Colorful Author Johnny Worthen

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by Debbie Burke

 

Johnny Worthen author photo

Multi-genre author Johnny Worthen is a colorful character, both literally and figuratively. For his talk at the October Colorado Gold conference, he appeared barefoot, wearing a bright tie-dyed t-shirt reminiscent of the psychedelic ’60s. The tie-dye theme repeats on his business card and website, complete with photos and video of him goofing around.

It’s not a stretch to imagine Johnny in school as the class smartass. I’m guessing he drove his teachers crazy yet also earned their grudging respect because of his obvious intelligence and insatiable hunger to learn.

He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Utah and recalls: “Armed with two humanities degrees, I naturally gravitated to the food service industry.”

Similar ironic humor comes through his entire presentation along with his social media posts.

His website logline states: “I write what I like to read. That guarantees me at least one fan.”

At a later-in-life crossroads, he chucked his previous careers and experience to take up writing professionally. His work spans multiple genres: sci-fi, YA, humor, horror, mystery, and upmarket fiction. His appetite for continuous learning also led him back to his alma mater where he now teaches creative writing, sparking similar desires in his students.

Johnny’s opinions are as vivid as his tie-dyed wardrobe yet also down to earth and well-grounded in classical literature.

To open his talk, he immediately punctured glamorous illusions about writing: “Writing is not a profession. It’s a trade.” A trade, he says, that one learns by doing, not studying.

The topic of his presentation was subtext, exploring the meaning that lies beneath the surface of what’s being said on the page.

He cites surprising statistics: only seven percent of communication is verbal; 38% is tone of voice; 55% is body language, adding up to 93%. The overwhelming weight of communication is non-verbal.

His teaching style demonstrates those statistics. He asks a question. Next, he darts to and fro around the room, scanning for people who raise their hands. Then he stops in front of a person, pins them with an intense gaze, and gestures for them to answer. When they respond, he rewards them with a fist-bump or other non-verbal encouragement.

He likens subtext to Hemingway’s “iceberg theory” about dialogue. It’s the “theory of omission,” where implied elements and negative space convey the meaning of a story more effectively than words on the page.

The example he cited was the short story, “Hills Like White Elephants,” where a couple talks about a number of subjects while avoiding the most critical topic: the abortion they’re considering. The words pregnancy and abortion are never spoken out loud, but they permeate every sentence.

Johnny believes reading has never been a passive endeavor. A book requires interaction: writers create scenes that readers in turn visualize. Those scenes come to life in the reader’s own imagination.

He contrasts that experience with videos that require no interaction. A movie or TV show can play in the background whether or not anyone is watching.

Subtext can be direct or indirect, shown with irony and contrast. He refers to The Godfather as a classic example. During the baptism ceremony, while Michael Corleone vows to renounce Satan and all his works, at the same moment, jump cuts show Michael’s henchmen carrying out his orders to exterminate his gang rivals.

In the mystery genre, subtext contains clues and pieces that will ultimately solve the crime. Part of the reader’s enjoyment of mysteries is trying to fit the disparate pieces of the puzzle together. When they figure out the puzzle, they feel smart. When they don’t figure out the solution, they admire the author’s skill at misdirecting them. Either way, they’re satisfied.

Johnny laments that today’s readers often want to be spoon-fed. He’s annoyed that they don’t want to do any work to understand the meaning of a story. They want to be TOLD what’s going on, rather than figure it out for themselves based on what the author SHOWS.

He attributes much of that lack of attention to “second screen viewing.” People are often watching a film or TV show at the same time they’re scrolling on their phones. Because they’re distracted by the second screen, they need to be constantly reminded what’s going on in the film.

Johnny believes humans are “meaning-making machines.” Asking the question why is uniquely human. Animals simply accept circumstances and find ways to survive them. In contrast, humans are driven to ask why circumstances happened. Why did someone behave that way? What is the meaning behind actions and events? Why does one exist in this universe? What is the meaning and purpose of one’s life?

Early in his life, Johnny recognized words not only led him to answers but also more questions in a never-ending chain reaction. Curiosity leads to learning that leads to answers that lead to new questions.

Today, he asks those questions of others, guiding them to find their own answers in their own words.

At the bottom of Johnny’s website, he poses one last burning question:

“Why Tie-Dye? I was told at my first Grateful Dead show that you wear tie-dye not for yourself but for your friends. You’re welcome.”

Thanks, Johnny, for asking questions that caused me to ask more questions!

***

Learn more about Johnny Worthen, his books, appearances, teaching, and his tie-dyed wardrobe at his website.

***

TKZers, do you include subtext in your stories? How do you handle the deeper meaning behind the written word?

***

Learn how to master subtext for villains and antagonists in Debbie Burke’s award-winning book:

The Villain’s Journey-How to Create Villain’s Readers Love to Hate.

 

Can Giving Books Away Pay Off?

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“No one has ever become poor by giving.” —Anne Frank

* * *

I occasionally give books to friends or acquaintances or as a prize for some contest or other, but I had always said I wouldn’t set my books to free on any of the retail sites. After all, I work hard to create a compelling story. I thought setting a book’s price to zero would lower its esteem in the eyes of readers.

