Things Never Go the Way You Planned, and That's Cool

Lots of stories have morals, but lately I've been wondering if the moral of every story should be "Things Never Go the Way You Planned, and That's Cool." Authors work hard to keep their readers guessing, even though there are far more patterns on the page than in real life.

People who live great lives never know what they're getting into ahead of time -- they just manage to exist in a way that fascinates other people.

Whenever I've dreamed ahead, or looked forward to something, it never turns out like I imagined. Real experiences don't care what we want.

And here comes the close-out for the year 2015. My debut year that wasn't. A year that did not go as planned, so much so that I made a list:

1) I had a bizarre and random health scare that directly impacted work.

2) I lost my son's day care through particularly unfortunate circumstances.

3) There has been a lot of loss around me -- the kind that would have broken lesser humans, including myself. And it brought back some feelings from the past that I'd much rather have kept back there.

4) I bounced between feeling like the best and worst father on a daily basis.

5) Oh yeah, there was that one thing about my book losing its publisher. That hit me like a bag of poop to the face.

So yeah, 2015 threw me a lot of surprises. And these weren't so much surprise-party-on-your-multiple-of-ten-birthday surprises so much as pigeon-dumped-on-your-shoulder-while-walking-under-the-El-tracks surprises.

I got to thinking about that list. I drew an imaginary T-chart in my mind's eye, and put it in the left column. Then I added things to the right column to balance it out.

1) I'm still standing at work and giving all I can to my students. Parents had kind words for me at parent-teacher conferences. How bad can things be when people are going out of their way to assure you things are okay?

2) My parents jumped in to help with daycare, and my son is doing better than ever with so much individual love and attention. Many parents can't afford daycare, and don't have parents capable of helping.

3) The people I've watched experience loss are healing in their own personal ways. They will make it through the darkness, and while they won't be unscathed, none of us are at the end of the day.

4) Maybe it's possible that I make both good and bad parental decisions sometimes, and that's the best parents can expect from themselves.

5) It sucks to lose a publisher, but it's really great to land a new one. It makes for a great debut story. And I still have the Fall Fifteeners, and Fearless Fifteeners, and Sweet Sixteens backing me up every step of the way. The kidlit community rocks my face off.

Maybe 2015 didn't go the way I wanted it to at all, and that's okay.

Mike Grosso is the author of I AM DRUMS, a debut contemporary middle grade novel for musicians of all ages. It was orphaned due to the closing of Egmont USA, but has found a new home at Clarion Books and an updated release date of September 6, 2016. The Fall Fifteeners have been nice enough to let him hang out even though he's technically a sixteener now.

You can visit Mike's website here or follow him on Twitter @mgrossoauthor.

Can Music Complement a Book?

Generally speaking, reading is a solitary, independent activity. There are exceptions, but in most cases readers and writers are alone, experiencing something independent of human contact.

I wonder sometimes how to implement another dimension. A writer must do so properly – I have no desire to smell real smells or hear real sounds when prose can provide these sensations without the scientifically inaccurate "fourth dimension" gimmick.

And yet, I still wonder if I AM DRUMS could use a soundtrack. An original one, with no prior connections in the reader’s mind. Not stock songs people have heard before – those come with their own ideas and memories and feelings. And nothing with lyrics that directly spell out the reader’s experience. My debut novel already has enough words, I think.

I’d like to create fresh perspectives with any music meant to accompany Sam Morris’s story.

I wrote and recorded the below instrumental song about a year ago. It has issues, as most works in progress do. The tempo should be a tad faster. The bass needs a little more oomph. It was recorded in my former apartment, which had terrible acoustics, without a real drum set (a crime when your song accompanies a book about drums), as playing one in an apartment complex tends to make your neighbors think an asteroid has collided with the building.

But this song is something, and I know I was thinking about Sam at the time. It’s called FIGHT BACK for a reason, but I'm not sure how to explain said reason.

