Hats, Boots, & Chocolate

    In the last eighteen months, I have been on a journey of exploration. Ever since I wrote the first official draft of The Noble Thief  (the novella I'm revising right now, and hope to publish in the next [couple] year[s]) and realized that there wasn't a lot of magic in it, I've been questioning whether I can really call myself a fantasy writer. After all, if your whole magic system is nothing but a volcano that can understand people's intents, that doesn't feel very magical--or very fantasy. In fact, the most fantasy-like part of The Noble Thief  is the plot, which follows the classic fantasy plotline of a runaway/exiled/kidnapped princess who reclaims her throne. Where have we seen that before? Oh, yeah, fairy tales and fairy tale retellings:  The Goose Girl  by Shannon Hale, The Golden Braid  by Melanie Dickerson, The Fairest Beauty  by Melanie Dickerson, etc.     This questioning has raise a lot of insecurities for me--I call myself a fantasy author-in-traini

    Hello, and welcome back to Hats, Boots, & Chocolate! I hope all is going well for y'all right now. :)     Today, I want to talk about speculative fiction, and then I'll discuss how that relates to what I think my genre as a writer is.     The reason this has come up is that, a few days ago, I was chatting with one of my professors before class. You see, that day, I brought a book to school with me to read in the gaps between my classes (if you're interested, the book is Allegiant , which is Book 3 of Veronica Roth's Divergent trilogy. It's an awesome trilogy; I highly recommend it. The movies are pretty good, too, but I was a little disappointed to find that the movies changed a lot of things from the books, and a lot of those changes ultimately simplify the plot, which is kind of sad.). Anyhow, my professor came over and asked, "What age are you reading?"     Once we clarified that she was asking whether I was reading YA or Children's Lit., we

    Welcome back! Sorry it's been so long since I've posted anything; I have been knocked upside down and backwards by school, and only now have I even begun writing stories  again, and that mostly because next week is Fall Break and I have less homework to do than normal.     This post is a Frustrated Writer Support Group post, which is basically my version of an open mic. So, if you have anything writing-related that you need to get off your chest, be it a complaint, a victory, or something else entirely, feel free to drop it in the comments!