But I hadn’t done any promotions for a while, and sales of my books had been slow, so I began rethinking the strategy of selling a book for nothing.

Understanding the Strategy

I found a post by Jane Friedman entitled “The Strategic Use of Book Giveaways and How They Can Increase Earnings Potential.” Even though the article was originally posted in 2015, it had been updated in 2025, so I took a look.

Jane references the A-I-D-A classic sales strategy when considering a give-away:

“First, get people’s attention—whether through an ad, a freebie, traditional media coverage, whatever. That creates interest. And if all goes well, you have desire and action to make a purchase later.”

She goes on to look at how you get that attention.

“The giveaway is one of the more powerful tools in the new author’s arsenal because it’s a way to get attention when you may not have anything else going for you.”

And even established authors may want to consider a freebie:

“But should established authors do giveaways? The “permafree” strategy is well-documented as an effective marketing tool—which means you make the first book in a series permanently available for free, as a gateway drug to the rest of your work.”

Making the Decision

I’m not yet convinced about setting one of my books to permafree, but the idea of attracting more readers by setting the price of the first book in my Watch Mystery series to zero was getting more appealing.

To add to my decision-making, I discovered that BookBub recently began a new type of promotion called “Free Reads,” and those promos are priced lower than their “Featured Deals” promos. That got me thinking maybe it was time to give it a try, so I submitted The Watch on the Fencepost, the first book in my Watch Mystery series, for a Free Reads deal, and BookBub selected it.

Preparing for the Promo

My books are available “wide”, on a range of retailers including Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, Google Play as well as Amazon. The first step was to set the price to zero on all platforms, but that presented a problem. Amazon’s KDP doesn’t allow you to list a book for 0.00, so how was I supposed to change it to be free? The solution is to set the price on all the other sites to 0.00, then contact KDP and request a price match for the Kindle book on Amazon. Amazon will comply, but it may take several days.

The Results

The Free Reads promo for The Watch on the Fencepost went out on October 12, and it resulted in close to 5,000 downloads on that day on Amazon alone. And I sold a few of my other titles at full price.

As the week went on, I glanced at the Amazon book detail page and found The Watch on the Fencepost ranked #1 in Christian Suspense, #2 in Cozy Mysteries, and #10 in all free books on Amazon. And the other book sales were mounting up.

I had intended to end the freebie after a week, but I was still getting a lot of downloads, so I decided to let it go for a while longer. Although I don’t have all the data from the other sites, it appears as of today a total of more than 10,000 downloads of the book will have been completed over all five book retailers. Since I’m still getting a lot of downloads and selling other books in the process, I’m going to wait a while longer before changing the price back.

* * *

Was it worth it?

Yes. For my goals and the price I paid for the promotion, it was well worth it. Several things stand out to me:

  • Discoverability: A lot more readers know my work and my name.
  • Ratings and reviews: The Watch on the Fencepost has received more than one hundred additional ratings and reviews on Amazon since the Free Deals ad. Clearly, people are not just downloading, but many are reading and rating the book. Positive ratings and reviews plus sales volume impact Amazon’s recommendation and search algorithms
  • The sale of the other books in the series implies folks like the first one. Although I haven’t added up all the royalties yet, it appears that the income from book sales may pay for the promo.

Is this strategy for everyone?

With all the positives I mentioned above, here’s a word of caution from Jane Friedman:

“Where I think indie authors run into trouble is when they only have 1 or 2 books to sell, and they have nothing else to offer readers …  So there is no funnel or path for readers to follow. It is a dead-end road. The potential fan finishes the book, and then … you lose them. Maybe they’ll find your next book, if and when it comes, maybe not.”

Like everything else in life, making this decision depends on multiple criteria. Each of us has to weigh our writing goals against the cost and anticipated rewards from offering a freebie.

* * *

So TKZers: Have you ever offered one of your books for free? What was your experience? Do you have plans for doing a freebie in the future?

* * *

 

Why would someone leave an expensive watch on a fencepost? Grab your FREE copy of The Watch on the Fencepost and find out. Click the image to go to the Amazon book detail page.

Enjoy!

Act First, Explain Later

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by James Scott Bell

Greetings, thrill seekers. We have another first page for critique. Give it a read and join me on the other side.

Title: PROTECTED PERSONS. Genre: Thriller.

PART ONE — NATURAL CAUSES

Prologue

Davos, Switzerland. 11:40. Pulse 61.

The Prime Minister of Canada has nine minutes to live, and he is going to spend one of them on a joke.

His name is Marc Delorme. I watch him on a television with the sound off, in a cheap hotel room across town from the World Economic Forum. It is late January. The clock in the corner of the screen says twenty to twelve.

I know when he will die because I chose the minute: eleven forty-nine, in the main hall, four minutes before the end of his speech.

The voice in my head does not choose the names, or the minute. I do. It came to me in a hospital, in a white room, after a bomb, when I could not move my hands or remember my own name. It still comes with a hum behind my left ear, low and steady, like a fridge in an empty flat. It never tells me who. Mostly it says the same few sentences it has always said, in the even voice of someone reading out a rule.

