Fame

The past few years have seen an explosion in discussions about the role of gender in the nerd & geek communities. In case you've been stranded on an island with Oliver Queen, a hashtag search for #GeekGirls should give you plenty of reading material.  I've contributed to these discussions myself, notably with this post: Hear it for the Heroines.  A video posted recently, and a post by friend and fellow author JC Cassels, prompted the following entry.

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I am a geek. I am a nerd. I am a female.

I am memorable.

I have always been these things.  I watched GI Joe and He-Man cartoons, purloined my brother's comic books and begged to play D&D with him.  I spent as many hours with the Atari Basic programming cassette as I spent with "Missile Command" and "Pac-Man".  I adored "Turtle Tracks".  I kicked my brother's whining ass, beating Castle Wolfenstein and DOOM long before he did.  The very first story I ever wrote was science fiction.

You'll remember me.


Yes, this made adolescence rather painful.  I doubt, however, that it was more or less painful for a nerd/geek boy. I'd be lying if I said I didn't care what other people thought or said about me. Those snide comments and date-less nights, though, made me who I am.


Don't you know who I am?

I don't take the easy road.  Anything worth doing is hard.  You want me to do something?  Tell me I can't.  I knew that using Cassandra Davis as a pen name would hurt sales.  I decided I didn't care.  If someone is so ignorant as to live in this century and still believe that the quality of storytelling is dependent on the gender of the storyteller, then I don't want that idiot reading my books. I'll sell fewer books, but as long as that is a reflection on the idiocy of a few and not on the quality of my writing, I am unconcerned.

Remember.


When you grow up marginalized, when you grow up "different", you become a grown up who dares.  You dare to believe. You dare to fight for what you want.  You dare anyone to stand in your way. You set the sky on fire.

I am unafraid, unapologetic, unswayed.

They'll remember.

If I'm doing my best, it won't matter what name I use.  I will live forever because my story will learn to fly. Every boy or girl, woman or man, who reads my books, will take a part of it with them.  The story will become a part of their lives.

Fame, and a name, are what you make of them.