Inspiration and My Quest To Write YA Novel

Evidently, one of the most common questions fielded by authors is where they get their ideas. Now, not being a real, published writer, I don't know if the entire process changes with the emergence of external deadlines and real pressure, but I would have to guess it doesn't. I get my ideas from my life, and the prospect of running out of ideas is about as realistic as the danger of running out of thoughts. It's not going to happen.

Inspirations for stories, characters, and whatever can come from the strangest places. Moreover, I'm not too proud to steal a good idea if I see one.  One of the comic strips I read is called xkcd, and a while back it ran this comic strip. 

The writer of this comic strip makes a pretty good point, I think: those alternate world children's fantasies would probably screw up your life pretty badly, once the initial boost to self-confidence wears off. The most logical reasoning you could come up with as an adult, assuming you were smart and never told anyone about what happened to you, is that you had some kind of hallucination.

Then I realized that there's more than just an amusing comic in that concept; there was the potential for more. I think I could write a decent book based on that comic. The typical protagonist of the children's alternate world fantasy story, years later in his life, searching for answers. Discovering that he wasn't the only one to head to "Narnia," and trying to help the other kids who've also face the dubious choice of lying through their teeth or being thrown into the juvenile loony bin. Learning the real reason why the hell anyone would want the help of children to solve their problems (I sure as hell wouldn't). And maybe realizing that his time in this fantasy world left more scars than he initially thought.

All of that sounds like a lot of introspection and whining to me, so I'd need to make it, you know, interesting. My guiding principal when writing is to try to make it something I'd enjoy reading as well (for reasons other than my narcissism and egomania, of course). (Un)Fortunately, I have a lot of book ideas in my head, so I haven't bothered to even start writing this one, even though my preliminary title idea amuses me greatly: Veteran of the Dragon Wars.

One of the problems, however, is that this book idea seems almost ideal for a YA, or Young Adult, book. The character idea in my head is almost young enough; I could probably cut off a few years if I had to. Except the problem is that I don't quite know how to write a YA novel.

But I want to. I really, really want to. Why? Marketability. I realize this makes me sound like a heartless mercenary, but it's the truth.   I'd love to actually sell a book for money, instead of doing it as an enjoyable hobby. And YA books typically involve many of the fantastical elements that I prefer, so it's not as if I'd be writing a book that I'd hate.

According to what I've read, there's much a greater demand for YA books than fantasy novels marketed towards adults. I suspect that one of the reasons is that the bookshelves in the science fiction section are filled with old books, classics of the genre; there are no such classics in the YA section, unless you count Harry Potter.

And, sadly, I think there's also lower standards of quality for books intended towards children and youths. Why else do we let so many celebrities write their own children's books? Or maybe, hopefully, it's just a lack of understanding as to what those enigmatic young people actually want, so people are willing to take more risks.

Right now I'm writing a completely noncommercial story just to bring my skills back to what they were after I stopped writing for a few months. After I finish up this story and one of the unfinished books, I might try my hand at writing a YA novel, maybe one based on teh seed of the xkcd strip.