Making It Up with Michael Kardos, author of Quick Change

“What I noticed was that I started writing stories and just doing things like, ‘oh, wait, when I write, I don't need other guys. And I don't need a sound man. And I don't need a stage. And I don't need gear.’ It was so nice to be able to make something without all the crap associated with it.” — Michael Kardos 

Michael Kardos is the author of the novels Fun City Heist, Bluff, Before He Finds Her, and The Three-Day Affair. His story collection Quick Change and One Last Good Time won the Mississippi Institute of Arts & Letters Award, and his short stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, and have won two Pushcart Prizes. He is also the author of The Art and Craft of Fiction: A Writer’s Guide, which is taught at universities across the country, and he co-directed the creative writing program at Mississippi State University for 15 years.

Among other things, Michael and Carter discuss how Michael went from a career in music to getting his MFA, their thoughts on craft books for new writers, and feeling uneasy most of the time while you’re writing a book. At the end of their conversation, they make up a strange story using a line from Kristen Perrin’s How To Solve Your Own Murder. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Writers, hello. This is Carter and welcome to this episode of Making It Up, uh, the conversational podcast where two writers just sit down and shoot the shit about whatever for about 45 minutes. It's not complicated. Um, before I get to today's guest, I have to tell you, we have a brand new website up at Unbound Writer. That's my writing coaching company. So at Unbound Writer, I do one-on-one manuscript coaching, and that's where I do um most of my work, either manuscript coaching or just one-on-one sessions where I just talk to other writers about struggles that they're having with writing. Um, we also have some self-guided online courses on uh the website, and we do also offer seminars and retreats. Um, and I love how the new website looks. We just got it totally uh reinvented. So go ahead and check that out at unboundwriter.com. And it's worth mentioning that if you're looking for one-on-one book coaching, uh, you can just click a button there and schedule a complimentary call with me where we can just chat for about 20 minutes or so and just figure out what you're struggling with, what you're looking for, and see if we are a good fit. All right, so today I had on the show Michael Cardos. Um so Michael is the author of the novel's Fun City Heist, which is his latest and just came out. Um, also Bluff Before He Finds Her and The Three Day Affair. He's also a short fiction writer and has won awards uh for that as well. Um it's fascinating talking to Michael. Michael is a Michael is a writer's writer. Michael has been, you know, he was in a band, he was a professional drummer, and he had this, I don't know if it's an epiphany. I think he had a slow evolution of thought around, you know, this is a lot of work, and what is the payoff being a musician? And not only that, but it's also so dependent on the group, right? On other people also making decisions. Whereas pursuing a career in writing is yes, you are still at some point a team player, but it is a solo effort and it is your vision. And so he decided to go down that route, um, got his MFA from Ohio State, got his PhD, um, and he does, you know, he works in academia as well as uh as well as writing both short fiction and his novels. Uh, it was a fascinating conversation. Um, he's a really interesting guy. I I feel like I learned from him. Uh, and he also has a book out about how to write fiction. Um, so it was interesting to kind of hear his advice as um a teacher of writing and how long it takes to really understand whether you're doing it right or not. We talked about outlining versus pantsing, all those good things. And at the end, we made up um a fairly bizarre story involving a large estate and a bloody python. Uh, and just wanted to reiterate his most recent book, Is Fun City Heist. So make sure to check that out. This is my conversation with Michael Cardos. So I think we got connected through through Julia, right? Yeah, she's great. She's great. She used to work with Kay Publicity, who I use. Um, and then she went off and did her. How did you find her?

SPEAKER_00 3:40

I think Julia was the first. I think my one of my books, uh Before He Finds Her was the first book that she worked on when she was with Kay.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

So so okay, so you used to be with Kay.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Yeah, so so she and I go back away. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

No, no, she's fantastic. Um, yeah, and I was I was looking through your bio and everything, and just I'm always interested in kind of connecting the dots of like, oh, we have this in common, we have that in common. Yeah um you went to Ohio State for for your MFA, right? And um, my daughter's there in law school right now. Oh, right now, yeah, she's just finishing her first year or you know, second semester first year. Does she like it? I mean, I don't know if anyone loves their first year of law school, but yeah, she's doing well. Uh the funny thing is she edits these, so she'll hear us talking about her. Uh, she she really does enjoy it. She just landed a job for the summer, which is I think a big relief. Um, and then you're with Severn House, who I was with for my second book. Oh, okay. Wait way back when. That was it was so this was whenever it was, 2005, 2006, something like that. And my first publisher was very, very, very, very, very small, went out of business. Severn House took my second book, and then Severn House taught me the lesson that all writers should know is that writing is a business because they're great people. And then I gave them my, you know, and the book did okay. It did whatever, you know, very small um authors do with kind of one of their second books. Um, but I think it probably broke even, but that doesn't say much because the advance wasn't very much. Um and then I gave them my third book and they really liked it, and then they just said, but your second, you know, your book didn't sell enough for us, so we have to turn this down. And I'm like, oh, this is a business. But I mean, if that sounds super naive and stupid, but it was kind of eye-opening for me. I'm like, but you liked it.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

