Kids On Bikes, Chapter 2

I was recently watching a vlog featuring a prominent middle grade writer and an renown literary agent where they were talking about the state of middle grade writing. For those of you that don't know, middle grade is literature for readers primarily between the ages of 8-13 that is more sophisticated than children's chapter books but not as thematically advanced as young adult. In the vlog, the agent implied that using a pre-cell phone setting was kind of cheating for these types of books. I didn't like that. It ignores the inherent fun in these stories. But this was also the agent that basically said all books need to be "message" or "issue" books. But that's a discussion for another time, though if you follow me on Twitter or have read my previous posts, you already know how I feel about that.

The setting of these stories is clearly defined and perhaps the most important aspect of the trope. It HAS to be set before cell phones. They change the entire story. Every kid has a phone and they drive so much of their lives. I mean I can tell you within six feet where my 11 year old is at any time. Kind of hard to have adventures like we did when we were his age. I sometimes wish my kids would have these adventures. I can't help like they're missing out on something that I had and they don't. It's not a cop out to set stories in this time period. it just doesn't fit said agent's view of the publishing landscape as they see it. (Okay, okay, I'm getting off my soapbox.)

More trope codifiers. 

I think it's a fascinating trope to play with. The adventure aspect of it is appealing to kids while that nostalgic parts grab their parents. I mean who amongst us hasn't sat on our bed blaring Van Halen out of our boomboxes while reading some R.A. Salvatore? (An actual scene in my book!) That nostalgia was hitting hard while I was writing the book. It made it fun to write, which in turn makes it fun to read. But that nostalgia might come at a price. 

Nostalgia is something I want to write about at length, but this is not the post for it. There's a great quote from one of the aforementioned R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt books that I want to use as the basis of my discussion. But that's for a later date. The problem with heavy nostalgia in a project like this is that it might alienate readers, especially younger readers that might not get the references. I think that's why my 90s set ski club rom com never caught on, even though I feel like it's really well written. It makes me wonder who am I actually writing these books for. I've noticed that a lot of "kids on bikes" books are written for adults, I would imagine for exactly this reason. But, for some reason, in other mediums that doesn't seem to be a concern. STRANGER THINGS is wildly popular across multiple age groups because for all the nostalgia, it's a show about kids having adventures, which is what kids want to read. Not books about issues...wait, wait, I'm not getting back on that soapbox. For now. 

Kids On Bikes

For the last three years I've been teaching 10th grade. I love it. While I do miss teaching seniors and the troubles they run into, I've really enjoyed returning to 10th. But I have one major issue with the tenth grade curriculum. There's no novel on it. There's plenty of short stories, two plays and two memoirs. They're very good but I feel like the lack of a novel is a little harmful. So I set out to fit one in. Last year I did lit circles. That went well enough but I felt like I had to try something new this year. One of my present students made a suggested that we do some Stephen King. I liked the sound of that but I wasn't sure which King novel would work in a tenth grade class. In the same class another students suggested STAND BY ME, which is based on the Stephen King novella THE BODY. It was a genius suggestion and I ran with it. I had my students read the novella.

I did it as a complete independent reading for the most part. I had to make some adjustments mid-unit because there's a lot of content in the novella that's probably not appropriate for high school sophomores. For a final assessment I did something definitely outside the box. They had just finished taking the NYS English Regents and I didn't want to just assign an essay, so instead I decided to do some creative writing. Students were to create a 1 to 2 page "pitch"(essentially a hybrid synopsis/query) for a "kids on bikes" adventure story, be it a novel or a streaming show. Talking to students at the end of year, many said it was their favorite thing we'd done all year. 

What is "kids on bikes" you ask? This article does a stupendous job of breaking it down. Better than I could ever do. Go read it. I'll wait. 

I had never heard of the trope/genre until December of last year. Of course I knew what it was but I didn't have a label for it until I hear it for the first time. I've also seen it labeled as "free range children." I don't remember what exactly pushed it into my awareness. It might have been something I saw on Twitter or it might have been something related to the episode "Stand by Gene" of BOB'S BURGERS, it might even go back as far as last summer when, during an afternoon excursion to a local watering hole, I had a conversation about "boy on a quest" stories with some of my buddies. All I know is that I became obsessed with these stories. And THE BODY was one such story. 

