A Reading from GOODBYE TO GRANDMA

 

Author Rob Kent reads seven chapters from his new middle grade novel, GOODBYE TO GRANDMA. Purchase your copy here: https://amzn.to/3Jk8v4A

About the book: A part of her would always be with me. Always.

When 11-year-old Hailey Smith attends her grandma’s funeral, she can’t cry, no matter how hard she tries. And she tries everything.

Hailey’s going to be a famous actress someday. Naturally, she gets the lead in the sixth-grade play. But she’s expected to cry in the third act.

On stage. In front of everyone.

How can she cry for a play when she couldn’t cry at her grandma’s funeral?

Goodbye to Grandma is the story of Hailey’s coming of age by coming to terms with the death of her grandmother.

An Afterword for GOODBYE TO GRANDMA

 

When you hold my novel in your hands, Esteemed Reader, you hold my beating heart. That’s true no matter which of my books you happen to be holding, even the adventure stories. There are chapters in all three Banneker Bones books I cannot read without tears threatening.

When you’re holding Goodbye to Grandma, you’re holding a much younger version of my heart. Yet, 20 years after its first draft, I still feel everything Hailey feels, and I still cry at multiple places in the story every time I read them. What may read for some as simple and unsophisticated in places is actually the faithful recording of my experiences at a time in my life when I myself was a bit simpler and less sophisticated.

Goodbye to Grandma is the most directly autobiographical of my books. All my stories contain autobiographical bits, whether I want them to or not. Whatever emotion I have a need to express at the time usually works its way in to my fiction, even if I don’t recognize it. That’s a big part of what makes fiction writing so satisfying and cathartic. Also, risky.

I’ve never blasted giant robot bees out of the sky whilst piloting a jetpack (alas) or even owned a pair of rollerblades (I’d fall and break things for sure). But my grandmother died when I was in the sixth grade and I could not cry at her funeral. I actually lived a version of the funeral scenes right down to touching my grandma’s lips and being attacked by a bee at her burial and yes, laughing hysterically in a way that the whole funeral parlor heard. I also played Nick Bottom in a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Mr. Laurence in a production of Little Women.

I suspect part of my motivation in choosing a female protagonist for this story was to throw off the reader’s suspicions that the character is me. Also, I really do remember being so flippant as to think “my last book, Jim’s Monster, stared a boy so this one should star a girl.” 20 years later, I’m okay with Esteemed Reader knowing I had so much trouble processing my grandmother’s death, but I’m rather attached to Hailey. I have an older sister and there’s quite a bit of me in Barry as well.

The Smith family Christmas is a good-ish approximation of a Kent family Christmas circa 1992 and Grandma Smith isn’t a character. When I see her in my mind, I still see Francis Kent, who came to our house every Christmas morning and most Saturday mornings with doughnuts. She really did let me watch rated-R movies and even took me to the theater to watch A Few Good Men at age 11 and I still clearly remember her face about an hour in as the gratuitous profanity dropped, yet the movie was so good we didn’t leave.

My grandmother’s love is one of my fondest childhood memories and I’ve carried it with me these many years. If there is an afterlife, at present, she’s the one I’m most looking forward to seeing. And her dying as I was in middle school and going through puberty is the clearest marker in my mind of the end of my childhood. I never again experienced Christmas as the same holiday it was when she was alive and I’ve missed her every Christmas since.

It’s good that I first wrote this novel 20 years ago when my memories of all my feelings from her funeral and from being in the sixth grade were still fresh in my head. That’s not the version published as I’ve rewritten this story many, many, MANY times over the years. But those core experiences have survived the many drafts, preserving what I wanted to express about grief then and what I still feel is worth expressing now. This is also the book that gained me representation by a literary agent and was very nearly my debut novel with a couple publishers, so I haven’t set out to do much rewriting now as not to fix what isn’t broken.

The reason I’ve revisited this story now, like checking in on an old friend, and the reason I decided to publish it 20 years later is that the secondary plot of Hailey’s evolving relationship with Grandma Richmond strikes me as more relevant now than it did when I first wrote it. I had another grandmother type in my life, though she wasn’t a biological relative, but Grandma Richmond is actually an amalgamation of some other relatives of mine who were openly racist. I’m a heterosexual white male from a mostly all-white Indiana town who grew up in the 1980s and 90s, but who thankfully had a library card and kept growing up after I left that town.

I have family members whom—as of the writing of this afterword—I have not spoken to since the presidency of Donald Trump. I was tempted to give Grandma Richmond a MAGA hat, but I didn’t because I don’t want to overshadow my beloved story with the existence of that heinous villain some of y’all felt fit to vote for as president. I mention him here only because two years after his presidency, I still can’t forgive his supporters.

I’ve heard all the reasons why people supported that terrible man and I understand some of them on an intellectual level, like, “if I were an uniformed person who thought television shows were real, I guess I would believe the guy from The Apprentice was good at business in spite of all the evidence he's just a born-rich criminal.” But no matter how hard I try to bend my mind, I just can’t see how it was possible to have supported that man without having also been a racist or at the very least, comfortable enough with racism to still be an enemy to my family. And I can’t accept the excuse, “I’m not a racist. I don’t personally hate anybody. I just want to support others who hate on my behalf.”

Goodbye to Grandma takes no explicit stance on religion or politics.  I’m not comfortable writing explicitly about religion for children. They’re still figuring out their own views as to the nature of God and as someone who was successfully brainwashed (for a time) in my youth, I’m careful not to do the same to my young readers.

On the other hand, full disclosure: I'm only alive to publish this book as a month ago I should've definitely, absolutely died and didn't due to a set of circumstances I can only attribute to divine intervention. The number of coincidences I'd have to explain away becomes too improbable for serious consideration. And it's my third miraculous experience, though I imagine there've been far more that were simply less obvious. Suffice it to say, I'm done flirting with atheism.

I hope it’s possible to read this book as a believer or an atheist without either view being challenged. Hailey’s story is about loss and grief and that’s universal, whatever you believe happens or doesn’t happen after death. When Hailey’s father tells her that her dead neighbor’s soul is on its way to Heaven, it’s because that’s what my father told me, it’s what a lot of Indiana parents tell their children, and it’s a nice thought. Not to acknowledge the reality of religious culture in the story’s setting would be too great an omission, I think. But when my grandmother died, all the thoughts of her in Heaven didn’t stop me from wanting her here and they didn’t help me to process the loss any differently. Gone is gone.

Hailey doesn’t care about politics and neither does this story. The issue is racism. I’m not in favor of it, of course (see the Banneker Bones trilogy), nor do I feel it should be condoned. But I was raised to hate the sin and love the sinner and I still feel that’s mostly a good idea.

I don’t think Grandma Richmond is necessarily rehabilitated in this story in a lasting way and I don’t think the Roosevelt family will be present for her next party. But I can see Grandma Richmond is trying, and that’s not nothing. I don’t know, since the story ends before we get there, that Hailey and Grandma Richmond are going to have a lasting relationship (that’s a question for Esteemed Reader to resolve). I know only that Hailey is doing her best to be open to such a relationship because that’s what her Grandma Smith taught her and one of the ways in which Grandma Smith lives on.

