Escape from the Langoliers

In marketing my writing, I'm playing a waiting game similar to the one we see at the end of The Langoliers. Never heard of it? Well, if you want to watch it, look away now.

The Langoliers is a 1995 TV miniseries based on a novella by Stephen King (Four Past Midnight). The premise is that passengers on a red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Boston are caught in a time rip. Only the passengers who were asleep at the critical moment survive. Those who stayed awake disappear - make of that what you will.

As the world below them is consumed by invisible creatures that one passenger calls The Langoliers, they're forced to fly around the planet - I mean America - looking for safe places to land that are still ahead of the clock.

In the end they reverse the problem, although once again, only those who are in a sleep state survive. They land back in Los Angeles, and at first it seems that no one else exists. However a few minutes later, other passengers in customs begin to appear. Now they can all see each other.

Where are my Langoliers?

My writing's a bit like that. I'm not sure where my audience are, who they are, or if they're even here yet. I can't follow the rules about writing what you know, finding your market, and so on. I have no visible market. I'm going to have to be the second shoe salesman (see below).

The problem is - or perhaps isn't - I write about everyone and everything. I'm neither trying to break down mainstream walls or build up exclusive ones. My imagination takes me everywhere and to every demographic I know of, and my stories follow. I'll write about Fatima, Sven, Jean-Pierre, Abdul, Min-jun, Ola, Dilir, Sarah, Mike, Tokunbo, Latisha, Tre-von,  and Manuel.

Not following the rules

The thing is the world of writing is so prescriptive that I used to be totally discombobulated. Get your covers this way, don't start with a sleep scene, you don't need proverbs. For god's sake don't put a Black character on the cover unless they're Meghan Markle's complexion. 

I remember being puzzled by those writers praising God at the beginning of their books, before launching into the most lurid openings - no pun. My confusion grew at the spate of romances that involved Black and Korean characters - what? Black and Korean writers in the UK would never entertain this idea. Or perhaps they do, and I've missed that. I do need to read a lot more.

Confused as hell

That said, I've just realised I have a WIP with elements of romance between a Korean and a Black character. It's horror, so not quite fitting into the k-black box yet. But I'm very easily confused. For example, I've never understood why people who exist in real life are put in fantasy stories and called 'dwarves'. Not only that, but the ‘fantasy’ premise also reflects exactly the same hierarchy as the real world, where black equals evil and white equals good. Someone laid down that prescription for society ad infinitum.

Where's everyone gone?

But to the main thrust of my observation, I seem to be at the Langolier airport, frozen in time, waiting to see who's going to appear. I've decided that I need to move and take the risk, Maybe I'm going to merge with someone else, but that's what risks are for. I'm not the best at marketing - ok, I suck. I'm a minority within a minority, so even the minority I'm supposed to be a part of isn't my minority. And I'm invisible even in the minority I do belong to, because apparently I don't write about the standard things most other Black writers do.

What are these? Oh, generally, self-improvement, racism, motivation, racism, the love of Christ, racism, family, and . . have I mentioned racism? In genre fiction, I've always written horror, mystery, science fiction and romance. They take me away from my self-employed work of advocacy and research. And yes, sometimes the romance does have sex scenes in them. I'm not here to write about playing dominoes or knitting; any spare time I have is spent listening to Harry Mack.

The second shoe salesman

I doubt this story is true. It's got Aesop Fables written all over it, but in terms of showing a point about attitude it works well, so here goes.

Seeing that their local market was dwindling, a shoe manufacturer sent two salesmen to a remote country to see if there was a market for their products. One salesman was sent to the east coast. He reported back, "There's no market for shoes here. Coming back on the next flight."

The other salesman was sent west. He reported, "No one here wears shoes. Send me every pair you've got."

With a similar strategy, I'm going to tell myself, "No one here has read your stories. The world's your oyster. Promote every single one you've got!"

Now . . . where's that red-eye flight to Langolierland?