Episode 36: Rob Kent, The Middle Grade Ninja
Rob Kent, author and host of the Middle Grade Ninja podcast, joins Mary Kole to talk about his illustrious publishing career and provides valuable insights and inspiration for aspiring writers. He discusses the importance of managing expectations for success in your writing career, as well as writing for your own personal happiness.
Good Story Podcast Episode 36: Interview with Rob Kent, Middle Grade author Transcript
Mary: Hello, this is Mary Kole with "The Good Story Podcast," and the reason I sound so weird is because I'm with my good old friend, my... I'm not trying to call you old. I'm sorry. I am so sorry. My good friend who's not old.
Rob: It's not inaccurate.
Mary: We're all getting older and better with age, right? But we first connected on your podcast, Rob Kent, in, you just told me, December of 2018. And since then, you have built an empire and please talk about yourself for a moment and just tell us everything that you are up to.
Rob: Well, hi there, Good Story Podcast. My name is Rob Kent, empire-builder. Thrilled to be here.
Mary: There is a cat in the background, and my video editor... So, some of you are listening, some of you will be watching. My video editor does these little cat alerts, because I don't know if anyone has noticed, but the publishing world at large enjoys a cat. You know, the Venn diagram is almost overlapped—cat lovers and book lovers. So, Steve, we're going to need a cat alert for when that little cutie walks through the frame please. Go on, Rob.
Rob: Viewers of my YouTube channel, if you watch the show instead of listen to it, "Middle Grade Ninja" available now, this cat makes an appearance very episode. There is one episode where I had to blur her out because she's sitting directly behind me thoroughly cleaning herself. But otherwise the audience looks forward to seeing her.
Mary: You know, I can't tell you how many... I have a cat, and I also have two very lazy dogs. But the number of cat anuses that people in my Zoom meetings, now mind you very professional Zoom meetings, who have seen a cat butt off the charts. But speaking of which, so how many episodes of that podcast are we talking about now?
Rob: I believe I've just recorded 237. I could be off by one or two on the count.
Mary: That's a lot.
Rob: I am absolutely just... I'm honored by how many amazing people I've had the opportunity to talk with. I just had the opportunity to chat with Heather McGee. She was between CNN events, and she made time to come and chat with me. Just incredible. Sometimes I pinch myself, "How is this my life?" And that's not to say that the other 236 episodes weren't also amazing. It's just something that has struck me recently that, oh, wow, this is so much bigger than I ever thought it would be, because when you and I did it back in 2018, we were just doing a livestream which is, in retrospect, a little bit crazy. And I had to go back and retroactively edit a couple of those things per the authors' request, but people were tuning in to watch us live at the time.
And I was looking over some dates. I want to hit the audience with a couple of things.
Mary: Don't hit my audience. They're very nice people.
Rob: I'm sorry. I want to inform the audience in the most non-violent possible way...
Mary: Go on.
Rob: Our first interaction of course was a rejection, which I know you regret it your entire life since, and I want your audience to hear this because if we had stopped there, we wouldn't be talking right now. We wouldn't have had a decades' long friendship now because you came back when I was first starting my blog, "Middle Grade Ninja," February 26, 2010, you faced the 7 Questions. Both of us looked very different all the way back then. We had our podcast conversation. We've had some lovely emails back and forth. We've had interactions.
So, rejection is not personal. You should not take it as such. And just because somebody rejects doesn't mean that you can't also still admire them, find them brilliant and respect their judgment. And I said this to you privately, I want to say it publicly where people can hear. As you were the fifth guest on the "Middle Grade Ninja Podcast," I didn't really know what I was doing. I just knew I wanted to talk to people because I like people, especially book people. They're my favorite people.
Mary: I like only book people. Everybody else can go take a long walk off a short pier.
Rob: Everyone else is suspicious. I don't understand them. It's book people I want to connect to. But I started with my good friend, the author, Laura Martin, who is an incredible first guest but she was also my critique partner and my friend, and she had a book coming out, so that was easy. Next up, I had Barbara Shoup, who was a friend. I had Darby Karchut who I've had many interactions with. She's been kind enough to blurb a couple of my books. She's wonderful.
And so I reached out immediately to the people that I knew. And I knew you back because we'd had a number of interactions back and forth, but you should have been Guest #100. I should have really had to work out. And you were there for episode #5 and I, honest to God, believe that, while I have done a lot of work, that empire doesn't exist, if that's what we're choosing to call it, unless Mary Kole takes an incredible leap of faith and possibly not an entirely sound bit of judgment place because I didn't know entirely what I was doing. If you go back and you listen to Episode #5 of the "Middle Grade Ninja" Podcast," and why wouldn't you, Good Story? I know that you love Mary Kole. You're about to love me. You're going to enjoy that conversation.
Mary: And she loves you.
Rob: But if you listen to that, make sure you listen to some of the later episodes because I did get a lot better.
Mary: Well, I mean, I think I will say that I have told people that I want to be sort of like a traveling bard about town, just having interesting conversations. And I think you and I are very much aligned. And so, yes, you've told me privately and now publicly that, oh, I came down and I blessed your podcast and whatever. But honestly, I think you're good people. I love what you're doing, and I want to talk more about you and, kind of, you said, "my books," right? So, I want to get into that. And it was my absolute pleasure. And also, if I was your editor, I would say, "Well, on Page 1, you said I had really good judgment. And now on Page 3, you told me my judgment was suspect for placing so much trust in you."
Rob: That was your self-deprecating joke.
