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http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/2012/05/new-adult-genre.html
About five years ago, when I first began writing for publication, I just wrote. Seriously, I just put down everything that came to mind. Heck, I didn’t even know what point of view (POV) meant—much to the dismay of my very first critique partner.
As I learned the craft, I soaked up anything and everything I could find about my new-found passion. Then around six months into my journey as a writer, I was told my characters were too young for Adult novels yet they were too old for Young Adult (YA) novels.
Naturally, being a newbie I asked, “So what should I do?”
And the overwhelming response was, “Change the age of your characters.”
That didn’t sit right with me, so I didn’t change anything.
Then, as I continued writing, I heard that my romance was a bit sweet for Adult but a little too intense for Young Adult.
Once again, when I asked what to do, I was told to change what and how I wrote. Now, perhaps it was either me being stubborn or just being too new in the industry to care, because I decided to stick with what I was doing. If it kept me from getting published, I was okay with that, because I just loved writing.
Don’t get me wrong, as the agent and editor rejections came pouring in, I did second guess things—a few times. But it always came back to the point of me feeling like I needed to write the stories of my heart.
Then I heard about something called New Adult (NA). A couple of years ago a publisher, St. Martin’s Press, started throwing the phrase around. I don’t think it went as far as the publisher actually releasing any novels in that category, but it started something. And, it confirmed that maybe what I wrote might be okay after all.
So, I kept writing.
It was Wasteland (my 13th novel) that helped me break into this category. A boutique publisher, Crescent Moon Press, was ready to jump into the New Adult category full force. They even developed a line for it. And I was to be their flagship genre-breaking author. Very exciting indeed!
But is there an “official” definition of New Adult? I’m not one for “official” anything, so this is how I explain it when I’m speaking about this new and exciting space:
YA is fairly sweet on the romance side of things, and Adult romances can get pretty intense and detailed. Think of it in terms of a bedroom door and how “open” it is. In YA it’s not really open at all—or maybe just a tiny crack. In Adult romances, it can be wide open and the romantic scenes are sometimes very detailed. New Adult is right in the middle. The door into the bedroom is cracked open, but a lot is left to the reader’s imagination.
With Wasteland (Book1,Wasteland Trilogy), I have been told my story falls between being very sweet, all the way to being called a very steamy read. The reviews for Awaited, (Book 2, Wasteland Trilogy), are describing the romance portion as more of a focus in the story, yet decidedly calmer than Adult levels of steam.
I really focus on the emotional intensity rather than the physical steam, but ultimately how it’s interpreted is up to the reader.
Just the way I like it.
I hope this sheds some light on the exciting genre called New Adult. But feel free to leave questions in the comments. I’m happy to try and answer them.
And register here for a FREE download of “Prelude to Darkness”. During the tour Lynn’s other eBooks are being offered with a special price for Wasteland ($5.99). Awaited is available for $7.99. ---------------------------- Driven to write, Lynn Rush often sees her characters by closing her eyes and watching their story unfold in her mind. Book reviewers say that her plots are well developed, and the writing is strong and full of artistic details – stunning in both characterization and her action-packed storylines. A prolific author who began her writing career in 2008, Rush now has more than 25 novels to her credit. Six are currently under contract with Crescent Moon Press. Wasteland, the first novel in the trilogy was released in August 2011 and continues to receive five-star reviews. Rush holds a degree in psychology from Southwest Minnesota State University and a master’s degree from the University of Iowa.   |
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At the "Ebook Decision" panel I got a lot of great ideas there from Brenda Clough. She suggested mini-anthologies (five stories) on themes like steampunk or military SF. They've been great financial successes for her group. Awesome: I can already think of which A&A stories I can start on with that.
Mary Turzillo and I hit it off really well, so I invited her to the café. Since another writer I was acquainted with and enjoyed reading--Geoffrey A. Landis--was hanging around, I invited him too, scarcely believing my good fortune: two people I admired! Turns out he and Mary are married. We all spent our lunch hour over coffee; the new friendship with Mary was a highlight of my weekend.
It was time to check my emails in the lobby, but I ended up having visitors. Authors I'd published, New York genre friends, people I'd only known online, authors interested in submitting to A&A and others dropped by. And all too soon, it was time for the banquet. So I donned my formal wear and stowed the laptop.