These were the stories I grew up with. THE GOONIES . E.T. STAND BY ME. NOW AND THEN. IT. DANDELION WINE. ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK? (There's an argument to make that Stephen King, as he is with so many things, is the master of this trope/genre.) Not to mention more contemporary plays on the trope like ATTACK THE BLOCK, SUPER 8, STRANGER THINGS, THE PAPER GIRLS and the aforementioned "Stand by Gene" (in fact most Gene-centric episodes of BOB'S BURGERS fall under this trope and are often send-ups of previously mentioned works). They were the stories I lived, tooling around the neighborhood on bikes. It's how we got around, it's how our adventures started and finished: a pile of bikes scattered on someone's front lawn. 

Trope codifiers. 

As part of the unit, I literally taught the "kids on bikes" trope to help the students organize their pitches. I created a graphic organizer then modeled how to fill it out. Once I finished the outline, I modeled how to write the pitch. Then something happened. The pitch I created grabbed me and I decided to write it. I told my students and then promised them that I would print and bind a copy of the book for each of them. 

After a few stops and starts, the project got its claws in me and I took off writing it. It was a departure for me. I really tried to write an upper MG/lower YA kind of book filled with thrilling heroics and adolescent mischief. I used Save The Cat and the guidelines suggested by the article to structure the novel. It all just came together and I started rolling. I finished it in early May. I was pretty excited. My students, on the other hand, were mostly indifferent. I let it sit for a month and took a look it again, tightening up the opening a little bit and polishing it up. It's pretty good. But I never bound it for my students because I was afraid my fragile ego wouldn't be able to handle seeing it in the recycling bin or just left behind on desks. It's a decision I already regret because I had several students expressed their disappointment that I didn't make copies of the book. 

The Crossroads

This week I got five rejections. Not the worst week I've ever had, but it certainly felt like it. Three of the rejections were for the new project (MG "kids on bikes" adventure) that probably wasn't ready for submission and two were for my YA romcom, one a query the other a full manuscript rejection. What's made these rejections stick and sting so much is that I've had time to reflect on them. I'm working on a rewrite I can't get to work for a project that's probably dead anyway, I'm pretty much done teaching anything new for the year. I had time to reflect on several of the rejections on a lengthy drive from Boston to Syracuse, where I was pretty much alone with my thoughts scored by SiriusXM's Lithium. I've had some time to think this week and it hasn't been a good headspace for me. 

Okay, I'm likely being more than a little melodramatic right now, but it feels like I'm at a crossroads when it comes to my publishing "career." I've felt like this before and gotten over it, but this week has been particularly rough. I'm questioning everything. Am I just not as good as I think I am? Could I be one of those people that thinks a little too highly of themselves? Could I be just plainly mediocre? Right now, I'm really not sure. I've fallen into a rut of unknowing and I'm not sure how to get out. 

Not quite where Robert Johnson was, but pretty close.

The last few projects I've sent out into the world have barely gotten any traction. I mean nothing. And that bothers me. I read a lot. And I believe in my heart of hearts that a lot of what I'm putting out is at least as good as a lot of stuff that's out there. Maybe even better than some of it. Or it could be that I'm just delusional about my own ability. All my self-doubt (and there's a lot of it) floods in and I find myself saying, "Maybe this writing thing isn't for me."

I know that's not true. I can't not write. It's impossible. I'm writing this aren't I? The problem with something like this is that I just sound like I'm whining or that I'm fishing for compliments. Both statements aren't false, but there's a therapeutic aspect to all of this. Getting the words out into the ether feels good. It gets them off my chest where they feel like they're suffocating me. 

There's a difference between writing and publishing. And that's where I'm running into the problem. I love to write. That's not the issue. I think I'm pretty good at it. I've been told by that I'm pretty good at it. So where's the problem? Is there something precluding me from finding success. 

