Just finished reading some Young Adult fantasy guidelines and suggestions online. Now that the first brick is complete and out to test readers, I am starting the process of looking for an agent to represent my work.

What I find humorous in a sad Catch-22 sorta’ way is that all of the guidelines say:

1.Do THIS!
2. Don’t do THIS!
3. god help you if you do THIS!
4. Stephanie Meyer and Terry Goodkind suck ass. (but are now zillionaires.) 😀

And yet…and yet…many of the writers who are selling like hotcakes break all of those rules. I’m not talking about well established previously published types, rather relative newcomers.

The other gripe I’ve got is that if you READ about getting your work published, you will get the impression that its impossible or nigh unto that nether region…BUT. (always a but eh?)…

99% of the paper tween jackets at your local B&N is utter dreck. I remember picking up a YA adventure fantasy novel a few months ago, and by page 10 I wondered if the writer had an editor, and if said editor was f’ing blind, because what had reached the print stage was worse than my first rough draft.

Of course my work might be no better than that to some, as each set of eyes sees something different, but it does give me hope for my own stuff.

And then, OF COURSE, I read a blog that says that High Fantasy doesn’t sell to the YA market and that its all been done. And then I cry…until I read the meat of the blog entry which whines about stuff like Eragon. (which of course made its writer a ton of moola’.) Then I feel better again.

Back at it!