16 Useful Life Hacks

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I love life hacks. TKZ’s own, Joe Hartlaub, used to offer excellent tricks delivered with his classic wit.

In honor of our lost friend, I dug up 16 practical hacks to make your lives a little easier.

Reheat Leftovers Hack: If you reheat leftovers in the microwave, cover the plate with a damp paper towel. It traps steam to keep rice, pasta, and meats from drying out.

Ceiling Fan Hack: Anyone who’s ever cleaned a ceiling fan has gotten a mouthful of thick dust in the face, which makes a tough task (especially for short peeps) even more unpleasant. Instead of the usual method, where dust flies everywhere, slide an old pillowcase over the fan blade, then wipe backward. All the clumps and debris stay trapped inside the pillowcase.

Stubborn Labels Hack: Direct hot air at a price tag or sticker for about 60 seconds. The heat melts the adhesive, letting you peel the label off cleanly without leaving a sticky residue.

De-wrinkle Clothes Hack: Some materials stay wrinkled even if you hang the shirt after drying. Next time you drag a wrinkled shirt from the closet, throw it in the dryer with 2–3 ice cubes and run it on high for 5–10 minutes. The ice melts, creates steam, and de-wrinkles the shirt.

Boiling Pot Hack: If your pot is about to boil over on the stovetop, drop an ice cube into it, which drops the surface temp and stops the foam from rising over the top. Or rest a wooden spoon over the pot.

Stained Tupperware Hack: If you’ve ever stored tomato sauce in Tupperware, you know those stubborn stains are almost impossible to remove, even in a dishwasher. Next time your favorite Tupperware gets stained, fill with warm water, add a few drops of dish soap (preferably Dawn) and a crumpled paper towel. Seal closed. Give it a good shake for 30 seconds. The paper towel absorbs the grease and stain.

Stripped Screw Hack: Place a wide, flat rubber band over the head of a stripped screw. The rubber fills the gaps and allows the screwdriver to grip the stripped screw.

Sheet Set Storage Hack: Fold fitted and flat sheets. For an optimal fold of fitted sheets, tuck the pockets into the opposite pockets. After folding the sheets, slide the entire set into one of the matching pillowcases. Not only will your linen closet look and feel more organized, but the sheet sets are much easier to stack this way.

Keep Lettuce Fresh Hack: Wrap lettuce heads in tinfoil before putting it in the fridge. The tinfoil manages the moisture and keeps lettuce crisp for up to a month.

Knife Substitute Hack: Rather than using a knife, use unflavored dental floss to cut clean slices of cake, goat cheese, or cinnamon rolls without squishing them.

Soften Butter Hack: If a recipe calls for softened butter, pour boiling water into a glass measuring cup. Dump out water and flip the hot cup over the stick of butter. This softens the butter in 90 seconds without melting.

Metal Water Bottle Hack: Drop a generic denture-cleaning tablet into a metal water bottle or narrow flask. Set it aside for a few minutes to dissolve grime without scrubbing.

Glass Shower Doors Hack: Wipe down glass shower doors with water-repellent Rain-X. Water will bead and roll off, preventing hard water stains and soap scum buildup.

Stuck Lid Hack: If a jar lid won’t budge, hold under hot water — heat expands the metal — until the vacuum seal breaks.

Stinky Trash Hack: For outdoor or indoor trash cans, dust the bottom with ground cinnamon to repel flies, ants, and maggots.

Travel Safety Hack: Take a screenshot of your contact info. before leaving the house. When traveling or attending a conference/event, change your phone’s lock screen background to the photo of your contact info. That way, if you lose your phone, a good Samaritan can return it without trying to guess your passcode.

What’s your favorite life hack? Any new tricks to share?

The Argument Against Transformation

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by James Scott Bell

“A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!”

In Super Structure, I explain a beat called “the argument against transformation.” It is the linchpin of the character arc. It pays off the end, when the character “proves their transformation” at the end.