I pay attention to the market. I'm told not to chase trends, so I don't. I write the books I want to read. Or at least the books 13-year-old and 17-year-old me would like to have read. But that doesn't seem to be cutting it. Are there no 13-year-old and 17-year-old mes out there anymore? Do they matter?

I don't write issue books. I don't like issue books and I think that most kids don't like issue books. But that seems to be what gets attention these days. Books that tackle some kind of hot button issue. I don't want to preach. I want my books to be an escape. Something someone can read so that don't have to worry about the issues. Books used to be fun to read and it feels like the fun has been taken out of them. We worry about why kids don't read anymore, I think this is clearly one of the reasons. Kids don't want to be preached to and pandered to. They want to be entertained. You'll all be able to listen to that in my never to be released TED talk, "Are You Not Entertained?" 

So here I sit at the crossroads. Let's be honest, I'm not going to stop writing. All I can do is to keep on writing. The question is what do I do with that writing when it's done? I don't have an answer for that right now. And that might be the biggest bummer of them all. 

Indecision

I was on quite a blog tear to start the year then I just sort of petered out. I have some ideas for posts but none came together the way I wanted. Then I hit a little bit of a stride on a new project (a MG "kids on bikes" adventure set in 1988) and that took precedence over my personal writing. Until last week. I wouldn't say that I hit a wall on the project so much as a speed bump. An element of the story wasn't coming together the way that I wanted it to and work slowed. There are other factors, too. One factor, in particular, has been at the center of my recent struggles in writing. A sense of complete and total indecision at which project to work on. 

If Tyrion doesn't know, how should I?

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A part of my brain wanted to work on my updated version of THE FALLING DARK, a trunked novel that I reworked into my "21st Century DRAGONLANCE." I've planned that out with a seven page narrative outline and it's ready to go. But to be honest, I don't want to worldbuild. Not now at least. And I feel that it needs a proper worldbuilding session or two before I write it. It's closest to one that's ready to be written. But part of it feels like it's just more of the same from me. YA adjacent epic fantasy. Just like SUMMER'S SON before it died on the vine (even though I think that's a good book idea too), I fear that's what's going to happen to DARK. This is my own self-doubt creeping in and preventing me from doing things. 

Another part of my brain cried out for me to work on the "dad"/"airport" book that I want to write. I've jotted down a few ideas here and there, but once again, nothing concrete enough to expend the energy on. Plus, I don't know if I know enough about the genre to write in it. I floundered for a long time, desperate to write something worth my while but nothing was presenting itself. Then came the new project. 

The launching point was a creative writing assignment I gave to my students based on Stephen King's THE BODY (STAND BY ME). I modeled how to write a logline and a 1-2 page pitch/synopsis/plan for a story idea similar in tone and subject matter as the book. The entire process sparked something inside of me and after a sputtering start, I was off and running, until I hit my speed bump. 

The "fun and games" part of the story isn't coming together as well as I'd like. I'm trying to figure out why that is. Maybe I'm trying too hard to stick close to the Save the Cat story structure. I just need to find the connective tissue between where I am and where I want to go. It's there, I can feel it. I'm groping around in the dark looking for it when I find other things, like an old project rising up and demanding attention. 

As I hit my little lull last week, THE LOST SCIONS popped its head in and let me know that it wanted some attention. And I gave it a little. There's something in my bones that's telling me to do something with it. I'm trusting my bones this time and giving it some attention. But at what cost? There's only so much energy to go around. See what I mean? Indecision. 

So, what am I going to do about all this? 

I'm going to make a plan and stick to it this time. I'm about 1/3 of the way through NIGHT. That's going to be the starting point. I'm going to plug away at it and wrap it up this month. Then I'm going to sit down and decide how I'm going to tackle the rest. Step by step. How's that for being decisive? I'll let you know how it goes. 

Am I A Pantser?

 Something made me decide to listen to Brandon Sanderson's lecture series on YouTube. I don't know why, but I thought that I'm sure there was something I could learn from him by listening to what he had to say. I didn't get twenty minutes in before I had a profound moment. He said something that shocked me out of my seat almost shaking me to my core. And with one simple statement he may have explained my long malaise. He was explaining the difference between planners and pantsers. For the uninitiated, a planner is a writer that plans everything they write, famously called architects by George RR Martin, and pantsers are writers that write "by the seat of their pants" with no plan, GRRM calls them gardeners and he alongside Stephen King are the two most famous pantsers out there. I always considered myself planner until now. 

