#trawl

this guy looks like a who from whoville. i dont hate the idea of his crane... he does have a funny air about him...

Still thinking about that article and how it has so many fundamental misunderstandings about writing, art making, advertising and the publishing industry as a whole. Ferris really thought they were cooking with gas to thinly veil their hit piece for an author they don't like at a glance and now they're very determined to seem nonchalant about how people are responding to their opinion. There's a lot of boohooing about the adhominem nature of the critiques being put forth, that people should attack their opinion, not their person, when arguably this opinion is so out of pocket and underqualified, it does in fact say something about their person that ought to be addressed. I still stand by my own opinion that this is an incredibly jealous and jaded take from a twenty two year old that seems to believe that people shouldn't be allowed to sell art they personally think is mediocre and that they in anyway have the experience or authority to tell other creators how they should form their authorial voice or where to begin their journey as writers. It's honestly pretty tragic to see something so vitriolic come out of a young person who thinks that their 'forays into fiction' as a teenager count for academic cultivation. The reality is that Ferris just really had no business having such a strong opinion about any of this and they are, as the old wisdom says, hating from outside a club they can't even get in. But since there's a very obvious determination to shrug at anyone who doesn't argue directly with their opinion piece, let me lay out a few things worth pointing out that make the inclination to call this an article ridiculous.

The suggestion that writers should begin honing their writing skills outside of novels and should instead reach for short stories or novellas is just... Ferris, with this logic in mind, shouldn't people begin with haikus? Isn't that the simplest, most accessible start point because of its incredibly limited word count? The general implication that shorter stories are easier to construct than novels is, as previously mentioned, one made from a total lack of experience and a misunderstanding of medium. No matter which avenue a writer chooses to explore their writing in, novel, short story, non-fiction journalistic writing, haiku, the path towards becoming good at any one of them can partially be experimentation across medium, but it is mostly doing the thing badly again and again and again. The disdain for the fact that writers try novels first, do so badly or clumsily or experimentally, and by virtue of luck and effort and love for what they made are able to publish it and make money off of it is really misplaced. It would arguably be a better world if people could build a living by making bad art that steadily becomes good art with practice and cultivation.

The assertion that Greer's novel is the opening example of this very bad and annoying 'online-queer-lit' argument is ultimately null because babes you did not read it. You read snippets, you read the opening, and you read a review from someone who had more academic integrity than you by actually putting the book as a whole before their eyes. This is lazy and disingenuous and makes everything said after the fact barely worth the words it takes to say it. You cannot 'notice a phenomena' about the writing world and the queer writers who are telling queer stories by hate-watching the snippets of someone who gives you the ick. The inclusion of Gideon the Ninth and Tamsyn Muir's particular brand of writing is also lazy-- Tamsyn Muir is boring, low hanging fruit for this sort of condescension and the take here feels as mainstream and empty-headed as being anti This Is How You Lose The Time War because the authors were inspired partially by Steven Universe. Tamsyn Muir has a particular experience of writing and used her own methods and teachers and inspirations to get to a place where she could write the Locked Tomb series. Do I think she's annoying too? Yes. I read all three of them and think Nona is the strongest, but Nona could not have been as good, as tightened up and cleanly characterized if Tamsyn Muir had not toiled through Gideon the Ninth and said fuck it we ball about an idea she'd cultivated passionately. The premise of this opinion piece takes no interest at all in art making from a point of compassion for artists learning as they go, and it seems to be deeply resentful of the idea that artists might make their big break in the publishing world before they've produced their very best work.