In It’s a Wonderful Life, the young George Bailey argues against small town existence. He tells the two girls, Mary and Violet, that he’s going to be an explorer, maybe have a harem and a couple of wives. That desire to get away gnaws at George throughout, until he breaks and almost jumps off the bridge. At the end, of course, he realizes how much he loves his family and town, and how much they love him. He has overcome the argument against transformation, and proved it by crying out to live again.

This adds dimension to any story because readers anticipate a character journey. The character goes through the dark world, defeats death, and comes out a better version of himself.

There can be a negative transformation, as in The Godfather. At the opening wedding scene, Michael “argues” to Kay that he’s not going to be part of his father’s business. In the very last scene he proves his transformation into a ruthless crime lord by calmly lying to Kay’s face about ordering Carlo’s murder.

At the end of Casablanca, Rick has transformed from an angry loner to a sacrificial hero. Early in Act 1, however, he “argues” against that. “I stick my neck out for nobody.” That piques the readers’ interest. Will Rick ever stick his neck out? Boy, does he ever prove it at the end. He is ready to sacrifice his own life to get Ilsa and Victor out of Nazi clutches. A surprise twist saves him, and he walks off with his new BFF.

In Lethal Weapon, Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) is a suicidal cop. His wife was murdered. He doesn’t care if he gets killed in the line of duty. Indeed, he longs for it. After getting a jumper off a roof in a most unorthodox fashion, his partner, Murtaugh (Danny Glover) pulls him aside and screams at him. “Do you want to die?”

Riggs screams back at him. Yes, he wants to die! He thinks all the time about eating a bullet. Riggs pulls out a hollow point that he carries around with him, holds it up, says this will blow the back of his head off. He tells Murtaugh he has to think of a reason not to do it, every single day.

Does he transform at the end? Indeed he does, and it’s proved with a beautiful visual—the bullet wrapped in a ribbon. He gives it to Murtaugh’s daughter, who he saved from the bad guys at the cost of his own life (almost). “Give this to your dad, okay? It’s a present for him. Tell him l won’t need it anymore.”

All that to say, the argument against transformation adds a secret ingredient to entice the reader onward. And that is more important now than ever, because of (you guessed it) AI-slop.

Now, let’s agree that AI-slop novels are not horrible. Soulless, but competent. The argument against transformation and the transformation proved adds the soul.

Readers are consumers. We writers are producers. Our books are our goods. Amazon is our distributor. KENP is one aspect of that distribution. I think we all know that the supply of goods has exploded because of AI-slop. What has not increased is the supply of readers and the time they give to reading.

Thousands (tens of thousands?) of books are added to the Kindle pool every day. But a reader’s time stays the same. And because of the slop more and more of that time is spent sampling the ever-increasing supply.

The argument against transformation early in your book (so it shows in the Kindle sample) is an added inducement to read on.

A small thing? Perhaps, but we need to use every advantage we can muster in the war with the machines.

What is Scrooge’s opening argument?

“Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ’em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,” said Scrooge indignantly, “every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!”

Of course at the end, he loves Christmas, and proves it by buying the prize turkey for the Cratchits, going to church, reconciling with his nephew, and becoming a “second father” to Tiny Tim.

He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.

And that’s why A Christmas Carol is the one of the most beloved stories ever written.

Can a machine do that?

Humbug!

Comments welcome.

Is Failure Normal in a Creative Career? Martin Short Says Yes

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A creative career is a marathon, not a sprint. thepitchmaster.com

 

I just watched the Martin Short documentary on Netflix, and he said two life changing things for all creatives. The first:

“My career has been 80% failure.”

This is a man whose résumé includes SCTV, Saturday Night Live, Three Amigos, Father of the Bride, Broadway shows, Jiminy Glick, and Only Murders in the Building.

And he thinks his career is 80% failure.

Let’s Reframe How we Think About Success

Using Short’s perspective we calculate creative success completely backward. From the outside, we see Martin Short’s career as a highlight reel. But Short lived all the parts that don’t make the retrospective. The jobs he didn’t get. The shows that were canceled. The ideas that went nowhere.