During his explanation, he said, "For a lot of gardeners, if you have an outline, and you work a lot on your outline, what happens is your brain feels like you've already written the story."

Holy crap, that hit hard. 

I began to wonder if that's been my problem. The last three projects I've had , I wrote relatively detailed narrative-style outlines for them and I struggled with all of them. I think that deep down inside I was thinking exactly what Sanderson had said. I started to wonder, "Am I a Panster?" The very thought made me shudder. It can't be. It's impossible. 

If I am a pantser, I'm more a cargo pantser!

All of my books have been outlined, no matter how vague said outlines might have been, there was always a plan in place, detailing the shape and direction of the story with full permission to deviate from said plan as I see fit. I've always had a beginning and some vague notion of the end. But now I'm beginning to wonder if I am a planner or am I actually a pantser? Is this why I've been failing lately starting and finishing new projects? I don't know what they answer is, but Sanderson's words definitely have left a mark on me. It's made me question my entire method of writing, even if just for a few moments. 

What does this all mean? I'm not sure. I don't actually think that I'm a pantser. I need a plan to write. Maybe I'm something of a hybrid that is actually a planner with pantser tendencies. Whatever I am, I need to figure out this malaise and finish something. I mean, I'm a writer for crying out loud. 

Seeking Perfection

 I just finished reading a book titled Seven Short Sentences About Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg and was struck by it. An interesting little book that is exactly what it says on the label and it's filled with tons of bite-sized nuggets of writing wisdom. It almost reads like a book of poetry. There's some good stuff in it and hoity-toity stuff in it as well. A few of the passages really grabbed me though and one read like Mr. Klinkenborg had been reading my blog. This one isn't a short sentence really but rather a list:

            "Think of all the requirements writers imagine for themselves:

A cabin in the woods

                    A plain wooden table

                    Absolute silence

                    A fountain pen

                    A favorite ink

                    A favorite blank book

                    A favorite typewriter

                    A favorite laptop

                    A favorite writing program

                    A large advance

                    A yellow pad

                    A wastebasket

                    A shotgun

                    The early light of morning

                    The moon at night

                    A rainy afternoon

                    A thunderstorm with high winds

                    The first snow of winter

                    A cup of coffee in just the right cup

                    A beer

                    A mug of green tea

                    A bourbon

                    Solitude

            Soon or later the need for any one of these will prevent you from writing."

I'm not sure who needs a shotgun before writing. 

Oof. Talk about a punch to the gut. This nails that feeling I had when I wrote about typewriters and writing sheds and the wardrobe of writers. (Well, I mean, I've never needed a shotgun for anything let alone writing!) I'm seeking perfection where perfection doesn't matter. But in reality, they are nothing more than distractions. It's never going to be perfect and I need to come to grips with that. Things are never going to be perfect when writing and they don't need to be. Much like the writing itself doesn't need to be perfect. It's all about getting these ideas on paper. Or through a keyboard. And that's where my focus should be, not on building a writer's shed or wearing the right clothes when I'm writing. I've got to get the ideas out of my brain and to their destination. I can worry about perfection later. 

 

Earning Turns Revisited

It's snowing in Syracuse today. This is not news. Actually, it's pretty standard for January. I always get a little melancholic when it snows because I can't ski anymore. But I've talked about this before when I wrote "Earning Turns" a few years back. "Earn you turns" is a skiing term that means a skier has skied the "back country" by hiking up a mountain then skiing down it. I didn't know this when I wrote my first post so many years ago but I don't regret it. My kids were earning their turns in their own way and while skiing didn't grab them the way it grabbed me, I was glad that I exposed them to it. The expression "earn your turns" got me thinking though. When you think about it a little, it's a great metaphor for writing.  

