YA Woes

When the real world becomes, in Marty McFly wisdom, too "heavy," I zone. I zone often, as you might imagine. And sometimes, zoning even gets in the way of my passion, writing. Why? Well, zoning leads to second guessing.

Currently, I'm working on several different projects. I'm making my first full out attempt to get a novel written for publication purposes. In fact, I've quite the goal in mind (inspired by my writing buddy, Trish, of course). I want a novel agent-ready by December. Sure, not an impossible task, but... We're talking about me here. I'm the girl who rewrote a first chapter nearly a dozen times because of my "second guessing."

So, here I am, formally announcing this little goal. And hoping that, by doing so, I'm not making a fool of myself.

As for the projects themselves, several of them are Young Adult. Which leads me to the subject of this fair blog entry: YA woes. I have moments, really dorktastic moments, where I stop thinking about these project entirely because I'm worried my stories have too much gore, too many curse words... Then I remember my favorite young adult novels. Almost all of them have deep, resounding themes, deal with death, deal with the monsters of both the real world and the fantasy one. And I realize that having a Young Adult audience doesn't necessarily mean that I need to take a step away from my story.

I started out as a young adult writing for myself. I was writing YA stories, whether I knew it or not. Writing YA isn't about toning down the volume. It's about cranking it up.

So, yeah, about those "woes"? Who needs them.

Hopefully, next time I blog, I'll be well into one of my projects, be it for an adult, child, or young adult audience. I try to keep you updated.