That is an entirely different way of looking at a creative career. Most of us secretly think success means gradually eliminating failure.

We think a career trajectory looks like this:

  • Beginner: Lots of failure.
  • Intermediate: Less failure.
  • Professional: Very little failure.

The Goal Isn’t to Stop Failing; It’s to Keep Trying

My other favorite quote in the documentary is:

“Show business is talent, luck, and endurance.”

Endurance is the most underrated ingredient of a creative career.

We spend an enormous amount of time talking about talent. But to be successful, you must continually try and create. A creative career is a marathon, not a sprint.

It means:

  • You write another story after the story nobody bought.
  • You send another query after the rejection.
  • You rewrite the screenplay after the notes that tear it apart.
  • You pitch again.

You keep going long enough for talent and luck to have another chance to bump into each other.

Confidence Doesn’t Mean Thinking You’ll Succeed

Short connects endurance to confidence.

We think confidence comes from success. But that’s a pretty fragile form of confidence, because sometimes the thing isn’t good. Sometimes it is good and nobody wants it. Sometimes you are good and you still don’t get the job. Short’s version of confidence is much sturdier. It is being willing to fail.

Creative confidence becomes: I can survive if this doesn’t work.

That is a much more useful superpower.

If your confidence requires every project to validate you, every rejection becomes catastrophic. If your confidence says, I may fail and I’m going to keep creating anyway, rejection loses some of its teeth.

In Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Amy says,

“I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.”

With an attitude of learning, failure means moving forward.

The 80% Rule Changes What Failure Means

If Martin Short can call 80% of his career failure, then failure is not evidence that a creative career isn’t working. Maybe failure is part of what a working creative career looks like.

That doesn’t mean every rejection should be ignored. Failure gives us information. Sometimes the script really does need another draft. Sometimes the concept isn’t strong enough. Sometimes we’ve been pitching the wrong people. We learn. We adjust. We get better.

But there’s a dangerous equation creative people make all the time:

This failed = I am failing.

Those are not the same thing. Martin Short’s career makes that distinction gloriously clear. Individual things can fail inside an enormously successful creative life.

Your Career Is Not One Roll of the Dice

We tend to put enormous pressure on whatever we’re making right now. This book has to work. This screenplay has to sell. This pitch has to land.

But a creative career isn’t one roll of the dice. It’s hundreds of rolls. Some become projects. Some become contacts. Some teach you something. Some introduce you to collaborators. Some lead sideways into opportunities you never predicted. Some die magnificently on the runway. And occasionally one takes off. Then you build the next runway.

We Need Better Creative Math

Instead of asking: Did this succeed?

Ask:

  • Did I learn something?
  • Did I get better?
  • Did I put it into the world?
  • Did I keep going afterward?

Next time something doesn’t work out the way you wanted, take a breath, smile, and keep creating

Check it Out!

Do you think your book would make a great movie? Get on the launch day list for my new book, Sell Your Book to Hollywood: How to Pitch Your Book, Find the Right Producer, and Navigate the Deal! Coming soon!

Sell Your Book to Hollywood: How to Pitch Your Book, Find the Right Producer, and Navigate the Deal by Lindsey Hughes

Reader Friday-Let’s Go Adventuring!

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Good Friday morning! Let’s talk adventuring…

Way back in 2007, I took a trip to Vietnam—by the way, never go to Vietnam in July—with a medical mission team comprised of about a hundred people of varying ages.

I’d never been out of the country before except for a quick trip to a small town just south of the border when I was in college in LA.

In Vietnam, my job was working in the medical labs we set up in various places to bring needed care to the locals. Hundreds of people walked to our locations to see a doctor, sometimes carrying their children and their elderly.

 

The trip changed me. Let’s just say I was glad to arrive back home (where there are no spiders as big as my hand), but I’ve never forgotten the sights, sounds, and smells. One thing I particularly remember was the light-up-the-room smiles on faces even in the midst of intense suffering. Amazing!

TKZers—what is the best adventure you’ve ever had? And how did it change you?