I know it's a strange. Well, it's such a weird thing, and it is a business, but it's a bizarre business all the time. And um, and I think I'm trying to think, you know, I think a lot of writers, including myself, like the first things that I published were all from literary journals, right? Yeah, literary journals are not businesses, literary journals are none of them pretend to break even. And so what that means is they they can take whatever they like. If they like it, they take it. No one's no one's working at a literary journal thinking, I don't know, you know, commercially how this is gonna do. Like, so I do think it's there's some conditioning that goes on, probably for a lot of us, where like it's a nice pure training, and then you're like, oh, wait a minute, that's not how the whole publishing world works.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

That's just how these yeah, I guess it depends on what you're writing, because if you start as kind of a short fiction writer, you know, literary girls are certainly not only a you know a good option, but a great aspiration, right? That would to be published for the literary journal is is is fantastic. If you slant more genre, you know, you're looking for anthologies, you're looking for some of the other um online magazines that maybe do pay a little bit. Yeah, um, but I just never got into I was never I've written short fiction, I've written a decent amount of it, but it's I always found it really difficult.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

I'm like, I can't I can't tell this story, and you know, yeah, I have so many aborted stories in my hard drive, you know, going back so long.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

But but do you ever think like you're you're working on a short story and you're like this really needs to be a novel, and then all of a sudden you're in trouble.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Uh yeah, I feel like I usually know one of my novels sprung from a short story, which like never happens, and that made me really happy, you know. Yeah, um, but usually, usually I have a sense of just the size, the scope of it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

Yeah, I I think where my my if I remember running a short story, I'm always thinking of like I I think of a character and I think of just a snapshot in their life, like a moment, and it might be literally it might be a moment where they're just sitting on the couch, and it becomes very internal, probably highly boring. Um, but I can always envision like exploring that character more, like it would be it. What's this guy's deal? Um, and because I don't outline, you know, that's how not my novels begin, it's kind of just with this concept of a person sitting on their couch thinking something, like what if this happens? So you don't you don't outline at all? No, I've tried, you know, I I've come to the conclusion that you just have to honor how your brain works, and everyone's brain works differently. And inevitably, even if I go and say, like, I'm four chapters in and I'm gonna outline the next three or four chapters or the next couple beats. Um inevitably I think of something more interesting. Um, because that my brain just kind of reveals it to me.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

And so do you do you usually write start to finish?

SPEAKER_02 8:44

Yes, I have to because oh gosh, it's so funny.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

It's like the most basic question that everyone's always asked, right? Do you do you outline or not? And it's yeah, and but it's still an interesting question to me because everyone has their own answer.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

It's totally, and you know, I know somebody who's like, I just go through and start to finish, I just write the dialogue, and I'm like, Oh, and then and then he turned it, but then I'm like, oh, that kind of makes perfect sense because that's like writing a script, right? A screenplay. Yeah, and I'm like, and then he just fills in all the atmosphere in between. I'm like, that's fascinating. And but what it what always blows me away, and again to your point, it's such a basic question. The people who outline who just you know, it's not like they do it instantly, they have they take time with it, but they just have this fully fleshed 10 to 20,000 word outline, and then and I'm like, God, that's a relief. Like, hey, then you just you could just write it. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

But wouldn't part of you, wouldn't part of you think that like if you've written a really compelling 10 or 20,000 word outline, wouldn't you? I feel like part of me would be like, I I don't need to write the book now because here, just read this, right? You know what I mean? I feel like right, make this into a movie. I feel like the energy would wouldn't be there for me if I had that much outline ahead of time. I don't know, maybe I'm just being I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

Yeah, I think it's again, it's everyone's like when you're writing and there's a twist, because I never I'm never thinking like, oh, I have to have a twist at X part of the manuscript. And if I don't have a twist, I don't have a twist. That's I don't want to force one. But when it comes, when all of a sudden your brain just goes, What if this happens? Yeah, and you're just like and you feel it viscerally, and then you know it's the right decision, you know it's the right decision, and I could never, I don't think I could ever have outlined that. Yeah, you know, so what is your kind of process when you're because I know you write short and long fiction, but when you're working on novels, for example, on the long stuff, it's kind of in the in the middle.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Like I think I I kind of have like a little bit of a um scaffold. Like, here are the three or four or five big things. So maybe I can tell the whole thing in like a page, you know what I mean? So like and and uh but although so I don't have any details fleshed out. I will say though that almost every time I'm totally wrong. So when actually I when I'm working on it, that sort of epiphany of like, oh wait, this twist or this giant thing that's so clearly the right move is never in that mini quasi-outline thing anyway.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