There was a hour of milling about near the mobile bar before the banquet opened and I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of SF writer Cynthia Felice. You know that scene in MIB where the applicants are all contorting themselves into uncomfortable chairs and Will Smith just drags things around until he can fill out his paperwork comfortably - other peoples' opinions be damned? That was me, pulling a heavy lower console table out from under a higher one, so Cynthia and I could sit while we gabbed and sipped our wine. She's a great person.
Then it was time. Now I've never gone to a Nebulas banquet before, and I had no idea how the seating worked, but the last thing I expected was to be told I was not on the list. It seems that when they removed my husband from the seating arrangements they removed me by mistake. I had a ticket but nowhere to sit. After a hasty consultation I was placed where a cancellation made an opening. I ended up between Cynthia Felice and Geoff Ryman, who won the Nebula for Best Novelette.
I hope someone posts Walter Jon Williams' toastmaster speech on YouTube. It was hilarious, especially the accompanying PowerPoint presentation. Then there was the sober In Memoriam list of those who left us in 2011. The awards followed, and Cynthia accepted a posthumous Solstice Award on behalf of Octavia Butler. The full list of who got what is all over the blogoshere, but my main problem was that I loved so many of the works that I found myself rooting for several people for each award.
I had planned to leave right after the ceremony, but there were so many friends to say goodbye to, so many bits of business to finish up, people to congratulate, and so many things to talk about that I stayed rather later than I intended. I was considering to come back Sunday, but when Mary Turzillo asked, "Why ever would you do that?" I looked at the Sunday schedule and realized she had a point.
So I returned to my in-law's house in Fairfax. I have the usual stack of business cards with notes scribbled on them: send this agent recommendations, send that author a story from the A&A archives we'd been talking about, check into this, set this up, do this, do this, do that. But all that can wait. I spent Sunday resting and visiting with "Mom and Dad." I'm rested, over the cold (thanks to Zicam - that stuff is amazing), and I want to go home to show my husband all the cute baby pictures of him I got from his mother.
I'm sure he'll be thrilled.
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URL: http://rebelepublishers.com/submissions/age-certainty-anthology/Genres: Spec Fic focused on proof positive of the existence or non-existence of a supreme being Does Not Accept/Want: Fiction: less than 6,000 words Essays/Articles: Poetry: Reprints: yes Simultaneous/Multiple Subs: no / no Deadlines/Reading Period: May 31, 2012 Est. Response Time: within six weeks for consideration, by July for final decisions Payment: $0.01/word plus a contributor's copy Submissions:anthosub@rebelepublishers.com |
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It's been quite a weekend! I'm more than ready to get some sleep, now. I did manage to get some photographs taken early this evening; here is a smaller version of the photo I put in my portfolio at RedBubble.com 
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To let the Zicam do its antiviral thing I stayed home Friday until the mass signing at 5:30 PM. So I missed having an astronaut give a group tour of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and a three-hour workshop on building a better website. So disappointing. I returned at 5:30 PM for the mass book signing and did a few autographs and sold copies of The Best of A&A.
The Reception was next. There was an inner-city prom next door: their event had thumping loud music. Our event had speeches as the Nebs nominees got pins and the GOH/Grand Master got a gift. A paper thin wall between the events made for an interesting ambiance: it sounded like hip-hop at a dignified press conference. (This was not the only snafu from the Hyatt Regency Crystal City: they also overbooked by 20-30 people who were farmed out to various other hotels. Rick Lovett, for example, was shunted 30 minutes away by taxi.)
But the food was good. People nibbled hors d'oeuvres sipped drinks, and talked. I saw David who runs the WFCs, and recommended Mondolithic studios to him for the art for the upcoming WFC in San Jose. He's very interested. I met A&A author Genevieve Valentine and she was very nice in person. I spent time with with Ferret and his wife, and the Weekend's organizer Peggy Rae, Rachel Swirsky and hubby, and too many authors and editors to mention.
When done with the reception I was also one of the first people in the consuite. (The niiice quiet consuite, where there was no hip-hop!) Lawrence Shoen followed soon after and we had a talk about finding our spouses in midlife where I kept referencing research from my dating books. We had a rapt audience, which ended up including John Scalzi. Kinda hard to top that. I made my farewells and went back "home" to my in-law's place in nearby Fairfax, VA. |
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TerminalShe makes a batch of sugar cookie dough just to eat it all raw--so very bored. She wraps her hands in purple bandages and spends an hour pounding a beef slab, slices off a filet to roast over her backyard fire pit and feed her wolves. She juggles seven rusty daggers until fatigue makes her miss a quick-toss. She sits, surrounded by six fallen blades, and stares at the dagger piercing her palm. She doesn't call 911; she doesn't remove the dagger or staunch the bleeding. Her wolves crowd close, whine their concern for her. She smiles, tells them, soon, soon she won't be bored any longer. ---- |
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Back when I was a kid, I lived in an era when 45 rpm records (the singles) were still around, everywhere, ubiquitous - and we had PILES of them at home.
