I image that lots of bloggers out here are writers or, like me, wannabe writers. I think there's something we can do more productive that just bitching to each other.
WE CAN ACT!!! WE CAN WRITE!!
I, like most of you, have searched my soul for ways to change the direction in which this nation seems to be headed. I want to join with other writers to support each other and exchange ideas on how to reach out to Americans who can't be reached by the news or traditional media. What do they read? What can we write that they won't reject immediately, but will make them think? How can we help each other to achieve this goal? Who knows, some of us might make a few spare dollars in the process and find out if we can really write! Any professional writers out there, WE NEED YOU TO GUIDE US!
Look at the stats below the fold. The Christian Right is already targeting these people!
There have to be many ways to reach the people of this nation, and make them think. What do they read?
Articles in a wide variety of magazines?
Comics?
Romance novels?
Rags in the grocery store lines?
Books to their kids at night?
Currently I have two ideas.
My personal battleground might be romance novels. I don't read them, but I've always wondered if I could write one. BEFORE YOU WRITE ME OFF, LOOK AT THESE STATS, for goodness sake. Are these the people we want to reach or what? Trust me, the Christian Right is targeting them already!
51.1 million Americans read romance novels;
32% of the reading population in the Midwest reads romance fiction (17.6 million readers)
26% of the reading population in the West read romance fiction (13.2 million readers)
20% of the reading population in the South reads romance fiction(16.8 million readers)
16% of the reading population in the Northeast reads romance fiction (7.4 million readers)
25% of romance readers are between the ages of 35-44
21% of romance readers are between the ages of 25-34
32% of romance readers are high-school graduates
22% of romance readers have attended vocational school or some college
21% of romance readers are college graduates
75% of romance readers are White
I'm working on one right now. It's subtle (I hope)--about a girl from the Midwest who realizes that her family is more multi-cultural than she realizes and that her dead mother had worked in an international peace organization that her professor romantic lead is also involved in and that the world is not scary and alien, but a place that's worth reaching out to. Of course, my plot is much more complex than this, and has all the prerequisite romance, but I hope the underlying theme might work into the readers' subconscious as well.
Some might want to write sports articles with an underlying message, or comics (anime?). Or even kids adventure books (my 11-year-old is working on one of those!)
I'd even thought of writing some collective works, where some of us brainstorm and help each other write something.
Any takers?