JaniceElaine

Absolutely. During my second year of my undergrad, I had a professor explain writing as a conversation between many writers and readers. We can use writing to connect with each other, share our thoughts, and explain how other people’s thoughts have helped us. I think it helps to focus on the relationships we develop through writing, because it helps us remember that we aren’t working in a vacuum. We’ve all be inspired by other writers and are always working in tandem with our fellow writers and readers.

Thank you! I think it can be hard to talk about the fears we face when writing, and (at least for me) thinking of them as little inner critics makes it easer for me to be honest about these challenges.

I also completely relate to your comment about writing as a child VS writing today. I filled up so many notebooks with silly stories and wonderous worlds when I was young! I wish I still had that confidence and wonder. But we keep trying, I guess!

“What is success”? is such a great question for writers to ask themselves, and I think we need more metrics for “success.” There have been times when I’ve written things that didn’t really end up as I’d hoped (and would never be considered publishable), but the process of writing helped me think about topics in a new light, and so those pieces helped me grow as a person even if I didn’t end up with a shiny finished product. I also completely relate to your statement that writing makes me who I am, and so I’ll keep doing it regardless of “success.”

Thanks for sharing these lovely thoughts! I’m a writing tutor, and I often find students have attached so much fear to the process of writing. Journaling can be a wonderful way to alleviate the pressures of writing to someone else’s standards and re-encounter our own creativity.

Thanks for these thoughts! It’s definitely an interesting question. Genres are always practices of labelling and categorizing, and to an extent, the popularity of a genre relates to how much exposure it receives. As you point out, there are often utopic elements is dystopic works, so how do texts get shuffled under these different umbrellas? Because more readers have heard of dystopia, publishers might be more likely to market work under that label to attract readers.

I’m super late to this post, but it was a lovely read, so thank you for the work you’ve done here. I think there’s an important nuance you begin to pull at in the end, and that so many of our stories “about” the environment miss: the difference between having characters act on the environment or to “save” the environment and acknowledging that we are all characters in the environment, and that the environment itself is made up of characters who deserve our respect. When well-written, animal protagonists help portray this message, because they don’t just tell us that “humans” need to “save” something abstract called “the environment,” but they make us love and care about those with whom we share our more-than-human environment.