When you start writing, you're in the wilderness, hiking up the mountain in hopes of finding the perfect run that no one has ever taken before. Or at the very least one that only a few people have so you can make your own mark. There's an anticipation and nervousness that comes with the unknown as a new project looms and you stumble your way through the bleakness, seeking and searching. Then you find it. That perfect run. The one that had been eluding you. A blank sheet of snow stretching out, ready for you to carve up how you see fit. It's familiar but intimidating. The first step is the hardest but once you take it, everything comes back to you in a rush. The silence of a winter's morn is replaced by the creak of a boot and the whisper of the skis on the snow. The tautness gives way to muscle memory as you guide the seventy plus inches of fiberglass through the snow. Stone and tree blur by and you feel a sense of accomplishment as you complete the run. You can't help but look back at what you've done and feel some pride that you did it. The entire process is never quite easy and if you're doing it right it should be a little difficult. It's like the quote from A League of Their Own, "It's supposed to be hard, if it wasn't hard everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great." 

I think it's a damn fine metaphor, if you ask me. So, let's go earn some turns and get some writing done. 

Properly Attired

While I was down the rabbit hole of looking at writers and their typewriters, something caught my eye in the photos. Not the typewriters or any other technology they use, but rather the way they were dressed. No, seriously. It sounds like a silly thing to notice but it made me think of the adage "dress for the job you want not the job you have." 

Almost everyone in the photos is well put together. Men at the very least in slacks and button down shirts, often with ties and sports coats. Sometimes in a smart looking sweater or cardigan. (I truly believe after my yearly viewing of the beginning of the year Twilight Zone marathon that cardigans and sweater vests need to make a comeback.) Women almost all wore skirts and blouses with pearls, usually in flats with the occasional pair of heels. The most frequent accessory besides their typewriters? Cigarettes. Lots of cigarettes. But there was more. 

Mixed in was your occasional pair of jeans (David Letterman), flip-flops (Ian Fleming of all people), and some hats (Terry Pratchett, Damon Runyon, Will Self). Mickey Spillane liked to show off his guns. Hunter S. Thompson wore shorts and often eschewed shirts. Hemingway and Fitzgerald wrote in their pajamas. George RR Martin has his Greek fisherman's hat and suspenders while David Foster Wallace liked bandanas and Joan Didion had her sunglasses. 

Actually, we have a lot in common when it comes to writing attire.

It got me thinking about the way that I dress, especially when I write. I dress like a schlub. I have a schlubs's physique. I'm tall, hunchbacked with a big belly. I have relatively broad shoulders but recent years of neglect have ebbed away any muscle that I once had hiding under the soft exterior. Most of my wardrobe consists of jeans, sweatpants, athletic shorts and formless tops like sweatshirts, henleys and t-shirts. I'm not exactly ready for my candid typewriter shot. Usually, when I'm writing, it's later at night and I'm in a pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt. What job am I dressing for? 

It amazes me the things that I notice about writing when I'm not writing. Why would I focus on what writers wear when they write? Why would I think that was important? Maybe it's my quest for that writing ideal. The perfect tool. The perfect place. The perfect writing attire. The prefect writing scenario. Something that probably doesn't exist. 

My Own Space

Recently, instead of writing or grading, like I should be doing, I found myself researching sheds. It became something of an obsession and occupied my time. Now I'm not talking about the kind of sheds most of us have in our back yards, filled to the brim with lawn supplies, tools and old Christmas decorations. No, I'm talking about a comfy place sequestered from the rest of the house just for myself. A place to get away and write. It's really a romantic but completely unfeasible notion. But a boy can dream can't he?

I like that it has a porch.

This all started when I read online that Wes Anderson had replicated to the tiniest detail the writing hut of Roald Dahl for his Netflix short films. I started to wonder about writing places and, as is my wont, fell down a pretty big rabbit hole. There's a lot out there about writer's sheds. Names like George Bernard Shaw, Dylan Thomas (who inspired Dahl in the first place), Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf and, of course, Henry David Thoreau (even though his mother did his laundry and brought him sandwiches) all had sheds, shacks or huts where they wrote. Neil Gaiman has his gazebo. Chuck Wendig has his "mystery box." Yann Martel has his back yard writing studio. Eoin Colfer and David McCullough sought refuge from busy families in their own writing sheds. Michael Pollan wrote an entire book about the entire enterprise of building a shed for his writing on his property. And it's made me want one of my own. I just feel like I need a writing space all to myself. 

