Looking Back and Looking Forward - 5 Years of Blogging

Five years ago I was querying my first manuscript, feeling lost and like I would never amount to anything as a writer. I was desperately seeking acceptance and validation that I wasn't wasting my time. I looked for feedback and entered contests whenever I could trying to improve and learn. And while all of this was important to my writing journey, there was one thing that was missing that I didn't know I desperately needed.

Community

When I entered contests in 2013, there was a strong kidlit community, but it's primary focus was on young adult literature. And while I love young adult and frequently write it, I have always had a soft spot for middle grade. It's the time where you're trying to find your way and find your people. And coincidentally there wasn't a lot of avenues or organized communities for middle grade writers at the time.

So a group of us middle grade writers entering contests found each other decided we wanted to share our journey, our advice, and create a community for middle grade. And thus Middle Grade Minded was born. When we started this journey five years ago, I never imagined that this blog would still be here, let alone have the traction it has.

In five years we've had 17 different regular blog contributors, and countless guest bloggers, who have generated nearly 450 posts including interviews, cover reveals, reviews, and so much more. But we wouldn't be here without our readers, so checkout the stats below that you all have directly contributed to.

• Over 175 blog followers
• Readers from over 80 countries
• Over 230,000 page views
• Thousands of comments
• Over 3,000 Twitter followers

But the numbers while impressive, aren't the most important thing. The most amazing thing is the strong community of enthusiasm that has formed around middle grade literature. The stories and books we've shared with other writers, teachers, librarians, and most importantly kids. And none of it would have been possible without Middle Grade Minded.

While in a lot of ways my personal journey is in the same spot it was five years ago, back in the query trenches after my agent left agenting for another publishing job, I have something now that I didn't have when this blog began... A strong middle grade focused community that is passionate about the things that really matter, making great books happen and getting them into the hands of kids who deserve them. And for that support system I am eternally grateful. I wouldn't know where I would be today without each and every one of you.

The Playlist Process

I have a slight problem with the manuscript I’m working on.

It isn’t related to plot; I feel like I’ve got the mental outline pretty much put together, leaving enough room for the story to continue evolving as I write. It isn’t really about character, either; even though this story has a lot of characters, I have a decent grasp on who each of them are, who they’ll become by the end, and how they relate to each other. The problem definitely isn’t about voice; that’s coming through well so far, maybe because I’m allowing myself to write with a voice I’ve wanted to use for a long time, but haven’t found the right project for until now. 

My problem is I still haven’t put together a writing playlist.

Now, do I need a writing playlist for this? Thankfully, no. The story is coming along surprisingly well. Would I like to have a playlist providing the soundtrack for this journey? Most certainly yes. Finding the right music has always been an important part of the writing process for me. I wrote my first manuscript while listening to nothing but the same thirty Bruce Hornsby songs on shuffle, usually during the time of day when light from the sunset poured in the front windows and filled my house, just because all of that gave me something close to a tangible expression of the tone I was trying to create. I wrote another manuscript mostly after dark with all the lights off, listening the scariest Iron Maiden songs I could find, as well as a few others that matched up with that creep factor. One year during NaNoWriMo I had a playlist of over two hundred songs that dripped emotional catharsis, to help me get in the head of a character pulled in nine different directions by everything she was struggling to understand. I’ll use these songs and the feelings they inspire to guide my voice, and, if I’m being honest about it, to help visualize what it might be like if, say, my story ever became a movie and needed a soundtrack. After all, isn’t a good part of the writing somehow tied to trying to live out hopes and dreams and speculation?

Truthfully though, I’ve never needed much of a reason to assemble playlists. I’ll put them together for road trips, or school work days when the students aren’t around, or to have playing in the background when I have guests, or even just because it feels like a day to listen to nothing but music released between 1997 and 2004. Applying this hobby (habit?) to my writing seemed natural.

Back before I found my way to the online writing community, I thought it was mildly self-indulgent to be so insistent about finding the perfect music to pair up with whatever I was writing. Then I started connecting with other writers, and discovered many had similar habits. A lot crafted playlists just as I did, but others didn’t stop there: They made Pinterest boards based on what their characters looked like. They compared different aspects of their characters to other well-known characters from books and movies and TV shows. Some even tried matching up settings with appropriately scented candles. They had favorite locations to write, rituals and routines they followed, and reward systems to keep themselves motivated. It seemed that nearly everyone populating this magical online writing domain was, in one way or another, searching for and leaning on the same kind of creative self-support I had been using all along. 

That discovery made my propensity for playlists seem, if anything, less like an idiosyncrasy and more like a legitimate part of the writing process, at least for me. That circles back to the simple truth that everyone approaches their writing differently, and whatever process works for each individual is just as legitimate as anything else. 

Of course, this still leaves me working without a playlist for this new project, or even any first steps in the direction toward finding one. I still have a long way to go though, so I know the right songs will eventually present themselves.

