The YA feel

A while back I considered changing my protagonist's age to 16 and revising Eternal Knight into a YA novel. YA seemed to be the the "place to be" and it wouldn't require a major rewrite to make it happen.

But it didn't work. At least it didn't work for me. Hadde isn't a sixteen year old. She has always been a twentysomething to me. I originally wrote her as a 28 year old. Only later did I revise her down to 23. I just can't imagine her any younger than that. She is just too tough, too experienced...too world-wise to be a sixteen year old.

I recently read a Dystel & Goderich agency blog entry on the YA summertime feel. The post's author, Miriam, notes that YA is about good storytelling that doesn't get bogged down with dense writing or dark mid-life themes. YA offers a great escape, and that's why even adults love it.

Eternal Knight isn't a Young Adult novel, but I do think it offers the escape and good storytelling of a YA novel. But how do I get that across in my query letter? How do I get a query letter reader to realize that I'll take them on a great journey in less than 250 words?

Summer Vacation

Maybe I took summer vacation a little too seriously this year. Taking a look back, my last blog post was written on the last day of the school year. I guess I started behaving just like my students do... I shut down.

What did I do with my time?

I played a good bit of EVE Online. A terrific game, but it just takes too much time to really play it the way I would want to. I quit last night.

I spent a lot of time with my daughter. One of the great things about being a teacher is the amount of time it gives you to spend with your child(ren). We had (and will have for a few more weeks) a great time at our local swim club. My daughter started doing the backstroke for the first time. I can now do a really ugly front flip with a half twist.

I got a lot of work done around the house. We briefly thought of selling our house this summer. This brought on a period of frantic activity as we fixed the place up. Now the house looks so good we want to keep it.

I thought about writing. Thought about it. Now I have some really great ideas that need to go down on paper. My next blog post will be about inspiration. I just need a photo of my neighbor before I can write it...

Back soon.