I’m one of those writers who loves research, but I’m also a
little bit hesitant about writing diversely. Then I realised that there are
aspects of my person that are diverse. In some ways, I’m pretty average — I’m a
19 year old female, I’m half-Australian half-British, and a student. In other
ways, I’m a little bit different — I have anxiety, I lost my mum to cancer,
I’ve been a Type One Diabetic for almost six years and (something I’ve never
mentioned here) I have a disability that affects my ability to walk. This isn’t
a pity party though, I’m mentioning all this because I want to start sharing my
experience of these things with other people, other writers specifically, in the
hope that it’ll help somebody.
I know things like this exist on the internet already, but
sometimes I think that the websites you find for research can be very informative,
even clinical. Sure, that’s great sometimes but I personally think the best
kind of writing resources come from real people. The resources I’m going to be
writing are going to be that kind — the real kind. I’m not going to tell you
the scientific reasons behind Diabetes (not that I even know them), but I’ll
tell you how difficult injecting yourself four times a day can be, about
Diabetes burnout and other general sucky things.
For the things I’m not confident in I’ll be sharing
resources I’ve found on my many
travels of the internet. If there’s something you’d like to write about whether
you’d prefer to post on your own blog or guest post for us, just shoot me an
email and we’ll work something out. Similarly, if there’s something in
particular you’d like to see then leave a comment and I’ll do my best to find
something to help you out.
daniwerner 28p · 517 weeks ago
When I first started getting rashes, I had no idea what was happening. I couldn't tell what it was that was causing them. It took weeks of getting rashes in breezes and air conditioning to start thinking it could be the cold, and then I thought I was crazy! The best resource I stumbled across online was actually a blog post written by someone with the primary kind (so, from birth). The real talk and advice was a lot more helpful than the few clinical resources I found (since the allergy is fairly rare and unstudied).
This ties into what I recently wrote in my ABEA introductory post about diversity. Everyone is unique. You may have many of the same components as someone else, but there will always be something different, or those components will be rearranged slightly. I love it when authors acknowledge this diversity. Ok, sure, have another white girl as your protagonist, but acknowledge all the people out there with allergies or diseases. Why not have a character kick ass with diabetes?
Sorry, long comment!
elyjayne 65p · 517 weeks ago
I totally agree with your last point there. I feel diseases, disorders, allergies and the like are very rarely dealt with in fiction. I'm totally all for characters of colour and different sexualities, but I want to see more novels about these kinds of things too. Cancer has such a big presence in literature so why don't these other conditions?
I'd loved your long comment, Dani :P
ingeofwonderland 59p · 517 weeks ago