Mary: No, I think you're amazing. But this isn't the Rob and Mary love hour. It can be, it very well can be. But let's get down to brass tacks, shall we? So, we have "Middle Grade Ninja" as a podcast. There's a website component still active. I mean, have you sort of leaned into one over the other as you've continued building your empire?
Rob: Good question. And the website still exists. It still gets the lion's share of the traffic of everything that I do. I'm always thrilled when I see there's a new writer guide that I had no idea was coming out, that recommends middlegradeninja.com. I take great pride in that. If you are listening to this and you are writing a writer guide or something, please recommend me. That's great if you can.
The blog has fallen off a little bit. I still do the occasional post when I have something to say. I kind of soured on it because I've had... And it's a humble brag, I guess. I've had some of the world's most incredible authors, and editors, and all of my favorite people featured there. I have always believed that I am basking in reflected glory. The story of "Middle Grade Ninja" is not me. I wish it were, I would never do a podcast where it's just me talking because no one would make it through the first episode.
Mary: Stop.
Rob: Maybe to the second episode, but I run out of things to say pretty quickly. It's a matter of these incredible writers that I'm excited about, and I want to make my audience excited about. I want to get them involved. Look at what these amazing, incredible people are doing. I'm excited about it. And what happened is we...I mean, this is America, so we had a school shooting here. If you're asking yourself, wait, which one was that? You won't remember, there have been a lot this year.
Mary: Isn't that just the worst thing that anyone can possibly say and the worst because it's so true? But I don't want to... I'm so sorry.
Rob: Oh, we can talk about this if you want to, but the reason I bring it up is not because... For the record, I am anti-school shooting, but because we had that happen here and I wrote my response to it. It wasn't one of the big ones that it didn't get a full memorial. It was a low count, but I had the text come in that your child is in danger.
And the only way I know how to process something like that is to write, and I have a platform. And so I wrote about what it's like to get that message that your child is not safe. You kissed him, you put him on the bus, and you let him go to school, and he might not come home.
Mary: How old was your baby?
Rob: He was in kindergarten, so he was five or six. He's fine. He's fine. And I'm okay. I put him on the bus this morning so you and I could chat now. They've changed the way they do things at the school. I've been personally involved with the school to make sure that it's safe, as safe as it's going to be. But the reason I brought this up is because I wrote this impassioned response to my experience. And that got more traffic than anything has ever gotten at the blog. And part of that made me feel good because I had something to say and I wanted people to hear it. I tagged the Senators who took money from the NRA to block gun legislation in my state to let them know, "Hey, we see you. Your thoughts and prayers aren't enough." You could hear it in my voice. I'm still angry about it. Of course.
Mary: Of course.
Rob: But that kind of soured blogging for me in another way because, yeah, that is important. I do want that to be out there, but my God, I've had all these amazing people. I've had all these amazing things to say that were good and positive. Not just angry, not just my response to the desperation I think most American parents feel. And that was the beginning of me wanting to transition away from blogging and more directly talking with what I always wanted to do, which was feature brilliant people, smart people.
And the other thing about that is I can't believe it worked for as long as it did. I used a 7 Question interview, and it's the same seven questions for every author and every literary agent, every editor, and they're all still available and they all still get lots of traffic. And hopefully as people are listening to this, they're pulling up middlegradeninja.com right now and they're checking those out.
Mary: Can you see this? This guy's a marketing genius, an unassuming marketing genius right here.
Rob: But those questions was...it was so much fun. I couldn't believe it worked. I still can't believe it worked. I mean, we're talking authors that I knew from my childhood. Lois Lowry faced those seven questions. Who's the author of the "The Indian in the Cupboard"? I'm blanking on her name.
Mary: I'm terrible with names and titles.
Rob: Lynne Reid Banks. Oh, my God. That was almost terrifyingly embarrassing. Thank God it wasn't. Lynne Reid Banks. And Richard Adams, for God's sake, of "Watership Down." And not only did he face those same seven questions that honestly I put a lot of thought into them, but at the same time, it's seven questions and it's the same I'm asking for everybody. And it was a very fun thing because it's fun to see how people answer the same question. But at the same time, I was having email conversations with these people. I did it long enough that people were coming up to me at conferences and events, and I was having full conversations with them. I thought, well, that was an amazing thing that worked. I can't believe it did. Knock on every piece of lucky wood. Oh, my God. Wow.
But I wanted more. It wasn't enough, and I didn't want it just to be written. I wanted people to hear, not me. I maintain that there are probably people who listen to the show that skip forward over the parts where I'm talking and get back to the guest.
Mary: What can we do to stop the self-deprecation, my friend?
Rob: All right. From here on out, I will do my absolute best, but I'm a Hoosier. It's hardwired into us.
Mary: You and Kurt Vonnegut, so that's good company to be in.
Rob: The absolute best. If you're going to promote a book here in Indiana, you need to read Vonnegut. You need to have a strong opinion one way or the other. I'm pro, by the way.
Mary: Very pro-Vonnegut myself. Mm-hmm.
Rob: My favorite is "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater."
Mary: Okay, you and I could have a fight because I'm going to bat for "Sirens of Titan" oddly enough, even though his fantasy science fiction stuff... I don't know. There's just something about "Sirens of Titan" though. You know, I can't pick a favorite actually. It's like asking me about my kids.
Rob: I can pick a least favorite, and that's "Mother Night." And it's not because it's not a good book but because it's very to the point and focused on the theme. And the premise of that story is so exciting. It could have been an entire series. And Vonnegut, he did what he does, and he puts that aside and he just focuses on...