 

 

What Got You Into This Writing Gig?

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I wasn’t one of those kids who wrote stories in the fourth grade that entertained her classmates. I was too busy reading The Black Stallion and Heidi. No, I began my writing journey at the age of 35, and probably wouldn’t have then, except for one thing. This man came to live in my head.

What had happened was…I couldn’t sleep. Night after night I stared at the ceiling, counting sheep. Then one night, a man suddenly appeared in my vision. He stood at a window with smoke billowing in the background. For a minute, he didn’t say anything, then he turned to me and said, “My life wasn’t supposed to turn out like this.”

Fom then on, when I couldn’t sleep, I told myself stories about what happened to derail his life. Well, he went away and these other people came to live in my head, and they wouldn’t leave until I wrote down their stories on a Hermes portable typewriter. I even thought the first story I wrote was good enough to be published and sent it off to Woman’s World Magazine along with an SASE (Self-addressed Stamp Envelope for those of you too young to remember what the acronym stands for).

The writer’s guidelines specified 2500 words for their Mini-mystery, so of course I sent 4,500 words. The editor, Nancy McCarthy, bless her heart, loved the story and cut it to the required 2,500 words. Don’t.Do.That. Ever! Read the guidelines and send what the publisher asks for. I got lucky. By rights, she should have popped those typed words into the SASE and sent it back to me. But she didn’t, and that gave me enough confidence to keep going. Thirty-plus years later in 2014, my first novel was released–I never said writing was for the faint of heart. But next September my 20th book will release.

Okay, that’s my story of how I started writing. What’s yours, TKZers?

True Crime Thursday – Innocent Florida Woman Jailed Because of Flock Camera

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by Debbie Burke

Flock camera – Public Domain

Today’s story is a truly a crime. An innocent woman was jailed for 13 days because a Flock camera captured an image of her vehicle that just happened to be in the vicinity of a fatal traffic accident.

On the night of October 4, 2025, three people were killed in a chain reaction crash involving a motorcycle and multiple vehicles on Interstate 4 near the Volusia and Seminole county line in Florida. Because of dark road conditions and a semitruck that blocked views, witnesses who called 911 gave varied descriptions of an SUV or Dodge Durango, either black or maroon or white, driving erratically and swerving across lanes. One witness recalled a partial license plate number “458.”

No cameras recorded the actual accident. However, a Flock camera located three miles beyond the accident location captured a license plate of a black Dodge Durango owned by Lindsey Isaacs, 23. Her license plate did not have numbers “458.”

A Florida Highway Patrol corporal decided the Flock camera shot was enough reason to impound Ms. Isaac’s Durango, even though the vehicle had no visible damage other than what the corporal called a “smudge or rub marks.” The sworn affidavit submitted to the court can be read at this link.

Ms. Isaacs protested she had not been in an accident and had time-stamped receipts that proved her whereabouts that night. She had driven on that road but had already passed the location before the collision occurred.

Per a Fox news report by Kurt Knutsson, CyberGuy.com:

“The Flock camera hit was far from the only information investigators had. A 911 caller described a maroon Dodge Durango and provided part of its license plate number. Later, investigators also found red or maroon paint transfer on a Ford Focus involved in the crash.”

Yet Ms. Isaacs’s undamaged black Durango remained impounded for months.

Then on April 17, 2026, Lindsey Isaacs was arrested on three counts of vehicular homicide, plus numerous additional charges, and put in solitary confinement. Her initial bond hearing was denied.

She was finally released after spending a total of 13 days incarcerated.

On May 22, 2026, all charges against her were dropped.

Meanwhile, an investigation by Florida Highway Patrol’s Special Investigation and Reconstruction Team (SIRT) determined there were “discrepancies” in the initial report. Despite the sworn affidavit by the FHP corporal who impounded Lindsey Isaacs’s black Durango, SIRT found no damage on the vehicle.

