I had a radical thought today.

I was in the YA section of Barnes and Noble, grabbing a book I've been dying to read. And I felt so happy to be there. And happy when I looked at all the books. And then I realized how many of them I knew about or could recognize, even just from teeny snippets of their covers or just the color scheme.

And then I thought, "Perhaps I incorrectly stated that I will never write a YA book."

This is radical. Like, crazy-talk. Because, while it's not me saying I want to write a YA book, it's an undeniable step closer to that sort of talk.

Some of this strange warmth I'm feeling at the idea of writing a YA comes from this post by the so-freaking-fabulous Lilith Saintcrow and the idea of breaking out of genre parameters. Some of it also comes from a bizarre oh-shit moment I had when I was emailing with a friend about YA content and suddenly busted out with this fully formed opinion on what I liked in YA. Really, where the hell did that come from?

Ultimately, it comes down to this: YA has seeped into my literary landscape over the past three years, to a degree that I hadn't fully realized until tonight. I've obviously never been anti-YA, but I have been firmly in the camp of "YA isn't my thing to write." Except, I'm realizing, that it's sort of become a teensy bit my thing.

Kinda cool. ;)