Mary: He just rambles on. That traveling bard energy again. My mother's favorite Vonnegut book is "Mother Night." So, with your insight in mind, I'm really going to have to reevaluate that relationship now with my mother. No, I'm just kidding.
Rob: Well, I meant to come on and have a nice conversation with you. I'm sorry I forever destroyed your relationship with your mother.
Mary: No. You know what? Bridges just don't burn themselves. Rob Kent is here to burn them for you. No. Okay, so in the spirit of leaning into your newfound confidence, which we tracked down two minutes ago, you're also an author. And, you know, it's funny to me.
So, here's an insight that I've sort of come around to all these years later of working with different writers. There are different types of personalities that are attracted to writing, right? That shouldn't come as any surprise. The most humble people, whether it's due to being from Indiana or just being a good person, and I think you are both, the most humble people, the most unassuming, the ones who seem to feel like they're a couple steps behind so they work harder, those tend to be my favorite people. Those tend to be the most successful writers—and I'm going to kind of qualify that statement much—more so than the people who are like, "Get me on the phone with Tom Cruise's agent. I mean, let's make a deal."
So, delusions of grandeur, bad. Humility, good. And I think that can be said in any life circumstance. So, what I was going to say is successful writer. I really always kind of put an asterisk behind that idea after that statement because I think that for every book, for every person, for every kind of new endeavor that somebody gets into, the definition of success really is personal and it does change. Not every book is going to have the same path. Not everything is going to be, you know, this kind of thing that you imagine of one step in front of the other all the way to the bestseller list. You know, you're not going to work with one publisher. You may decide to self-publish a project. You may fall in love with chapter book when you have identified for years as a "Middle Grade Ninja".
So, it's just like not everything is all that straightforward, and success is different for not only every person but every project. So, with that as a brilliant segue, if I don't say so myself, let's talk about your writing journey, Rob.
Rob: Oh, where do you want to start? Chapter 1, I'm born.
Mary: I was born, it was cold, and I screamed. No, like...
So, you were on the query trail when we had our first interaction. Well, you don't have to tell about the project if it was kind of a drawer manuscript, but yeah. So, you were obviously aiming your arrow at traditional publishing about 10 or 15 years ago. What has happened since?
Rob: What hasn't happened, right? We've all been through so much. I should say the project you rejected was a very early version of "Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees." Not the version that's available right now. You can find out more at middlegradeninja.com.
Mary: Oh, goodness.
Rob: The early version, you were right to reject it. It wasn't where it needed to be. But my journey was passionate about writing. I made what I feel are a few common mistakes that I'd like to talk about because I think that's useful. I always ask people who come on my show, "If you could go back and give yourself some advice that would have made a difference for you and might make a difference for everybody listening, what would you go back and tell yourself?" And one bit of advice I'd go back and tell myself is to calm down just a little bit. I was a bit of an egomaniac, and I think you have to be.
Mary: Yeah.
Rob: Now I say that, and there are people who are far more well-balanced. Maybe got more hugs as children, I don't know, who don't have to go quite that journey. But I must say it's very common for early writers. I joke that I've never written a better book in my own mind than the first book that I wrote, because I wrote a book, all the enthusiasm, all the excitement. Surely it must be the greatest thing in the world. Get Tom Cruise on the phone. Let's do this. And you need that, I think, almost as...some version of that almost as jet fuel to propel the explosion because you have to break through the surface, and that first battle is, "Write the thing." Get a book out of your system. Congratulations. Celebrate it with all your friends. Have a party. Write the next book. But know that the journey is long, and you need that initial explosion to get going but you can't sustain it.
Mary: I will also say learning how to revise, learning how to self-edit, or if you take it up a level and you enlist a critique group, a beta reader, you know, a freelance editor—so, now who's marketing, Rob—such as myself or one of my amazing colleagues, and learning how to take that feedback, and to sift through that feedback, and how to apply that feedback, and the execution, those are completely different skill sets than the initial writing and that initial burst of energy that you're describing. And revision is slower. There are a lot more levers that you could pull. It's like a giant sound mixing board. It's overwhelming. You feel completely ill-prepared for it.
And I completely agree with what you're saying in that you need that kinetic sort of launch because you're about to hit a brick wall, and this is where things tend to fall apart for a lot of people. But you're also saying, you know, keep at least a foot in that generative creative space. Write your next project probably because you're about to say maybe this first one is the baby. Everybody else is kind of like, "Oh, yeah, that baby is cute." And you're like, "It's my baby." Is that what you were going to say?
Rob: Some version of that. Absolutely. If you do need perspective, you do need to learn. You don't know what you don't know. You've got to go, and you've got to listen to the Good Story Company podcast. You've got to reach out to Mary Kole. You've got to get advice. You need to get training. When I do workshops for writers, I always tell them that one of your first jobs is to seek knowledge. If you find yourself and you've read this query, everybody's read this query, my book is better than all the dreck you've published. Have you read what's been published? Because it's not. If you don't have that perspective, you're not doing yourself any favors because you can't improve your work. You can't grow as an artist.
All that being said, what I would caution myself and why I want to calm down when I'm younger just a bit is what I did do is I worked myself to the bone. I would work my day job, and then I would come home, and I'd start writing, and I would write until about two, three hours before the day job. And I would get a couple hours sleep. And needless to say, the day job did not flourish and past a certain point, my writing flourished less as well as a result of that. And I began to resent it because I was giving too much of myself, and I also cost myself some opportunities, a lot of fun I could have been having instead of spending every moment at the keyboard trying to get this thing done. That's the wrong way to go about it. But that is my writing journey is to figure that out and then to pull back from it a little bit, start to resent it, and say, "Well, now what have you done to my life?" Well, the writing didn't do anything in my life. That was me.
