Free to Write Elfpunk

Long before I wrote for publication, I wrote for pleasure, for the sheer joy of it. I still write for the joy of it, but with the economy being what it is these days, there is always the pressure to hedge my bets, try to write to a market or the hope of a market. Yet I always come back to a certain truth--my truth. My truth is that if I don't care about something, I choose not to write about it. There are certain tropes and genres that I just don't care to write and never will, because they don't resonate with me. I have to feel my subject and engage with the material on an emotional and intuitive level, or the prose falls flat. While I'm sure this limits me in some respects, I find that it frees me in others. There is a great deal of freedom in the ability to choose what to write or not write, and not be bound by market trends.

I have heard of all sorts of trends in genre fiction to which I could try to write. Vampires, weres, steampunk, apocalyptic...you name it. But none of those work for me, really. I read some of them, but I don't write them.

My good friend and critique partner, Val, recently sent an amused comment to our Moxie group list: "Kathy, you write elfpunk! Who knew?" This was followed by a link to a definition of elfpunk as a subgenre.

So there you have it. Apparently, I write elfpunk. And if I ever actually did decide to write steampunk or apocalyptic, it would be bound to have Sidhe in it somewhere. It's just the way I roll, and there's a freedom in accepting that, too.