Libby's Forums & Updates

14-Oct-2020 | Advice

Hey everyone, 

I need your advice on something rather big, and I need it rather quickly. 

So, Siren Bay, is my mermaid novella that is currently ongoing at the moment, only 5 chapters in, but I'm working on the sixth at the moment but I'm at a block and I've figured out why, and I need your advice - and I think deep down I know the answer but I need the confirmation. 

SB originally started out as a homage to my love of Australia. In Oct-Feb 2020, as you are aware, Australia was on fire. Bushfires plagued our entire country, an estimated 1 billion animals died, 14 million hectares burned, and a lot of people lost their lives. Everyone was affected, utterly everyone, and it hurt seeing that the rest of the world was seeing Australia as charred rather than beautiful, so I made a decision to rewrite what was then A Siren's Sacrifice to Siren Bay. 

I wrote Siren Bay so it was set in Australia, so you could see it's beauty, so you could experience what it was like - from fairy bread, hot summer Christmas's, scorching sand and the fierce community loyalty we have. 

I began writing it without thinking too much about the characters, they came off the page as they normally do. Sylvia Okenji was born, with Leah Hardy and Benji Smith, and the chapters began writing themselves, and then the pandemic hit and everything halted. 

Then George Floyd was murdered - and the Black Lives Matter Movement swept across the planet. 

I'm chronically ill and broke, I couldn't march in the protests during a pandemic, and I couldn't donate any money. I watched videos that donated ad revenue to the cause, I asked for books as gifts that donated money to #BLM and I tried to find as many ways to help as I could, but there was a call put out I couldn't ignore.

Because it was directed at me - at Wattpad authors. 

There was a push; at Wattpad authors with a following to do something, to say something more besides "#BlackLivesMatter" and then carry on. 

I'd tweeted and retweeted and given my timeline to voices who needed to be heard more than mine, but a Wattpad author began pointing fingers and, while I had a less following than them, I realised they were right - I could do something more. 

So, while Siren Bay was a love letter to Australia, it also became a permanent dedication to BlackLivesMatter and George Floyd - because I couldn't march, I couldn't donate, but I could forever remind readers they were safe here, and they mattered, and that we wouldn't forget after the social media died down.

And, Sylvia, the main character in Siren Bay, is biracial. 

I'd also, privately, made the decision to never profit of Siren Bay. It was both a love letter to Australia, and now a dedication to an important cause, and I didn't want to earn anything off it. 

But now there's another push sweeping through the author world and I need your advice. 

About white authors writing BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Person of Colour) characters. 

I haven't revealed what I look like, and I'm not about to. I'm not really interested in putting my face out there, I don't feel the need to, but in terms of my appearance determining what makes it okay for what characters I write, there's an argument out in the world at the moment - that white authors can't write BIPOC main character's. 

I'm from two different cultures, so I'm used to writing characters from different backgrounds because I'm experienced it in reality, but I'm in a moral dilemma. I'm not sure how this internet argument started, but it's started, and it's been on my mind because Sylvia's biracial, and regardless of me not wanting to reveal what I look like, it's pretty obvious by my avatar. 

I'm a white, brown-eyed brunette in glasses - 'ello, I'm every girl-next-door character in a book.

I'm compelled to rewrite Siren Bay but I'm stuck. I've dedicated it to the Black Lives Matter movement. I can't scrap the book, I have to finish it. I definitely won't remove the dedication - so I just rewrite the characters? 

So...do I just swap out Leah and Sylvia's personalities and write it from Leah's perspective with MC Sylvia's personality? That just feels so wrong. It's do-able, it's the only salvageable solution, but it feels, irky somehow? 

I've completely shot myself in the foot with this - what's your take? Please be gentle with your advice. 

Libby x