even on some subconscious level. There’s fear in the writing, and in the act of writing, and in choosing a book, and in the act of reading, and in reacting to reading.

FOR ONE WEEK ONLY: Read all the lascivious literature you desire! Wishing everyone a scandalous #BannedBooksWeek. pic.twitter.com/V1J9vcwu6k

— Huffington Post (@HuffingtonPost) September 29, 2015

Engines. Wings. Windows. Wheels. Oxygen. Decompression. Bombs. Terrorism. Human error. Computer error. Impact.

It’s early morning. The sun is low but rising. The plane engines are a loud, featureless roar. I’m sitting in the window seat behind the left wing, counting off the myriad ways we could all die.

Engines. A fireball of burning fuel bursts through the seal of the doors. It melts the plastic of the table that a woman braces her head against.

Wings. The hydraulics have gone. We won't slow down.

Oxygen. We’re all sleepy, so slow and so sleepy as the tip of the plane noses downwards.

My brain on overdrive: echoes of stories reverberate in my head. German Airwings. The Hudson River. That writerly imagination  making the possibility of flying in peace impossible. Oh sure there are other things I find scary or threatening. But the horrors of flying are always the same; fear burning away as ferociously as the images.

As foolish as it feels when my chest squeezes tight in the journey from terminal to malodorous tincan, I've used that same fear to develop tension and terror in my writing.

How does my protagonist feel when she steps into her lover’s house, hears the wrong music playing, sees his shadow dance beneath his feet? How does my reader feel as they discover each new clue to his predicament? Do they hang, tremulous as my protagonist? Can they feel the cord draw tight as they realise something is about to happen and it’s going to be terrible?

I’ve turned my almost risible fear into something useable.

Yet some of my other fears do precisely the opposite. They’re detrimental in the extreme and some of them I don’t even notice. Why? Because it’s not the sort of fear that inspires nightmares.

Just the kind that stops me from writing.

Now I understand your raised eyebrows but I’m talking the niggle in your head when you put pen to paper and you decide hmmm maybe not to include that scene or not to write that chapter because you think someone won't like it or it might cause offence. I'm talking about burying the kernel of a great idea for a novel because you know high elves and gargoyles are less popular than the strappings of a conventional mystery. Or deciding to couch a controversial issue behind a listicle or avoid writing about a subject because you're worried about the repercussions.

The same sort of fear that makes eighteen year olds feel self-conscious about picking books out of the young adult section or the majority of young fantasy and sci-fi readers more circumspect as they grow older, moving from speculative to more acceptable genres.

 

It’s self-censorship curated by a general understanding of convention.

We do it all the time, from not putting up that facebook status to not telling that joke.

Of course, some conventions are there for a reason. You don't throw a gratuitous f-word into Babbity Rabbit. And you don't stick sixty pages of explicit sex into a novel like Harry Potter (especially when the fandom will do it for you). And if dealing with religious or political material, maybe a cursory proof read would be good to ensure you're at least representing a valid concern.

But freedom of expression and speech are two things we should not take for granted. Not when there are writers being publicly flogged for their words or even being killed for them.

As Salman Rushdie said, “What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.”

Stories have a special ability to allow divergence of thought, to challenge the everyday, to illuminate an issue and propose new answers. Books have exquisite power because of those stories. They address fear - react to and transform it. And not creepypasta stuff. What does Joyce do if not highlight the fears of his contemporaries? Or Junot Diaz in Drown? Or Irvine Welsh with well... everything? Sure obscenities abound in all the above, but it's fear that antagonises certain readers.

Plus, just because you don't like it doesn't make it 'bad'. Fiction you do not like is a route to books you may prefer. And not everyone has the same taste as you. We need to be aware of our fears and the things that make us stutter over the things we want to say or pause before we pick up a book or silence us when we should speak. Until we're aware of our fear we cannot truly understand what we are afraid of.

I struggle with fear sometimes. There are blogs I've scrapped because of what people might think. But I can't think that way and write what I want to write. I'm trying not to shy away anymore.

I know freedom of speech is one of those dark and twisty super slippery slopes. There's a time and place for self-censorship - even a time and place where we wish people would use it (ie. She Who Shall Not Be Named) - but it should be a choice made out of taste not fear, belief not ignorance. So you don't enjoy Frankie Boyle, or loathe Karin Slaughter's attention to gore. Don't read or watch them. But similarly, try not to label and moralise it for other people.

Oscar Wilde said “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”

And if that means we must accept Fifty Shades of Grey has every right to be on bookshelves, so be it.

The pink illustrations and the featured image are by the supremely talented Ambivalently Yours (check out the tumblr page for more kick ass feminism in pink). Thank you for letting me use them in this blog!

And for a great article on the importance of reading and libraries check out Neil Gaiman's keynote speech on Why Our Future Depends on Libraries, Reading and Daydreaming.

Je serai poète et toi poésie,

SCRIBBLER

Persevere, Pursue, Press On! : Jobs, Networking and Graduating

When I Grow Up I Wanna Be ...

AKA: When I Graduate I'm Going to Be.

It's been a while since I sat in Mrs Sharpe's Transition class and drew a picture with me and what I think was meant to be a cat saying 'When I grow up I want to be a Vet'. At the time I was obsessed with Animal Hospital on the TV because my mum let me sneak downstairs to watch it without my younger brother or sister. And since then I've definitely wanted to be lots of things. Always a writer. Always a storyteller, though in various incarnations. Novelist, poet, journalist, travel writer, blogger, PR exec, academic. So perhaps some of you will  remember when I was living it up in limbo, musing over job applications, lamenting the Static Sound of Silence when yet another application went unacknowledged and likely lost to the aether of another HR inbox? Well, it looks like I've taken at least a couple steps forward from that and I thought I'd share. Especially since it's meant that I've been answering the question, 'So why do you want to be one of us?', repeatedly in recent weeks.  