A WHSV3.com article by Emily Featherstone and Brendan Keefe reports a group of motorcyclists and drivers had been together at a party earlier in the evening prior to the accident. When they were interviewed, they stated Alisa Lee Montalvo, 46, was present at the gathering and was driving a maroon Dodge Durango.

Following the accident, one witness stated he drove past and recognized Montalvo sitting in her badly damaged maroon Durango, with a deployed airbag, parked at the side of the highway. He believed she had stopped due to the accident, so he continued driving.

Montalvo subsequently left the scene of the fatal accident without reporting it.

The license plate on Montalvo’s Durango included the numbers “458.”

Investigators located a man who said Montalvo had paid him to repair her Durango three days after the accident. She told him the damage happened because of hydroplaning. Replacement scrap parts were used that didn’t match the original paint.

On May 12, 2026, a search warrant was issued for the maroon Dodge Durango owned by Alisa Lee Montalvo. Investigators confirmed extensive repairs had recently been made on the vehicle. An airbag had been deployed but not replaced. Montalvo never reported the accident to insurance or law enforcement.

An affidavit for an arrest warrant for Montalvo was filed on May 22, 2026, charging her with three counts of vehicular homicide, leaving the scene of fatalities and serious injuries, and tampering with or fabricating evidence. She was arrested and jailed. On May 29, a judge denied her request for bond.

Lindsey Isaacs has filed suit against two FHP officers as individuals for false arrest, wrongful imprisonment, and malicious prosecution. She is requesting a jury trial.

The corporal responsible for Ms. Isaacs’s arrest has been promoted to sergeant.

Ms. Isaacs’s attorney Patrick J. McGeehan summarized information and photos of her ordeal at this website.

