{"id":628,"date":"2020-09-18T02:00:22","date_gmt":"2020-09-18T10:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/?p=628"},"modified":"2020-09-17T11:54:54","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T19:54:54","slug":"working-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/2020\/09\/18\/working-together\/","title":{"rendered":"Working Together"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s time to let go of the myth of the lone genius. It carries too much weight in our world. In real life, nothing gets done by one person.<\/p>\n

There are visionaries and leaders, don\u2019t get me wrong. But they can\u2019t accomplish things without a team. A lone genius who doesn\u2019t have support from others cannot change the world.<\/p>\n

This is true whether the goals are good or bad. The people out to do evil don\u2019t do it alone, either. Trump would not be in power without all the people who jump to do his bidding.<\/p>\n

Take energy \u2013 a significant issue since it is so tied to climate change (and right now here in the Western US, we are well aware of climate change). Right now there are millions of people world-wide working on thousands of ways to produce energy from renewable sources and also on thousands of ways of improving the efficiency of the necessary appliances and tools that we use. <\/p>\n

\"heatI know a lot of people working on good hot water systems, heat pump ones powered by electricity rather than gas. Since others are working on renewable electric generation, the two go hand-in-hand.<\/p>\n

But it takes a lot of work to get there. Manufacturers have to be convinced to build the water heaters. Regulators have to be convinced to require certain types over others. Someone has to do the research and the advocacy.<\/p>\n

And, of course, someone has to install and maintain those water heaters.<\/p>\n

Likewise, to fight oligarchy and patriarchy and white supremacy, we need to work together. That\u2019s the lesson of unions and cooperatives, of the Civil Rights movement and the current Movement for Black Lives.<\/p>\n

We need power and one person doesn\u2019t have power. Even in the most authoritarian systems, it\u2019s not just one person; it\u2019s all the people around that person letting him (mostly him) do those things. The people who are willing to go out in the streets and snatch peaceful protestors on the word of the supposed guy in charge \u2014 they\u2019re what makes him powerful.<\/p>\n

We can\u2019t stand up to that alone. We have to stand together. So we need stories about people who, in fact, stand together to create change.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s some of that in Queen of the Unwanted<\/em>, the sequel to The Women\u2019s War<\/em>, a series written by Jenna Glass.<\/p>\n

In these books, a powerful magical spell done by several women together makes it impossible for women to get \"Queen<\/a>pregnant unless they want to have a child with the man. Rape no longer works to build dynasties. This upends the power dynamic in a patriarchal world, and several women end up in positions of power.<\/p>\n

Many women are discovering their power in this new world. New ways of using what has always been dismissed as \u201cwomen\u2019s magic\u201d have expanded their power. They\u2019re stumbling along, but there is a lot of working together going on.<\/p>\n

It is not a story of one person. Nothing is ever a story of one person. And we need that right now more than anything.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to write. The generation ship book I\u2019m working on right now is giving me fits, because it is a story about many people. I\u2019ve written about 20,000 words and I think I\u2019m going to have to throw them all out (except as notes or a sort-of outline).<\/p>\n

The problem with those words is that they focus on one person. And while she is a visionary who does a lot to make things happen, the reality (in the story as in real life) is that sending off a generation ship is going to take many, many people doing their best work.<\/p>\n

I think I need to make that clear from the beginning. Right now I\u2019m working on backstory that probably won\u2019t make it into the book except maybe as a sentence or two, one that develops a key friendship.<\/p>\n

Of course, visionaries are inspiring. Right now I know of several women in different organizations who are definite visionaries.<\/p>\n

And you know what? Each of them is building an organization that not only requires the participation of other people, but is structured to nurture it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s time to let go of the myth of the lone genius. It carries too much weight in our world. In real life, nothing gets done by one person. There are visionaries and leaders, don\u2019t get me wrong. But they can\u2019t accomplish things without a team. A lone genius who doesn\u2019t have support from others […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,17,18],"tags":[133,135,132,134],"class_list":["post-628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasy","category-rants","category-writing","tag-energy","tag-jenna-glass","tag-lone-genius","tag-social-change"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":630,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions\/630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}