So yeah, right, and that just comes from experience of just knowing and not just experience writing, but experience reading, consuming stories, however you consume stories, of just feeling like of course this has to happen. I couldn't see that initially, but it all leads to this moment because this is the MacGuffin of everything, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

And I don't think it ever happens when I'm working either, it's always going to be like when I'm taking a walk or like doing dishes, or that's in the big isn't that weird too.

SPEAKER_02 11:37

You think like had I not been doing dishes at that moment, yeah. Um and and it's not like you're always right too. Sometimes you're just like you have a great idea and you start teasing it out, and you're like, this feels like enforcing it, or or whatever it is, or it feels like a trope. Um, but but most of the time, if I again if you feel if I feel it on the skin, same thing if with an idea for a book. If I have a loose idea and I feel it in a tactile way, I'm like, that's that might be something.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

Um, so how did you how did you start? I mean, you obviously I know musical background, you have very creative background. You were a professional drummer. Um, so has your brain always been kind of just spinning?

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Yeah, spinning off. Um, yeah, I think I I I was always working on creative things, and I always like finish this is kind of sound weird. I always like finishing things, like if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

So yeah, no, your your brain needs completion in a way.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Yeah, and so I I I always like trying to finish things and and you know, I played music throughout my 20s. I I always read and always, you know, read a lot. My mom was an English teacher, and we just had a lot of books around and all of that. And so it's not like it was this thing out of left field, but what I noticed when I was in my kind of late 20s and noticed all the musicians who are like older than me, um, it's hard. It's so hard to do and so hard to maintain and as a life. And what I noticed was that um I started writing stories and just doing things I was like, oh wait, I when I write, I don't need other guys, and I don't need a sound man, and I don't need a stage, and I don't need an art, I don't need gear. I just and it was so nice to be able to make something without all the crap associated with it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

Yeah, it's your own vision.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

So that was really, really appealing.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

And so I just but it's also very scary because it's your own vision. Yeah, well and you're like, yeah, you go, but you but you obviously took it very seriously to the extent that you got your MFA.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

That's yeah, that's commitment. It it was, but also it was it was a commitment, but it it was also a fun commitment because like I, you know, it was a way to go back to school, it was a way to get out of New Jersey for a while, and just like you know what I mean, and just kind of just try something really different. And so um, I know I ended up going to Ohio State, they they offered me a teaching assistantship. So I went there. Um within like a week, I was like, oh, this is such a good call. Because really for the first, I didn't know a lot of writers, yeah, or any writers, and really for the first time I was around other people who were interested in the same kinds of things and can thinking about the same kinds of things and validating the same kinds of time wasting. And uh you know what I mean? It was it was really so it was a very fun thing to do.

SPEAKER_02 14:31

So how do you get into that though? Because I and forgive my ignorance, I know very little about applying to an MFA program. I assume you submit samples, and not only are they accepting you, they're also you know, letting you work there as teaching. Was this not kind of very before you really started right doing a lot of writing?

SPEAKER_00 14:53

Yeah, I had submitted, you had to submit like a couple of short stories for a writing sample, and I sent in a couple of those that I had written. You had to have you had to have letters of recommendation, and I had been out of school a long time and I had been a music major, so I didn't really have um professor recommenders, which is the typical thing. So one of my letters was the lead singer of my band.

SPEAKER_02 15:13

Yeah, was he the lyricist also?

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Uh one of them. So so I you know, they were they were just wacky letters, I'm sure. But um it worked, it worked out. And um, and so yeah, so I did that. And and I thought I would do that for three years and and go back to Jersey and get a job or whatever, but I ended up really liking it and um and uh just yeah, it just kind of worked. I I I ended up getting a PhD for the same reason, which is like I I liked being in grad school. I didn't feel cooked, cooked yet. You know what I mean? Like I was learning so much stuff, yeah. Um, and so I I ended up going on, and that's when they started having like PhDs with a creative um dissertation. So you're doing all the English literature stuff, but your your big book you're writing was essentially a first book, a first book. Yeah, so it was like uh it was great, you know. Um, and it didn't hurt that I met my wife there, so we went there together for a piece of well that's great.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

