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.