So, one of the things I have always loved most in the world is to spend my free time writing. The other day, I started digging through the archives so-to-speak, and I came out with three "books" I have worked on at various times in the past 10 years that each have about a 3 chapter start going. One of the common threads I noticed throughout my writing is that no matter when it was written, (one was 10 years ago, one was right after Johnny was born, and the last one I started a year or so ago) is that they are all targeted toward a similar audience: one I had never read for myself. I find it funny that while I never really read YA books, I seemed to have focused my own writing in that direction. I'm a firm believer that you can't write what you don't know, yet it appears I had been trying to do so.
Growing up, I began reading at a young age. I was three, and by the time I hit kindergarten, I was clearing out the library shelves of all 64 Nancy Drew books. Elementary school proceeded with many of the literary classics including Sherlock Holmes, Wuthering Heights, Othello, and The Picture of Dorian Gray... really, a broad range of literature in addition to some Agatha Christie and other mystery/suspense novels. Middle school involved much of the same, and by high school I had already read all of the required texts and was moving on to more contemporary adult literature. However, there were three (rather large) genres I refused to explore: fantasy, sci fi, and YA. Fantasy wasn't literal enough for my black-and-white brain, nor was sci fi, though it was marginally better in my opinion, and YA never caught my eye because I had surpassed that reading level at such a young age. To be honest, I remember a handful of children's books that I "read" only because they were ones that we had to read for school. I don't think I ever would have picked up The Boxcar Children or Island of the Blue Dolphins unless I had been forced. The only books specifically marketed to children that I remember choosing of my own accord were the Little House on the Prairie books and the Mandie series, and those were very early childhood at best. While my friends were reading Amber Brown is Not A Crayon, I was off reading Dickens. When it came time for YA, I just skipped the genre. It bored me.
The thing is, YA is probably the easiest genre to write for. At least, in my opinion it is. There isn't the pressure of coming up with something more "adult", you don't feel like you're competing with the likes of Faulkner to come up with anything brilliant, and it has the most versatile audience. While supposedly aimed at young adults, I know of many men and women (though usually women) who read YA. I also know that the genre sometimes even reaches as young as 8-10 year olds. Think about most of the biggest hits in recent years: Harry Potter, the Hunger Games series, the Divergent series, Twilight, and more are all YA. Granted, E.L. James rocked the boat a little and snapped some heads back in the direction of *adult* reading, but the majority of popular series were either written specifically for YA or could easily be included in YA.
As I have looked over all of my writing, (editing along the way because I can't help it, though I was pleased to see that none of it needed too much work) I can gladly say that I am excited to get back to work. In the past year, I have made a point of reading a lot of popular YA. Within the last week alone I have read the entire Moral Instrument series, though the 6th isn't set to come out until May. I feel confident that with all of this new exposure to popular books that were recently written to the same audience, I might actually stand a chance of producing something worth reading. I'll never be Steinbeck, but at least I can put together a comprehensive book that might interest more than just my family and friends. (Let's face it-- obligatory readers are wonderful, but they aren't always the best judge of your writing because they tend to want to please you instead of actually criticize it all the way you need them to!)
So, I'm off. I'm going to get back into my writing (when I can, between the kid, school, and everything else going on) and see what happens. I feel cheesy sometimes telling anyone that I'm writing a book because, after all, anyone can write a book... it doesn't mean it will be any good. Anyone can try, but getting published takes a bit more. Well, with the exception of Stephenie Meyer's work, because that woman can't write to save her life. She just smashed together a bunch of other popular work into one concept and prayed it would stick. To half of the world's amazement, it did. I can't read those books without trying to edit everything as I go. You'd think her editors would have caught the countless mistakes... I digress.
I'm back to writing! Maybe, just maybe, I might actually have something worth reading when I'm finished.
Growing up, I began reading at a young age. I was three, and by the time I hit kindergarten, I was clearing out the library shelves of all 64 Nancy Drew books. Elementary school proceeded with many of the literary classics including Sherlock Holmes, Wuthering Heights, Othello, and The Picture of Dorian Gray... really, a broad range of literature in addition to some Agatha Christie and other mystery/suspense novels. Middle school involved much of the same, and by high school I had already read all of the required texts and was moving on to more contemporary adult literature. However, there were three (rather large) genres I refused to explore: fantasy, sci fi, and YA. Fantasy wasn't literal enough for my black-and-white brain, nor was sci fi, though it was marginally better in my opinion, and YA never caught my eye because I had surpassed that reading level at such a young age. To be honest, I remember a handful of children's books that I "read" only because they were ones that we had to read for school. I don't think I ever would have picked up The Boxcar Children or Island of the Blue Dolphins unless I had been forced. The only books specifically marketed to children that I remember choosing of my own accord were the Little House on the Prairie books and the Mandie series, and those were very early childhood at best. While my friends were reading Amber Brown is Not A Crayon, I was off reading Dickens. When it came time for YA, I just skipped the genre. It bored me.
The thing is, YA is probably the easiest genre to write for. At least, in my opinion it is. There isn't the pressure of coming up with something more "adult", you don't feel like you're competing with the likes of Faulkner to come up with anything brilliant, and it has the most versatile audience. While supposedly aimed at young adults, I know of many men and women (though usually women) who read YA. I also know that the genre sometimes even reaches as young as 8-10 year olds. Think about most of the biggest hits in recent years: Harry Potter, the Hunger Games series, the Divergent series, Twilight, and more are all YA. Granted, E.L. James rocked the boat a little and snapped some heads back in the direction of *adult* reading, but the majority of popular series were either written specifically for YA or could easily be included in YA.
As I have looked over all of my writing, (editing along the way because I can't help it, though I was pleased to see that none of it needed too much work) I can gladly say that I am excited to get back to work. In the past year, I have made a point of reading a lot of popular YA. Within the last week alone I have read the entire Moral Instrument series, though the 6th isn't set to come out until May. I feel confident that with all of this new exposure to popular books that were recently written to the same audience, I might actually stand a chance of producing something worth reading. I'll never be Steinbeck, but at least I can put together a comprehensive book that might interest more than just my family and friends. (Let's face it-- obligatory readers are wonderful, but they aren't always the best judge of your writing because they tend to want to please you instead of actually criticize it all the way you need them to!)
So, I'm off. I'm going to get back into my writing (when I can, between the kid, school, and everything else going on) and see what happens. I feel cheesy sometimes telling anyone that I'm writing a book because, after all, anyone can write a book... it doesn't mean it will be any good. Anyone can try, but getting published takes a bit more. Well, with the exception of Stephenie Meyer's work, because that woman can't write to save her life. She just smashed together a bunch of other popular work into one concept and prayed it would stick. To half of the world's amazement, it did. I can't read those books without trying to edit everything as I go. You'd think her editors would have caught the countless mistakes... I digress.
I'm back to writing! Maybe, just maybe, I might actually have something worth reading when I'm finished.
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