Where it was so was that also in Ohio that was at uh Missouri University of Missouri. Okay, yeah, so but was yeah, and then it's funny because I I I feel like the people who that continuous schooling is just this intellectual curiosity. It's like like you said, like I've got more to learn. Like, and of course, there's an endless amount to learn for anything. Um, but you finish, and then one of the from what I can tell, one of the first things that you produced was a book about writing. Is that that was an early on book, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:37

It was so my first book was a collection of stories, which is basically a revised version of my dissertation. Yeah, um, and then about around the same time I I had in this book of of about writing. And the reason that happened was because when I started really trying to get more serious about my writing, I didn't know writers, but I I took out like every craft book I could find. You know, I'm sure you've seen them too. That you know, yeah, for sure. Just that libraries full of them, and I just read and read and read and read. And I kept thinking, like, all right, if I were to write one of these, what would I put in it? Which which which points seem to really resonate with me across the 50 of them I'd read, and which you know, and so um I never intended to write that. I but uh an editor from a publishing company contacted me to re basically to review books.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

And I said, okay, so we met for lunch, and then by the end of it, she's like, Well, we don't really have a fiction writing book of our own. Would you be interested? And so we sketched out some chapter headings on a napkin, and uh it just kind of worked. Like I'm I like one of my sort of themes is I'm a really bad planner, um, but I just kind of go with the way the current is going. And yeah, so that kind of it was it was a great thing though, and then it sort of made me try to really think through what uh works for me in terms of stories and what like how just you know, a lot of you, you know, a lot so many craft books are like a chapter on scene, a chapter on setting. It's I was like, who writes that way? Nobody does that.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

No, I hate that, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:01

So so mine was more like all right, a chapter on beginnings, because everybody has to start somewhere. Right. Chapter on scene writing, the things that we actually do.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

So I mean, it's so you know, I started coaching a few years ago and I love doing it, but I really I really fought against it in my own head for a little while because I've always been because I come from a background of zero writing education, creative education, and I kind of just started writing, and it was just like this weird epiphany, but literally not knowing what I was doing. And I read a couple craft books, but you know, I I've always been a big believer, just going back to what we were just saying about outlining versus pantsing, that you just have to trust your own instincts. And that doesn't mean you can't get better, that doesn't mean you can't learn and feel things that resonate with you. But when I started thinking about craft books, I always felt like it was always, with the exception of maybe Stephen King's on writing, it was always like this is how you do it. And I just am such a firm disbeliever of that.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Oh, as soon as you see this is what you shouldn't do, it's what you want to do. Like here's the next the next story I'm gonna write is the one that says I can't do, of course, right? That's why we're doing it.

SPEAKER_02 19:12

Totally. Or you see people going back to our analogy, you know, who are not outliners killing themselves over an outline when realizing like they're not, they're not listening to the and I think what becomes really difficult with this is I think most writers, including myself, are just so have such a lack of self-confidence around their writing that the idea of trusting your instincts is exceptionally hard to do. Um, and and has to be reinforced by the experience, a positive experience of doing that. And I mean, for me, that took hundreds of thousands of words before I could feel comfortable trusting myself of like, no, I don't know what I'm doing, but it's worked out for me before. And as long as you're dedicated to getting better, but it's hard.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

It is hard. And I feel like um it's really easy to it's really easy to finish something and then immediately have no idea how you did it and no idea how to do the next thing.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

That's that's a great point because that happens to me every time, especially if I look back and I never reread my books except for when I'm editing them. But if you have a moment where you remember a part of a book and you're like, yeah, that's pretty good. I don't remember writing that. And how did I write this whole book? And how do I keep right? It's it's weird, isn't it? I wonder what that is.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

It's incredibly weird and it's weird every time. Um, and I and I I want to write down, and I never do this, but I always think there's moments, I always want to write down like today's date and be like, this is impossible and it's terrible and it will never go anywhere. So that if it does, I can look back on it and be like, all right, that was my state then. But right, right.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

Because if I had to encapsulate a memory of a book, so say a book takes me anywhere between nine and 12 months, right? For me at least. I would if I look back on it, I could probably easily say 75 to 85 percent of that time I felt uneasy about what I was writing. Like I just felt like just like you said, like, you know, yeah, it's got some great parts in it that are exciting, but like, is it cohesive? Does it make sense?

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Does anyone give a shit about this? Uneasy is a great word because it's not self-loathing, it's it's something more gentle than that, but it's just sort of like slightly like it's unease.

