221. Back To School Vibes for Writers
Back to School Vibes
BETH BARANY: Back to school energy. That's what I'm feeling. Hi, everyone. Beth Barany here with How to Write the Future podcast. I'm a science fiction and fantasy writer who's passionate about helping other science fiction and fantasy writers, and I run this podcast because I really do believe we can write the future.
Let me give you some tips on that for studying, for back to school study.
[00:24] Writers Keep Learning
So there are two things, maybe more than two, that are top of mind for me as I think of back to school.
One, I think of creating, writing, producing.
And two, I think of study. What can I study? What can I learn?
Now, as a writer, I highly encourage you to be always learning.
I usually probably don't need to even encourage you. You're listening to this podcast, so you love learning.
[00:49] Where to Learn Today
Where do you go for your learning?
These days, it's limitless, right? We've got the AI tools, the LLMs, we've got the social media, and we've got YouTube.
I love, love, love watching science videos on YouTube, but not just science; history, geography, geology is one of the sciences. Uh, I'm very interested in archeology.
And yes, I, I can see current events are happening, but I'm mostly going to YouTube for the learning. I like to understand economics. I wanna understand the history of different parts of the world. I'm very inspired by those things.
[01:28] Where do you go to get your learning?
Where do you go to get your learning?
I also read books. I'm looking around me at, at the books I have. I read nonfiction books. I also read tons and tons of articles online, people's newsletters. Substack, I'm getting deeply into Substack. A lot of people I know have newsletters on Substack.
Hint, hint, if you're a novelist, you can start your newsletter on Substack.
[01:52] Pick a Fall Focus
What is one thing that you would like to learn this fall? It's the fall up here in the Northern Hemisphere and, and in the Southern Hemisphere, it's what? Spring.
What do you wanna learn from September to December?
I was a very good student, and I loved learning, and I love going back to school.
And now that I'm not in school, I'm just learning all the time, and I'm following my nose. I'm following what's interesting to me. So I hope you will do the same.
[02:23] Love Learning from Others
I love learning from other people. So, I would love to know what are you learning this, this semester? The, from September to December this fall. I'm in the Northern Hemisphere, I'm gonna say this fall. What would you like to be learning, and what are you a little bit scared to learn, but maybe you could spend five minutes on it?
Wouldn't that be cool?
[02:44] Curiosity and Resistance
Curiosity is an amazing thing.
I didn't realize that some parts of me weren't curious, and now I notice when sometimes I feel walled off or closed off to learning something new; I notice it and I make a conscious decision. Maybe it's not always like that, or maybe it wasn't always like that.
What could it have been before now? I was almost an anthropology major in school. I ended up doing an interdisciplinary degree at UC Berkeley with a foundation of sociology, and then I took anthropology and history and a whole bunch of different things.
[03:21] History Is Not Fixed
All that to say, even though we think that we know how things are right now, actually, they were very different previously.
And there isn't a monolithic culture. There are many, many different kinds of cultures, and those cultures have changed over time. So if you find yourself saying, "Well, this is the way things are," I would challenge you and say, "Well, actually, probably not." What were they like five years ago, ten years ago, fifteen years ago?
Can you read some biographies? Can you watch documentaries? Can you even read novels and watch movies that give you an actual window into that other time period?
So I highly encourage you to notice where you might be closed off and where you might wanna open up and go, "Well, maybe it isn't like this or hasn't always been like this."
[04:08] Matriarchy and Patriarchy
I'm gonna pull out one example, 'cause this has been on my mind since I was a child, and that's the matriarchy and the patriarchy.
Yes, we're going there. I write strong women heroines. I was brought up in a family that talked about feminism. I have feminists and activists in the family, feminist activists: my great-grandmother, her mother, my grandmother, but not in our household.
My parents focused on raising us. They did not go out onto the picket lines. But other family members of mine did, lots of protesters, and socialists and communists, and yes, that, that is my heritage. I've always wondered, well, how come women aren't equal to men? Why were there, is there, and has there been these restrictions on all kinds of things?
And I barely even understood what they were when I was a kid, but I could feel them, and they were talked about. Come to find out after lots of research that it's not monolithic. It's not the patriarchy everywhere, and no matriarchy. There are still matriarchies that exist. It is not that in the Western world there has forever been a patriarchal society of one flavor or another, and it's not ever been that women didn't have a role to play and didn't play important roles in society.
And there's a lot more ways in which women were active in society than we know of; Then, those stories aren't in the zeitgeist. So it's actually one of my missions to start bringing out those stories, and I have in the pipeline a project that I will talk about when it's ready to be revealed.
For now, I explore these things in fiction, and I do a lot of research, and you should see my, my stack of books.
Whoop, very high. All right. So that's just one example of how I thought it was like black and white, but it's actually all kinda shades of gray. All kinds of matriarchal and patriarchal systems have been existing over time for thousands and thousands of years, and thousands and thousands and thousands of years.
[06:04] Archeology Rewrites Humanity
And if you wanna know one field that is doing some amazing things and learning some amazing things and also changing our own understanding of who we are and what does it means to be human, check out archeology.
Oh my goodness. With genetics and being able to do genomic typing on bones and all kinds of things.
Oh my goodness, the field of archeology is just totally rewriting what we thought it meant to be human and where we come from.
Fascinating field in deep amount of transformation right now. All right.
[06:35] Wrap Up and Community Invite
I'm gonna stop here today. I wanna go off and learn something new. Go off and learn something new, and please tell me about it. I wanna know what you are obsessed about right now. What are you doing deep dives in? What are you curious about?
What do you wish you could be spending some time in? Please reach out to me.
When you sign up for our World Building Workbook for Fiction Writers, you'll also be invited to come join the Fellowship of the Pen, our online community, a Facebook group where you can come and share your passions, ask questions, learn more about our offers, and all that good stuff.
All right, everyone, that's it for this week. Happy studying, happy writing. Write long and prosper. Yay.
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