On August 31, 2026, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ordered Flock cameras and all automated license plate readers (ALPRs) removed from the state highway system.

~~~

TKZers: Who do you think bears responsibility for this miscarriage of justice?

Are there ALPRs (automatic license plate readers) in your area?

Do you believe they are effective in solving crimes?

Are the risks associated with ALPRs worth it?

Can You Automate Grammar?

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Can You Automate Grammar?
Terry Odell

I’ve spent the last several weeks editing Beyond the Frame, first making changes and adjustments based on my editor’s feedback, then printing the manuscript and reading it from start to finish, making more notes, and “finally” (because it’s never really over), letting Word read it to me, which led to finding more glitches.

One of the checks Word offers is its “Editor” function, where it will check for spelling, grammar, inclusiveness—is it so bad to use the term ‘doorman’ when there’s a guy holding the hotel door open for you?—and conciseness.

Let’s talk about grammar today.

I’ve always considered myself pretty good at grammar, but of course, I wanted to see what Word’s Editor function had to say. These are some of the things it flagged across several of my books. What I’ve written first, then the Editor’s suggestion/correction below. Changes in bold.

She put the camera to her eye
She put the camera into her eye

She stared past him
She stared at him

Graham finished filing his reports, surprised to see it was four-thirty.
Graham finished filing his reports, surprised to see they were four-thirty.

He recalled the conversation with his father when Gordon brought up working in the same department.
He recalled the conversation with his father when Gordon was brought up working in the same department.

In return for you doing exactly as he says as soon as he says it, he assures me you will not be the victim of hazing.
In return for you to do exactly as he says as soon as he says it, he assures me you will not be the victim of hazing.

He scooped the dirty clothes into the plastic bag, knotted it,
He scooped the dirty clothes into the plastic bag, knotted them

If Black expected him to wash them, he’d pushed the joke too far.
If Black expected him to wash them, he’d push the joke too far.

Mrs. Vernon saw them to the door,
Mrs. Vernon saw them at the door,

He grabbed the guy by the collar,
He grabbed the guy with the collar

You can’t back out now.
You can’t go back out now.

Three days later, dragging her carry-on through the Denver airport
Three days later, dragging her carry-on through the Denver airport

Her hair, cut in the same short, low maintenance do she’d had since college,
Her hair, cut in the same short, low maintenance do she’d have since college

He called Heather’s company
He is called Heather’s company

He scanned the drivers displaying tablets and spotted a tall brunette woman wearing black slacks, a white shirt, and black blazer, holding one with his name.
He scanned the driver’s (or drivers’) displaying tablets and spotted a tall brunette woman wearing black slacks, a white shirt, and black blazer, holding one with his name.

First, he sent an email to Pam, letting her know he would bcc her on all correspondence
First, he sent an email to Pam, letting her know he would be back her on all correspondence

No matter what lies Gerry spread, he couldn’t destroy Heather’s career.
No matter what lies Gerry spread, he couldn’t destroy Heather’s career.

The bottle Ian opened gave a satisfying pop
The bottle Ian opened gave a satisfying pop

 She surveyed the offerings, willing to try a little of almost everything.
She surveyed the offerings, trying a little of almost everything.

Needless to say, I didn’t approve any of these suggestions—and to be fair, Word said to ‘consider’ its changes. But give me a human who knows how to read in context any day.

My all time favorite. I’d written, “Joe. What the f**k are you doing here at two in the morning?” I think I was using Grammarly at that time (which has been updated and improved), and it told me that since f**k is singular, it should be, “Joe. What the f**k IS you doing here at two in the morning.”

What about you, TKZers? Do you have a grammar checker that is more accurate? Do you trust it, or do you still have to stop and consider each suggested change? Or do you prefer a human?

(Oh, and if you’ll permit a little BSP, Beyond the Frame releases October 1st, but you can preorder it today.)

Beyond the Frame by Terry Odell

 

Find me at Substack with Writings and Wanderings

