IWSG - The Accidental YA Author

IWSG—Insecure Writers Support Group, coming together on the first Wednesday of every month for a virtual pat on the back. 

I like the YA genre. My bookshelf proves that. But I am not a YA author. Writing for a younger audience is different from adult.

Or is it?

I've said before that genre designations are confusing. Take mine, the speculative fiction/urban fantasy/contemporary fantasy genre. Yeah, that one. The Magic Withheld trilogy is set in modern times, in the real world, in urban and rural settings about characters doing impossible things.

It is an adult novel. Little cursing, no explicit sex. But I wrote it for an adult audience.

So why are fifteen-year-old boys falling all over themselves to read it?

I marketed it to adult men and women. I didn’t try to use YA lingo or follow the normal well-traveled path of popular youth-oriented novels when I wrote it.

So why are kids in Middle School reading it and writing book reports?

Holy Jehoshaphat.

I had a young man come up to me and blurt out how much he loved it. How he'd read it so many times that he knew every line. I sure my expression was the epitome of surprise/shock listed in The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi:

the mouth falling open, a hand flying to the chest, fingers touching parted lips, an incredulous stare or dazed look. 

Not that there is anything untoward about my storyline. I felt RL Stine was iffy when my daughter was in school and I don't think my books cross that line especially in Wilder Mage.

But that’s the first book. Things kinda heat up in the next one in the series, Mage Revealed, to be released October 24^th.

Uh, eek.

So how do I face parents or the winking school kid when it comes out?

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Insecure Writers Support Group: The Final Frontier.

These are the continuing voyages of the Ninja Captain, AJC. His mission, to explore all new writing venues, to seek out new authors and new blogs. 

To boldly go where no blogateer has gone before.

Goals Met, Goals Achieved

When a writer strives to pacify the savage, creative beast within, their journey results in unexpected achievements.

The Bookshelf Muse blog, starring Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi, is a writers’ paradise. They give the ultimate tool: how to ‘show’ not ‘tell’.

Example. Consider a sunrise. Light on the horizon. Sun pops up, right? What about the sensory description, the smells as the sun warms the ground. The sounds, birds coming to life and traffic increasing, tires on pavement, engines rumbling.

Emotions. Irritation. Tight jawline, an increase in the respiration. Silent, withdrawing from the conversation.

Physical attributes. Eyes. (This is the one I have trouble with, how to express emotion through the eyes.) Widen, crinkle, narrow, brighten. Roll, shift, blink, take in.

Fighting the urge to ‘tell’ the reader what you want them to know is so darn hard. Like resisting a premium chocolate bar. Ah, bad example since I never, ever resist chocolate.

But I digress. The Bookshelf Muse is one of the sites essential to a writer. Their reference book, The Emotion Thesaurus, has sold 20 K copies and never leaves my workstation. They are celebrating their two millionth hit with a giveaway. 

Enter and put their website at the top of your quick-link browser.

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Accolades to David Powers King. He signed with Cedar Fort Publishing for his YA fantasy, Woven. Release date is in November. Big round of cheers for him!