Weekly Newsletter
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A friend of mine decided to start a car washing business. I asked him why he decided to go that route, and he told me, “Well, people won’t keep still whenever I try to wash them.”
No Agenda, Why?
There’s not a lot of news to discuss this week. Plenty of things going on, of course, but nothing I can definitively tell you that’ll affect your reading life. Instead, I’m going to preach you my gospel; tell you why I am a writer with no agenda. There are two reasons. One you can easily guess, and the other one may surprise you.
The first no agenda aspect is political. I bet you figured that one out on your own. I’ve got politics. You’ve got yours. As a writer for kids (and a teacher by profession), it’s just not my place to indoctrinate your kids to my political persuasion, even though I’m totally right. You see, politics by nature is divisive. That’s how those in power keep it. The amount of time you worry about political opinions is equivalent to shoveling manure. Unless you’re using it for fertilizer, it’s just a big pile of BS.
Now let’s talk about the real reason I don’t have an agenda, being overly didactic. The world is full of books that try to teach kids a lesson. Most of them, books and lessons alike, are crap. (Before I move on, I’m not out to trash other authors right now. There are good books and bad, good writers and bad.) This is just writing as I see it. Right now, I see a whole lot of people try to hawk stories to teach your kids about empathy, kindness, or some other such nonsense. I know, that sounds harsh. But you can teach that stuff without some sugar coated story that gets people to talk about their feelings. Here’s the hard truth. There are plenty of murderers in the world who know exactly what empathy and kindness are. It makes no difference. There are plenty of graves filled with people who talked about their feelings all their lives until they finally committed suicide.
Okay, I went to a dark place there. So what does make a difference? Good stories. I write middle grade fiction because I first loved stories like CHARLOTTE’S WEB or BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA. Why? Because they are so authentic. Sure, there are themes of friendship and grief, but even THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE, as allegorical as it was, had its success because it had characters you cared about who lived lives you could understand. That’s what middle grade writing should be. In many ways, it’s how the world becomes a better place.
Here’s the link to preorder my latest work. It’s a good story with no agenda.
It’s a story about disabled children who are abandoned by their families and sent off to live or die, whichever, on a penal colony moon. And yes, it’s a great story for kids.
On the writing front, we have finally crossed the halfway point, page 25, in my latest jokes for kids project. I usually write 3 to 5 jokes a week. Who knows, maybe there will be another joke book out this fall. That’s being a little optimistic, but what the hey. The final edit is done and uploaded for MOONDOM FIVE. The audiobook is also finished and ready to publish. Now, I get to bother people about it for a while. Lucky you. The next project is going to be a dark comedy for kids. I call it humorous horror. While certainly not a slasher, it will be filled to the brim with pumpkin guts.
Until Next Time, God Bless!
