Does anyone else feel like once May hit, their calendars just exploded? Or is it just me?
I don’t know what it is about summer, but I feel like I’m ten times busier than I was the first few months of the year–and that’s with having flexible summer hours for work. Maybe there are just more events going on in general?
For example, I’ve had this post drafted in a Google Doc for about three weeks and just haven’t made the time to actually set it up and share it with you all.
That being said, I will be taking a bit of a summer blog break. (She says, as if she’s still been regularly posting.)
The creative energy I have, I want to be able to channel into my second novel, and I’m hoping to have the first draft finished (or almost finished) by the end of the summer. (She says, as if she’s still been regularly writing.)
Okay, okay. Enough poking fun at myself and my poor writing habits.
The main thing I want to talk about in this post is genre. I’ve mentioned that Veritas is a young adult contemporary novel with elements of mystery and suspense. The second novel I’m working on is a fantasy, and right now I’m leaning more toward adult fantasy, but only because it works better in the world I’ve built if my main character is mid to late twenties.
A friend recently asked if I’ve considered writing in other genres. I feel the most comfortable in the young adult or fantasy spaces because those are the genres I read the most. (Write what you know, you know?)* However, I also read a lot of romantic comedies. Plus, a lot of early 2000s rom coms are some of my favorite movies. (The Proposal will always be top tier!)
While there is a little romance in Veritas and enough in my second novel that I would perhaps consider it the newer genre “romantasy,” I think I’d like to write a contemporary romantic comedy. I tried the genre out a little with my short story, and a lot of people seemed to have the same reaction, “Where is the rest of it? I need to know what happens next!” I’m not sure that I want to expand upon that world, especially since the matchmaking bookstore was part of the original prompt, but I do have a couple other ideas for a rom com.
I suppose you can also count this blog as nonfiction writing, so really, writing in at least three (maybe eventually four) genres is quite a few!
As far as future stories, I’m not sure I can confidently say which genre I will want to write in. Mostly because as I shape stories, I start with characters. Then I have to find the genre that fits that character and the story that unfolds around them. For example, I wanted to do a Scarlet Pimpernel retelling, but I wanted to change around the characters a little, and fantasy allowed me a little more freedom than doing historical fiction.
But who knows! Maybe once I have a few novels under my belt, I’ll feel more comfortable branching out and trying a couple of new ones.
Britnie Jenkins 