Beyond the Frame

When deepfake photos threaten their careers, dog-park friends Evvie and Colton become each other’s only allies. Evvie, who vanished behind her camera years ago to escape a painful past, uncovers humiliating fake images of herself. Colton, an insurance adjuster with ranch roots, trusts her eye on a suspicious claim. A family emergency pulls them to Wyoming—where Evvie’s own dangerous secret waits.

Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”

Wordplay – Fun and Funny Expressions

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by Debbie Burke

As a writer, I like to collect fun words and expressions. How about you?

Here are some that caught my attention:

ADMINISTRIVIA

During our recent interview, author and podcaster Pamela Fagan Hutchins introduced me to this portmanteau. Two words are combined to make a new word that relates to both.

These days, seems like half my time is taken up with administrivia such as filling out unnecessary forms, taking surveys, answering repetitive questions I already answered at least four times. Businesses, governmental entities, medical practitioners, banks, etc. specialize in administrivia with their ongoing demands for personal information because they want to sell us something.

 

PRETZELITIS

Indie film producer Holly Soriano coined this term for an affliction that writers often have. We twist ourselves into all sorts of mental contortions trying to make a character or plot work.

The verb form is pretzelize.

The cure for pretzelitis is often critique from an objective editor or beta reader who recognizes the problem and tells us that we’re overthinking the story.

 

NOT MY FARM, NOT MY PIGS

“Not my circus, not my clowns” has become a cliche. So that’s why I appreciated this fresh twist to convey not my problem. A friend heard it from her country neighbor.

 

Sign at the local laundry and dry cleaners:

WHAT IS IRONY?

THE OPPOSITE OF WRINKLY

 

 

CODE BROWN

At the gym when a little kid has an accident in the pool, they announce “Code Brown” over the PA system to alert employees to clear the pool and call the janitor.

Can’t help but be reminded of the classic scene in Caddyshack.

 

ALGORITHMIC DISAMBIGUATION

This 10-syllable mouthful arrived in an AI scam solicitation email. I can only guess the prompt was: combine two words into a phrase that sounds impressive but means nothing.

Actually, it does mean something: We want your money.

 

YOU CANNOT TEACH A PIG TO SING. IT WASTES YOUR TIME AND JUST ANNOYS THE PIG.

This quote appears on a Murphy’s Law poster (poster copyright 1981) that has hung in our entryway for decades. The saying has been attributed to Mark Twain, Paul Dixon, and other sources. However, according to QuoteInvestigator.com, it came from Robert Heinlein’s 1973 novel Time Enough for Love.

But its roots go even farther back in history.

An ancient Greek proverb has a similar theme:

“He ploughs the air;
He is making clothes for fishes;
He is teaching an old woman to dance;
He is teaching a pig to play on a flute;
He catches the wind with a net;”

Circa 1860s, a variation shows up in a comical Irish ballad:

“You may catch old birds with chaff.
Says the Shan van Vocht,
You may coax a cow to laugh,
Says the Shan van Vocht,
You may teach a pig to sing,
To dance a “Hieland fling.”
Or whistle any thing.
Says the Shan van Vocht.”

All boil down to the same meaning: Don’t waste your time on foolish, pointless, useless endeavors.

Isn’t that what administrivia does???

 

 

THAT DOG WON’T HUNT

An idea or plan that can’t work.

 

 

ALL HAT, NO CATTLE

Lots of hot air and no action to back it up. A close corollary is: ALL MOUTH AND NO TROUSERS

 

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

A big problem no one wants to face or discuss.

An early use of the phrase occurred in a 1959 NY Times article that stated: “Financing schools has become a problem about equal to having an elephant in the living room. It’s so big you just can’t ignore it.”

However, that doesn’t mean people won’t continue to try.

Photo credit: FilmReference.com

In 1935, the great comedian Jimmy Durante appeared on Broadway in Billy Rose’s stage production of Jumbo. In the show, Jimmy is a down-on-his-luck circus owner trying to escape bad debts by sneaking out of town with his prize attraction, Jumbo the Elephant. As he leads Jumbo across the stage, a police officer stops him and asks: “What are you doing with that elephant?”

Durante tries to hide Jumbo behind him and responds: “What elephant?”

 

And, last but not least, especially for writers:

BIBLIOKLEPT

A person who steals books. From Parade.com

