Oh . . . THAT’S Not Appropriate

Now that the first draft of The Gordian is done—and before I get into the daunting task of all the subsequent work fixing that entails—I’ve decided to jump into the next Adventures project with something a little different. 

Possibly a lot different.

I have lost count of the number of times I’ve been approached at cons or signing events, even once in the grocery store, and asked by parents if my books are appropriate for their kid. While I have any number of smart-assed replies for a situation like this, I usually go with the safe one. 

The books are meant for adults. There’s a lot of swearing, very minimal sexual situations, and I, for specific reasons all centering around keeping myself out of court, would not advise putting most of my books into the hands of anyone younger than fourteen. But ultimately, it depends on the kid and the parent.

A shocking (to me) number of times that parent will go ahead and buy the book for their nine-year-old, and everyone leaves with big smiles. Now I know what kinds of books I was reading at nine, and I think my books are possibly less offensive than those. Maybe. But I am still happy my own parents were not checked into my life enough to ever open the covers of my recreational reading material.

So much of what I read at ten only began to make sense after I lost my virginity. It might have become clearer if my first sexual encounter had been with an ancient reptile-woman with two vaginas or an anthropomorphized insect that utilized deadly toxins in her lovemaking, but you work with what you can get.

The actual event was no less surprising and impactful for being with a normal human, but then I was a late bloomer.

My new project is looking to address this blank spot in my library with something tailored to younger readers, specifically in the nine-to-thirteen-year-old range. Setting aside my own less appropriate reading at that age, one of the imprints that I absolutely loved as a kid was Choose Your Own Adventure. For those of you too young to know, these were books that allowed the reader to guide the narrative as they read, changing the course of the story at certain pivotal points and following their choices to a variety of different endings. 

You took on a bit of ownership as you guided the characters to actions you wanted, and you got to see where that would take them. I loved those books and got even more excited when D&D came out with their own line, called Endless Quest. (The Choose Your Own Adventure people turned out to be extremely litigious with the name, though they couldn’t copyright the concept.)

So, serving several masters, I decided to write the all-new Pick Your Misadventure books, and therefore finally have something I could put in the hands of parents without feeling like I was tricking anybody. I get to add something new to the universe, there’s always the chance that younger readers will age into becoming older ones, and I can finally write a whole book (or three!) about Keane and Megan’s kids, which my editor has been asking me to do for years.

The map of the first book is crazy. There are 29 (!) endings and a constellation of choices to get you there. I’m only three chapters in and already excited as hell.

Annnd . . . after I get done with these, I’ll jump back onto The Gordian and get that finished up too. I need the extra time to work out how to include the alien muti-vaginal sex scenes, anyway.