Writing LGBTQ+ characters isn’t new for me. For those of you who followed my process of writing and revising DUODECIM, you know that story is chock-full of minority characters who deserve the spotlight. I live for writing diverse characters whose stories are not about their experience as a minority. I wanted to write a fantasy story about diverse characters being badass and powerful, and that’s what I did. THE PUNCTUATION BETWEEN is a different animal entirely. While in DUODECIM, different characters featured aspects of my identity, it didn’t qualify as #ownvoices because my protagonist didn’t encompass my identity in its entirety. For THE PUNCTUATION BETWEEN, I wanted to take that step and try my hand at something different, and boy, was that an experience. My gender has always been something difficult to articulate. I didn’t start exploring the subject until I was in college, and discussing it outside of friend groups took even longer. Even with the different names for identities and their descriptions, it was still difficult to explain how I felt in words. Non-binary is different for everyone who falls under that heading, so narrowing it down to my truth took time and a lot of personal exploration. Needless to say, committing to write a book about someone who identified the way I do when I didn’t know how to describe it myself was tricky in concept. What surprised me was how easily it came to me in practice. While THE PUNCTUATION BETWEEN isn’t in itself a coming out story, it deals with Lex’s anxieties over telling their friends and family, and that lends to the overarching conflict in the story. LGBTQ+ people don’t come out just once—it’s a daily process that comes in different forms. To leave that out of Lex’s story, and subsequently my own, would be a disservice to portraying this kind of an #ownvoices story. Lex’s identity is by no means a catch-all for how non-binary people identify. Identity, presentation, and orientation are all different and valid. Exploring how I define my gender and myself through Lex was one of the most rewarding experiences to come out of writing this book. I’ve always known that #ownvoices stories are incredibly important in terms of how they affect those reading them. What I never expected was all that I would learn from writing #ownvoices. Even if it’s never shared, I encourage everyone to write their truths, whatever that truth is—you never know what you’ll unearth about yourself in the process.
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