One of them, one I remember from my childhood, one I listened to over and over and over again, one I loved deeply, was this:
I always sang along to that fading "I will remember Massachussetts" at the end of it, and Massachussetts was a magic place for me back then, just this weird long word with lots of double letters which might as well have been in Fairyland or on the Moon as far as the young me was concerned, growing up in a different culture, on a different continent.
But today... today, I will remember Massachusetts - not the one I finally did get to visit, all those years later, as an adult, but the one that was so magical to me back than, back when I lived in the world of my imagination and Massachussetts was a place of magic. Because Robin Gibb is dead.
And so it goes. It drifts away further and faster every year. The memories of my childhoon seem even to me as though I am talking about a differnet era, a different lifetime. And those who peopled the greater sphere of my life are starting to fall away. The writers I read when I first took flight in the worlds of fantasy, like Anne McCaffrey. The singers of my youth, like the Bee Gees (of whom now only one, Barry Gibb, remains - dear GOD I went and saw these guys in concert once, and even THAT now seems like a dream).
My hair is silver gray.
When did that happen?
When did I blink and find myself looking over my shoulder and childhood, and youth, and even the early adult years - when did I step into middle age, when did the world change around me?... |
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I was offline all weekend because I was travelling. Sorry if I missed you... AgendaI headed down to Hurst to meet up with my wonderful agent and 3 other awesome Texas authors (I was clearly the newbie there). Then I headed over to Plano to meet up with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=91.7) displacedtexan, then up to Denton to see friends, up to Bowie to see family, and finally back home (a little bit ago.) GPSThe new Tom-Tom GPS is well and truly dead, so I went back to my ancient Garmin which hasn't been updated for years. There was one point on Highway 121 where the GPS showed me flying through air like the bus in the movie Speed. The construction around DFW airport is particularly...inconvenient. KarmaMostly due to unfamiliar roads and constructions, there were two occasions this weekend when I ended up cutting someone off. I must therefore practice extremely nice driving for the next two months to get my car karma back up... PlaylistI forgot to put in a Portuguese language CD, so I just had music for all that driving which was kinda relaxing. But it was a weird assortment: Los Lonely Boys The Very Best of Los Lonely BoysThe Band Perry The Band PerrySiren's Song Daughter of OceanMeaghan Smith The Cricket's OrchestraOver the Rhine Drunkard's Prayer, and Pink Martini Joy to the World (uh, yeah....I haven't changed out discs in a while) HayI saw a LOT of hay baled up on my drive through North Texas and Oklahoma. This is a good thing. After the last two years' drought, seeing all that hay actually baled up is a relief. |
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Ooo, cool, another Dark Tower novel. I can't say I loved ALL of the Dark Tower series (the first couple of books were a little rough . . . but then the first book was really a bunch of short stories pieced together), but King certainly got it together for pretty much the rest of it, whether you liked or hated the ending of volume seven. So hearing there was another story set in that universe was great. And this novel (really two novelettes nested together) will certainly help feed that craving that Dark Tower fans now have for MORE.
The basic idea is that Roland and crew get trapped by a storm called a starkblast and the storm reminds Roland of a story his mother told him when he was young, as well as one of his first "jobs" as gunslinger. To pass the time, he tells his ka-tet both stories, starting with his own story, which segues into his younger self telling the OTHER story to a young boy. Both stories involve storms, young boys learning to be men, and skin-men, tying them neatly together.
The most significant story--meaning the one with the most meat--is the story Roland's mother told him when he was young, called The Wind Through the Keyhole. It's about Tim, his mother, and his stepfather, and while it has the feel of a fairy tale in some parts, as you read it that facade falls away and you end up living Tim's story with him. It has all the hallmarks of a Dark Tower story--a slightly skewed "old style" setting mixed in with hints of a technological world that has somehow gone awry and faded into the past. I really loved this story, and it's certainly the heart of the book.