 ~~~

TKZers: Do you have a favorite expression, phrase, or funny word you like? Please share in the comments.

~~~

Merriam-Webster defines DEEPFAKE as: “a digital image, video, voice, etc. that has been convincingly generated or altered to misrepresent someone as doing or saying something that was not actually done or said.”

What if millions of people watched video of you committing a crime? Except you’re innocent. How can you prove it when cops are ready to shoot first and ask questions later?

Deep Fake Double Down was BookLife’s 2023 best mystery/thriller and Silver Falchion finalist. Buy at this link.

Revisited: Fear of Failure

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Kay will return on October 5th, so today we revisit her post from last September on one of the greatest fears a writer can have.

Fear of Failure

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* * *

Babe Ruth played professional baseball for 22 years (1914-1935) and is considered one of the greatest players who ever lived. He had almost 3,000 hits in his career, averaging more than one hit per game. For many years, he held the record for the number of home runs hit during a single season (60 in 1927). His total number of home runs over his professional career was 714, a record which stood until 1974.

But there’s another statistic you may not have known: Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times. Apparently, he never let the fear of failure keep him from playing the game.

* * *

Fear is part of being human. It goes along with the DNA, and it can be healthy because it instills the instinct for survival we all need. But fears can be unhealthy if we give in to them and become more cautious than we need to be.

Once we let our fears control us, things can get out of hand. A phobia is defined as an irrational fear of something that causes anxiety when a person is exposed to that particular thing.

We all know about fear of heights (acrophobia) and fear of spiders (arachnophobia), but when I searched around for a complete list, I found more than one hundred things on healthline.com to be afraid of! Here are a few I found interesting.

 

Fear of flowers (anthophobia) – Better not go for a walk in my neighborhood.

Fear of numbers (arithmophobia) – I have a friend who insists she “can’t do numbers”

Fear of books (bibliophobia) – Oh no!

 

Fear of failure (atychiphobia) – Ah, now here’s one we can relate to.

* * *

Failure is something we all experience, but I suspect the fear of failure is more acute in disciplines that require creativity than in other areas. The very word “create” implies something new, and that means it may not work.

I’ve read research that shows high achievers are very likely to experience fear of failure. (I imagine some of us here at TKZ fall into this category.) Having achieved success in their professional lives, these folks see anything less than a fabulous accomplishment as inadequacy.

Many high achievers will work hard to avoid that stigma, but others would rather drop out of the race than risk what they perceive as failure.

So how do authors stay in the game and handle that scary thought that they won’t be able to write another book as good as the last one?  There are ways to minimize those concerns. According to an article on betterhealth.vic.gov.au, the same things that enhance creativity can be used to fight the fear of failure.

“There are several ways you can try to fight your fears.… Simple changes, like exercising regularly, can reduce your stress levels. So can eating healthy meals, getting enough sleep, and reducing or avoiding stimulants like caffeine and alcohol.”

And don’t forget the Babe. You can’t hit a home run if you don’t step up to the plate.

 

So TKZers: Do you experience a fear of failure in your writing? How do you fight it?

* * *

The saga continues with Knights in Manhattan,the second novel in the Reen & Joanie Detective Agency middle grade mystery series.

  • Joanie is afraid of flying.
  • Reen is afraid she might not catch the thieves.
  • Mrs. Toussaint isn’t afraid of anything.

Join the fun with the R&J Detective Agency as they track down nefarious crooks in Manhattan. New York will never be the same.

$1.99 on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, and Google Play

The Best Marketing is Still Between the Covers of the Book

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by James Scott Bell

It’s horn-tooting time at TKZ. I am pleased to announce that the new Mike Romeo thriller is now up for Kindle pre-order. ROMEO’S WORLD is the title, and the publisher has generously agreed to give it a pre-pub price of $2.99 (reg. $4.99). The marketing department has also spent weeks drafting the following: “Grab your copy today!”

You can do that by going HERE. If you’re outside the U.S., go to your Amazon store and search for: B0HJSNCX13

The text above is called marketing. For an author, it used to be so simple. You got a contract with a publisher (happy day!). But because you were not a household name, your publisher expended few dollars (if any) to publicize your book. Perhaps a small ad in a newspaper or trade journal…if you were lucky.

So what could you do? You could start making the rounds of local bookstores, and try to set up a book signing. There were lots of local bookstores back then. And when one of them gave you the space, you showed up and sat at a table with your stack of books, two or three of which you sold…if you were lucky. If the store gave you a place to speak, you gave a little talk to the three people who came, one of whom was your mom, another your close friend, and the last one a stranger who just wanted to rest her feet.

And that was about it. Today, however, marketing has morphed into a tangled web of bits and bytes, drilling deeper and deeper into the subterranean world of the algorithm. A few years ago it was all about learning SEO—Search Engine Optimization. Your primary aim was to up the visibility of your website in the various search engines.

This year all the talk is about GEO—Generative Engine Optimization, which is explained thus:

GEO goes beyond traditional SEO by focusing on creating content that is not only easily understood by search engine crawlers but also by advanced AI language models. By understanding the intricacies of how AI processes information, businesses can optimize their content to rank higher in search engine results and attract more organic traffic.

Now we are told to spend our time trying to to leverage the power of the bots. I am no expert in how to do that, but if you want to get into it you can start with podcasts by Thomas Umstattd Jr. and Joanna Penn.)

I am old-school enough to believe that the most important marketing tool, the one that never changes, is the book itself. Ricardo Fayet of Reedsy agrees, as he stated in conversation with Joanna Penn (see above link):

One of my big mantras when it comes to marketing is that product is more important than marketing. So having a great book is going to be more important, in my opinion, than being a great marketer. 

Thus, I spend 90% of my book time on the writing. The other 10% is for prep work—formatting (with Vellum), cover, back matter. When I’m ready to publish, I announce the pre-sale to my email list and prepare a blog post about it (check). When the book is live, I claim a new release announcement on BookBub (free). After that, I mostly leave it to word-of-mouth to do the heavy lifting, because that’s always the best driver of sales.

That’s how I see it, anyway. What about you? What are your thoughts about marketing books in this brave crazy new world?