SPEAKER_02 21:36

It is because when you read a book that really connects with you by another writer, it's a very definitive feeling. And I never have that about reading my own stuff. I never feel like this is great. And it's because you're so close to it and because you've rehashed stuff and you've worked through it on a skeletal level for so long that you just feel like I just have no perspective. Perspective. I'm like, we'll see what the agent says. And I might have hunches, but I won't ever have like, oh, they're going to love this or they're going to hate this.

unknown 22:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

And anything would happens too, by the time you're done with it, and this kind of reminds me too of recording music. All you see or hear is like the duct tape and the nails. And like it's hard to step back and see it as a work when you're aware of all the all the decisions. After a while, the all the decisions you make fade away. You forget what they even were, and it starts to seem seem like a more coherent thing.

SPEAKER_02 22:31

But yeah, and it's funny, and I've said this before like sometimes you're asked to go read, do a reading. And I haven't looked at the book in forever, and I've never read it since it's been published. And I find a five-minute piece, or probably what's a 10-minute piece that I edit down by hand just to five minutes. I'm like, why didn't I just write it like this? It's so much tighter and it's so much better. Or then you find other scenes you're like, wow, this is this is a really introspective, interesting emotional passage. And I'm kind of proud of myself. And those other scenes are like, oh, this feels very genre, or whatever it is. Um, so you and I feel like looking at your history too, I don't know, I'm guessing here, it feels like you're someone who just has a lot of creativity that's just coming out all the time. And you're not necessarily like, I'm gonna write this, and now I want to write this, and this interests me, and now this interests me. Um, you know, looking at your catalog, you've written different stuff. Um, and is that too and which is great. Um, but it can also be like, you know, I how do you balance that with okay, I'm gonna have my lane here, and this is my career path.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Yeah, I have absolutely no sense of balance at all. That's how maybe that's a better way of putting it. And no, I don't I truly don't have a sense of balance. And um my fiction often tends to lie between genres and is unshelvable. And and um, but but I think what it is too is that um I think I'm as I'm a good enough writer to write the thing I'm really, really interested in writing, but I'm not good enough to do anything but that. So so the thing that I'm really interested in is the thing that I have to do, um, which you know is a short story, less now that I'm working more on novels, but you know, when I'm interested, if the novel idea really connects, then I do it. But I have a couple novels that haven't worked. You know, I've written the whole novel and it just doesn't quite work.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

Um, which is what do you do in that case? Like, like you actually still I weep.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

Um no. Um, and like and it's tough, those are tough. I've got a couple of those, and it's like there are some really good ideas in there and some really good scenes.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

And but who's the judge of it not working? Is it just you or you you workshopped it or you gave it to somebody?

SPEAKER_00 25:05

Kind of all of the above. Yeah, there's just not the excitement about it. You know what it is? If somebody reads it and they're not crazy about it, and I'm like, you're stupid, then I know I like it. If they if they if they're not crazy about it, and they and they're like, and I'm like, oh, I I think you're totally right.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

And they confirm your instincts that you weren't willing to acknowledge.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

Yeah, and um, and it's it's it's that's you know, I and I like to think I'll pilfer, I'll revise it at some point or at least steal enough stuff from it that it was worth doing. And I've done that before, like I've I've gotten a couple scenes out of some things that I that I aborted, but um, but I I think what it is though, I think I was in retrospect aware that that that thing that you talked about, that um like visceral feeling wasn't quite high enough.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Yeah, you know, yeah, and and you that's where the self-doubt comes in because you're like, well, maybe I'm just not a good judge of that. And if that's the case, then I'm kind of fucked because like it's my job to like either have the high concept and execute it or know what's working and what's not working. And I think the truth is it's just an incredibly hard thing, you know. It doesn't matter how many books you write, you're never sitting there thinking like this is the one that's gonna be the breakup because of X, Y, and Z. And I'm surprised all the time. Like one of my favorite books that I wrote, what you know, did very middling. And and my last book was my breakout. And I'm like, I love the book, but I didn't have a sense of like this is going to connect with readers. I have no idea. And it's but that's also kind of part of the excitement of it, right? It's like the best can always be yet to come. And I think that as long as you're committed to the craft and committed to a an ever, ever long journey of learning, and you're not ever saying I'm perfect the way I'm doing it, man. You could be 80 years old and all of a sudden you have this monster. You it just is I love that.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

I do too, and I feel like that is one pretty significant difference between um writing and music, right? Like sure a life in music, you know, it doesn't work that way, right? And so um, I feel like with writing, one thing that was so nice about you do not have to hit your peak at age 26, right? Right, in fact, you're not gonna hit your peak at 26, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:22

Right, no, and and as a writer, you actually could because what's so fascinating to me also is watching because I also work with debut authors through international thriller writers, and you know, thriller publishing companies love a shiny debut. Um, and sometimes that debut just takes off. And I've interviewed a lot of them, and a lot of times that second book is like a fraction of the popularity, and they do have this feeling of, did I just peak with my first book when I still don't even know what I'm doing? And that's a very scary thing.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

Do you think that's um lar do you do you think that's uh often a publishing world thing in terms of it's not the book itself, but it's that you can't promote a second book as a debut author?

