I know I’ve discussed the current Cobalt City novel RESISTANCE once or twice before. For new readers (or those with the memory of goldfish), RESISTANCE is the novel I started last November as a way to process what I saw as our country’s decline into fascism and straight up dystopia. I’d hoped to be finished with it by now. I’m only 2/3 of the way through it, but picking up speed as I near the end. The goal is to have this draft done by sometime in October.
See…I process the world around me in my writing. I suspect most writers do that, to some degree. It’s part of that whole “write what you know” chestnut. Our life, our experiences, provide a filter and springboard in many ways for our stories. I’m a pretty political person. I pay attention to what’s going on in the world around me, the good and the bad, and I try to learn from as many people from as many different viewpoints as I can. I don’t always succeed. And sometimes that viewpoint is little more than ill-informed hatred that, upon examination, I can dismiss.
Several of the Cobalt City books have provided filters for me to process parts of this world through the medium of superhero storytelling. This actually came up with my therapist the other day, which might be a bit of an overshare, but she think’s it’s healthy, so I’m inclined to agree. I can’t fix the world. I can’t FIGHT the world.
But in Cobalt City, I can. So I do. And sometimes it surprises me how that manifests. The huge cast (spread out over seven arcs that condense down into four arcs and then into, essentially one) is all grappling with the same core issue: what are the responsibilities of heroes in a country that has turned toward fascism? Who do they serve, and what are they willing to risk?
Amid these larger arcs are three isolated chapters that help provide context, coloring in a larger view of what’s going on in the country and world. These chapters also allow me to write about things I see going on right now, every day in the news. As such, they’re proving to be particularly brutal to write. They’re a little too immediate. A little too real.
The first one was from the point of view of a C-list vigilante hero who was a police detective in her day job. As protest marches continue to grow around the city, the city, bowing to pressure from the federal government, is changing how they deal with protests. They’re bringing a more militarized presence, prepared to treat them less as peaceful marches than riots. While she understands the righteousness of the protests and the protesters, and knows first hand that yes, there are good cops, she also knows all too well that there are bad ones, too. She sees the conflict escalating from a perspective no one else in the book has, knows it’s a powder keg, and knows it’s only a matter of time before someone lights it.
The final of these chapters will be coming up in a day or two, and shows two heroes, both rich white women, returning to the country from Brazil after a mission, and will, hopefully, be the easiest of the three to write. I know they’re going to encounter problems with security overreach. And I know it’s going to raise blood pressure over privacy issues when I get to it. Thankfully I don’t have to deal with that one, yet.
In the meantime, I just finished wrestling with a chapter that I thought was going to be a fun little aside but proved me wrong.
Chapter 23, in which Xia Lo, former (and kind of still current) enforcer of Cobalt City’s underworld is meeting with the Asian Business & Community Alliance over police inaction regarding increased harassment. They’ve come to her, asking not only to maybe apply some pressure on the police to take these claims more seriously and increase patrols, but also to help them form a volunteer civilian protection force. Not a neighborhood watch. Effectively, a militia. And she knows that while it will help against random violence, it could also be seen as a provocation–reason for the government to use ICE to disrupt the community and sow fear. But maybe it’s a risk worth taking. Maybe it’s time to go to war. Because lives are already at risk. Businesses have been damaged. People have been not just confidently and loudly threatened in public, but outright attacked, including one who was shot dead in a bar in the Hollows (also, the only crime for which there had been an arrest) while the killer shouted that “This is OUR country now!”
It’s making me angry.
It’s making me angry, because this is happening. Not just in Cobalt City, but here. In Seattle. It doesn’t matter if it’s a community that the president or any of his sycophants have singled out for abuse. Violence, threats, harassment against Muslim and Jewish communities have surged, due in no small part to people in power vilifying those communities. But beyond that, this atmosphere of hate has seemingly empowered bigots of all stripes, with the only thing they hate more than people who are different is being called on it. It’s a terrifying time.
And I don’t know how to deal with it. So I write about it.
I write about it so that maybe shed light on a bigger part of the narrative–both Cobalt City and ours. I write about it to encourage people to stay strong in the face of authoritarianism, to push back against Fascism, to protect your neighbors, your friends, your co-workers from the hatred and violence of bigots. I write about it to show that no, if you punch a Nazi that doesn’t make you as bad as them, that standing up to protect someone from harassment and violence is fundamentally different than standing up to oppress someone. I write about it to show that no one is threatening your way of life or your culture simply by enjoying theirs, that it’s not just YOUR country–it’s all of ours, so fucking learn to share.
We’re on an express train to dystopia in this country right now. But it’s still not too late to fix things. Even now. Not everyone can march. Not everyone can go on strike. Not everyone can punch a Nazi in the head. Do what you can. Do what you need to. Then catch your breath and get back out there. And hydrate. Always remember to hydrate.
I might be able to fix Cobalt City. I’m counting on all of you to help fix the rest of it.
Tales from the Ragged Edge 