Sometimes You Need Some Mac and Cheese

Happy Monday, sweet readers!

There's a reason I love writing Young Adult Science Fiction. I'm a geek, first of all, and besides that, it gets me excited. I like thinking about the future, I like thinking about what scientific advances mean for the future of humanity. I like to think about, and write about, what the changes of the future will make people do - what will remain the same and what will change forever.

So, I wrote a YA Sci-Fi book I LOVE - One - and I'm currently clutching it to my poor beaten-down bosom while wading through a particularly horrific portion of Querying Hell - the WAITING. This is the fun part when your manuscript is on the desks and/or e-readers of some really, truly, fantastic agents, and you've been waiting for an ETERNITY (or, okay, a week and a half, whatever, that's not really the point, okay?) for them to respond to you with their thoughts. And the fact that they didn't respond within 24 hours could mean that they HATED it (probably that's what it means,) or that they're giving it careful consideration, or it could mean that they're ultra-busy and just haven't even clicked the darn file open.

(But probably they hated it.)

D'you see where I'm going with this? Querying Hell isn't called "Hell" for nothing, folks. The only hope for a writer's addled mind at this stage is to GET BUSY.

Luckily for me, CampNaNoWriMo is happening in June, and is the perfect kick-in-the-rear challenge I need. I tried to get psyched to finish up Chrome, my futuristic Sci-Fi retelling of the Exodus, but every time I thought about it, my brain went on strike. A big, foot-stamping, whining strike. All my brain wanted to do was write a Young Adult recasting of Mansfield Park.

Yeah.

I've never written straight-up romance before, though like 99% of my critiquers for One very helpfully contributed, "So, this is a sci-fi...romance?" (Uh, yeah. Probably. Maybe. Whatever agents want it to be.)

Anyway. I loooooove YA SF (sci-fi or speculative fic, either-or and both.) When I think of all my favorite books from the last three or so years, all but a couple were YA SF.

But THEN, I think about my comfort reads. The ones that make me want to curl up on the couch with a blanket and completely lose myself in them. The ones that don't require too much thought, or prompt any Big Revelations About The Nature of Humanity.

One of them is MG Sci-Fi Romance (A Wrinkle in Time, duh.)
And the rest are classics. Mostly Austen, a little Bronte, Alcott. Which, if you think about it? Are all YA (about 18-20-year-old girls) and ROMANCE.

So...if YA Romance is my comfort reading...
why wouldn't it be my comfort writing, too?

After my customary agonizing over this on Twitter, my dear, sweet, wise writing buddy Jenny said, "Sometimes you just need the writing equivalent of Mac and Cheese."

Mmmmm.

And you know what? She was right. Four days later, I'm 8K into SOLVING FOR EX, a YA recasting of Mansfield Park with Mathletes instead of snobby rich people.  I don't know if it's any good, and it's highly possible I'll never query it. But it IS good for my soul - I'm pretty damn happy writing it. And right now, in the depths of Query Hell, that's really all that matters.



What about you, sweet readers? What's your Mac and Cheese, for reading or for writing?