This work originally appeared in the print edition of Locust Review #7.
MY GOAL is to represent realities and lives that are familiar, aspirational, and inspirational to me and my fellow working class people. I am writing fanfiction of, for, and about working class revenge.
Early on in my life as a writer, I spent a lot of time restricting what I wrote and how. I was ruled by expectations about length, content, and themes. I did so much editing before I could get the words out that I often didn’t write at all. So, I gave up. I needed to write something for my sanity but I couldn’t handle the emotional toll of making sure what went down on the page lived up to external expectations that quality was paramount. My creativity was taken from me because it was not going to be profitable in the long-term.
So I gave up those expectations and leaned into automatic writing. Whatever came into my brain went down onto the page. This is still a battle but less so each time I do it. Reconnecting with this ability has amplified my need to create characters to represent what has been done to — and taken from — us. So powerful was the voice of capitalism in my head (which sounded a lot like my mom…), despite my loathing of it, I had become my own boss in the worst way possible.
From automatic writing, I fell back in love with fanfiction. Much of my time from ages 11 to 23 was spent writing fanfiction for mass consumption and even editing it for cash to make ends meet. I was immersed in a sort of escapism that at the time I only understood as something people saw as unhealthy. I no longer see it as entirely escapism. Or, maybe there are two kinds: acquiescent escapism and aspirational escapism. I prefer the latter. I want to create characters not that people aspire to be like but whom people see themselves in who end up doing things they already aspire to do but won’t, for whatever reason. Probably this penchant for fictional violence against wealth hoarders will get me into trouble eventually. Until then, however, I will continue to write about working class robots in sewers trying to shoot the evil meat above.
Mitali Das, The Leader, Photo color and ink on paper (2019)
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