But do books need music to be complete? They don’t need artificial smells, sounds, or surfaces to fill your senses.

I feel like designing audio for the sole purpose of accompanying a reading experience implies that words are not enough. Even as a musician I do not believe this to be the case.

But this song exists, and I’m not sure what to do with it. Maybe I won't do anything, and that's okay, too.

*****

Mike Grosso is the author of I AM DRUMS, a debut contemporary middle grade novel for musicians of all ages. It was orphaned due to the closing of Egmont USA, but has found a new home at Clarion Books and an updated release date of September 16, 2016. The Fall Fifteeners have been nice enough to let him hang out even though he's technically a sixteener now.

You can visit Mike's website here or follow him on Twitter @mgrossoauthor.

The Signs of Stress

I'm not going to lie. I almost forgot to write this post. Like I've forgotten to do a lot of things lately.

Sometimes you have a bad day. Or a bad month. And things get thrown to the side whether you like it or not.

August has been a terrible month. I'm keeping a positive attitude about it, but that's really just spit-shining a turd.

My mom looked at me the other day and said, "You know, Mike, you're really showing signs of stress." Then she pointed at my eye and said I'm blinking 3,245,987 times per minute.

That's not to say there aren't great things happening. Today I'm going to close on a house. It is not a big house, but it doesn't need to be. It just needs to be my house, and it most certainly is.

The path getting there has been insane and stressful. And losing daycare for my son two weeks before my school year started? I have a new vein in my forehead that I now call my DAYCARE VEIN.

A whole host of other personal and professional tomfoolery piled on, and all of a sudden I'm out of time for reading, writing, finishing copyedits, planning for my school year, and meaningful father experiences.

Oh, and my book was initially supposed to come out this month, but it won't for another year. So I'm kind of sad about that. It deserves a blog post of its own when the time is right. And Amazon still hasn't updated its listing.

My point -- besides tangential whining -- is that I'm learning how much the writing life relies on you keeping other affairs in order. You can't be productive and inspired when a million other tasks are weighing you down. Letting stress get to you has physical and emotional side effects. It's inevitable at times, but I'm really thinking I have to let go and convince myself the world around me will not fall to pieces if I take a break now and then.

Because that's a lot of freaking blinking.

* * *

Mike Grosso is the author of I AM DRUMS, a debut contemporary middle grade for musicians of all ages. It is currently orphaned due to the closing of Egmont USA but is on its way to finding a new home. The Fall Fifteeners have been nice enough to let him hang out in the meantime.

You can visit Mike's website here or follow him on Twitter @mgrossoauthor.

"How do you find time to write?" is the wrong question. Here's why...

Greetings readers!

I'm doing something way out of my comfort zone for my July blog post. I'm posting a video blog!

Why? Because it's time efficient, and my goal this month was to talk about the question I am asked most frequently by non-writers: "How do you find the time to write?"

It's usually (though not always) asked out of genuine curiosity and respect. And it deserves a solid answer. I don't think I managed that with this video, but I tried my best.

Enjoy...

The Second Time Through This Big Mess

Revisions are a part of the publishing process. That's how it is, and there's no arguing that our books are generally a lot better when they resurface on the other side.

I often enjoy revisions more than writing first drafts because the presence of the words on the page feels like a safety net. I've already finished the story once -- I am capable of connecting the dots in a more sensible way the next time around.

I take pride in being pretty good at revisions. There is minimal crying and literary mess to clean up after I'm done. Coffee and cookies help, of course.

But this time is different. Unlike most debut writers, I just turned in my first round of edits to my second editor. After believing that I was done with I AM DRUMS, I rolled up my sleeves and dived in again. For good reasons, to be sure, but that didn't make it any easier.

Let me explain where I was at the beginning of 2015:

• My revisions for my editor were done.
• Copyedits were done.
• ARCs were in my hand.
• Everything I needed to make the book feel real had happened.