And that, whatever else may come to pass, is beautiful and worthy of celebration.

A Reading from ROB WORM'S BIRD ADVENTURE

Author Rob Kent reads seven chapters from his new middle grade novel, ROB WORM'S BIRD ADVENTURE. Purchase your copy here: https://amzn.to/3Jesu4U

About the book: With nonstop action, adventure, and humor, this thrilling tale will have 7- to 11-year-old readers wriggling on the edge of their tails! After an early spring rain, Rob Worm’s bunch burrows to the surface to enjoy the mud. At 9-and-a-half months old (10 years in human time), Rob has been deep underground over half his life. He yearns for adventure and can’t wait to see the surface! Unfortunately, a robin can’t wait to see him. When Rob pushes his best friend to safety, the robin scoops him up instead and carries him off to feed to her hatchling. Rob wriggles free but is dropped on the roof of a human house. To get home to his bunch, Rob Worm is going to have to first get down, and then contend with a nest of nasty yellowjackets, fierce colonies of warring ants, a crafty spider, sizzling hot cement, and a pond filled with hungry koi, all while being pursued by a revenge-seeking robin.

An Afterword for ROB WORM'S BIRD ADVENTURE

The original draft of Rob Worm’s Bird Adventure—which came with your book—was published by my 5th Grade class in 1991. I’d been drawing Rob Worm on every scrap of paper and been thinking about him for at least a year, so forever. 

I was so in love with the idea of writing a book about my best character named after me, I dedicated it to him. My best friend in that same class dedicated his book to me. Awkward. As we remained best friends well past the birth of our own children, it remains awkward:) And my enthusiasm for Rob Worm remains undiminished.

There've been many reimagining's of the original story, but the second draft of consequence was written in college. It was dedicated to the same best friend from third grade who grew up to be an excellent artist. We spent a lot of late nights at coffeeshops, him illustrating as I wrote and I don’t believe I’ve ever enjoyed writing more than I did when I was young and assumed everything I ever wrote was brilliant (naturally)… or needed some minor grammar checks, but was otherwise perfect.

This most recent draft of the story was written during a pandemic. That was one reason revisiting Rob Worm was so interesting to me. There’s no room for politics or thoughts about Covid-19 in a story about animal characters who happen to talk, but are mostly animals. Rob's world gave me a badly needed break from the one I was living in.

I wrote Banneker Bones and the Cyborg Conspiracy assuming it was my last novel. Banneker 3 was meant to be my sign off, a pretty good spot to end, and I couldn’t complain as I’d written my most urgent novels and enjoyed much of my writing life. 

And then I got vaccinated and found myself in a position to write some more… if I wanted to. Who knows how long a golden opportunity like this might last? After the madness of 2020, who knows how long anything might last?

And was Banneker Bones 3 REALLY the last book I had to write? REALLY? Seems like I forgot something... I was sitting on my patio thinking this thought while working on my author podcast and updating my author website, because, ya know, I was done being an author:) And behold, at the start of spring, I saw a robin pulling a worm out of the ground in my backyard. Like Bruce Wayne seeing a bat fluttering through his open window, I knew what I must do!!!

I had the concept for this newest version of Rob Worm's Bird Adventure in my mind almost immediately. It would be set in a backyard like mine, but with a koi pond and other worm hazards, and it wouldn’t be realistic, exactly, but it would be realistic enough that I could include a bunch of animal facts—the sort of facts I would've obsessed over as a child. And the sort of facts I could utilize in a presentation during a school visit. Regularly chatting with amazing professional authors on a podcast teaches even a dummy like me a few things.

I wrote a solid chunk of the novel while leading a fiction workshop, which is how I do a lot of my writing these days. I tried some very different versions of the story while I was deciding the rules of this new Rob Worm, who did not surf, as he did in the original version, or ride a horsefly through a swamp full of frogs, as he did in a favorite scene from the version written when I was in college. But he did go over a waterfall in a gutter, which I think is very cool, and which neither of the previous Rob Worms did.

I even tried a version of the story called Wym Worm so the protagonist wouldn't have my name, but it just wasn’t the same. When I made that change, I made no forward progress until I changed his name back to Rob. That’s his name. Fifth grade me made that call, college me was fine with it, and adult me can think of him as having no other name. It would be easier to publish under a pen name than change the name of the worm I’ve been thinking about on and off since I was eleven. His best friend is Buzz Fly, who has been his best friend since the first rewrite I did in the 6th grade.

I’ve written many, many, MANY versions of this story over the years, including a Tarantino-esque version where the scenes were out of order and the language was inappropriate for everyone. There were several screenplay versions and a poem version. The college version was planned as a full trilogy. I drafted as far as two-thirds of the second book while racking enough rejection letters for the first to assure me it was time to write something else.

Eventually, large parts of the college version were repurposed for the Banneker Bones trilogy, which was its spiritual successor. Rather than being nabbed by giant robot bees, at one point Rob's worm friends were nabbed by Bernie the bird and Rob and Buzz had to rescue them. Having now written a couple books about Banneker Bones rescuing kidnapped friends, I didn’t want to do that again.

Of the two earlier versions of me adult me is attempting to reconcile, I’m more inclined to listen to 11-year-old me. I like to imagine the three of us meeting to discuss the new version of our one true story, the one we carried all this way for all these years. I don’t approve of a lot of the choices college me is making and I wish he’d put out that cigarette. Or give me one for old time's sake:). But that’s okay, he’s not entirely impressed by me and he wants to know why we’re not more famous. Although he probably thinks it’s amazing I found a woman who loved me enough to marry me. Fifth grade me is more interested in the fact that he’s going to grow up to own a virtual reality helmet. And he also wants to know why we’re not more famous.

It’s fifth grade me I’ve deferred to for most story decisions. He had a vision and these many years later, I think it mostly holds up. I’ve listened to bits of the soundtracks from Indiana Jones and  Jurassic Park films as those were the types of stories Rob Worm was supposed to belong beside. The dried driveway worms are a reference to Indy's mummies and Rob seeing Beatrix for the first time is very reminiscent of Tim Murphy admiring a T-Rex charging the gallimimus.  There isn’t a romantic subplot because fifth grade me wasn’t interested in romance. He wanted big adventure and fun, and college me occasionally forgot those things.

5th grade me's version of the story is sarcastic and talks to the reader in a snarky-ish tone because he’s imitating his favorite author, Roald Dahl. There’s a reference to The Birds because that movie scared him, and, more interesting, he knows it really scared some adults. He’s included a line about coal because a similar line in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off really made his parents laugh. He writes, “on this morning a new life form approached our world” because he’s imitating the melodramatic opening of Little Shop of Horrors and the Audrey II has been giving him nightmares.