Mary: Oh, hard truths. I was speaking... So, I'm very good friends with a local writer, Rebecca Ansari, who wrote "The Missing Piece of Charlie O'Reilly." She's fabulous and we're just personal friends. We happen to live in the same city. And we were just chatting the other day, and she revealed that a little bit in the past, especially during the pandemic when kind of mental health was dicey for pretty much everyone and everybody had a reckoning of how they've been living their lives, she lost that spark for a little bit. And I think that is also a very natural part of the process of like, "I'm doing it," and then it's like, "Well, am I doing it in a way that feels good to me?"
Which is why I really sort of harp on the idea of success means something different for everybody. For you, for your early work, it sounds like this kind of nose to the grindstone dedication that some writers could only dream of. So, I think it was very good that you kind of went in there and went into beast mode, but then a realization, a check-in with yourself, a little bit of a pulling back so that you don't kill the human animal behind the keyboard, because that human animal, we need it. We need to make sure it's fed and watered and feeling good too. So, just a little bit of a rebalancing is what I'm hearing.
Rob: Yeah, there was a time where I thought of myself as a vehicle for the story. I'm just a vessel, and I will carry the story. And if I suffer, if I hurt, if the story is good, if the story reaches people, the ends justifies the means. And what I've come to realize is, no, the story enriches my life. It's a part of my life, but my life is not tied up completely to my story. It is a part of me and I love it. And I'm so thrilled that people are reading it, and finding it, and sending me pictures of themselves dressed as the character. Oh, my God, what a bright day that's going to be when that happens. But you're not a life support system for your writing. The writing is a life support system for you.
Mary: Put that on a bumper sticker.
Rob: I'm almost positive I'm paraphrasing somebody else, but after 237 conversations at the podcast, when I teach, I will cite things that brilliant people have said. And I get smarter as a result of interacting with all these brilliant people. Somebody said it may be a little bit more succinctly Episode 200, James Ponti said something that I just have been thinking about ever since, and he said, "The secret to happiness as an artist is to focus on verbs, not nouns because you think that the book being published is going to complete you, is going to fulfill you, is going to say everybody that was mean to you in high school was wrong. Everything is all right." No, it's not.
Mary: It's not.
Rob: You think that you're going to win this award, and it's going to fulfill you. And he's known enough famous writers. He's in an amazing critique group with Suzanne Collins and Gordon Korman and a bunch of others. And he didn't name names, but he would know writers who have seen the top of the mountain, who had their...you know, whatever your dream is, had the novel adapted into a successful film, and that's not the source of their happiness. It's not the noun, it's not the obtaining. It's the verb.
And now when I write, I write because it makes me happy because I am pleased. And when it makes readers happy, that's even better. But the initial happiness is for me. I write these stories because I love them because my life is better for having written them.
Mary: Thanks so much for tuning in so far to "The Good Story Podcast." If you like our writing resources, we have collected them all in an on-demand vault for the Good Story Learning membership. For one low monthly fee, you can dig through everything that we have ever made for writers, webinars, long-form video classes, downloadable, handouts, all of it as well as join our Discord writing community to connect with like-minded writers and all of the Good Story Company editors in there as well for advice, critique, connections, anything you could possibly want to take a break from the long and isolated work of crafting your story. So, come join us, goodstorycompany.com/membership and it is called Good Story Learning.
Mary: I think that is so astute about the verb. It's like as the little folk song goes, you know, the bear went over the mountain to see what he could see, and the bear just sees the other side of the mountain. And sometimes there's an even bigger mountain that is erected behind that mountain. And so it's just like human beings, especially thinky ones and generally those are the kinds that get into creative writing because they have these big, powerful imaginative brains that need to blow off steam, we are famous in human nature for moving those goalposts.
And I keep going back to this anecdote, and I really should get some new ones, but you know, I'm old now. The bucket is full. Every time something new drops into the bucket, something splashes out, and I'm worried it's going to be my social security number. No, I love learning. I love reading. I completely agree with you about those people who are like, "Ugh, I have so many judgments about the market." "Okay, well, have you read any books in the last 10 years?" "No. Why would I want to pollute my creative wealth?" And if you're sitting there and you're like, "Wow, I feel so called out right now," I'm saying this gently, I'm saying this with love. Get your head out of our ass and go read something because you will be so surprised and delighted. And you are seeing people at the top of their craft. And if a smutty romance is what you pick up and it's not for you, it is for somebody else. All that means is you need to find what's for you and go see about what people are doing in that space.
But I was lightly involved in the Judy Blume Masterclass, and that was a big professional highlight for me. I assembled all of the kind of... I combed through the transcripts and sort of applied a shape to the learning resource that comes with it. When you take that Masterclass, you get a PDF. And Judy Blume wrote an adult novel, and it had some kind of mixed reviews. And after winning three Congressional medals of honor and Library of Congress blah, blah, blah, and being fucking Judy Blume, I mean, just being that person, having summited so many mountains, having a place in so many people's hearts, she was about to throw her computer or typewriter... I'm just imagining a beautiful office scene for Judy Blume. She was about to throw it out a window because she tried something new. She created another mountain for herself, and she climbed it, and it was harder than she expected, and she holds herself to such high standards. And when a couple of reviews came in a little bit mixed, she got so discouraged. And I'm like, "You're fucking Judy Blume. You don't ever have to write a thing ever again. You can just bask in the glory that is you."
