The Fairness In Writing

I remember when I was a Brownie Girl Scout we were discussing the use of the word "man" in our everyday language...like mankind, manhole, etc. Our leaders challenged us to come up with ways to express ourselves that weren't gender specific (Looking back, I guess I was in a pretty progressive troop at the time). I raised my hand and suggested instead of coming up with ways to take the word man out, we should just say womankind (huwoman??) until we used the word man and the word woman for the same amount of time. It seemed only fair.

I'm not sure if that showed I was a budding feminist, or as I probably preferred at 8 - womanist...whatever, but it did show that I had a strong sense of fairness.

I think that's one of the great things about being a writer. I ADORE poetic justice. In my books, and in most romance novels I read, the bad guy get what's coming to them. The bitchy, not playing for the team, women fail miserably. Darcy falls in love with Elizabeth because she's smart.

I was struck by the topic of fairness after last Saturday's football game. For those who know me well (heck, not even well) I am a HUGE fan of football, particularly of my Oklahoma Sooners. For those of you who are not familiar with what happened on Saturday's game, I'll let the picture speak for itself:



Yes, ref - WE had the ball. It's not in the pile.

And yet, the refs awarded the ball to someone else (who then went on to score and we lost). Normally, this would be something I would rail against on my own personal blog. I haven't because I don't want to come off as a whiny, sour grapes Sooner fan. I read where the Sooner coach, Bob Stoops, talked to the team about how sure, this wasn't fair, but that in life it's not always fair. Being a former teacher, and yes, this is college, I can appreciate this teachable moment.

Maybe that's why I love to read romance. Like I said...it's usually fair.

But the writing of it always isn't. Authors spend hours and hours writing, learning the craft, editing. They enter contests and get bad (Reece) judges. Rejections. You name any kind of bad luck scenario, we can probably come up with an author who had this happen to her. Writing isn't fair. It can be frustrating and even heartbreaking.

But we can create our own poetic justice. Whenever I received a rejection, it spurred me on to write something even better. Even more determined to never give up.

Whatever your dream, don't let unfairness take it away from you.

posted by Jill Monroe @ 5:10 PM