That’s one of the ways I know that kid wrote a horror story. Obviously, it’s an adventure (it’s right there in the title). But Rob Worm is taken away against his will, has to be cunning twice to escape two monsters intent on eating him, and then he’s cast aside onto a sizzling hot driveway, barely able to escape. Esteemed Reader, that’s a friendly horror story, not unlike the sort Roald Dahl wrote. It’s Crawl, but with birds:)

I’ve done my best to honor young me’s original vision. I don’t think he’d like the two older hims messing with his story—why don’t they write their own!?! For this reason, I’ve included many of the major plot points from his book. I even made sure to have Rob Worm slide along in water in two separate scenes, as close as I could get to having him “surf” in a realistic-ish framing.

Fifth grade me would appreciate my efforts, I think, especially since I’ve made his unchanged original version available. I even did my best to preserve some of his narrative voice. I’m too American to go full Roald Dahl, but I included some of Dahl’s invented words and directly addressed the reader in a snarky tone. I responded well to that as a young reader, especially in a “scarier” story, because if the narrator plays with the reader, I was assured he would be there during the frightening bits as well. That way the story wouldn’t be too scary (this isn’t a Robert Kent book).

Adult me really enjoyed learning all the animal facts present in this story. Thinking of humanity as an animal population has given me quite a bit of perspective on things. 

Adult me also likes messing with the reader, who I call Esteemed Reader for the first time in a book as though it's just a long blog post. I'm gleefully reminding Esteemed Reader that this is a story throughout and Chapter 24, "How Yellow Was My Jacket," might be my favorite joke in any book I've written. I know fifth grade me would've delighted at such flagrant rule breaking in the middle of a story. And adult me is really pushing this idea of the thematic importance of perspective and wants to remind Esteemed Reader that the narrator has his own perspective.

I don’t actually have a clean version of college me’s draft and that’s just as well. I wouldn’t share it if I did and you wouldn’t want to read it. My retroactive apologies to those who did. It was typed on a classic Macintosh machine I no longer own. I do, however, have multiple binders filled with paper copies of drafts with handwritten notes and corrections.

A lot of cigarettes were smoked and a lot of two liters of Mountain Dew were drank to produce that draft. So much harm was done to my body because I was stupid enough to believe that suffering for my art made it great. It isn’t so. College me had a head full of bad ideas, but in his defense, he was still shellshocked from the trauma of middle school and high school and he’d recently had his heart profoundly broken.

That’s the draft where a father bird was introduced to argue with the momma bird and fictionally resolve a relationship I’d had. His name was Bernie and he dies in the new version before the story begins because fifth-grade me liked tragic openings and adult me isn’t interested in revisiting that old heartbreak when so many really wonderful things have happened since, such as my obtaining a virtual reality helmet.

College me’s draft is tonally all over the place and shows a frequent disregard for spelling and grammar. There are sections far too intense for children as he was imitating his favorite author, Stephen King. And there are references to literature strewn about because he was reading the classics, but all of them are clumsy attempts to impress… someone? In the sequel, there’s a plot about worm religion because college me is working out some things from childhood that definitely will not be fully resolved by his graduation... or the present:)

The draft I worked from had notes made by a girl I was in love with who was not so enthusiastic about me. Those notes make me cringe the most, humiliated for myself all over again. She was kind enough to provide some really excellent story feedback, however. And she inspired me to be better.

College me got blasted with rejection letters that I hung on my wall. It finally began to get through my thick skull that maybe, just maybe, my book wasn’t perfect the first time. Maybe, if I was going to be the sort of writer people read, I was going to have to write better books. And maybe, if I wanted the girls to like me back, I needed to respect myself more than I did.

Before I judge past me too harshly, I do well to remember he did get a gym membership and stopped drinking Mountain Dew. He could’ve done a lot of things better, but he did get me here by not doing EVERYTHING wrong. 

It’s his opening sentence that opens the newest version of Rob Worm’s Bird Adventure. He really liked the word "dark" and I guess I do too. A version of the ants (who used to be beetles) and the koi were his idea, he named the spider Kalegwa, and there are some other elements of his creation I've honored as well. But his version of the story was about humans with human problems who happened to be animal shaped, and so much of it was unusable. In his world, some worms are pirates and a peg tail is still a funny gag, but it doesn’t work in a “real world” scenario. 

I did like his version of the main characters, though. His Rob Worm is very much Ellicott Skullworth and his Buzz Fly is a version of Banneker Bones and I think he'd be happy about that. A version of the trilogy he envisioned eventually came to be.

Time spent writing is never time wasted. It all comes into play in some fashion. Neither the actual Rob nor the fictional one would be here without those Robs from the past. And future Robs, if you’re reading this, I hope you’ll think I set you up nicely. And I hope you’re still telling stories. If you’re able, I know you are. And with the knowledge that we finally created a version of this story we can all agree on.

Mostly:)

Cover Reveal: ROB WORM'S BIRD ADVENTURE by Rob Kent

 

With nonstop action, adventure, and humor, this thrilling tale will have 7- to 11-year-old readers wriggling on the edge of their tails!

After an early spring rain, Rob Worm’s bunch burrows to the surface to enjoy the mud. At 9-and-a-half months old (10 years in human time), Rob has been deep underground over half his life. He yearns for adventure and can’t wait to see the surface! Unfortunately, a robin can’t wait to see him.

When Rob pushes his best friend to safety, the robin scoops him up instead and carries him off to feed to her hatchling. Rob wriggles free but is dropped on the roof of a human house.

To get home to his bunch, Rob Worm is going to have to first get down, and then contend with a nest of nasty yellowjackets, fierce colonies of warring ants, a crafty spider, sizzling hot cement, and a pond filled with hungry koi, all while being pursued by a revenge-seeking robin.

Available 3/23/23

It's going to be a great year, Esteemed Reader. I can't wait to share this book with you and to tell you more about it the closer we get to launch. I could never choose an absolute favorite story I've told, but this one will have to duke it out with the Banneker Bones trilogy for the top spot, and it would be a close fight. And really, I love them both so, so much (and all the rest of my books, of course).

For today, I just want to bask in the beauty of Steven Novak's incredible cover. Steven has designed all my covers and I wear his designs on my shirts and plaster them on mugs and light switch covers because I love them with my whole heart. He's an amazing artist and I'm humbled his breathtaking work has so frequently had my name on it.

This cover in particular is something really special. It makes me smile the biggest, happiest smile every time I look at it. It's just so bright and colorful and good natured and it makes me hope the story that is to follow lives up to it. It's certainly an improvement over the first version of the cover I drew in the fifth grade when I was 11 and thought naming the main character after myself was an inspired idea.

An Afterword for BANNEKER BONES AND THE CYBORG CONSPIRACY

Esteemed Reader, if you haven't read the Banneker Bones books yet, that's cool. This is mostly going to be a post about writing that anyone could read as I'll avoid any major spoilers.

But seriously, when you get time, read those books:) I'll give you the first one free.

This afterword will probably mean more to those of you who have read the books and if I'm honest, you Esteemed Readers mean mean a little more to me:) I love every book I've published (written is a different story), but I love the Banneker Bones books the most.

