Categorization.

When did I start reading according to categorization? When I was younger, I used to just picked up books that interested me, regardless of genre or age-group, and I miss that. I miss enjoying a book purely because it's a good book.

I miss writing a story purely because it's a good story.

There's so much emphasis on audience (narrow it down narrow it down!) but from my experience as a reader, if it's a story worth reading then people will read it. As many adults read 'YA' and young people, and - it used to be the case at least - as many young people read adult books.

I think?

Maybe I was just lucky. No-one ever tried to limit my reading. Quite the opposite, in fact, if someone - usually my grandmother or my mother - read a good book, they would recommend it to me, Age categories didn't come into it.

Now I worry. Now I am more critical, and I hate it. It makes reading and writing and everything in between less fun.

I don't know where to place my story in the spectrum of categories. People say YA, but it doesn't feel right, especially when my main character is twenty for the majority, especially when I have so many adult PoVs... and I don't want to cut people out or change ages purely for the sake of categorization. It feels cheap and nasty. So I try not to think about it.

But I know that I need to know, and I don't.

I just want to write a good story that people will enjoy reading.