Ableism is discrimination and social prejudice against people with physical or mental disabilities. Ableism characterizes people as they are defined by their disabilities and it also classifies disabled people as people who are inferior to non-disabled people. -Wikipedia
As a writer, I have seen a lot of ableism and in the past I have shrunk myself in order to fit into their ableist box. At the end of the day, my brain works vastly differently from most of my comrades. I deeply enjoy philosophy, psychology, sociology, and more than anything else, I enjoy gathering information from around us. I use this information not to wield my intelligence or gain power. I use this information to help us learn and grow and expand into accepting who we are in this present moment. And I do all this with silly typos, silly math mistakes (thank goodness excel adds for you), and some good old social awkwardness.
You may be asking, what does this have to do with writing. Well, let me answer.
As a novice writer, I was extremely embarrassed of my shortcomings, but as I’ve grown in the writing community, I learned that we all have our blind spots. I’ve seen and experienced this even while working alongside genius writers (and let’s be clear, when I say genius writers, I’m not exaggerating). While I excel in developing consistent and dynamic characters, someone else excels in grammar. While they excel in grammar, they have a blind spot to the human experience which disconnects the reader from their world. That’s okay. That’s what workshopping our writing is for!
So now let’s make the connection:
We can by asking ourselves these questions.
- What disability that you can’t see would cause frequent spelling and grammatical errors?
- What disability that we can’t see creates a blind spot for writers to be able create character scenes that require social ques, normal everyday conversation, and a realistic view of human development.
- What disability that we can’t see creates a strong resistance to finishing a story before moving on?
And then after we think about these things, we must be completely honest with ourselves and ask are we discriminating against a writer who may possibly have a disability that we can not see?
This is not to assume that everyone who struggles with these things has a disability. And if someone does struggle with these things it is only our place to support other writers. I share this to say what’s most important to me. Don’t drown someone for not excelling at what you’re good at because that takes away from the genius part of their talent that they can excel at.
So writers and those leading writers, let’s take this into account: good writers are good writers even when they make mistakes and even with their blind spots. Let’s not let our inner grammar police shove someone in the corner who brings things to the table other than perfection. Let’s let writers who have an amazing story to tell but are still learning how to tell it, sit at the table with us. We must share our writing spaces. We must share the table with those who are eager to show up. If we don’t, our future generation is going to miss out on the stories that may save their life.
I’d like to end this blog post by sharing some works that saved me or lifted my spirit during my darkest moments.
Silvia Plath‘s Poetry especially Lady Lazarus
Author Rimbaud‘s Poetry
Maya Angelou‘s Phenomenal Woman and interviews
S.K. Nicholas My Red Abyss
Saschia Johnson‘s Poetry and Blogposts
Jayne.press 