For all that love, these have been my hardest books to write, and this third and final(ish) Banneker Bones story was the most difficult book I've ever written. That's not entirely its fault. When I started working on this book, neither the book nor I knew we'd be working together during 2020.

And that is how I think of my relationship with my books. It's never just me and my input in a story. You wouldn't want to read it if it was. Each story has its own demands that must be met and its own tone with which it must be told. 

Because Banneker Bones and the Alligator People ended on a major cliffhanger, a lot of the early chapters in this third book had to devote their time not only to resolving the events of the previous books, but exploring their ramifications. Even in a mostly fun adventure story, I have to treat grief seriously. To do less would be to cheat Esteemed Reader. Though I tried not to dwell on it.

Is Banneker Bones and the Cyborg Conspiracy the end of The And Then Story? Not a chance. Banneker Bones and Ellicott Skullworth have plenty of adventures ahead of them.

Am I actually going to write them? That remains to be seen. I'd like to and on a long-enough time line, I probably will. But after a long break. Again, for all the fun I've had with our heroes and their villains, these books are super challenging to write.

Whatever Banneker book ends up being the last one I write, it will end on a cliffhanger. This is The And Then Story, as in, And Then something else happened. Always. 

But this wouldn't be a bad last book. A trilogy is perfectly respectable for a series and I like where everybody ends up at its conclusion. If I never write Banneker Bones 4, I'd still feel like I'd done right by my characters and told enough of their story to imply the rest.

On the other hand, there certainly is room for more story. And the nice thing about being this far along in a series is I feel I have a little more liberty than usual--not much, but some. For instance, this third book is the longest yet, and the second book was already getting a little long for middle grade. But I figure returning readers might like a little more book and a series has a way of getting more complicated and requiring more story as it goes.

This book also features chapters written from an adult's perspective. There's not many of them (8 out of 77), and they're mostly very short, but I wouldn't pull that sort of move in a standalone middle grade book. One chapter (27), not one of the short ones, is backstory we arguably don't need to understand the present story. It's indulgent in an already long book, but it fully realizes my character, compliments my theme, and deepens the story. I figure if Esteemed Reader is back for thirds, they also want a deeper story, so I'm giving them my Snyder Cut.

Banneker Bones and the Cyborg Conspiracy was always meant to read like a waking nightmare for our heroes. The fact that its author happened to be living through the actual nightmare of 2020 enhanced this. But the inherent darker aspects of the story were in early drafts planned as far back as 2009 (there was always going to be a chapter titled "virtual school" even before I lived it).

Banneker Bones and the Alligator People was a pretty dark story, especially toward the end, but I believe the third act is where our heroes should be MOST tested. I've got an inkling for a fourth adventure, but I didn't hold anything back for it. I wanted to throw everything there was at the boys to see if they could be broken.

Unlike the first two adventures where the boys discovered new "monsters" and spent many a delightful chapter being chased by and doing battle with them, this third story is different. I wanted Banneker and Ellicott to face an enemy so powerful, they couldn't beat it. And I wanted this enemy to go after them specifically in a very personal way. And I wanted it to hurt them worse than they've been hurt before (and I've already spent two books hurting them). I wanted to see how'd they'd do when pushed to their point of breaking.

The first draft was too mean and played too rough. There was a lot of blood in that draft and far more violence than in the final version. This is where I thank God for my critique partners Shannon Alexander, Laura Martin, August Mugele, and Ed Cho, who reminded me that although this is a series intended for everyone, a lot of children read it:)

Without spoiling, I let this new(ish) monster really, really hurt the boys. I'm not writing Hunger Games here, but after two books, I wanted to raise the stakes. I made the boys' injuries so central to the plot that I couldn't chicken out and remove them later. I get messages from children who've read the first two books, some as young as eight (a bit younger than I would've imagined) and I know they're looking forward to this third installment. I read these books to my son, who's seven. 

I'm aware I'm pushing a boundary in this third book that will make some ADULT readers uncomfortable.

There's nothing so dark in this story that I think it will be harmful for a young reader or I wouldn't have published it. I think a lot of my younger (but every bit as esteemed) readers will love this book more because of the particular scene in question. The violence is implied rather than shown and is actually less violent than something that happens at the end of the previous book, which all of the readers in question will have presumably finished.

I've frequently reminisced about my joy in reading The Witches by Roald Dahl as a child. Much of my joy in that book came from the fact that the witches were actually scary, not just pretend, play-it-safe-for-baby scary, as evidenced by the way they actually harmed their victims rather than merely scaring them. Also, the story's blatant sexism and other problematic elements didn't bother me as a child since I didn't pick up on them until my adult years (you try growing up white and male in a small Indiana town in the 1980s surrounded by that culture, on a diet of that media, and then determine true north your first at-bat).

Anyway, we were discussing a book I wrote:) For a third book in a series, I feel it's important to raise the stakes. For this reason alone, Esteemed Reader should hope I don't write a fourth book. Who knows what I might do to our heroes next?

I want Esteemed Reader as nervous for our heroes as I was for the boy in the back of the hotel's grand hall surrounded by all those witches. Dahl didn't hurt that boy, the witches did. I didn't hurt our heroes. the (spoiler) did. However, Dahl showed me he meant business. He wasn't going to patronize me just because I was reading "a kid's book." He took his story, and more importantly, his reader, seriously. And I so appreciated it, I was a loyal reader then and I defend him now (read around the sexism and racism, or use them as a point of discussion).

Speaking of sexism, I got an email from a woman who was reading Banneker 2 each night with her son telling me how excited she was to encounter "the queen of the alligator people." I adore all messages from readers, but I particularly enjoyed this one as introducing strong female characters is something I've been consciously doing since the first book, and not just heroes.

The first book is very boy centric. I started with two boys forming a friendship because that's the sort of friendship I had and remember fondly from my own youth. I always wanted the villain to be a rich white man ala Lex Luthor and Kingpin because those sorts of villains actually exist. Reggie was nearly a girl, but Reggie's main plot function for two books is to be in need of rescuing, and I didn't think it was fair to saddle the lone girl character with that. 

So I settled for working in strong female characters in everywhere I could. Both the boys' mothers are admirable in different ways, Grandma Juanita's my favorite, and Ling always makes me smile. In Book 2, I added in more strong female characters and continued that through Book 3. If there is a book 4, I expect Padma Perkins to play a much larger role and I think Marianna Morales will continue to rise in status as Latimer City's number one reporter as Chip Lieberman fades into obscurity. 

One regret, however, is that I should've made the President in Book 1 a woman. The reason I didn't is because he started out as an actual President and then got revised to a fictional one (definitely the right call, thanks Uwe Stender for the suggestion). Still, it's been bugging me since that book was published, enough so that there's a tiny subplot around the election of a new President in this third book. Not to descend into politics, but I feel Elizabeth Warren was the best candidate for President we've ever had (if you feel differently, I don't care, it's fine, my Indiana vote didn't count in any primaries anyway). I hate the way the media treated her and the manner in which I frequently heard so brilliant a leader unfairly disparaged. 