But if you're broken in the way a lot of us I think are broken as writers, you're going to climb that mountain. I hope you do, but then there's going to be another mountain behind it. And so that climb, the views you get, how fresh the air is, how invigorated you might feel after a really good writing sprint, that's going to be the thing that sustains you rather than, "Oh, I climbed Everest," because you still might die on the way down. Talk about hubris. I mean, everybody needs a hobby, right?
Rob: If you're going to die on Everest, I think it's better to die on the way down than on the way up because at least you have that moment of... I don't know. Is that too dark? That might be too dark.
Mary: No. And if I ever climb Everest, I'm going to buy the craziest climbing outfit so that my corpse can decorate Rainbow Valley. If anybody really has a fascination with the darker side of things, read up about Rainbow Valley and why they call it that. But at least I'll go out stylish.
Okay, you know what? Hard left turn here, Rob. So, philosophy-wise, you rebalanced yourself. You found a little bit more of a holistic approach to your writing, but it sounds like "Banneker Bones" lifted off. You achieved it. So, talk to us about this kind of early phase of your actual publishing career.
Rob: Oh, well, the early phase is I wrote a book I thought was brilliant. It wasn't. I wrote a sequel to that book that I thought was as brilliant. It wasn't. That book is "Rob Worm's Bird Adventure" that releases March 23rd of 2023. So, whenever you're listening to this, it's either available or up for pre-order. Make sure you grab your copy. And I wrote the first draft of this in fifth grade when I was 11 years old.
Mary: No.
Rob: And that copy is included. So, if you get your copy of "Rob Worm's Bird Adventure," you can read that version.
Mary: I was graced with an advanced copy, and that is such a beautiful piece of kind of personal ephemera to include.
Rob: And it's the longest journey of my writing life I feel like. And now I have nothing more to say. That will never be true. I always have more to say, but I wrote that book. I put my whole heart into it, and it was not right for this story. This is a very, very different version that people are getting now. I had it around with that, and that eventually morphed into "Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees," because I wasn't writing about worms at that time. I was writing about people that were worms, but all their problems were typical teenage problems. Whereas, this is honest to God about a worm. Honest to God. I went out, I found worms, I studied them.
But we were talking about my writing journey. So, I do that...but I bring that up because those things that seem like failures at the time, they're not. Those ideas carry on. You can harvest those later. I wrote an entire long epic about flying saucers, a flying saucer horror novel that was universally panned by the people who loved me most and rightly so. And this was after I had been writing for a while and I thought, "My God, I spent so much time on it." It was unpublishable. It was like 300,000 plus words. I had a lot to say and I said it.
Mary: Yeah, if you chop it up, you'll have a trilogy, baby.
Rob: Well, it became "The Book of David," which is available, and it became a five-volume serial because I learned from those mistakes.
Mary: Amazing.
Rob: Where did I go wrong? Where did I go off the rails? And that's as I was writing and I knew I was off the rails. And that's coming to where I began starting going to conferences. I got critique partners. I improved my craft and learned a little bit more about what I was doing. I read the most probably important book that I've ever read on craft, which is "Story" by Robert McKee. It will change your life. I tell my workshop students that people will go off to the jungle and take ayahuasca to see the truth of the universe. You don't need to do that. You can just get yourself a copy of "Story" by Robert McKee. It will do that for you. It will show you the way
Mary: And then it will prop your doors open ever after because you've got 600 pages, 10 pounds, you can use it to get a workout in. Ayahuasca also I've heard makes you puke a lot, so that's a hard no for me. As psychedelic friendly and kind of mind enhancement friendly as I am, probably not my thing.
Rob: Yeah. I mean, if there was like a spot in the mall where you could just go and get it done in an afternoon, that'd be one thing. But you want me to hike out where? In the jungle? And then you want me to not have my wits about me? No, that's a hard pass.
Mary: They do do it in Florida, which is like the middle of the jungle. No, I'm just kidding. I was just there in October. Love my Florida listeners. Please don't hurt me. No, they do it in the States at a couple "if you know, you know." Anyway, we are all over the place.
So, you read "Story." You took the plunge. You spent the time reading and unpacking sort of the denizen or the godfather of story, Robert McKee, had to say. And what'd you pull from it at the time or maybe even now if it's changed or mellowed or matured at all?
Rob: I think that there is no set of rules for writing. I always tell my students that writing is art, art is subjective. End of discussion. So, we can have a difference of opinion, but at the end of the day, all the writing rules in the world come down to a difference of opinion.
Now, if you're seeking traditional publication and there are clear guidelines about what needs to be done, that is the rule for that path. But in terms of how you're going to write, it's art. You do whatever you want. But you need to know what the expectations are. You need to work within a certain framework. And the nice things about having that framework in place is once you know what the rules are, you can choose which ones you want to break.
And the audience is going to have the confidence that, "Okay, because you followed these rules, I'm going to go with you that you follow this one. You've demonstrated that this isn't just a wild tangent. There is a reason for this." And then you can do anything you want. It's incredibly freeing to learn that and to move past that.
But the smartest thing I ever did for my writing career was set up middlegradeninja.com and talk to smart people like you because I stopped talking. All evidence of this conversation is out. I started listening to people who knew more than I would. There's no point in pretending you're the only person who ever started to write. Of course you're not. You come from a long line of the world's most incredible people who have created a wealth of literature for all of us to enjoy. Learn from it and then figure out how you're going to make your piece.
