Friday, December 28, 2007

Second Guessing

I convinced my wife that moving to Florida from Pennsylvania (almost 3 years ago) was a great idea. On a scale of 1 to 10 - it's been a 7, but I still 2nd guess the decision at least every couple of weeks - especially when we're missing the kids & grandkids. On the plus side, living in St Augustine has opened the story floodgates for me ( a few drafts underway) & another round of 2nd guessing - this time on my writing. I finally feel like my 1st YA book (65,000 words) is ready to pitch & now I'm struggling with...... is it YA or is it MG??? I've had 6 objective readers (not my mom) that have reviewed all or at least substantial portions of the work. 3 say YA - 3 say MG. (Maybe I should look for a tie breaker?) Those that say middle grade point out, that even though it's an adventure story centering on 4 teenagers (almost 16) running around the ancient city encountering ghosts & bad guys, the fact that there are no 'adult situations' & no profanity makes it MG. In their opinion, YA must include some degree of 'struggling into adulthood conflicts' (I think that's how they put it) to make it 'edgy' enough to be considered YA. So, now I'm ready (or thought I was) to start working on my pitch, a synopsis (underway for a specific submission), & now..... I'm 2nd guessing AGAIN - not the content but the target. The YA stuff that I've read? Some of it includes - some excludes the 'stuff' I don't intend to add. Maybe I'll flip a coin.........