My main motivation is always to tell a good story I think Esteemed Reader will enjoy, but fiction is political even if it tries not to be. I've made no secret of the fact that one of my secondary motivations for writing Banneker was to normalize adventures about an interracial family without directly addressing issues of race--who has time to worry about that stuff when giant robot bugs keep attacking:) But while I'm at it, I also wanted to normalize women in positions of power and neurodiversity and, perhaps most urgently, alligator people (among other concerns).

One other reason for me to consider stepping away from this series permanently is that technology moves almost faster than I can imagine and write. When I wrote the very first draft of Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees, Ellicott's beloved Jukebook was a tablet that could hold any book. Thassit. That was the miraculous device I yearned to own in a futuristic world... and then a Kindle released in November of that year and I had to think of more advanced things for the Jukebook to do.

Between virtual reality and augmented reality, I suspect the lovely videogames my characters play on their holocoputer will seem quant within my lifetime (fine with me, gimme them games). Robots are advancing in ways I did not foresee, and I suspect I'm wrong about a whole lot of other stuff. That's okay, we had fun. 

So, it's at least possible the ending of this third book is my stop, where I'll get off and you'll continue on without me. This most recent cliffhanger ending opens up all sorts of interesting possibilities, doesn't it? If I come back for more, I'll not lack for opportunities for new adventures.

But maybe it's better if you do it, Esteemed Reader. Why not? You've been half the team all along.

That's how this works. Me writing things down doesn't do any good unless you imagine them with me and create Banneker's world in your mind. All the pieces of that world we created together are still there. What do you think happens next, Esteemed Reader? I bet that story is at least as interesting as anything I could come up with and probably more so.

Here, I'll start you off: And then...

Introducing YouTube Middle Grade Ninja Clips

Want to win a free copy of The Miraculous and read an interview with author Jess Redman? Of course you do! Head on over to Literary Rambles and treat yo self.

Esteemed Reader, I just did something for you. Now I need you to do something for me:) Don't worry, it's really easy and free.

All I'm asking is that you go to my YouTube Channel and subscribe for free.

That's it.

Now I know what you're thinking: Ninja, I already read your blog. Maybe I've read it for years. I even read a couple of your books. Maybe I'm subscribed to your free monthly newsletter. I haven't followed you on Twitter yet, but I'm gonna.

I appreciate your continued support, Esteemed Reader. I'm asking you to subscribe to my YouTube channel (and the podcast, wherever you get your podcasts) not for me, or rather, not just for me. I'm asking you to help grow this platform so that I can promote authors and reading to an ever wider audience.

Sure, I promote my books as well. Of course I do. In fact, I tend to error on the side of having folks think, "that man was a bit obnoxiously overzealous about his books," rather than think, "what a nice ninja fellow! I wonder if he's written anything?"

And I'm too slow a writer to fulfill Esteemed Reader's reading needs by myself. I need Esteemed Reader reading lots of books to ensure they're ready to keep reading when my next book finally comes out. Also, I genuinely believe with my full heart that the world is made better by more people reading and thinking.

So help me out and spread the word. If you know somebody in your life who likes books, tell them to check out this site and the podcast as well.

And I'm doing my part. I'm slowly breaking up the 1-2 hour podcast videos into shorter, easier-to-digest clips. I like the interviews I'm conducting to be long and recorded live because we learn so much more than we would in a shorter format. However, I don't want to intimidate folks who might otherwise be interested. So I'll be offering shorter clips in the hopes of tempting people to watch or listen to the full interviews.

Here's a taste of some of the clips available so far:

An Afterword for BANNEKER BONES AND THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE

I love all my published works, Esteemed Reader (you never get to read the ones I don't love), but Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees is my favorite. I've never made a secret of that. It was a love story I wrote for my wife when we were younger and I've got a lot of pleasant memories tied up in the writing of that book. But I also just plain love the characters and the story and there are several jokes that always make me laugh.

That said, I think I love Banneker's second adventure as much as his first. They're different parts of the same story and I'm looking forward to completing Banneker's third adventure. I love this world and am always happy to check in on the residents of 221 Garrett Street.

I'm going to share with you some of my experiences writing the novel, and some of them will include SPOILERS, because this is an afterword, to be read AFTER you've read the book.

The nice thing about a sequel is that I don't have to spend as much time defining the characters and their universe. This means:

1. We can hit the ground running after a brief recap of the first book, which ended on a dramatic reveal (my favorite sort of ending). This second book opens with the momentum of our characters already in direct conflict with the villain.

2. I had some nifty plot ideas and suspense techniques that could only be done in a second book, and only with these particular characters. I don't know how many Banneker books I'll get to write before I'm done, but I'm not saving anything for later. I've tried to make the best use of all the toys at my disposal in the Latimer City universe.

3. Since we've previously been introduced, we can really get to know these characters this time around. Ellicott Skullworth is still our perspective character, but Banneker is much more the proper, front-and-center hero of this second book with his name in the title. Because he decided to terrorize Ellicott for much of the first installment, we didn't get to spend as much time with Banneker as I would've liked, though he's always been my favorite. His decision was also responsible for delaying the planned appearance of the alligator people from the first adventure to the second.

4. I can get up to some of my favorite tricks from the first book. There are plenty references to Mrs. Kent's childhood black history flashcards, just as there were in the first book, and plenty of references to Batman, though by far my favorite reference is to an obscure line from Jurassic Park (I always credit the stories I owe and, of course, the Formula Eighty Six is this world's version of a lysine contingency).

Stories are magical things—sometimes, they're also a lot of work—but sometimes ideas seem to magically find authors at just the right moment. Sometimes stories involve magic is going to more or less be the thesis of this afterword.

Therefore, I should clarify that "magic" is a word I may very well be substituting for "strange neurological processes occurring entirely within my mind that strike me as magical because I have only my own brain with which to interpret them." I may be making that substitution. Sure feels like magic.

It strikes me that it was during the campaign for Barrack Obama that I first began to imagine this story about an interracial family having adventures in a more hopeful comic-book universe. I started this second book shortly after I finished the first and the main plot points haven't varied much. However, I didn't seriously sit down to write Banneker 2 until after the "election" of Donald Trump.

For a while, I thought I might not write Banneker's second novel. In 2016, a wealthy egomaniac protagonist obsessed with what the media thinks about him struck me as significantly less funny than it had in 2014. And I hated that thought almost as much as I hated Mr. "Fine People On Both Sides." Maybe Donald Trump got to ruin America, but he didn't get to ruin my book or my love for Banneker.

I think I needed Banneker Bones more than he needed me this time around. The worst depression I ever suffered was probably in middle school—thank God I don't have to go through adolescence again—but a very bad depression took hold of me after Trump took office and American death eaters came crawling out of the woodwork. Something else happened I don't feel at liberty to discuss, but it led me to spend quite a bit of my time researching autism spectrum disorder and becoming more depressed.

The long break between Banneker's adventures was a blessing in disguise (a magical blessing?), because I didn't yet know what I needed to know to write the second book. What I discovered in studying ASD is that both I and Mrs. Ninja are somewhere on the spectrum. Many of my painfully awkward social interactions throughout my childhood started to make more sense.

