Roaches Unite

I am a roach.

I may not impress you. The filth that I live in, and spread, is genre fiction. It’s ghetto fiction, it’s “why don’t you write something important?” fiction. Other insects—the delicate literary butterfly, the industrious nonfiction ants—look at me with disdain. Why write escapism? Why write about fantastical bullcrap?

The thing is, I am also the most persistent of the bugs. My persistence when it comes to my writing is vast. It can withstand you stepping on it, it can withstand a nuclear holocost. Whatever you throw at me, I’ll scuttle away from. Sure, you might bend a leg, or damage an antennae, but I will remain.

Why am I a roach? Everywhere around us we encounter people telling us we can’t, or shoudn’t write. The message is the same, but the meaning behind this is mind bogglingly myriad.

I apparently shouldn’t write because:

• I had a dream to write once, and I failed, and you will too.
• If you succeed I have to look at my own failures and wonder why I didn’t do as well.
• You aren’t good enough; if you don’t sell/make a bestseller the first time out, you might as well be crap.
• There are so many writers better than you who had minuscule careers.
• It’s too hard; there’s too much work with too little payoff.

The people who tell me this are telling me why THEY shouldn’t write. Why THEY don’t dream high anymore. And good for them, that they know their obviously stilted limitations.

Me? I’m a roach. Try to step on me. Throw a bomb at me. Go for it.

I’m invincible. And I’ll keep going long after you think I should be dead.

Writing prompt for June 10: Your supporting characters have their own goals aside from your protag. What are they?