It hit me all of a sudden when I was at work today, taking notes on a story idea that popped into my head . . . OMFG I’m a YA author! I don’t even like kids! Well, not that I think they’re the bane of existence but I’ll stick to having none of my own and schleping that responsibility onto someone else’s shoulders. I have a dog. He’s a handful enough.

I’ve been thinking about it for a while, especially with my WIP because, thanks to the agent blogs I’m reading, they all say to know who your audience is in a query because, in so many words, you’ll look like an ass if you don’t. To determine audience, it’s usually by the age of your MC. Well, the starting age of the MC in Diamond Crier is 10. In my Coney Island piece? 8. Both will show the aging of the character and for DC she’ll be somewhere in her 20s by the end and, now that I think about it so will CI although CI might being two books and the second will not, in any shape or form, be YA if for nothing more than the age of the MC alone. Tack on the ages in this new story idea? 14 and 17.

Where the fluck is this coming from? And, obviously, it was purely subconscious until my subconscious decided to slap my face with this notion. Am I really a YA author? DC is certainly going to be a bit darker than the other two but is it still YA? I don’t know what it is with fantasy but it seems to make me have young MCs. The only remotely close exception would be CI because it’s a first person past tense POV with the adult MC recounting her past.

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