SPEAKER_02 28:14

It's a good question. I mean, I see debuts varying in popularity, right? So, and it's hard to gauge, but you you have some sense of sale. You can just look at reviews, see how many how many reviews that do they have, and that gives you a sense a little bit, unless it's an Amazon book, then it's just like you know, 20,000 reviews no matter what. Um, I you know, I I think I think the publishers, depending on what advance they're paying, if they if they really connect with something, they'll pay a hefty advance to a debut. And I don't think that that happens a whole lot unless they're really confident it's going to do well. And yes, when they go to promote the second one, I think there's an expectation of, yeah, we don't expect this to do as well, but I think there's a minimum expectation, which is still probably far beyond what a mid-lister is selling on a regular basis. And I think a lot of times it doesn't even hit that level, and then it's just like, well, why? What is it? And yeah, as somebody who's who teaches and has written a book on writing, you know, you know as well as anyone, like shit changes all the time, and you can't pinpoint any of it. I don't know if you would agree with that.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

I a hundred percent agree with that because there's I mean, there's so many moving factors, right? Everything from the book itself to the zeitgeist that happens to be publishing, like the time and it's happening when it's published and what's going on in the news, and if the sort of publishing machine is behind it or not behind it, and if somebody at their publishing company quit or a month before the book came out, there's so many things, right? The moving parts and right, totally.

SPEAKER_02 29:58

You're you're writing and you're just you know throwing a piece of paper into a moving river, and by the time it gets published, it's miles and miles and miles and miles down, yeah, and you don't know if anyone's interested anymore. It's a really like difficult thing, which I think I think that the benefit of that it does give the writer permission to just let go and be like, I can't control anything. Yeah, what I can control is my enjoyment of the act of writing and storytelling, and so let me just do that to the best of my ability, be aware of the market, but not writing to the market. And and if it doesn't work, go on to the next one. What I see a lot with students is this was so hard. I wrote this whole thing and nothing happened. So I'm a failure. And I'm like, no, you're just learning, you know.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

Yeah, you're looking at this amount of time instead of that amount of time.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

Right, right. I look at my first three books that did not sell, they were agented, but did not sell. I'm like, that's my college. That was that was where I learned to write. Totally. That was your MFA, right? That was yeah, totally, and and it, but and it continues, right? Every book on like what what are my strengths and weaknesses? What you know?

SPEAKER_00 31:10

I my first year in grad school, there was a professor there who uh was leaving. Okay. Uh and I I I can say his name, it's fine. He's a great guy, Bill Ruhrbach. And uh he was uh I think his my first year was his last year, and uh before he left, I he had never read any of my stuff, right? So I was like, Oh, I want to give him a story to read and critique in some way. So I gave him, he's like, Yeah, give me a story. So he gave him a story on a Friday, and the next week he can't sit back. And um he says, I'm waiting for him to say something. He goes, uh, the first million words of practice anyway.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

So which immediately I told my friend, and the two of us go home, we start looking open-air computers, being like, How many words are you at? How many, uh, how close are you? And he'd been doing it longer. So he's like, I think I'm at the 300,000. I'm like, oh no, I'm only at 80,000, you know. Uh, but but it was hilarious, and and um, and uh but it it's true though, you know.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

Yeah, I don't I don't know if I agree with the number million, because I've heard that many times.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

But it sure made me laugh.

SPEAKER_02 32:08

Yeah, yeah, and it's but yeah, it's it's it's a lifelong commitment to learning. And I I'm kind of interested. So the the book that you were with Kay, was that um Before He Finds Her? Yes, that was the first one, yeah. So that and that is very and that was correct me if I'm wrong.

SPEAKER_00 32:27

Was that Mysterious Press? Was that Otto? Yeah, my first three novels were all Mysterious Press. So um the first and they must have just been kind of stri ramping up because they haven't were yeah, they well, they had been around for a long time, but that was their first incurrent when they had joined with Grove Atlantic, that was their first. Uh they were pretty new with that. And so and then Kay, and then Kay um was ramping up. And Julia's, you know, that was her first book she took on. It was my so that was my second novel, but it was the first one I worked on with Julia.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

Okay, got it, got it, got it.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

And then and then, yeah, and then we worked again with Bluff, which was a couple of years later.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

But if you look at Before He Finds Her, you know, that is a very right in the middle of classic thriller title cover, you know, concept. Um and and then you didn't kind of stay in that lane again, maybe because you said you you don't have any sense of balance. But did you do you did you have a sense of writing a book like that of like, yeah, it was all right. I enjoyed writing it, but what I really want to do next is this, or no.

