Serious Business

Writing is writing is writing. If you're putting pen to paper, or fingers to keys, you're writing. It has come to my attention recently that there are people in this world, and members of this craft, who think that pieces that are happy are somehow inferior. And those people are the bane of my existence in the writing sphere.

I write young adult fiction-- there, I said it. I love a good romantic comedy and there are jokes amongst my inner circle about the amount of romance novels that may or may not (are) gracing the top shelves of my bookcase. Why do you get to say my writing is less valuable because it doesn't make grown men want eat their feelings? You don't. Good writing elicits emotion. It makes the reader feel something. If that something just happens to be joy, why doesn't that count?

It does. There is merit in all kinds of writing. While I may not like the doom and gloom, I would never look down my nose at the types who live for it. And you, if it's you I'm talking to, should do me the professional courtesy of appreciating the fact that while I might not write dark and stormy nights and I can still make a reader fall in love with my characters.

Writing, people. Live with it.