The writing advice all together is nonsense. If we're going by the advice given and assuming Ferris is following their own advice, some how the long list of authors they enjoy have given them a very condescending authorial voice and a sense of superiority that is very, very misplaced. I don't think that bell hooks invokes in people an urge to talk down to people or categorize an enormous demographic of writers from several genres, age-ratings, levels of experience and modes of publication into one group, but ya know, correct me if I'm wrong. It is worth noting that the most Ferris and their fans can do when Ferris is facing critique about their writing and the character they present through their authorial voice, is be even more condescending about typos and tags. Would you like it for someone else to make a whole medium article to disprove you before you can consider their arguments legitimately? I'm considering it, if that's the case. But back to the writing advice, which seems to be the only parts of this article that are heartfelt but in their way are talking down on others like Ferris themself is imagining they are a hardened, experienced writer looking backwards at a generation of queer authors who just don't get how silly they look. 'Be yourself' Ferris says, 'Start smaller' Ferris says, and yet this advice is being offered with the incredibly condescending assumption that all writers do is read books to imitate their favorite authors. Tamsyn Muir might've suggested this advice, but let's take a few deep breaths and acknowledge that there are a million ways to write, and Tamsyn Muir's writing advice is not the Bible of all queer writers on tumblr. In such, it might be more compassionate and heartfelt to critique this particular style of genre-bashing and parody than to insist that the problem with queers these days is they all want to write the next Discworld.

Ferris by their own assertion is more interested in nonfiction as a whole than fiction, so again, I have to ask, why are you saying all of this if you don't even go here. They did decide to circle back and make a little post listing a handful of stories they enjoy that are queer fiction, but that's too little too late when the article exists, standing on its own, as a nonfiction reader waxing poetic loudly and rudely about a whole section of story telling they don't actually peruse with any sort of dedication. There isn't even a real effort to acknowledge that currently, horror with queer characters and queer stories and queer world building is booming, that queer fantasy writers are straddling the urge to create something completely new or indulge in the tropes and story structures that heterosexual authors have enjoyed for decades, that scifi has and continues to be adamantly queer and exploratory. The need to have an opinion about something you're barely interested in is really strange, especially when your opinion can begin and end at 'I don't think Greer Stother wrote a good book, I don't really like them very much' and call it a day. The subjective opinion you might have on one book or one author or one article about an author's writing style is a fair one, as long as you've read that work, which you haven't, but expounding that dislike into psuedo-academia with the hopes of seeming legitimate is an impulse that makes sense for a young person in college trying to find their footing as a person who hopes one day to be taken seriously as an artist.

I'm disinclined to fault Ferris for their jadedness, their pride, their throwing a punch and then hiding their hand, the wounded nonchalance they've taken on in receiving criticism, but I can say from the vantage point of being well past twenty two, in college, getting an art degree, this is annoying and deserves response. I have no idea if Ferris is the sort of person to introspect on the reaction their receiving for what seems to be their first real foray into saying an opinion very boldly and dressing it up with academic performativity, but I can say without intent of being condescending, making this mistake is textbook and you're bound to either do it again and again and again and lean very hard on the people who insist you need not introspect about any of the thoughts you throw up onto the internet, or you will realize that if you want to be regarded legitimately, you have to do more research, be more serious, operate in good faith, and expect people like me to have nine paragraphs of response for you.

On Ferris' blog, they've maintained a certain ambivalent amusement about the critique they're receiving while steadily receding backwards from the attention they clearly asked for by making what should've been a tumblr-post alone an article they deigned to share with an air of legitimacy. I meant to say all of this by directly reblogging their article, but they've disabled reblogging, so I have to write all of this at a distance and I still think it's worth saying, so here I am. It would seem Ferris wanted their opinion to be taken seriously only by people who already enjoy their disjointed, off the cuff style of blogging or by people who would agree without criticism. The threshold for shaking hands with this opinion piece is being a certified hater of Stother, Muir, or both, rather than being an avid and sincerely hopeful reader of queer fiction that just happens to be proliferated by people on tumblr.

All this to say, the article was at its best, thought provoking. Try again, Ferris, better luck next time. My recommendation for your next article, should you decide to continue on Medium, would be to read the books you're talking about before you say something about them, hone your argument into a more specific position rather than making insulting and broad generalizations and hand your argument to a friend you can trust to tell you that your position could use more refinement. Follow your own advice, start smaller, perhaps. Hone an authorial voice that doesn't leave you having to say out loud you don't want to sound a certain way while very much sounding that exact way. Read more fiction, please, I beg on hands and knees.

Signed,