The first time I was asked it was back before Easter when I finally broke the Silence of Doom. I had a skype interview. And when that went well I was invited to their Assessment Day. I was in the FINAL TWENTY. And there was a chance that I might end up on Grad Scheme that looked like a Totally Awesome First Step. They asked me: why us, why you, why this job. And I answered with the truth: because I am storyteller but I want a job that lets me be creative within the unique, dynamic and multifaceted world of PR (ok there's some gushing in there but look a tricolon! creative!). Now, I didn't quite make the final hurdle onto that First Step. But the whole experience was a learning curve and of course, I picked up the tattered flag of my unworldly dreams and started the process of applications once again. 

I mean come on, if J.K. Rowling can be rejected a gazillion times (with Harry Potter AND The Cuckoo's Calling) then I could handle the Big Final No as well. 

TOP TIP NUMBER ONE MY FRIENDS: 

Since that so-close-yet-so-far encounter, I've changed tactics a little on the 'please employ me' front. 

In fact, you could say that I've overhauled my game plan. 

No more speculative emails to 'Dear Sirs' or 'Dear Madams'. No more long, wiffle-waffle cover letters that plead my case. No more mucking around with the design of my CV. I've bid goodbye to my trusty typewriter font, shuffled the format so it looks streamlined, clean-cut. Everything is integrated with my finally updated Linkedin that is also Finally Gaining Views. I wanted to show people exactly who I am and what I want to do.

Thus, even beyond the paperwork and the applications, I've taken to networking with all the razzmatazz I can muster. Since a lot of what I want to do will be about who I know and how I communicate, this step is really something I should have been doing since the beginning. I could make excuses: Edinburgh/Durham is sooooo far away from London. Or: I'm still doing my final dissertation for this masters programme, I couldn't possibly have done this earlier. 

But these excuses are excuses. And really. Who has time for excuses these days?

As excuses go though, they're pretty feeble when it comes to networking. Because there's this thing call the interwebz! Thanks to a little help from some friends that I've been talking to via email, Facebook and even LinkedIn, I'm now in touch with a number of fantastic people and some brilliant companies. Some have landed me interviews (woop woop) and others have led to amazing conversations full of advice and further recommendations on what to do (equally woop-able). Every single person I have spoken to has helped in some way and I probably certainly owe them a drink (Smiths of Smithfields one night maybe?). 

In fact, right now I'm talking to a company who I think might have The Job of My Dreams and we're Actually Having a Conversation about it. What happened to the Silence of Doom? I don't know. But since I'm having to answer that question again: when I graduate, why do you want to come here and why should we have you... well. I think it's a good thing. 

And mostly this has occurred by remembering some of the golden rules of networking. Here we go, here are some of them. 

1. Remember that the 'contact' you've made is a person. They're probably awesome otherwise they wouldn't be willing to talk to you, give you advice or help you figure out where the stepping stones are in order to cross the big wide river between you, the graduate, and them, the employed. 

2. Think about them before thinking about you. See if there's anything you can also offer them or find out what's important to them for later. It's a two way street, so if you can't do anything more than buy them a nice glass of wine or a triple shot soy chai latte with caramel and extra cream, do that. Otherwise, maybe they'd like to meet someone you know as well. Or perhaps you can make a note and save it for a rainy day.

3. Don't be afraid to ask questions. There are probably stupid questions to ask, but you're new. You're starting out. So unless you're wondering if Paris is the capital of Belgium (keep that for google), ask the question and then hopefully you won't look like a numpty later.

4. Be proactive. People won't come to you. If your friend gives you the name of someone she or he knows then it's up to you to contact that person. Don't leave anything to chance. And just because you're more interested in one sector over another, doesn't mean you should ignore an opportunity to talk to someone in a different field to you. ie. talk to the guy in contracts even if you're more inclined to FLS, you never know where it might lead. Also think about your social media and online presence - use them to your advantage. 

5. When 'getting in touch' with someone new, don't simper and don't waffle. Keep it short, tell them why you're emailing/calling them and, if relevant, remind them who you are and who gave you their details. 

6. Keep in touch and nurture your network. Don't plug someone for advice, contacts or job and then never speak to them again. Not only is it rude, but no one wants to be That Guy. You want to be the BNOC.   

7. Be yourself. Be friendly. And if that fails, maybe read a book by someone like Dale Carnegie. Then start again. Prove that you want to be what you're saying, don't just think things to yourself. So to top that off:  Be hungry.

9. Persevere. Persevere. Persevere. I can say no more. From the first person to say it to me (he'll know who he is), right through to my dog who repeatedly demonstrates her skillz when squeezing herself onto the sofa between my mother and sister, this is by far the best bit of advice I've heard. WE CAN DO IT PEOPLE. WE CAN. 

Anyway, that's quite enough from me. There's a great deal to think about and even more to prove before anyone believes that I can be the person I want to be, and that's likely the same for most of us grads. But that's ok. One step at a time, one question at a time, we can do it.

So to finish up, here is a video of people doing awesome and sometimes kind of a wee bit dangerous things! I bet they love it. 

Je serai poète et toi poésie, 
SCRIBBLER