Writing about wanting to be Han Solo at The Mary Sue

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Last week The Mary Sue published an essay that my friend and fellow VBP author Tamela Ritter wrote about our feelings for Han Solo. Neither one of us had a crush on him, exactly: I wanted to be him. Tammy wanted to be his best friend.

And the response has been amazing.

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Our feelings about Han were a little confusing when we were kids, because we both grew up at a time when “oh, girls just like Star Wars because they think Han/Luke/Lando is hot” because you know, girls are only supposed to like girl things and when we were growing up, Star Wars was considered a boy thing.

Anyhow, this was a piece we wrote together for an anthology, Golden Fleece Press’s The Fandom Universe… A Galaxy Far, Far, Away. 

Tammy emailed me in May to tell me submissions were due at the end of October, and I said, hey, that’s cool. We have six months to work on this. And then we forgot all about it until the end of October. (We ended up writing our essay in a weekend. It was the weekend of my brother’s birthday, in fact. I was making edits on my phone while my husband drove us to my brother’s house for a family party.)

Despite the rush, I was thrilled with the end product. I love writing with Tammy; she has a very poetic style, and when we work together, my prose becomes 20 percent more literary. The essay was accepted by Golden Fleece, but I really wanted to get it out there for as many people — women especially — to see as possible.

The Mary Sue had published one of my essays before, so I thought what the hell. Why not pitch it? The response has been incredible.

There have been so many shares, and so many comments from other women who wanted to be Han, or from women who wanted to be Luke, from guys who wanted to be Leia. There have been comments from kids of all genders who grew up with a crush on Han, or on Mon Mothma, or on Yoda, even. I’ve seen people in my own Facebook timeline sharing the article, not knowing that I was one of the writers. It’s been a little weird, seeing my own words quoted at me in my timeline – especially since wanting to be Han Solo (even if I didn’t really know that’s what I wanted at the time) was a central part of my childhood. Not a lot of people knew that I pretended to be a pilot in my childhood bedroom as a kid, and it’s odd to think that so many people have read that about me now.

But it’s also kind of amazing. If this is the only thing I’ve written that ever goes even a little bit viral, I’ll be happy with that.

Will I see the new movie? Probably not for a while. (It’s the holidays and I’d have to get a babysitter and being an adult is occasionally no fun when it comes to midnight film releases.) But I might watch all my VHS tapes of the old ones.

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Living from one deadline to the next, and why it’s time for me to start blogging again

A lot’s been going on lately and when I say “a lot,” I mean woah, I’ve had a lot of deadlines lately.

I’ve been quiet over here, mostly because I’ve been writing my words elsewhere. I used to write about pop culture here — now I pitch those ideas to The Mary Sue, The Establishment and whomever else will have me. I used to write about books here  — now I contribute to Book Riot.  I used to write my thoughts here, but now I don’t have as much time as I used to because I’m working a freelance copywriter.

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That’s a pretty interesting gig. I work from home and write for a living, about all sorts of things and for several different companies. In some ways, it’s a lot like being a reporter. In others, it’s very very different. That’s probably worth a blog post, because it took me a long time to develop the language I needed to describe the work I was doing.

The upshot of all of this is that my business has been growing, which has been excellent, but I’ve also had less time to write my own fiction, and even less time to blog here, so of course, it’s the blog that’s losing out.

Recently, though, my brain’s been feeling kind of full. Not full of essay material, or fiction, or anything useful. It’s just… full. And I think this might be because I haven’t had time to sit and think, or to journal, about the work I’m doing. I’ve been working, and researching, and writing and momming (that’s another story) but I haven’t taken any time to organize those thoughts. I’ve just been living from one deadline to the next.

I also heard in a podcast (I’ve been listening to lots of these lately) that many authors are turning their blogs into Now sections, or rather sections detailing what those writers are doing right now. Which sounds like journaling to me. And which also brings blogging back to its roots. The earliest blogs were journals.

I’m going to try that here. Journaling and talking about work always helps me to focus. I can’t always be driving myself to work, and sometimes I need to stop and sit and think in order to be productive, but I’m always forgetting that.

So hello again, blog. Let’s do this.

 

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