Gray Is My Second-Favorite Color

I’m finding myself in a little bit of an identity crisis. Not me, specifically, but my writing self, and my blogging self.

I’ve gotten some recent feedback that suggested that my blog doesn’t exactly reach out to my readers, and my books don’t exactly fit into a single, marketable genre. That I’m not specific in execution, that I’m not aiming at a target audience for my writing.

They’re totally right. I don’t have a target audience that I can squeeze into one little box. Some of you are young. Some of you aren’t. Some of you are female. Some of you aren’t. Some of you have kids. Some of you don’t. Some of you are highly educated. Some of you aren’t. Some of you think pickled cabbage is the best thing since sliced bread. Some of you don’t.

I know Shrilugh is a YA novel, but so many of my readers aren’t young adults. And honestly, I’m not a YA writer. The novel I’m currently working on isn’t young adult. It’s adult fiction, with an edge of fantasy/paranormal and sci-fi and romance (it sounds like a mess, but I promise, it’s not).

I don’t write traditional fantasy. I don’t write traditional paranormal. I don’t write traditional science fiction or romance. My books don’t fully fit in any of those categories. I jumped into this profession with the some-what selfish intention to write the kind of books that I want to read – books that are about people who are normal enough to relate to, with enough fantastical elements to take a person away, but not so much that a reader like me would feel alienated. There’s nothing wrong with fully-immersed fantasy or paranormal fiction (obviously, people love it and are whole-heartedly devoted to it), but it’s never been my thing, and it’s not what I write. But I’m not sure where that leaves me in a genre-hunt. Half-Assed Fantasy? Sorta-Para-Normal? Almost-Romance?

I’m a misfit. My books are misfits. And you guys, dear readers, are a bunch of misfits, too. (I hope you know how much that endears you to me.)

I know I’m rambling on, and that this is more like a journal entry than a blog post, and I’m sorry.

Anyway, I think I’m going to have to lay this issue to rest, and be content. We are all what we are, and while I’ll always, always strive to be a better me than I was yesterday, I think I’m ready to hang my hat on a hook and make myself at home in the gray land I’ve seemed to have fallen into. Gray’s always been one of my favorite colors, anyway.

{end of journal-like entry. i won’t indulge like this again, promise}

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