Understanding gender queer - NaNoWriMo 2017

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) has begun!!

The gang - ballpoint pen and colour pencil

For this National Novel Writing Month 2017, I'm returning to the Emersus Project series. I drafted the outline over a year ago but have been working on The Kelpie's Heart, the book I drafted for NaNoWriMo 2015.

Headshots of new and familiar faces

Book 3 of the Emersus Project series is provisionally titled, Breaking Point. In this book we get lots of new characters and the return of some lots of other friends. Of course Gemmy, Sem and Mhetli are back. And in this book we'll get to see a lot more of the twins, Lauta and Ilä, and Gemmy's sweetheart, Mercy.

Pol, one of Gemmy's school pals, is back. As we learned in Book 1, Pol attends the military academy. The military plays a big part in Book 3 so in the drawing above we see him in his purple cadet uniform.

The new character that I'm most excited about is Arabella. She's the new kid in town and befriends Gemmy and Sem. This bombastic red head is a character that I've wanted to explore for ages because she identifies as gender queer.

As defined in the Equality Network glossary of terms, gender queer "refers to people who identify their gender as not conforming to the traditional western model of gender as binary. They may identify their non-binary gender as a combination of aspects of men and women or alternatively as being neither men nor women."

Arabella - pencil on paper

Some who identify as gender queer prefer to use non-gender specific pronouns 'they' and 'them'. But, I'm using the pronoun 'she' for Arabella because, as the story starts, she identifies as female. However, she makes clear in the book that that's not always the case.

I haven't decided what the implications of and reactions to her gender identity will be in Arbean society. They're a culture built on logic as the rule. But I think it will reveal some interesting dynamics with Gemmy and Sem as they've both been raised in a very conservative and traditional families.

Either way, I'm so excited to have a character that will highlight some of the social topics that are close to my heart. Not only will it give the characters a chance to grow and add new depths to their relationships, it will highlight a marginalised group of people in a (hopefully) fun and cool way.

So, I won't give away too much away. But, Book 3 is coming! And it's going to be a big one!!

Hope you enjoy!
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