Adam Borba: On Trusting Your Instincts

Adam Borba is the author of the middle-grade novels Outside Nowhere, The Midnight Brigade, and This Again? When he’s not writing, he develops and produces movies like Pete’s Dragon and Peter Pan & Wendy with his friends. He is a graduate of Palm Springs High School, the University of Southern California, and the William Morris Agency mailroom. Adam and his wife live in California with their two young children who love books. He invites you to visit him online and inquire about school or library visits at AdamBorba.com, and follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Adam Borba

Photo by Erin Borba

In this interview, Adam discusses the decade-long process of his new middle-grade novel, This Again?, his hope for readers, and more!

Name: Adam Borba
Literary agent: Janine Kamouh at WME
Book title: This Again?
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Release date: April 16, 2024
Genre/category: Middle Grade Fiction
Previous titles: The Midnight Brigade and Outside Nowhere
Elevator pitch: This Again? follows the hilarious misadventures of a kid attempting to orchestrate the perfect day with the help of his future self and a time machine. It’s a story about fate and free will, but more importantly, it’s a book about a kid wrestling with anxiety and perfectionism, learning to accept that life doesn’t always go according to plan.

Bookshop | Amazon
[WD uses affiliate links.]

What prompted you to write this book?

I always have germs of ideas bouncing around my head. They usually stay there, gnawing at me until I can figure out how two or three them could be combined. The initial concept—almost only an image—was a kid making a time machine out of a blender and an exercise bike. Silly and fun, but not exactly a story. I’d also been thinking about writing a book about a kid running for class president who is wildly unprepared and unqualified for the job.

Eventually, I decided that these seemingly unrelated concepts might be parts of the same novel, with the unqualified kid traveling back in time a week to coach himself in a misguided attempt to win the election. And when I realized that the main character, Noah, should (like a lot of people) be struggling with anxiety, self-doubt, and (mostly) self-inflicted pressure about life, I knew I was ready to put things down on paper. And I kind of had to—it got to a point where I was thinking about this story so much that I had trouble sleeping.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

It took a decade for those seemingly unrelated ideas to come together—that was four years ago. Then I spent two years working on a loose outline, a character arc, and some thoughts on theme while I focused on other projects. I began my first draft of the manuscript in early 2022. Because I was working off an outline and had been thinking about the story for so long, the first draft came together relatively quickly—in about five or six weeks. But while the story stayed true to the outline, it still changed drastically along the way.

While I’m a strong believer in outlines, I’m a stronger believer in embracing the unexpected. I’m always surprised by the details that emerge as characters lead the way through a story. My initial outlines will have literal lines like, “And then something bad happens,” and that line could be followed by something in the spirit of “And then something happens that makes everything worse.” I’ll use those beats as placeholders while I attempt to figure out the most unexpected ways to surprise myself (and my characters) during the writing to keep readers on their toes and turning pages. Because, hopefully, if I’m not entirely sure what’ll happen next, no one else will know either.

But since I start with an outline, I know structurally where new, big, and awful things need to happen to further complicate things for my protagonist. When I started writing This Again?, my outline was three pages of bullet points. But as I wrote, major and minor characters, subplots, scenes, and conflicts emerged, and the outline grew along with the word doc of the manuscript. When I write, I have both documents open to keep track of where I’m heading and where I’ve been, and to make notes on things I want to call back to, and hopefully not go too far off the rails. So, what began as a three-page rough sketch with story-point placeholders became a 20-page detailed outline by the time I finished the first draft.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but I’m still blown away by the beautiful, elegant, and timeless illustrations that Mercè López created for this book (in addition to her gorgeous cover).

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

Several!

I was surprised by how many headaches I developed thinking about time travel. I thought it’d be liberating to have a time machine in a book—a narrative device that’d allow a character to jump forward and back through time. But the more research I did about time paradoxes, the more rules I realized Noah and his future self needed to follow to avoid breaking fundamental laws of the universe. These worries led to a spirited conversation with a friend who is a theoretical physicist at Brown and a decision to attempt to avoid writing time travel stories in the future.

That said, I was also surprised and delighted to find how much fun I could have with a seventh grader believing they had the world figured out as Noah went about navigating the complex dog-eat-dog halls of middle school.

And as always, I was surprised by how emotional the story became at the climax.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

First off, I hope readers have a good time. Like all the stories I tell, this is one driven by heart, humor, and a little bit of magic. Hopefully This Again? will transport readers to that special, whimsical place where my favorite stories transport me. On a more specific level, this is a book about a kid who learns that no one can do everything. It’s about discovering the value of balance, and that sometimes people appear to have their lives more together than they do—which is something that many of us should remind ourselves. But most importantly, I hope this book helps reassure kids struggling with anxiety that they’ll be OK and everything they’re feeling is completely normal.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Keep reading, writing, and trusting your instincts. If you believe in something, work hard and will it into existence. Because if you don’t write all those amazing ideas that are bouncing around your head, no one will, and then how will you get any sleep?

With a growing catalog of instructional writing videos available instantly, we have writing instruction on everything from improving your craft to getting published and finding an audience. New videos are added every month!