I’m just really looking forward to finding out what they’ll be.

Four Comedy Tips to boost the LOLocity of your writing!

Don't roll your eyes.

Or groan.

Or do that thing where you let your mouth fall open and look around the room like everyone's sharing the exact same Has this dude's TV been stuck on PBS for the past 30 years? thought that's running through your head.

*takes deep breath*

I've just discovered the show "Community."

Okay, just to clear some things up:

1) I knew the show existed.
2) I never watched it because when someone told me about it I thought they were talking about "Entourage."
3) I hate "Entourage."

If I'd known then what I know now, though, I would've been a die-hard fan from season one. See, I've binge watched every episode of "Community" during the past few days and it was somewhere between the spaghetti western paintball episode and the MeowMeowBeenz one that got me thinking about my next blog post.

How do writers pull off comedy?

And that got me thinking about my favorite comedies and how much I enjoy putting humor into my own writing. I won't ever profess to be the world's funniest human... or man... or Tennessean for that matter. However, I will say I'm the funniest guy in my fifth grade class. Or at least somewhere in the top ten.

But I have learned a few ways to comedicize the words on my page. And being the nicest guy in my fifth grade class (or at least somewhere in the top twenty), I thought I'd share them with you.


Comedy tip # 1:

Don't try to be funny.

Weird, I know. But there's nothing that'll kill a comedy buzz like trying to force a joke. If you set out with the goal to write a funny line, chances are it'll end up flat. Unless you do it right and then it'll end up hilarious. But if you were doing it right then you probably wouldn't be reading this. Would you?

Comedy needs to be organic. The best hilarious line rarely begins with something our characters say or do. It begins with the environment around them and then letting your characters react to it. Allowing the funny to grow from situations the characters get themselves into makes it so much more real. It'll help build the funny so you can get the biggest laugh-out-loud possible. And allowing your humor to manifest out of reaction versus only action will help the funny be much more specific.

Which leads us to...

Comedy tip # 2:

Be specific.

Killer segue. Nailed it.

Being specific doesn't mean tell the joke as specifically as possible. In fact, I'd suggest not doing that. I mean, think about it. Knock knock jokes are short for a reason, right? Nobody wants a twelve minute description of who or what's at the door. We don't have time for that. Comedy doesn't have time for that.

No, being specific means to let your characters' voices help tell the joke. We don't all react to situations the same way, so neither should our characters. The best example I can give is through Troy from "Community." He never thinks. He's never had to. So when he reacts to something, it usually ends up being hilarious. For us. Not so much for him.

Each character on that show is unique with a very specific voice. And when the writers throw a situation at them, they've got a goldmine of funny to dig into. Of course, coming up with the joke is only half the battle. So what's the other half? 

I'm glad you asked. It's...

Comedy tip # 3:

Use comedic timing.

Okay, so this one's a toughie. Comedic timing relies so heavily on actors and their ability to deliver the punchline. So how do we do that in our own writing? Simple. Act it out.

When you write a scene and you're convinced it's the funniest thing since Mel Brooks, test it out. Read it aloud and see if it works. Are there places where you need to pause? Is the joke sitting in just the right place? Does the scene drag?

In your head it may be perfect. But your reader isn't in your head so you need to make sure the funny translates onto the page.

Perhaps the punchline springs a little too quickly. If so, add in a little pause. Maybe an awkward silence settles over the group right before the Ha ha! moment. Maybe the line is amazing, but something happens right after it that sort of chokes out the joke before people can really enjoy it. If it takes too long to get to the funny, then do some trimming.

Everyone likes humor. Unless it's fashionably late. Then it's just passé.

Comedy tip # 4:

Try the rule of three.

The rule of three is simple. If something happens once, it's an occurrence. If it happens twice, it's repetitive. If it happens three times, it's a motif. And we all love motifs.

So don't be scared to revisit a joke. Now that doesn't mean just copy and paste and expect to get the same laughs.

But let's say you've got a character who, at the beginning of a scene, reacts to a Miley Cyrus song. And it's the funniest thing you've ever written. It wouldn't be totally out of the question to have that same character bring it back up somewhere in the middle, making everyone give him or her a collective eye roll. And then if he or she brings it up again right at the end, it'd set up a nice way for the other characters to react before rolling into the next scene.


Well that was easy!

Sort of.

Writing comedy is tough, but the good news is that it gets easier. Just like writing anything, really. The more you practice it, let yourself fail at it, and refuse to give up on it, the better you'll be at it.

Don't stop there, though. Pick up a book that never fails to get you giggling and figure out what makes it so funny. There's no formula for humor, but there are ways to get the biggest bang for your comedic buck. And you have my word that the four comedy tips above are a good place to start. You know you can trust me because I'm the most honest blogger on this site.

Or at least somewhere in the top six.

Happy writing!