What happened to me at one point is I became a little bit overwhelmed and a little sad because I thought, "Well, there's so much great stuff." Now that I know what I didn't know before, my initial hubris is mostly gone. There's still a little bit there, and you need that. You have to believe you're writing something that is, one, going to make you happy so that you believe that you will make other people happy. You have to believe in your work, or what are you doing with your time, why are you doing it. But you need to temper that with the understanding that you're not the first person to ever do this. You're probably not... At least in my case, you might be. But in my case, I'm probably not going to be the best to ever do it, and that's okay.
And I was talking to Kathi Appelt on the show.
Mary: Name dropper. No, I'm just kidding.
Rob: A little bit. Well, I want to give credit to the people who inspired me and taught me these things I need to know because otherwise it sounds like I just came up with this stuff. No, I talked to the world's smartest people and they told me great stuff. Kathi Appelt, author of "The Underneath," is one of the world's smartest people.
Mary: I agree.
Rob: And I was saying one of my little self-deprecating jokes to her, that it said an act of hubris as an author, because why would anyone want to read my book when there are already so many wonderful books in the world? And she immediately...she froze up. And I knew I fucked up because she looked at me and she went, "No, don't say that." And, "Yes, Kathi Appelt, I would never say that. Why shouldn't I say that?" And she said, "Because your book will be the right book for the right reader. The world needs your book."
And that's how I look at it now. These books are my gift to myself, and they're not going to make everyone in the world happy, although they should. They're amazing. They're going to find someone who means something. And when they reach out to me and when I hear back from them, even if it's not directly, if I get tagged on social media by somebody who's really enjoyed a thing that I've created, then I say, "Okay, it doesn't have to reach every person in the world, but it did reach them. It was worth doing, and it reached me. It made my life better."
Mary: Oh, my God. I just want to reach through and give you a hug. So, as I was saying like, if you've read something and it didn't resonate, don't take away that all books published...publishing is full of crap, right? Like, if you're not a smut reader, then go read something else. And I think it's totally true. One man's book that isn't a fit for them is another person's treasure. That's why there are so many books published. That's why self-publishing and these niche-y keywords especially is thriving because we are in an environment where readers can connect with exactly what they are looking for.
And some would say that it goes too far. There are conversations about BookTok where it's so trope-driven that people are, kind of, like breaking books down to their barest elements and sort of just leaning into that like, "Oh, it's a second chance romance like da, da, da, da." That kind of takes away all the different flavors that are available, but it's easier now than ever before for readers to find...you know, it's like their own flavor of weird or their own flavor of funny or... There are as many readers as there are personalities of writers and types of stories.
And I do take your point that, especially for traditional publication, there are certain things, certain guidelines, certain expectations that you need to hue to if that is your definition of success. But that being said, you're going to find your people if you work on your craft and if you are able... So, I think no matter the topic, no matter kind of the category, if you're able to make readers feel something, and that is kind of the foundation of storytelling craft, that's what all the books are about in essence. That's what all the conference presentations are about. That's what all the writing workshops are about. At the end of the day, you just want to make people care. And the way that you orchestrate that is the rub of learning how to write. As long as you can do that, you will find those people that connect with it.
Rob: That is very well said. I mean, it just comes down to what is your definition of success. And we live in a capitalist society that says that, "Well, if you work this hard, then you can have healthcare but nobody else." And so there's a lot of that that's bred into us, that's drilled into us from a lot of different sources. But it comes down to what is your definition of success. Don't let somebody else's definition make you miserable.
I've talked to people who have had the dream, who've gone on and had their work adapted for film and widely available, and they are celebrated. And they're not miserable necessarily, although some are, but some of them...it doesn't fulfill them. It isn't the absolute fulfillment that they thought it would be. It's a noun, not a verb.
And the happiest people I know are people that you might not have ever heard of, you might not have ever read, but they are creating something they love. They're creating their art and putting it out into the universe world. We're all only here for a blink anyway. So, don't let this impossible dream of success fuel you and don't necessarily think of writing as your primary career or even your primary modus operandi. It's not mine. My primary job is to hear from my family. My primary job is to build a life that I feel is worth living. And when and if I have the privilege to include stories that have meant so much to me, that's also wonderful, but I'm not here just for the books. And if you're hearing this and you were making that same mistake I was, you're not either. You can put this down sometimes. It's good to put it down sometimes and go live life and get some experiences. Otherwise we're all just writing about books we read.
Mary: That's so funny. I believe it was either the BBC masterclass ripoff or masterclass for Lee Child. And the ad came across my feed, and he was saying it's actually good. It's desirable to be an older writer because so much attention is sort of paid to these hot young things on TikTok, and these amazing stories of, "I was plucked from obscurity as a 12-year-old, and I'm Christopher Paolini and like all this stuff." And this little snippet...
Rob: Shots fired.
Mary: Huh?
Rob: I said shots fired. Duck, Mr. Paolini.
