Dear Protagonist About Whom I Can Say Nothing Coherent Just Now,

You idiot.

That is all,

Me

Just back from a week at the first Kindling Words West, where I spent my days walking and writing amid the Georgia O'Keefe cliffs of New Mexico's Ghost Ranch, and the nights talking with other writers who were doing the same. My first day or so there especially, I could barely stand to be indoors amid that landscape, so I would write outside, staring out at those cliffs, listening to the wind and the scuttle of lizards over paper-dry bark, until I hit a need-to-think point, then walk until I hit a need-to-write point, repeat as needed. Later, I also spent stretches writing in my room, or in the dusty old unused building I found with a view out onto an arroyo, windows open, singing along with my mp3 player as I wrote.

Most of all I reconnected with the fact that the act of writing, of striving to tell a story as well as I can, is sacred. The rest--the whole business of marketing and selling and building a career--are important, and I don't take them lightly. But in the end, the writing, the commitment to craft and story and getting better--that's what this is all about, and they matter deeply.

Being in the company of other writers who clearly felt the same way--and who gave each other the time and space to create, yet were there to talk to and support one another when we came up for air out of that creating space--made for a lovely retreat.

There's been a bit of talk online lately about the fact that YA SF/fantasy is selling better than the adult stuff.

There's an undercurrent here--not by all commenters (and the comments are interesting to read), but by some--that there's something disconcerting about this, that having the good stuff or the best-selling stuff winding up in the YA section somehow diminishes the adult section, because it means fewer of the best books wind up there.

And I've been trying to articulate just what bothers me about this, and I think it comes down to: You're begrudging teens the good stuff. More, you're begrudging teens the good stuff because you want it for yourself.

Cynical-me thinks what's going on here, at least a little, is that adults (especially those who don't particularly enjoy YA as a genre) just can't deal with things actually being in some small way better for teens than for adults.

Teens have to put up with enough nonsense. Why shouldn't the best books being written--or yes, even the books selling the best--be written for them? I have no problem with this, and I wouldn't even if I weren't a YA reader myself--even if these were books I couldn't, personally, enjoy.

Adults control enough of the cool stuff. I see no reason to begrudge teens SF/fantasy market share.