writing and genres

Whenever random people ask me what I write, I usually tell them I'm working on a novel or two. Don't tell, but I haven't worked on any novel for several weeks. Novels are easier to understand, though, than say, Christian-books-for-women-about-how-to-be-a-good-wife. I mention blogging, too, but only about half the people know about blogs.

You see, there aren't any clear-cut answers for the "what do you write?" question. Even when I say, "I'm working on a novel," they want to know what kind of novel. Don't get me wrong: I'm glad they're interested in my life. But I don't know what kind of novels I write. They're just novels. Novel novels. Usually, though, I give people the genre answer, which is only cool because it has the word genre in it, and I used to not know about that word. Genre is cool because it is spelled nothing like it sounds, and even if it were spelled like it sounds, it sounds cool anyway. But I digress (that's only about the third time in my life I've used the word digress).

So back to my novels. I say, "Ummmm... I've written part of a novel that's kind of fantasy/sci-fi, but that's not what I usually write. I usually write... I don't know... it's hard to place it into any specific genre." And that would be one of my smoother answers.

So what do I write? Mostly, I write novels. Novel novels. Novels are stories. Stories about people and the things that happen to them in life. People make decisions -- good ones and bad ones -- and then there are consequences, reactions. Yeah. That's what I write.