Mary: No. He could destroy me, so I'm very sorry. But that is the exception and not the rule. A lot of people have to actually put in the work. Not to say that Christopher Paolini didn't put in the work or any of these people that have these kind of Cinderella stories of getting a three-book deal right out of high school or whatever. But the people who see that and allow themselves to be discouraged, Lee Child was saying you actually need something to write about, and it's actually desirable if you... I mean, none of us can... We can't argue with our own age. We can't get younger. It is what it is, right? We come to writing or we get to the level where we're ready to approach publishing at whenever we get there, but you also do want to have something to say and that was, kind of, the point that Lee Child was making and the point that I made to a lot of my older clients who come to me and they're like, "You know, am I just an old piece of shoe leather in the eyes of a literary agent?" And it's like, to your point, you were the art. You and the art became interchangeable. You cannibalized the art, and the art cannibalized you in that earlier phase of your journey. And then you, kind of, snapped out of it because you want to be saying something of substance and the only way that you can do that is to go read somebody else's work, to go enjoy a weekend unplugged from everything, to be with your family, to be with your friends, to have interesting conversations with people to, sort of, throw the windows of your mind open and, kind of, air it out in there. And I think that's really a nice correction.
Rob: I'm going to brag. I have obtained the PSVR2, and it is amazing, and it will not help my writing in any way. In fact, it will take a little bit away, and I don't care if there is a book that doesn't get created. If you get one less book, esteemed audience, I'm okay with that because I also have to live my life and playing PSVR2 is so awesome.
Mary: Good for you. I hope your house doesn't get burgled. Just don't take the man's toy. I am still learning. I mean, I'm a business person. I have three young kids. We were joking before we started recording that I'm kind of like always a little bit working and frazzled. And I see any kind of unproductive time as a waste still, and I'm really trying to smack that out of myself per this capitalism meritocracy conversation.
But you know what? I need to start taking my own advice and Julia Cameron's advice to go on artist dates and all of that to unclench a little bit because I'm very, very guilty of this. So, if anybody here is listening and they're like, "Ugh, you know, I don't want it to be like..." Well, you should also be making time for fun because should is shaming and it adds something else to your to-do list but you kind of should like. I think Rob has figured it out here.
Rob: That's one thing. There's a whole list of other things I'll have to check off. But, yeah, I mean, you only get this one life. Have some joy. And if working brings you joy, and I think it does for you, I've read enough of your work to know that you, "Oh, Mary had a good day that day. She felt good about what she wrote there."
Mary: What? Am I that transparent?
Rob: If it was nothing but misery, you'd stop. But, yeah, you need a well-balanced life. And I think I'm going to name drop all day, but these are the brilliant people that taught me these lessons. Daniel José Older said to me that he doesn't write when he doesn't want to, and I said, "What?" And he said, "Yeah, I only write when it's pleasurable." And I said, "You could do that?"
Mary: Look at you, Mr. Fancy Pants. Oh, yeah. Isn't that a revelation?
Rob: And once in a while, it occurs to me I know I'm not going to stop, because if I could have stopped, there were a lot of better spots along the way to have stopped. But once in a while, it occurs to me that, "Hey, if I never write another word, I did the thing. The books exist. They're out there. If I never record another podcast, the podcast exists. They're out there. You're welcome, world. Enjoy them."
I can walk away and be satisfied that's a thing I've done. In fact, I have a writer friend. This story really amused me as I've known a lot of writers for longer than it pains me to know how long I've known some of these people. But she's a very good friend, and she has published a couple books, won some awards. She may write another thing, she may not. She is not currently focused on that. And she was at a retreat for her current role, and they were chatting back and forth. And one of the things for team building that comes up is, what item do you have on your bucket list? And she put, "I want to go to Ireland," but three other people in the group wrote, "I want to write and publish a novel." I've done that twice. Next thing, next experience.
Mary: Yeah, I mean, I don't think we'll ever stop yearning and hoping and sort of wanting to add to our list of experiences. You know, there was this... And I've tried to track this actual study down, but it was cited in the New York Times, and I've never found the source material, but something like 80% to 90% of people have books or feel like they have books inside them or see writing as just very mysterious and romantic.
I saw another story where for some reason the number one most desirable profession in the world—and this was kind of like a worldwide pull—was being a pilot. I think a lot of people do want to travel. They want to see the world. Being responsible for $30 million piece of equipment and the lives of 300 people probably sours me on the job of being a pilot. I'm also a nervous flyer. I need Xanax, and let's face it nobody wants a "drugged out Mary" flying their plane. But the number two job worldwide in terms of dream careers was wider. And I'm like, "Oh, a lot of you have a rude awakening coming." But there is just something, kind of, about it. There's something desirable about telling a story about joining that rarefied sort of echelon of people, but I love that you're kind of bringing that down to Earth a little bit.
Rob: I think part of that is, if you hear a great... Like, I've always wanted to be a dancer and I have no rhythm and I have no musical ability. And I've taken classes, and they say, "Rob, you're working really hard. You ain't got it." Yeah, I know, I know." But in my mind, I can dream of that. I wish I had the music physical ability. I would love to be an actor in a film or television show. That looks like a lot of fun, but it's not something... It's not in my wheelhouse.
But I think anybody can write. We've all written emails. We've all written journal entries. And it's a pleasure to write, and I think something that we don't do as well that maybe other cultures do is to normalize just writing for the thrill. If you don't get the big deal or the movie adaptation, if nobody knows your name, it's still a pleasure just to write. If you write it and your children love and they love you., that is still a life well-lived. That is still an endeavor worse going after. And I've come to a point where I'm already more famous than I want to be. Not in the real world, nobody gives a shit, but if I go to a writing event, people know me. I've been around long enough that they've read the blog. They've seen the podcast. They come up to me and it makes me uncomfortable.
