writing rants

I just can't stop the word vomit...

Tammara Webber inspires me as a writer. She did 2 years ago and she still does today. THIS post. This post has me screaming, I know! YES! You are SO right! I understand!

Mindy, what are you freaking talking about?!

I'm talking about the "new" New Adult genre. I say new in quotations because technically, as Tammara stated in her post, it was an attempted genre back in 2009. For those of you that don't know what New Adult(NA) is...it's a genre that portrays college aged characters. BUT because some authors have taken liberties with the sexual content it's also known as "smut for teenagers", which drives me up the wall!

Mindy, why are you so amped up about this?

I'm amped up about this because number ONE: I've read quite a few books in the new adult genre that are definitely not smut, but because they are in the NA genre they are automatically labelled as sexed-up YA. They don't deserve that kind of negative connotation. These books are legit. They deal with real and raw issues and have powerful messages of hope and enduring. And surprise! They aren't full of sex!

Okay, but Mindy, what does this have to do with you?

That brings me to number TWO: My new book, the untitled WIP, is about characters in their 20's. Because of this it can't fall under YA, but obviously I can't label it NA or I'll be among those authors accused of writing smut for teens. Which I have absolutely NO intention of doing. I don't think any author has that intention.

But could my book be labelled adult? No. Because you label a book "adult" and automatically many just assume, it's adult...there's probably a lot of language or sex or violence. Why does NA have to be labelled smutty? Just because you write an adult book does that automatically mean it's smut for adults? Not all adult books have language and explicit sex. So why does the NA genre have to automatically be labelled as a romance or smut for teens?

I've even seen some readers get upset with an author for categorizing her book as NA when it didn't include any sex. The woman wrote about college-aged characters, but did it conservatively and tastefully then proceeded to get ridiculed. My gosh, people, what is the deal?

I'm in the same boat as Tammara.  I need a new genre, my friends. For now we will just go ahead and call is Tame NA.