SPEAKER_00 33:32

Um the like the first novel, which was The Three Day Affair, I just wrote, and then my agent sent it out to some literary presses, some genre presses, just to see what some reaction would be. And so um Otto Penzler ended up taking it, and he and we had a really funny conversation. He's like, So um you're a crime writer now. So his editorial notes were read through this book, keep that in mind, and just edit what you want to edit, you know. Um and and it wasn't very much, but that that one was kind of thrillery, more thrillery. Um, Before He Finds Her, you know, has a mystery baked into it, which I hadn't really done before. Um, and but both of those ideas had been kicking around my head for like a decade, you know, they weren't like new ideas. Um, and then the same thing. Then the one after that had really been kicking in my head for 10 years. So it's sort of like these really old composting ideas.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

They were like it was like an exorcism. You had to just get it out. Yeah, yeah. Um that's that's funny. And then Fun City Heist, your your your your latest, is you know, just reading about it feels much more contemporary literary to me. Um you know, music adjacent, obviously. Um how would you classify that book?

SPEAKER_00 34:52

I mean, to me, it's my Donald Westlake book. Okay. Oh, it's George Munder. Uh I read a lot of those novels during the pandemic. Yeah. And um, I had again, I had the basic idea in my head, and I had wanted to write a rock band book forever. Um, like I feel like that was just just the idea of writing something that felt true to the experience of being in a band, but also this idea of a band of musicians being like the band of thieves because they know each other so well and they're used to everything going wrong. And it just I just it just made sense. And I've been reading all these Westlake novels and this sort of comic heist kind of thing. Yeah, I needed something in the pandemic days to it was good for me to be thinking about that kind of stuff, and so that's kind of how that took shape.

SPEAKER_02 35:35

But I assume the voice, which I always think is impressive to me when somebody I assume the voice is much different, right? Like you said, it's much more comic, much more heisty. Obviously, it's in the title, then maybe thriller mystery, where you know the personal stakes are always high, so the person not a lot of humor going on necessarily.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

Right. Yeah, that's right. And and I struggled a lot, not not but I think by this book, not as much, but this idea of how do you have humor in a thrillery kind of book, which is sort of by definition the most stressful, typically awful days of someone's life. Like it's that's hard, right? How do you do that? Um, and Bluff had some humor in it, you know, um, but this one is more explicitly a comic novel. Um and I think that happens because of the sort of underlying absurdity of the situation, the absurdity of these characters who of what they're trying to do, but it's it's not making fun of them, you know what I mean? It's just that there's a there's an absurdity to being in a band, and and it's it's like being a you know, it has all of the baked-in um difficulties of being a writer, but stupider somehow. Like you know what I mean, like you're you're you're taking all your gear and to a club and you're only playing for the sound man is somehow worse than just driving your car to a bookstore and not having a lot of people show up. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 36:57

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

Right, because you actually had to like physically carry a really heavy equipment to do how to drive to Dubuque and unload up three flights of fire steps, your drum set, you know what I mean, and and then have no one show up. It's just funny, you know.

SPEAKER_02 37:13

It is funny, it is funny, yeah, yeah. And like and you know, you can have a heist book that that definitely has because I think of something like it's not related, obviously, but something like an ocean's 11, where it is very quippy and everyone's you know very funny in their own way, but it's also you know, a relatively serious situation, and it just and it just works. I think with a thriller, I think it's funny because I I'm constantly thinking of funny lines, and I just I'm like, I I can't put this in there. This would this is a great line, but it just it would pull the reader out, um, unless you're really leaning into gallows humor or somebody who just has that dark sense of humor, but it can very easily become kind of noir-ish kind of humor that way. It just depends on what you're known for, but but you do have to show restraint of like, oh, this would be a crazy good idea, but just not for this book. So yeah. So what are you working on now? What I know you've got a collection of short stories coming out.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

Yeah, the collection of stories coming out imminently, and then um, and that kind of came about just because since the first my first book was a collection of stories, and that was like 15 years ago. So it's just a chance to put some together that I liked, you know. Um and the publisher who did the first one is doing this one, so that's kind of been kind of fun.

SPEAKER_01 38:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:40

Um, and then you know, I'm kind of running a horse race right now. I've got a few novel ideas and a bunch of pages written, and and I keep shifting back and forth between the one I'm waiting to see. I think I know which one's gonna go, you know. Um, and it is it's music adjacent, but it's very, it's very different.