Banneker is sort of a cartoonish version of young me (if I'd been more Batman-esque, and I really, really wanted to be). I also identify strongly with Ellicott, though they're both of them their own thing and I see a version of myself in every character. I just see more of myself in these two boys.

The word "autism" doesn't appear in this book and that's intentional. The definition of ASD is an evolving one and I firmly believe that if you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism. But as I was doing my research on neurological divergences, it occurred to me that Banneker was most certainly not neurotypical. And he never had been.

It amazed me to realize something about my character I hadn't known when writing his book, but it was staring me right in the face years later. The mystery of how Banneker's mind works is what finally pulled me back into his world and out of my depression. 

Because it was time for me to return to Latimer City. Because I needed Banneker to give me hope. Because I needed to know neurologically divergent people can do anything they want. They can even be heroic detectives who do battle with alligator people. Of course they can.

My original desire in writing the first Banneker was (in part) to write about an interracial family and not have it not be a thing. In this second book, I'm writing about two such families and it's still not a thing. I want to do the same for neurological divergence. "Yes, there are all sorts of different people in this world," I want Esteemed Reader to say, "but who cares about that. Get on with the alligator people chases and the over-the-top comedic adventures."

I hope Banneker's fans are pleased with his second adventure, but this was a book its author needed more than anyone. I have a lot of writer friends (I'm always looking to make more). A few of them talk money every time I see them, and that's cool (I like money). But if it's money we're  primarily after, why aren't we speculating on bonds instead of writing books? 

Personally, I get more excited about readers and finding more of them. The experience of this book in particular reminded me that the act of creation is its own reward. If Banneker Bones and the Alligator People was never read by anyone and never made any money, the act of creating it would still be one of the more rewarding experiences of my life.

Writing fulfills something vital in me; its compensation is considerable.

That said, Banneker 2 was a very hard book to write. Here's an entire post about how difficult I found its writing and editing to be. One Banneker Bones novel took me almost as much time to write as five volumes of The Book of David. Partly, that was because I was also plotting Banneker Bones 3, but mostly it was because I, a fellow who insists on calling himself a Middle Grade Ninja, was relearning how to write middle grade.

I've always thought All Together Now: A Zombie Story reads like a horror story written by a middle grade author because it was my follow-up to Banneker 1 and some other as-of-yet unpublished middle grade works. Banneker 2 reads a little like a middle grade book written by a horror author, as this description makes clear:

     Ellicott flew in the opposite direction, the headlights from his jetpack leading the way until they caught on the corpse of an animal laying on the cement walkway. The animal was too long dead for Ellicott to know what it had been.
     A rat perched atop it, the dead animal’s decayed eyeball lodged in its mouth. The rat tugged against the cords connecting the eye to its socket to break their hold the way Ellicott might've bitten a cherry from its stem. When the jetpack’s beams swept across it, the rat leapt into the river of sewage with a panicked squeak and swam away to enjoy the eyeball elsewhere.
     Ellicott swallowed the bile that rose in his throat and flew past the animal.

For the record, author Laura Martin tried to convince me to cut that selection. But a description like that one would've endeared a writer to my heart at age eleven, so it stayed in as did some other creepy stuff (children like to be scared as surely as adults do, which is one reason The Witches was my favorite book growing up).

I loves me a scary monster. I often joke that the way I decide whether what I'm writing is middle grade or adult fiction is by the scariness of the story's monster. That's not entirely true as giant robot bees remain the monster that most scares me, but it's not not true. Alligator people are monsters I've been imagining/dreading since I was a child and Banneker's world is one of the only places I can play with them. Bonkers monsters benefit from a bonkers world to inhabit.

But we were discussing magic in writing and I find I encounter it the same when writing for adults as surely as when writing for a broader audience. If you're reading this afterword before reading the book, I'm operating under the assumption that you're either never going to read it or you don't mind spoilers, which is good, because here comes a huge spoiler:

I always knew I wanted to have a countdown to build suspense around the big death at the end of this story. I love plot puzzles, and few have so intrigued me as the one featured in the second season of Breaking Bad. Several episodes in that season open with black and white epilogues of strewn wreckage without context, most notably a one-eyed pink bear. The epilogues all come together and make sense only after the season finale. It's one of the finest story-telling devices I've ever seen deployed with expert precision and I've been looking for a place to re-purpose (steal) it ever since.

Banneker Bones 2 was the perfect spot for this as 1. The story has a dramatic ending worthy of being built up to with non-sequitur flash-forwards. 2. Much of Banneker's age-appropriate audience hasn't seen Breaking Bad, so this will be new to them and I'll appear smarter than I am:)

I knew going in that I was going to write flash-forwards of Banneker's smoldering clothing being recovered across Latimer City after a devastating explosion. I also knew that the date I was counting down to was Halloween, because you can't pick a more distinct date for a  middle grade monster story. Banneker is the best character I've written to use for this plot puzzle as he has the most distinct costume. Halloween is a good date. I patted myself on the back as it was a good plot device well deployed.

I was more than halfway through my first draft when it finally occurred to me that Ellicott should dress as Banneker for Halloween. It made sense as Ellicott doesn't have a costume otherwise and it's the perfect suspense accelerate, because if both Banneker and Ellicott are dressed alike, there's no way for the reader to know which of them gets blown up and has their clothes strewn about in the flash forwards. A second set of the same clothing also makes sense because Banneker has multiple sets of the same outfit and this also takes care of other nagging plot questions not otherwise addressed.

It is, I'm pleased (perhaps overly so) to say, the perfect plot device perfectly suited to this story and no other.

This is, for me, both the thrill of writing and the horror of functioning on my brain for all other activities:) Dressing Ellicott as Banneker to heighten suspense in the third act is very exciting. It's also a very obvious maneuver, but apparently not to me. You have nothing to go on but my word, Esteemed Reader, but I assure you, it never occurred to me to dress our heroes alike until I'd already written more than half the book and several flash forwards.

It really seems like the idea should have come whole formed as all its elements are clearly of apiece. But that's not what happened. It could be my subconscious mind had already outlined the story and my conscious mind needed to catch up. Or it could be the secret, invisible muse hadn't whispered the additional plot details in my ear until I needed to know them. Or it could just be that my mind plays tricks on me due to atypical wiring that allows me to complete an entire novel, but apparently not understand it beforehand (or always remember to pay my power bill, which is why Mrs. Kent is in charge of that).

What I'm saying, Esteemed Reader, is: that's weird, right? Maybe even a little magical. I honestly don't have much else to say on the subject. I'm both pleased to know I can trust my writer's mind to produce a story on blind faith and know that it will work when I'm finished, and horrified that I didn't put my puzzle together until shockingly late in the game.