The story that bookends this one--with young Roland on one of his first missions--is also excellent, although as I said, it doesn't have as much meat to it as the other. Not because it wasn't developed enough, but because it's just a simpler story. Young Roland is sent to resolve the rumors of a skin-man threatening a small town. This section of the book has the most Western feel to it, dry like desert, hot, with ranches, a mine, and the makings of a ghost town as the setting. And yet there are still hints of that lost technological world.
The final bookend--of Roland and crew weathering a storm--doesn't have its own internal story and is there simply to place what's here into the larger Dark Tower series. As stated in the intro to the novel, this could be considered Dark Tower 4.5 in the series/timeline.
So, definitely a great Stephen King novel, full of everything fans expect of King AND of the Dark Tower series. It was great to return to this world and these characters, and I hope that King does future stories in this world as they pop up. No one ever really wants to leave a series behind, and it was nice to sit back and revisit old friends. |
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No, this week did not turn out a better week, as anyone who tracked my tweets probably noticed. I did lose weight, but only because I was so sick to my stomach from events that I couldn't eat. I also managed to finish the Charms polish and get a significant amount of editing done. So there were positives, but overall, it's been really bad. Next week is too up in the air for my standard goal post. We are going to my son's graduation on Wednesday, but not doing anything we'd planned to do to celebrate it until after the house stuff is settled. Pretty much every extra dime (with a few exceptions) is going into either closing or moving. The owner of the house has given us until this Friday to close or be out of the house. There's some debate as to whether or not he has the right to throw us out this quickly without an eviction notice (most people say no; one person noted that we're no longer under contract with the guy and the option to lease was broken—not that I want to rent/lease from anyone who can go from "you have until the end of the month" to "you have a week and a half" in two days without us doing anything that would even remotely push any buttons to make that change), but I'm a plan for the worst and hope for the best kind of gal. Chef will be contacting a Real Estate lawyer with the particulars, then if it's warranted, the local sheriff to protect us from any possible strong arming to be out on Friday. And, no, there's no paper trail to him telling us to get out of the house. And, yes, we still want to close. This whole thing has been a fiasco of miscommunication and craziness from all sides (and me being an honest person and not realizing how off the rails the owner would go), but honestly, things were fine until the owner started pushing things (like calling us and telling us on two separate occasions we were going to close the following week when no one else had contacted us about it). I suspect part of the problem with what we're going through right now is that D suspected the owner was actually planning on putting us into an expensive lease agreement no matter what and withdrawing the sale, so when the idea of a lease came up, he advised us to not sign. But that's also what set off this most recent shit storm and ended up putting us in a position of no longer having a contract for anything. Plus it sounds like the loan guy was being a lazy ass and is...something else since when I last asked, he couldn't give me an exact amount of what we needed but an estimate and wouldn't tell me where it was okay where to get the money from. All he did was tell me not to deposit anything into the house fund without calling him first. And while I think D screwed up by not trying to get an extension for the closing (thus landing us without a contract), he's also been the most sane of the three men (and, really, if he had tried to get an extension, I seriously doubt crazy owner would have signed—he seems to have had a set way of how the whole sale should have gone down, and when it didn't, he lost his mind). I firmly believe we will end up wherever we need to be. Granted, I would much prefer this house. As Chef's mother noted: it is perfect for us. But at this point, I am equally grateful that we're out of toxic nightmare house, and if we end up in an apartment, at least we have that much. So, this week is impossible to goal for. If the Real Estate lawyer says we have to close or be out on Friday (even without a written notice), then I'll be trying to figure out a way to pack just in case. Obviously hoping that's not the case, but I've got to be ready for it. And no matter how much I love this house, there's no way in hell I'll rent from this guy. EVER. Hell, if I could, I'd look into buying a different place. He's been that much of a jerk. He's tried to "sound" nice, but really, does "I'm sorry" and "I'll help you in any way I can" really mean anything when you're giving people TEN DAYS to move (and you have the option of not doing that)? In general, it'll be pretty much the same until I'm told we have a problem: Tirs, Phoenix, maybe a chapter revision for Quest, and editing, primarily. I'll be trying to keep up on MF, but we'll see how that goes. I'm sure no one will fault me for missing a day or two if I'm trying to get us into a hotel for a few days before we take possession of an apartment. The rest will be the usual housework, laundry, maybe exercising (been way sore lately, not sure why, and REALLY tired, which I'm sure is a combo of stress and anemia). And, of course, we have boyo's graduation on Wednesday, which we are going to no matter what. Anyway, so more than likely, nothing but tweets posts again this week. I'm alive, I'm doing things, I'm just way way WAY distracted and stressed right now.
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