SPEAKER_02 38:58

Um I think it's hard to juggle stuff. I mean, I'm impressed for people who could do that.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

I wouldn't I I wouldn't say I'm juggling it, I would say I'm just kind of like vetting, letting them I'm vetting, right? I'm I'm just I'm just trying to see which one I'm gonna sit down and really work, work, work on.

SPEAKER_02 39:14

So okay. Well, that's exciting. Yeah. I know I'm I'm getting to the point where I'm like, I should probably start thinking of my next book, and I had it's nice, it's nice to have something work that you're working on when the one comes out, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:27

To have the next one in pro because it's something to think about that's not the book that you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 39:31

Yeah, my goal is a book a year, so I'm always hopefully a year ahead of when something comes out. Yeah, so by the time something comes out, I have the other one turned in. Um, but it's it's hard. But that's great. No, that's really good. It's exhausting. Well, Michael, we're gonna wrap up before you do. We're gonna do our own little storytelling. Um, so I'm gonna pick a book at random, we're gonna choose a random page, a random sentence. I'm gonna read that sentence. Okay, and that'll be the first sentence in a short, short, short story. Um, so we'll just alternate sentences. Yeah, perfect. Um give me a color of a book and I'll choose a book. Let's see. How about blue? I grabbed this one, How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin. Um so give me a page between one and three fifty-eight. Let's see. 92. Okay, I'm gonna quickly scan 92 and see if it lends itself well. Well, it will. I I forced my we have to use page 92. Um, it's all in italics, which is interesting. Really? Um do we do we have to think in italics now? Or parenthetically, whatever you want to do. Um This is so strange to describe because less than an hour before I hated this big creepy estate and swore never to come back here again. Could you read it one more time? Yes, I sure can. Um This is so strange to describe because less than an hour before I hated this big creepy estate and swore never to come back here again. This big creepy estate, D A.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

Oh, this big creepy estate and swore never to come back here again. Okay. The electric fence might have had something to do with that.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

But I knew it had been turned off because I was the one to disconnect the power myself.

SPEAKER_00 41:42

That also explains Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. That also explains my burned thumbs.

SPEAKER_02 41:51

I walked up to the front door, which measured at least 15 feet high and seven feet wide, with a massive lion's head knocker, and decided to go straight for the doorknob.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

I knocked once softly, then again, softly, then a third time, so loud I scared myself.

SPEAKER_02 42:22

No one answered, and I had a sinking suspicion why that would be the case. And as I slowly let myself in and took my first few steps on the marble floor of the foyer, the smell confirmed those suspicions.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

It was the smell that could have been made by the lion whose head was mounted outside. It could have been made by many mammals of large size, but the only animal I saw slithering along the ground was a relatively small python.

SPEAKER_02 43:03

And I knew at once the python was wounded, not because of how it moved, but because of the trail of blood it left in its wake. And then I realized maybe that's not the python's own blood. I think we call it there. You wanted weird, you got weird. The Python did it. Who knows what is happening in that house? Well, Michael, what a pleasure to to to meet you, to talk to you. Um, do you do conferences? Are you out and about? Will I see you uh at somewhere?

SPEAKER_00 43:42

Yeah, I'm in and about these days mostly. I'm gonna be, you know, I because I'm still kind of quasi in academia, sorta. I go to this AWP conference, the Association of Writers. So I'll be doing that in in Baltimore um in early March, and then and then I'll be around. I live in Delaware, so I'll Be here, you know, hoping the spring comes soon and just trying to bang out some pages.

SPEAKER_02 44:05

I hear you, man. I hear you. Well, great talking to you. Enjoy the rest of your week and thanks again.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

Oh, thank you. It's been a real pleasure.

SPEAKER_02 44:11

Take care. Okay. Bye. All right. That is it. That's my conversation with Michael Cardos. Um, I love that one. He was uh, you know, I always get energized by these conversations, and I love, and maybe it sounds lazy, but I love not preparing questions. Um because when I'm talking to somebody, that's how my brain works. Maybe it's like writing, like my brain works, it gives me ideas when I'm writing while I'm actually writing. I can't outline when I'm talking to somebody and in conversation with them. That's when I get the questions because I'm maybe I'm feeding off of their energy. Um, but he was fascinating to talk to, so I really enjoyed that one. You can learn all about Michael and his latest book, Fun City Heist, at his website, which is michaelcardos.com. And you can pop on over to CarterWilson.com to learn more about me and my writing. Um, and if you're interested in any kind of writing coaching, head on over to our brand new website at unboundwriter.com and check that out. All right, friends, writers, that is it. That is it for this episode of Making It Up. I always appreciate you watching andor listening to these. Tell a friend, spread the word, um, trying to get more views as always. That would be fantastic. Another episode out just next week. In the meantime, take care of the city.