I alluded to this yesterday, now I’ll explain further. I am not a YA author. There, I said it. And I don’t think I ever will be.
Let me break it down a bit more though. I can already hear you “A good writer should be able to write anything.” or “I bet if you tried…” or even “But YA books sell and make money, you should do that and make bank!” I’ve had some variation of those said to me when I tell people I’m not a YA fiction writer.
YA for those rare who don’t know, is ‘Young Adult’ fiction. Now I’m not really clear on what constitutes a Young Adult really, it has always sounded like a label looking for a reason to me, but I’m increasing both amused and dismayed by the number of labels used on people, ages, etc. (Which is like a whole other topic.)
But to do my traditional number it down style..
- 1. Maybe a good writer CAN write anything, but that doesn’t mean it’s good. Look at say Stephen King. He writes mostly Horror, with splashes of fantasy and other elements. But he has his genre. Look at Hugh Howey, author of the Wool series, He’s got his niche as well. Authors have area’s and subjects they are drawn to, and are better in.
- 2. If you only tried… This assumes I haven’t tried. But I have. And it is, well, bad. Worse than bad. And I don’t mean it in a ‘I’m my own worst critic’ way, I mean BAD. There are some actual reasons for this. To start with, I’m really to far removed from the YA experience. Though as I said I’m not quite clear on what YA is, my best guess is late teens, very early twenties. I’m 42. I don’t have a good frame of reference for that age range. Adding on to this is the fact that simply I wasn’t much of a YA when I *was* those age ranges. I was hopelessly weird and introspective, literally would flinch if someone brushed against me, and massively introverted. I wasn’t social, I was a complete moron when it came to women, and was wasting time doing pretty much nothing. I wasn’t even a good student at the time. I don’t have that connection in my mind to that time in my life, it’s all sort of vague and depressing.
- 3. I hate this one. Yes, YA books CAN be very popular. And of COURSE I’d love to make a living writing, (True fact, people think I make mad money off the books I’ve already done. I made 112$ last year off book sales. yes, 112$.) But writing something I don’t feel, and can’t connect to just to make money, well, I can’t do it. It would suck all the joy and fun out of writing. Period.
So what KIND of writer am I? Glad you asked.
I have no clue! 🙂
See the first few books I’ve done have all had the overall theme that you can’t trust a damn soul, and that pretty much everyone and everything is out to get you. Different stories, but that’s still the overall feeling through the books. This current book throws that dark world view out, and doesn’t even mess with it. Sure, my protagonist has a bit of a habit of not telling other’s 100% of the truth, but it’s not the same thing (It’s not! Don’t look at me that way.) This story is more exciting, more active, and more interesting. So who knows what kind of writer I am. Do I even need to know in truth?