I was about to deliver first pass pages when my publisher was suddenly not a thing anymore. I tripped while climbing the publishing mountain and landed right back at the beginning, in submission hell.

It's been a surprisingly smooth experience, of course, thanks to my amazing agent working miracles to get my book back in good hands. And the phenomenal editor I landed with -- let's just say she's amazing and spot-on, which helps when you loved your previous editor as much as I did. Most writers are lucky to work with one great editor, and I've worked with two -- how awesome is that?

Then I had to dive in to I AM DRUMS again, looking at big and small structural and logistic problems. All good stuff, and none of it as daunting as that first edit letter -- the one that makes debuters curl up in a ball and sob inside. But I was jumping into a book that was THIS CLOSE to entering the world, and I had to face the truth that it could be better. Can't all books be better? That's one of the tricky parts of revision -- determination to improve what isn't done while also letting go of something that needs space so it doesn't shrivel up under the pressure.

It's hard to explain how this feels. My book was done, but it wasn't done. There was a larger emotional punch I could achieve. I didn't want to do it, but it had to be done. And I finished the first (but likely not last) round of edits yesterday when I hit SEND and sent my latest draft to my editor. I'm terrified I've botched the whole thing, but that's how I feel every time I send in revisions. You're re-proving that you're good at this job in the first place.

I will be proud of the book that finally releases, but right now the process is a little emotionally mangling.

Mike Grosso is the author of I AM DRUMS, a debut contemporary middle grade for musicians of all ages. It was orphaned due to the closing of Egmont USA, but has found a new home at Clarion Books and an updated release date of September 16, 2016. The Fall Fifteeners have been nice enough to let him hang out even though he's technically a sixteener now.

You can visit Mike's website here or follow him on Twitter @mgrossoauthor.

Procrastination Kills, AKA: 5 Odds Things Most People Don't Know About Me

My day to blog for the Fall Fifteeners snuck up on me with a vengeance. I've been so distracted by work that I fumbled pretty much everything else.

I had an idea for a post today that would expand on an entry from my personal blog reflecting on the film WHIPLASH, the topic of which is near and dear to my heart. But since I last-minuted the heck of out this post, I can't write it and get to work on time today. I'm going with something much sillier (but hopefully more entertaining) instead, and saving my initial idea for next month.

Here are five very odd things about me that most people (including close friends) don't know:

1) When I walk places, I prefer my total number of steps to be a multiple of four, with an equal quantity of left and right strides. This makes me walk a little silly sometimes.

2) I can't set the volume on my stereo to an odd number. Ten and twelve are okay. Eleven is not.

3) I have a set of drumsticks in my car so I can play on the dash at red lights. Don't worry -- I don't play when the car is in motion.

4) I enjoying telling my students that there is a chocolate swimming pool in the teachers' lounge at my school.

5) I am constantly resisting the urge to talk to myself. This isn't due to any neurological condition (of which I am aware, at least) so much as that I enjoy my own company.

So that's it for today. I swear I will have something more thoughtful for next month, but in the meantime, enjoy my eccentricities!

Mike Grosso is the author of I AM DRUMS, a debut contemporary middle grade for musicians of all ages. It is currently orphaned due to the closing of Egmont USA but is on its way to finding a new home. The Fall Fifteeners have been nice enough to let him hang out in the meantime.

You can visit Mike's website here or follow him on Twitter @mgrossoauthor.

Reflections on Writing Op-Ed Columns for My College Newspaper (AKA How I'll Face Bad Reviews)

Not many people know this, but back when I was a wide-eyed college student in my early twenties, I got hired by my college's newspaper to write a weekly op-ed column. It paid a whopping $5-$10 based on my editor's budget that week, which buys a lot of quarter drafts at the local bar.

The photographer taking my head shot said, "Have fun pissing people off."

And for many in that extremely rural town, that's exactly what I did.

That's not to say I didn't have admirers. My viewpoints have dulled a bit since then -- I'm more pragmatic than idealistic nowadays -- but I had plenty of peers who wrote in support of me and/or told me in person how much they appreciated my work.

