Finding my truth in writing my own voice

By the time I set out to write The Qinali Virus, I had been an out and proud aromantic/ asexual for many years. I debated whether I wanted to write a character who was too much like me. But since there are so few people like me in the books I read, I went for it. People shouldn’t have to choose between a handful of books for representation. There should be so many that people can actually choose their favorite and feel safe to dislike some without derailing the genre.

The Qinali Virus features an aromantic asexual astronomer who learns she has the ability to astral project. Amber grew up in a utopic society, and one of the features is that gender identities are not thrust on young children. People get to choose.

The notion to use gender-neutral pronouns in the story came from a podcast I listened to, where I heard the salutation “Mx.” used for the first time. Mx. is the gender-neutral form of Mr./Mrs./Ms. I am sound oriented. I have seen Mx. used in writing in various queer safe spaces on the internet, but hearing turned it into something real for me. I have a PhD, but being called Doctor Mikles never did anything for me. I know other people feel euphoric about the achievement when they hear it. I’ve read that when some women get married and they hear themselves called Mrs. Husband’s Name, they get euphoric. In my case, Mx. is the salutation that stirs emotion. It makes me happy to hear it spoken out loud. And so I decided all the adults in the story would use it by default. 

It wasn’t until I finished my first draft and started editing that I realized Amber might be agender. There’s a discussion about how people choose pronouns in her world, and she mentions that she wished she’d stayed neutral. Her realization, and the fact that she’s very much a picture of me, helped me realize that I am agender. Over the years, I had started to assume that my lack of attachment to my gender was related to my asexuality, but in the last year, I’ve started being able to acknowledge it as a separate, but important part of my identity. 

While this book was intended to be a stand-alone, I've started percolating ideas for a sequel, and in it, I hope to explore more of Amber's desire to shed her gender.