As a vampire writer, I don't have a real genre. With Stephenie Meyer's Twilight and The House Of Night novels by P.C. and Kristin Cast, the young adult genre is absolutely saturated with vampires. Most of the good vampire novels that don't have pornographic sex in them are found in the young adult section. I recommend all of the above as well as the L.J. Smith novels (Nightworld, Dark Visions, Vampire Diaries, and beyond) and Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments trilogy. While I write vampire novels that don't have explicit sex in them, I don't think I fall under the young adult catagory.

If you haven't been under a rock lately, you'll also probably know about a series on HBO called True Blood. Those are based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris. She created her own genre of vampire mystery. They are also wonderful and worth the read. Especially for Eric Northman. One word: Yum. Since I don't have mystery as part of the plot of my stories, I don't fall under this genre either.

This leaves me with few options. I market my own novels as epic fantasy. Since vampires don't exist (as far as we all know anyway), they are pieces of fantasy. Since I throw in aspects of fantasy novels (magic swords, prophecies), my work fits in the category.

The most important part of the whole process for me is that I write what I write. It doesn't fit into a category, it can't be put in some little box and marketed that way. It makes things harder for me in the finding an agent part of my journey, but it doesn't change that this is what I write.

Don't let a genre define you as a writer either. Thanks NP for the kick in the pants to think about my work as something to be enjoyed instead of boxed in a nice little package.