I did get approached once in a grocery store. I had a ball cap on cause I hadn't showered that day. And I'm like, "Ah, Jesus." And that was enough of a taste for me. Like, I don't need more than that. I'm good right here. And fortunately, in addition to writing, I've done some other smart things in my life that have provided the kind of security where a man can play his PSVR2 in his home and be, "You're all right." That's a good life also. It's not all or nothing.
Mary: I think that this idea of everybody is, sort of, familiar with the medium of writing. I think that might explain just the fantasies around it, the feeling that everybody has that it's approachable. And it is approachable. It's just things get a little bit hinky when you decide that "you want." You want this, you want that. You want to change this, you want to change that. And I think this has just been a really balanced approach to examining that mindset.
Rob: One more name drop and I'll try to stop. Lamar Gilles told me once that he went to a horror conference because he's a horror author and Stephen King came. And there's Stephen and Tabitha King, and they're sitting near the front because he had to get up on stage and do a speech and they're eating. And every writer in that room is laser-focused on him. He's looking around, and he's about to take a bite, and then he puts it down and he barely finished his meal. I would never want that for myself. That sounds like the worst...what a terrible punishment for having brought the world so much joy.
Mary: Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I mean, it sounds just awful. But this is what you consider when you start actually puzzling apart that Rubik's Cube of what you want, what it might take to get there, and what might be on other side of that mountain, because I think that the people who do poorly in this endeavor are the ones that are surprised that the goalpost had moved, and that there's more mountain on the other side of the mountain. And all of the like... How do you make peace for yourself and with yourself on this journey? We're talking more about mental health, I think, which is great, but it's such an unexamined... You know, nobody lifts the rock to look underneath. And it's worms. Oh, my God. You are never going to get a better segue to boost your book once again before we sign off here. That was masterful. It came out of nowhere. Now, who's humble? Not me.
Rob: Well, Mary, you have so much reason to not be humble.
Mary: I'll Venmo you $20 for saying that later.
Rob: "Rob Worm's Bird Adventure" available March 23rd of 2023 or right now, if you're listening to this or watching this after, it's not quite my life's work but I've reached a point where I've told the stories... I'm always going to have more to say, but I've told the stories that I most needed to tell. I've written my long, epic horror novels. I've written my middle-grade trilogy, Banneker Bones. I've done the thing I most wanted to do. This is compared with "Goodbye to Grandma", which is available May 23rd, 2023.
These are my most personal stories. I feel like "Rob Worm's Bird Adventure," if I had one true song to sing that is just mine, this is the one. This is the one that came to me when I was in fifth grade, and I've been carrying it ever since. And we went through that whole awful pandemic. And I had a moment. I was out with my son, and he was playing on his swing set and I was probably answering emails and thinking about... For a moment, I really thought Banneker Bones 3 would be my last book because I thought it was going to be my last everything. I didn't know if we were going to come through the pandemic and so I wanted to get that book out like, "I can't leave this world and leave that story unfinished. And it's a trilogy. We need the final book." And I said, "Well, I guess that's it. I guess I've said everything I had to say."
And then at that moment, I looked over and a robin landed and was pulling a worm out of the ground. And it was almost like Bruce Wayne seeing a bat flutter and realizing what I must do. Like, nope, damn it. For how many years I've been carrying "Rob Worm's Bird Adventure," it can't be the last one. I have to tell the story. And it suddenly occurred to me, dummy, quit making it about people. Make it about worms. Now, of course, it is about people because it's written for people, but it really gave me a lot of perspective looking at the world through the lens of we're all just animals. What are we doing? Why are we doing it? And writing this book makes me feel like, "Okay, this thing I've been carrying for so long, it's done. I can set it down now."
And with "Goodbye to Grandma," this is a book I wrote right after the first version of... This is the book my literary agent signed me for and wasn't able to sell. It has gone through many drafts, and this is a story about a girl who loses her grandmother in the sixth grade and transitions to adulthood. It's so much quieter than the high concept, "Here's a worm being chased around by a robin." But this is my autobiographical work. And with these two, I can feel like I'll have more to say. I always do but I can put it down. I've done the thing. Next thing.
Mary: Next thing. Well, you have a busy year and worm blood has been sacrificed to getting you to this point.
Rob: I like the fact that, as he was picked up, he thought, "It's worth it if some writer just sees this and writes a story about it."
Mary: Yep, and with that blessing from that poor worm, you're like, "This is great." The worm's like, "Ah, a little help over here." You have said what you want to say and anything else that you say from here on out is gravy. And we'll be here for it. Please check out "Middle Grade Ninja" and all of the books by Rob Kent, all of the fascinating conversations by Rob Kent. And I loved reconnecting with you. It is just such my pleasure to have you, and everybody go check out Rob Kent and all of the many things that he has to say.
Rob: Thank you so much for having me, Mary. This has been an absolute honor and a pleasure. And I think this is just another step in our journey. Eventually, we're going to be two old bent-over people, and we'll be talking about the meds that we're taking. But I'll be there for it. It'll be a good time.
Mary: You just heard me talk about the meds that I'm taking. I'm already there, man. I'm on that porch in that rocker draped with that kaftan. No, I think you can't get rid of me that easy, and neither can you, listeners of "The Good Story Podcast." Here's to a good story.
Thanks so much for joining me. This has been "The Good Story Podcast" with me Mary Kole. I just want to offer a heartfelt thank you and bit of gratitude to the entire Good Story Company team. You can find out more at goodstorycompany.com and of course to all of you listening and taking the time to really dig into these conversations with me. This has been "The Good Story Podcast" and here's to a good story.
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