I'm fascinated by the idea of writer's spaces in general. There's an entire Instagram account and hashtag about writer's spaces and I can't stop looking at it. I want a cool space to work in. I don't really have one now or maybe it's that I just don't use the space I have properly. I do most of my writing from the comfort of my couch and I wonder if that's part of the problem (though it worked for Truman Capote and Stephen Sondheim). Maybe I'm not a couch writer. Maybe I need to be at a desk or a table. I've found great success writing at my kitchen counter, though that gets uncomfortable after a while. I do well in cafes and I wrote most of this sitting at a rickety table in a cold room at the back of the school. 

I do have a great little desk/alcove in my study that's perfect for writing.  I haven't used as much as I should, for no good reason. Maybe it's time to change that. I mean there's no way my wife is going to let me plop a fourth shed in our backyard (and who could blame her?), so I'll have to make due with what I have. Plus, who wants to trudge across the backyard on a cold, snowy kind of day like today? I need to make that space my own. 

I started this process before the holidays. I bought a really nice chair  that I'm not putting together until I finish a few other around the house projects. I can't use the folding chair that's in there now because of my back. I still have to finish tidying it up and organizing a few things. I'll be sharing the space with my daughter so I won't be alone in the room but at least I won't be on the couch. It's not perfect and I'm sure there will be some bump along the way, but I think in the long run it'll work. It'll focus me on what I need to do, be that writing or grading. Speaking of which, I have some grading to do. I suppose that the kitchen counter will have to do, for now.

Corona, Futura and Stephen King's Wang

My friend Brian uses a typewriter (1938 Corona Sterling) and recently sent me a bit of correspondence using said typewriter. To be honest, it was kind of cool. It's been a long time since I'd read/seen something typewritten. I thought about how I should respond. I thought about using my own typewriter (a Royal Futura 800, gifted to me by my friend Justin) but after a long side eye from the wife, I decided to just send him an email in return. But it did get me thinking about typewriters and the tools we use to write. 

When you think about it, until relatively recently most "writing" was done on typewriters. There are still some writers that still use typewriters not unlike my Futura or Brian's Corona. And we're talking about people that don't write small books. David McCullough, Robert Caro, Cormac McCarthy and even Danielle Steel. I think about my last post. How much of Wheel of Time was written on a typewriter? I mean great googly moogly, that's a lot of paper. That's a lot of ribbon. That's a lot of time. 

There's almost a romance to it. The sounds alone: the platen makes when you roll the paper in, the click-clack tapping of the keys, the typebar hitting the paper, the ding at the end of the line and the thunk of the carriage return lever. But there's also a sense of labor in typing. A sense of satisfaction by the end of the page that you've done the work. 

A few nights ago I fell down a rabbit hole, looking at pictures of famous writers/artists/celebrities and their typewriters. It was fascinating and interesting to see. This was the way people used to work. Computers for the purpose of word processing is a pretty new thing. One, I think, that we take for granted. It's made writing a novel something anyone can do anywhere they could do it. It's said that Stephen King was an early adopter of this digital revolution, using a Wang Word Processor by the early 80s. (A $12,000 piece of equipment at the time.) I read somewhere that King may have been the first author to have a novel published that was written entirely on a computer. (A simple Google search seems to refute this, but it's still a cool piece of mythology.)

Stephen King and his Wang

Besides paper and ink, I've only ever used computers, mostly using Microsoft Word. (I'm sure in my younger days we owned a typewriter and I tried to write using that, because that's what writers did in the late 80s/early 90s.) I've used other word processors. Google Docs is incredibly useful and a back up when I need it. I tried Scrivener but found it overwhelming. Even George RR Martin, one of my literary idols, uses Word Star 4.0, a 30 year old word processing program that runs on DOS and from what I've seen it looks almost as unwieldy as Scrivener. I've never had a huge issue with Word and I've grown accustomed to it. I have other friends that swear by other things. Some even use typewriters.