And that's about it for this afterword, I think, except for two things: I really, really like Bob Dylan. If you also like Bob Dylan, you probably picked up on that while reading the book. For many years, I didn't cop to this fact because I hate how cliché it feels: oh, you're a writer type with a liberal arts degree in an interracial marriage who goes to farmers markets, has a mostly dormant cigarette habit, and you listen to Bob Dylan? Do you also like Tom Waits and Tori Amos and Kurt Vonnegut while wearing glasses with distinct writer-ly frames you walking cartoon character?

As a matter of fact, I do like those things. I'm going to be 40 this year and I don't care what others think so much anymore. I love Bob Dylan, I think his music is the right vibe for this story, and if that makes me a cliché, I'm at least a happy one:)

I also really love Batman (and hate the writing of Ayn Rand), which I've admitted to previously. But I think these two things are even more apparent in this second novel than they were in the first (Ayn the pug originally appeared in an early draft of book one). I'm still a Bob Kane fan (I wore all black the day he died), but I've had to reevaluate my admiration of the man since the many revelations of how integral Bill Finger actually was in the creation of my favorite fictional character have come to light since I wrote the first Banneker. Thinking about Kane screwing over his partner struck me as a perfect metaphor for this story and something I think more Batman fans should be aware of.

And that's it until the next book. I love this story and if you loved it too (you must've to have read this afterword), I love you also, Esteemed Reader. Thanks so much for allowing me to tell you my story. I hope you're interested in a third Banneker Bones adventure, because I sure am. Hopefully, we'll be talking about it here sooner rather than later.

BANNEKER BONES RETURNS

New book alert!!!

This post isn't a review or an interview or even an afterword (coming soon).

This is a post with the sole purpose of letting you that Banneker Bones and the Alligator People is now available for you to purchase here. (note: the paperback will become available later in the day in some regions)

If you haven't read the first book in the series, Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees is available to purchase here (the ebook is free to download).

What's that you say, Esteemed Reader? You want to hear me read the book to you? No, I'm not goin—okay, fine, but just three chapters. You can hear me read my book in the links below.

And now, so you won't feel like you wasted your click, here's some information about the book:

Eleven-year-old cousins Banneker Bones and Ellicott Skullworth are back in their second adventure. Picking up where Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees left off, our heroes are soaring through the air on jetpacks, as they do, when they spot a half man, half alligator that’s all terrifying. Naturally, they follow the alligator person deep into the sewers and are nearly eaten for their trouble.

Worse, no one believes the boys were attacked. Not the kids at school, not their parents, not even Banneker’s faithful robot butler. Banneker and Ellicott must prove the existence of alligator people to both vindicate themselves and once again save Latimer City from certain destruction.

For as Banneker warns TV reporter Chip Lieberman, "I don't want to alarm your viewers, Chip, but we may all die. This is the start of the alligator people apocalypse!"

Banneker Bones and the Alligator People is a humorous, science fiction adventure for readers of all ages written in the spirit of a comic book.



     It was dark, so Ellicott saw more of a shadow outline than an actual figure, but he saw enough. The creature had two thick legs and two arms, lean with leathery muscle like a dinosaur’s arms. He too was the size of a large man, but there was nothing human about his face.
     He raised his hideous head and opened his mouth wide, wider than any person ever could. In that long crack Ellicott glimpsed the jagged points of sharp teeth. The creature snarled and shook his snout.
     Something thick and scaly rose behind the creature’s back and whipped to the right, smashing another pane of glass the size of a four-story house.
     “He has a tail,” Banneker said, a grin spreading across his face. “Cool.”
     The first two security robots rolled into the street, each the same height as the creature. Their eyes lit up flashing red as they spoke. “Attention citizen, you’re vandalizing private property.”
     The creature roared, deep and guttural, and twitched his muscular tail. Now Ellicott could see he was dark green and looked more like an alligator walking upright than a dinosaur. The alligator person rounded on the robots, preparing for a fight.
     “This is going to be awesome!” Banneker cried.
     Ellicott groaned. “Why didn’t I stay in bed?”

Another Pound of Flesh: a Second Post About Editing

In 2011, I wrote an extremely popular post about editing when I thought I was done editing the first Banneker Bones book. Ha, ha, ha, me from the past, you still had ahead of you three years of polishing and notes from multiple agents and editors, some of which were helpful, all of which resulted in rewrites. In that post, I discussed the basics of editing and the importance of using an outline to determine which scenes are essential and which can be cut. 

That's one of my better posts and I stand by it. I'm not going to reiterate, but expand in this second post about another issue: writers getting themselves out of their own way. Today I want to talk about cutting out a different piece of our writer's heart: our burning message, the thing we came here to say. I've also got some other tips I've learned in the intervening eight years, as well as some common issues I've come across leading fiction workshops and reading student work.

Gamora asked Thanos after he did some heavy duty editing of his own, "What did it cost?" His answer, of course, was an anguished, "Everything." I don't believe there's a better metaphor I can steal from popular culture to describe how I feel after undergoing many, many, MANY drafts to create my ideal universe.

I would've once said Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees was the hardest book I ever wrote (and my favorite), but I think its sequel was harder to write. Or at least as hard. 

On the one hand, Banneker's first adventure was published in 2014, and I've grown as a writer since then. On the other hand, Banneker's second adventure is longer and more ambitious than the first, and bears the additional responsibility of setting the table for Banneker's third adventure (let us hope that one doesn't finally kill me). Life circumstances change and there are many other factors so that I cannot definitively say which book of mine was hardest to write and edit, but without a doubt, it was one of the Bannekers.

Why so hard, you ask? A number of reasons, among them the fact that I try to push myself toward a more ambitious project with each novel; otherwise, what's the point? Like a video game character, I level up my skills, but I choose projects that are a greater challenge. Paradoxically, though I'm improving at writing and editing, it doesn't seem to be getting much easier. I've just grown used to the process—though I am trying to speed it up.

The other issue, of course, is that I'm always me (have been all my life). I have consistent weaknesses in my writing as well as consistent strengths. I save my critiques for all my manuscripts and I record my critique group's discussions of my work and there are some similar criticisms that come up around every first or second draft. I usually nail plot beats and have to rethink character motivations. Other writers have different issues.

Knowing my weaknesses that seem to show up in nearly every first draft, no matter how hard I try to avoid them, hasn't lead me to a "how-terrible-is-wisdom" Oedipus Rex state in which I blind myself in despair... so far. Rather, it enables me to strategize ways in which I can save me from myself, with the help of my critique partners and beta readers.

So let's do some quick tips and then I'll share my biggest problem during my latest revision. My first tip is always to seek out a critique group and a professional editor who is not you. I'm just going to skip ahead to some tips for you to do once you've either secured editors or signed up for one of my fiction workshops.


Tip #1: Make a plan of attack. Gather all the feedback you've received on your draft, even if you're starting with just your own feedback, and break it down into individual steps. I like to use a list so I can cross off things such as:

Cut or shorten scooter scene.

Get rid of Reggie’s sketch pad. Replace it with a 3D holographic drawing tool, because of course. Or explain that he prefers paper.

Banneker needs to have a reaction to pug since he’s allergic to dogs.

