Age Category

When I first considered writing a Spacemouse 9 book, I thought the story would appeal most to children in the age range of 10 to 14 years. At the time, I was only aware of two categories of literature in that age range: Children's books and Young Adult (YA) books. Before I discovered a third age category of "Middle-grade" (MG), I struggled with where to place Spacemouse 9. There is some debate over what age range constitutes MG, but from what I have read the most typical definition is that it covers ages 10 to 14 (just what I had in mind for my book!)

In the wake of the Twilight series, so many books for young readers have been focused on the YA category, presumably because that is where the money is. At least one person in the industry, however, laments the decline in the number of MG books. John Rudolph at DGLM writes:

"So to all you YA writers out there—how about some middle-grade? I see so many creative concepts and storylines in YA that would easily translate into middle-grade, especially in fantasy and sci-fi. The audience is there—really, I can’t think of any traditional series that commands the MG market right now—and from my informal survey of editors, it seems like they’re hungry for it, too. All we need are the writers…"

Did he just say he needs more MG fantasy and sci-fi writers? ^^ Better get cracking on my book...

The Question of Genre

Spacemouse 9 doesn't fit neatly into any of the standard literary genres. It is easy to fit the story under the broad category of "speculative fiction" which is defined by The Speculative Literature Foundation as:

"a catch-all term meant to inclusively span the breadth of fantastic literature, encompassing literature ranging from hard science fiction to epic fantasy to ghost stories to horror to folk and fairy tales to slipstream to magical realism to modern myth-making -- and more."

However, you will notice that this definition mentions several different genres. Which genre is Spacemouse 9? I finally decided that "science fantasy" was the best choice due to the odd mix of science fiction and fantasy elements in the story. I like writer Randy Henderson's discussion of the genre:

"So why isn’t science fantasy just called fantasy? Well, for one, even the most entertaining sci-fantasy story may not appeal to someone who strictly enjoys high fantasy, and vice versa. A pure fantasy reader may not want spaceships, lasers, or AIs, even if elves are the ones using them. The hard science fiction fan will hate the inclusion of elves. The science fiction elements make it not pure fantasy, but the fantasy elements make it not purely hard or soft science fiction either."

Age category is a separate matter from genre. Next week I will discuss why I feel the "middle-grade" age category is the best category for Spacemouse 9.

Working Title Chosen

According to Arun Verma at the Creative Ignition blog, writing down a working title for a book helps give a writer "a concept to start working with". If that is true, then I suppose my approach to the task of choosing a working title for my book was somewhat backwards. I developed the concept and basic storyline first, and then I chose a working title I felt expressed the concept.

After much debate, the working title I chose is Spacemouse 9 and the Mission of Doom. The main character of the story, Spacemouse 9, is a small, mouse-like alien who is a member of a military order whose mission it is to patrol space in defense of his planet. Through a fateful chain of events on one of his patrol missions, Spacemouse 9 is transported to Earth. Light years away from his planet, it is here his odyssey to find a way home begins.

I like the ring this working title has. It is along the same lines as "Indiana Jones and..." or "Harry Potter and..." and will lend itself easily to a book series should things come to that. If I have chosen well, perhaps this title will endure to become the final title of the book. With the working title chosen, now it is time to get some writing done!

Goals

From what I have read, it is recommended that writers set goals for themselves. So I had to ask myself: "What exactly should my goals as a writer be?" After giving it some thought, I chose to make my goals small and few. After all, I am writing my first book "just for fun". Burdening myself with too many high powered goals would defeat the purpose of why I want to write. It would take all the fun out of it for me. So for the time being, here is what I have decided on as my goals:

Write at least one blog post per week. Setting this easily attainable goal for myself forces me once a week to give thought to the world of Spacemouse 9. Hopefully, this will keep me focused on the project and motivate me to continue making progress on the book.

Write blog posts that contribute to the back-story of Spacemouse 9. The works of literature that I find enjoyable (such as the books of J.R.R. Tolkien) have well developed back-stories. I hope to develop the Spacemouse 9 universe in the same way, all the while documenting my progress through blog posts. In theory, I will later be able to group these back-story posts together to form a sort of online encyclopedia or appendix. This appendix would contain details about the Spacemouse 9 universe that might be alluded to, but not fully explained in the book.

Expand the Spacemouse 9 blog. Currently, the Spacemouse 9 blog is a somewhat bare bones affair. I want to add more features to the blog including the aforementioned appendix as well as an "about the author" page and any other features that would befit a published *fingers crossed* author.

Looking over these goals I see that they each have more to do with blogging than they have to do with writing a book! Ah well, it just goes to show I am a blog writer first and a book writer second. And yes, I do have another blog, but I leave that story for another day.