For a good long while I didn't hear anything negative. It was disappointing, to tell you the truth. I wasn't looking for a written fistfight, but it would have been nice to know I'd snagged a reader from somewhere else on the sociopolitical spectrum.

And then I snagged one.

That first amazing counter-argument ran on the opposite page of the op-ed logo. The writer closed it beautifully, with the words "Shame on you, Grosso" followed by a litany of accusations about my moral dishonesty and questionable integrity. I can't remember what the writer was mad about -- probably something along the lines of green technology or gays openly serving in the military.

It was wonderful.

I showed it to my friends.

I showed it to my parents (I brought home two copies so they could read it at the same time).

I showed it to anyone willing to take a look. I was proud that my words had provoked a strong emotional reaction in a total stranger.

Most people I showed it to said, "Um... that's great?" and gave me an awkward smile.

I still had plenty of supporters, but my haters blossomed overnight.

I ran into people at bars who said, "I would buy you a drink if you weren't a liar."

I bumped into people on campus who said, "You need to be careful or someone's going to kick your ass."

I rode a dormitory elevator with a funny looking red-faced guy. He waited until I had exited the elevator and the doors were closing behind me before he shouted, "Your columns f###ing suck!"

I remember those moments with humor and affection. They meant a lot to me. Is it odd to feel that way? Should I be angry that I did my job appropriately, and others responded by trying to scare and shame me?

I wasn't angry then, and I'm not now. Some of the encounters (the guy in the elevator, for example) were just plain silly. How am I supposed to get mad at a guy who acts tough by shouting an obscenity at the very moment I lose the ability to respond? That's all around hilarious. Laughter is the appropriate reaction.

And that first letter, with it's wonderful "Shame on you, Grosso", and all the other negative commentary, came from people with opposing viewpoints whose responses weren't entirely inappropriate. Between the threats and elevator incidents were legitimate arguments calling me out for my overly idealistic solutions and over-zealous language. I still believe the core of most of their arguments were wrong (and I'm sure the feeling is mutual), but that didn't make me bullet-proof then and it doesn't now. I wrote plenty of silly things between my supposed introspective moments.

And quite frankly, the negative responses were a lot more entertaining than the positive ones.

That's why I'm trying pretty hard not to stress about bad reviews. I'm approaching my inevitable first one-star Goodreads/Amazon review the same way I approached my dissenters at the college newspaper -- with guile and humor. It'll be harder now that the target is something much closer to my heart, but I think I can handle it. Right?

Granted, Kirkus is a lot scarier than "elevator guy".

* * *

Mike Grosso is the author of I AM DRUMS, a debut contemporary middle grade for musicians of all ages. It is currently orphaned due to the closing of Egmont USA but is on its way to finding a new home. The Fall Fifteeners have been nice enough to let him hang out in the meantime.

You can visit Mike's website here or follow him on Twitter @mgrossoauthor.

The Six-Week-Wait, AKA How I Read a First Draft

I finished the first draft of a new book this week. Placing the words "first draft" before "new book" is important, because in the publishing world you're not even close to finished at this point.

It's also my turn to blog for the Fall Fifteeners -- perfect timing to talk about a writing philosophy I call the "six-week-wait."

I did not invent this by any means. Lot's of writers use similar strategies, and I truly believe it works. My creative writing teacher planted the seeds when I was an undergrad, and Stephen King's ON WRITING (a good book on craft, even if you're not a fan of his fiction) sprouted a plant and provided a time frame.

In my experience, reading through a first draft right after it's finished is a bad idea. It's tempting, because you're anxious to enjoy your opus, but you must resist and move on to something else for a while. You need distance -- time and space between you and the words you've written, which at this point are probably terrible. That's not an insult -- first drafts are always terrible, and need to be put away for a while so you can read them with objective eyes later on.