Check how many times the word “crap” appears. Don’t overdo it. Same with “roar”

You can use a vision board or a multimedia presentation if you like just so long as you know how to achieve your goals for any one revision. A rewrite can be daunting, but if broken down to even 100 individual revisions that need to be made, there's a clear path for how to proceed, allowing you to put your anxiety aside and start knocking out tasks toward completion.


Tip #2: Invest in The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Publisi. I keep The Chicago Manual of Style at my writing desk and I find myself reaching for this book as frequently. I don't know the authors, I'm not getting a cut, I'm just a fan of the book. I don't use it when I'm drafting, but it's invaluable when I'm editing. Any time I find myself flatly stating the character's emotional state, I can search for a list of ways to SHOW that state. I don't always use what I find, but often looking at a list of possible physical expressions will trigger my mind to think up a way for me to SHOW rather than TELL.


Tip #3: Contractions are your friend. Unless you're writing dialogue for a character who wouldn't use a contraction or you have a sentence that genuinely sounds better with "would not" over "wouldn't," as in I would not have guessed 'wouldn't' wasn't a better word choice:) I like stories that can be read faster, which is why I'm always shortening anyplace I can. Contractions are an easy way to cut word count and to pick up the pace of your prose.


Tip #4: Keep a list of your known problem words and phrases. I keep a list of words I over use so I can search for and eliminate them before I turn in my final draft. 'That' is a word that can usually be cut. Some other offenders are 'just,' 'so,' 'quickly,' and 'frowning.' I also have to watch for characters doing too much smiling, nodding, eye rolling, or sighing. Some of these instances are allowed, but I space them out and cut unnecessary sighs, etc.


Tip #5: Save the sections you cut. This was a tip from my friend Laura Martin, who stuck with me through multiple revisions of Banneker Bones 2. At one point, that manuscript was over 130,000 words. The final version is just over 75,000. Banneker had some adventures that didn't make the final cut. Knowing they're safe in a file I can access any time to use in future books or blog posts (probably won't, but maybe) made cutting them out easier to take. I once used the discarded sections of one novel to make two entirely new novels.


That's it for the general stuff, which brings us to the somewhat more personal issues I encountered on my recent novel's journey. First off, I had to retrain myself to write middle grade after writing six books for adults since the first Banneker. Writing for children is much harder in many ways, among them that word counts are far more rigid. Prose for adults can allow for longer scenes and less economical word usage.

The first revisions I made to Banneker 2 were solely about sharpening my prose to a fine edge and cutting out most pretension—though some pretension is, for better or worse, a part of my author's voice. I kept most of the jokes that worked, scratched the ones that didn't, but the highfalutin sentences that were fancy for the sake of being fancy had to be broken up and reassembled into sentences that were easier to read (unlike this absurdly long sentence that could not be allowed to stand in a MG novel; in fact, this entire paragraph is too long).

Next came refining character motivations and strengthening their relationships to one another. This is something I struggle with in second and third drafts as my first draft is all about establishing the full plot and all the twists and turns and surprises that result in a satisfying ending without cheating to result in the novel I want. A critique partner refers to my early drafts as plot puzzles.

Before I build the full body of the car with the leather seats and all the fancy accouterments meant to comfort the passengers, I first make sure the engine is finely tuned. If the story doesn't work, all the beautifully written prose and well-defined characters in the world won't save a novel anymore than incredible special effects save a bad movie, though each can make a mediocre story more pleasant to endure. Even the angriest Phantom Menace detractors have to admit the Duel of the Fates lightsaber fight is cool, and I'll admit that the writing in Ulysses is interesting in its own (mostly obnoxious) way.

I enjoyed doing revisions and I didn't mind spending as much time as was necessary to get it right. Banneker Bones is my favorite of all my characters and this is the sequel to my favorite of my books. Banneker's story is the reason I call myself the Middle Grade Ninja instead of some other kind of ninja. My unwillingness to compromise Banneker's integrity is the reason I chose indie publishing over traditional. The  primary reason I do all the marketing I do is in the hope of getting Banneker's story into the hands of as many readers as I can.

I believe in Banneker Bones. His is the story I've most wanted to tell you. There are passages I can't read aloud without crying. When Esteemed Reader holds a Banneker book, they're holding my beating heart. And I sliced away whole chunks of it to ensure Esteemed Reader is holding the best possible version of my heart.

What did this book cost me to create? Everything.

Except, not quite. Not yet.  Thankfully, my critique partners kept me honest.

When a book is big and important to its author, its author likely wants to say something really important, or several things. All stories convey a message of some kind because the triumph or failure of the protagonist is accomplished with a value(s).

For example, Batman=really smart, really strong, and really brave (also a little nuts)=he wins (and so does justice!)=it is a winning strategy to be really smart, really strong, and really brave (also a little nuts), so come on, let's get nuts.

A problem arises when an author blatantly states his message, which I often do in my first and second drafts. This is useful to me as it keeps me mindful of why I'm writing what I'm writing, but these sections have to go before Esteemed Reader picks up the book. Even if the author stated just the right political sentiment in just the perfect way and it was totally awesome and now no one's going to read it because he had to cut it from the final draft. Save it for your blog, buddy:)

My friend Shannon Alexander, summarizing another author's advice—I think it might've been John Green, but I don't remember and most author advice is the passing on of knowledge learned from other authors—assured me that I'd already made my point through the actions of the story without needing to also bluntly state it. If a point is 'A+B=C,' then an author should state 'A+B' and allow the reader to discover on their own that 'C' is equaled.

This was difficult advice for me to follow, but I knew she was right (Shannon usually is). Some readers won't figure out 'C' if I don't tell them, I pointed out. But most readers are pretty smart (that's why they're reading). 

I think it's important to emphasize for younger readers that extremely wealthy people are not admirable as I want future generations to avoid this social pitfall. When three people own more wealth than the bottom half of our entire country combined, as is currently the case, it is not because those three people are better than half the country. Billionaires don't happen through sheer willpower and determination (that's capitalism's huckster sales pitch). American CEOs don't work 361 times harder than their employees and the myth that they do is harming all of us as it allows them to buy our politicians and rig the country in their favor until desperate peasants revolt and the whole thing falls apart.

I believe all of that and perhaps in another post I'll go on about how there's a middle ground between a failed socialist state and the ruthless and cold country we currently live in, but this post isn't the place for it. And a fun middle grade adventure book with a focus on evading alligator people whilst quipping and riding jet packs is also not the place for it.

So I went back through my book and cut any characters giving long lectures about things that weren't their motivations leading to fun action and adventure. The Banneker Bones books have many goals—among them is making fun of Ayn Rand and her silly ideas as much as possible—but the number one goal has always been a fun story well told. Economics lectures aren't fun.

So, if some Esteemed Readers don't pick up on my hidden manifesto within the text, but instead JUST have a good time laughing at Banneker's newest antics and worrying that they might get him eaten, that is a successful reading experience. Should they, after being fully entertained, have a thought that "extremely wealthy people can really be jerks and it's not fair," well, that's a bonus. I've provided 'A+B.' The 'C' is up to the reader, and that's as it should be.