Where Have All the Good (Young) Men Gone?

I don’t know if you’ve heard it yet, but there’s been something of a buzz going around the internet about YA books lately.

(Apparently YA stands for “Young Adult”, and not “Yankee Angler” as I had previously supposed. This might explain why my previous attempts at writing YA literature failed so miserably.)

The buzz started as a low thrumming sound surrounding this article published by the Wall Street Journal which implied that maybe YA books had become too dark over the past few years. The buzz increased to a cacophony when Chuck Wendig released his tiny leather winged minions to roam the Twitterverse with his message of “Hey, adolescence is very likely going to be the darkest time of these kids lives, why shouldn’t their books reflect that?”

For what it’s worth I’m sort of in the middle on this issue. I think that writers should be able to write what they want to write and parents should be able to draw the boundary lines for their children and have the intestinal fortitude to enforce those lines. Stop trying to get the school to do your dirty work for you, parents (a mantra that applies to far more than this.)

But that’s not what I want to talk to you about today. I think in all of this hullabaloo about darkness in YA we’re missing a far more vital problem.

This problem can be summed up in this one picture:

Look at that picture. Look at it long and hard.

This is a picture I took of the book nook at the Wal-Mart where I work. This is the entirety of the YA section. This is the place where Wal-Mart consolidates all of the most popular books in the nation into one tiny little microcosm of the book selling industry.

Notice anything strange?

Not yet?

Keep looking….there! See it?

There’s no books for dudes! Not one!

Now I’m not saying this is Wal-Mart’s fault. They’re just buying the books that are big sellers. But what’s up with this? Why aren’t my slightly younger brethren sinking their teeth into daring accounts of manly exploits in fantastic places with the same ferocity as the females our the species seem to bestow on brooding tales of dark romance with forbidden creatures?

Have all the men migrated to their game consoles to control space marines with their thumbs, leaving behind the kinds of stories with “words” and “pages” to be completely overrun by the fairer sex? I don’t know. And frankly maybe this isn’t a new phenomenon. But it doesn’t seem like so long ago, that Harry Potter (Harry not being short for Harriett in this case) enchanted the world with his wizardly exploits.

I’m not trying to be sexist here, but the inequality of the situation astounds me. Because if guys aren’t reading when they’re young, then what’s the likelihood they’re going to start later?

I don’t have the answers. Maybe you do. Please to leave a comment and enlighten me with your wisdom.

This Title Is Really Long, Which Is Ironic, Because The Post Is About Brevity, So You’d Think The Title Would Be Short Too, But Nope It Just Goes On And On And On Until It-

Brevity.

Yes, I’m going there. Because I think it’s important

1. This is your blog, not your magnum opus.

You got something to say, go ahead and say it, but do you really have enough substance to fill up a thousand words?

And don’t get me wrong, the answer may be, “Why yes as a matter of fact, I do Albert.” Which is fine and all, but there’s no actual obligation to give us the epic version of whatever it is you want to say. You may think, “Oh, but all this stuff is really important” and it may well be important. So split it into more than one post. Why? Because…

2. I have ADD.

Well, that may be a bit misleading. I haven’t been diagnosed or anything. Lets just lay I’m easily distracted, yes?

You’re expecting an “Ooh, shiny object” joke here. This is me subverting your expectations.

Something specifically about reading off of a computer screen is incredibly difficult for me. I know not everyone suffers from this problem. A friend of my can read through entire books on her computer screen. I can’t.

Should you cater your blog just to me? Well no. That’s what this blog is for. But I’m pretty sure not the only one who doesn’t want to read massive text blocks on his computer screen.

3. No one cares.

Seriously no one is impressed by long blog posts. Back when I first started blogging I was still learning this principle, and I had some posts that stretched on for upwards of a thousand words. No once, not once, did anyone comment and say “Woah, Albert, congratulations on writing such a long post.”

And now that I’ve started writing short posts, no one has said, “You know, Albert, I really miss when you used to go on and on and on. Your shorter posts aren’t nearly as good.”

Longer posts are not better posts.

4. Don’t listen to me.

Remember yesterday, when we talked about finding your voice? That applies here too. If you’re in love with writing long blog posts, don’t let me try to change who you are. That may be part of your identity as a writer.

Then again, It may not be. I only ask is that you consider it.

All I can show you is the world as I see it. I’m certainly not the only perspective in town.

The Manure Manifesto

After spending several hours spread over the space of two days writing and editing today’s blog post, it slowly began to dawn on me that what I had written was complete crap.  And now matter how much I polish my crap it’s still going to stink.

It wouldn’t have mattered before.  Before, back when I was plodding away on blogger.com and got excited if I had three views in a day, I could have lived with myself for letting something sub-par slide through. But now the game has changed.  You changed it.  A few of you have done me the honor of commenting on my posts and subscribing to this blog, and now, suddenly, I’m not blogging in a vacuum.  I owe you something.  I can’t just put out crap because that’s what I’ve got.  You deserve better than that.

So instead you get this.  It’s not much, but I’d like to think a nugget of passion is worth more than a mountain of manure.

And if, in your devilish curiosity, you wonder what that hard-wrought segment of doomed text might have been about, I will leave you with one clue.  Just three little words gingerly plucked from the original steaming pile of eight-hundred and forty-five:

Zombie Samuel Coleridge.

Thank you for reading.  That is all.