The first thing I do when I finish a first draft is open my phone calendar and set an alarm to go off in exactly six weeks. I am forbidden from looking at that steaming pile of poop until my phone chimes that it's okay. If I wait longer, that's totally cool -- six weeks really should be a minimum. The longer you wait to read the mess you've created, the more prepared you will be to read it the way an actual reader might. You can edit it with objective eyes.

I find it fascinating to read my own words with measured distance. It's surreal, like I'm listening to a past self speak in my voice, saying things I do and don't remember saying.

It's painful to do this, to be certain, but writing is painful sometimes. Editing especially so. You're shifting a separate reality in order to make events gel and voices connect, and the six-week-wait puts you outside the circle of influence and almost (but not quite) lets you read your work the way a stranger might. A stranger has no problem slashing and burning because he's not on his home turf.

That's why I'm not reading my new first draft until April 17th at the earliest. I want to read it right now -- I'm dying to see how bad it is. But the alarm in my phone is set, and I cannot break the six-week-wait rule, no matter how tempting it might be.

That Dream of a Book Deal Isn't As Unlikely As You Think

I have a theory that's been banging back and forth inside my head for many, many years. A post by Harold Underdown and another by Ryan Dalton on this very blog fed this theory further, to the point that I decided to dedicate today's post to specific things that make traditional publishing a little less hopeless.

Most writers, unfortunately, will fail to traditionally publish their book. The statistics don't lie, and I can't manipulate the numbers to say otherwise. I can, however, tell you there are often solid reasons why writers fail in this respect. It's not a conspiracy or a fate left exclusively to a dice roll. There are specific things that hold writers back, and your chances of success increase exponentially by making a few small decisions.

Here are a few:

1) Submit smarter

A lot of agents say the number one reason they reject queries is because they don't represent the type of book the author submitted. Other times it's abundantly clear the author didn't research the agency. There are hundreds of queries sent every day by aspiring authors who submit willy-nilly without bothering to check who they're submitting to.

If you simply do your research and submit to agents who are a good match for your book, you are putting yourself ahead of hundreds of other submissions. You have just lifted yourself above a ton of slush, and you barely even broke a sweat.

My advice? Before hitting send on a submission, ask yourself why the recipient is the right person for your story. If it takes longer than ten seconds to answer that question, submit somewhere else.

2) Listen, listen, and listen some more

If you get a rejection that says something more specific than "not right for us", do a backflip. If it says something horribly offensive and insulting about your work, do a backflip, howl at the moon, and then ask yourself if maybe, just maybe, this person who spends their whole day in front of words might have a point about your humongous plot hole or unlikeable one-dimensional narrator.

3) Look Ahead

No matter what happens, don't stop writing. I kept the rejection blues away by always having something new to submit before I gave up on a previous project. If you're always looking ahead, the constant barrage of "not right for us" is a lot less depression-inducing.

4) Don't Get Mad at Successful Writers

Seriously, this is a huge waste of your time, patience, and happiness. It doesn't matter that "pedestrian writers" are selling insane amounts of books and you can't figure out why.

They are not stealing your audience. They are not the reason you haven't sold your book. Nobody is looking for a 50 SHADES, TWILIGHT, or HARRY POTTER clone right now. The very idea makes most agents and editors sick, because they get that kind of stuff every day. They are looking for the next book they fall in love with, and it won't have anything to do with wizards engaging in BDSM with sparkling vampires.

So all that anger for bestselling authors festering inside you -- Let It Go. You have better things to do.

5) Most importantly, be honest when you write

Don't write what's cool. Don't write what you think will sell. It isn't, and it won't. Write like yourself. This job is hard enough without wearing a mask.

* * *

Mike Grosso is the author of I AM DRUMS, a debut contemporary middle grade for musicians of all ages. It is currently orphaned due to the closing of Egmont USA but is on its way to finding a new home. The Fall Fifteeners have been nice enough to let him hang out in the meantime.

You can visit Mike's website or follow him on Twitter.