Those who stand in the way must be removed.

It must look like nature.

What they meant to say must not be heard.

The rest is my work. The newspapers tell me who stands in the way, and they are very helpful about it. They print it every week, with photographs: a face at a lectern, announcing that his country will build a network of its own and need nobody else’s. In the way of what, the voice has never said. I was a soldier for a long time, and a soldier with clear orders sleeps well.

***

JSB: We have here a promising opening salvo for an international thriller. It has a Day of the Jackal type feel. The First Person Present POV, if it holds for the entire book (I’m guessing it does not) presents some challenges (which are beyond the scope of this post). For one thing, it prevents cross-cutting to other POVs for suspense purposes. Well, not always. You can certainly mix POVs, using First Person for one character, and Third Person for others. James Patterson has done this, and he’s sold a few books.

But today we’re looking at this first page and our question is: would I want to read on?

With some tweaks, my answer is yes. So let’s tweak.

We’ve talked about prologues several times here at TKZ. See here, here, and here.

Critique group chatter often holds that editors and agents don’t like prologues, so never use them. Tush. A prologue can make a great hook if it is a scene that works well on its own.

In the past I’ve counseled writers not to use the label Prologue. Just give us the scene with no heading, then do Chapter 1 next (as in Harlan Coben’s Tell No One). I read a thriller that started with 0 (a prologue scene), then came 1, 2, 3 etc.

Your book has Parts, so that’s necessary to label. My advice is to ditch the word Prologue.

That leaves you with the place/time stamp. That’s fine. I was thrown by Pulse 61 at first, then figured it’s the narrator describing his own. This seems needlessly confusing. If the guy is tracking his own pulse, let him tell us in the narrative. Maybe this is to be a recurring stamp. If so, I’d get tired of it.

The Prime Minister of Canada has nine minutes to live, and he is going to spend one of them on a joke.

I’d cut the last part. The Prime Minister of Canada has nine minutes to live. Boom. Let it stand alone. The part about the joke dilutes the impact.

His name is Marc Delorme. I watch him on a television with the sound off, in a cheap hotel room across town from the World Economic Forum. It is late January. The clock in the corner of the screen says twenty to twelve.

Good. You’ve given us the essential setting for the narrator, and main event, the World Economic Forum.

I know when he will die because I chose the minute: eleven forty-nine, in the main hall, four minutes before the end of his speech.

I’m interested. How has the narrator chosen the time, and how will he pull it off?

The voice in my head does not choose the names, or the minute. I do. It came to me in a hospital, in a white room, after a bomb, when I could not move my hands or remember my own name.

Good, marbled-in backstory. Some teachers say “No backstory in the opening!” I don’t subscribe to that. But I do counsel using it sparingly in the first few pages so it does not slow down the action. Here we have a guy who survived a bomb and gets a voice in his head. Voice? What’s that about? At this point it is a mystery, and that’s how I’d leave it for the moment. Unanswered questions are a great way to make a reader turn the page. You can reveal more about the voice later.

Give us some action now. You can save the rest of this page for later. But let’s have a look anyway:

It still comes with a hum behind my left ear, low and steady, like a fridge in an empty flat. It never tells me who. Mostly it says the same few sentences it has always said, in the even voice of someone reading out a rule.

Those who stand in the way must be removed.

It must look like nature.

What they meant to say must not be heard.

I like a fridge in an empty flat. That’s a great way to describe this mysterious voice.

For the three lines of the voice, I’d go ahead and use italics. Italics can be helpful, IMO, unless they come in big blocks. Yours do not. Italics would help readers “hear” the voice.

The rest is my work. The newspapers tell me who stands in the way, and they are very helpful about it. They print it every week, with photographs: a face at a lectern, announcing that his country will build a network of its own and need nobody else’s. In the way of what, the voice has never said. I was a soldier for a long time, and a soldier with clear orders sleeps well.

This paragraph is all exposition, and we don’t need it yet. My axiom is: Act first, explain later. What this first page needs is a character in motion, not in explanation.

All that said, I am intrigued. We have an impending assassination on a world stage, and a guy who hears a voice, and who is somehow going to make this happen. I would turn this page.

How about you, TKZers?

That Time I Worked At A Haunted Library

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Happy Halloween! Tonight is the culmination of the “Spooky Season,” when the eerie, the suspenseful, and the down right horrific hold court in many imaginations. There’s a chill in the air here now, does it portend something more? Halloween and ghosts go together, which reminds me of the time I once worked at a supposedly haunted library.

Back in the early 2000s I worked at the North Portland branch library, while my “home” branch was getting a brand-new building. North Portland was a lovely old Carnegie endowment building built in 1913, in the Jacobethan style with a peaked roof, lots of dark walnut, especially the arched and planked wooden ceiling.

I arrived at the beginning of December 2001, to help staff the reference desk, and also teach computer classes and give “pop-up” story times for kids in the main room. It was lively library, with a high school next door, and a diverse community that needed and loved their branch. “Never a dull moment” described North Portland library to a tee.

I had no idea that the branch was supposedly haunted.

The upstairs level, where the manager and youth librarian offices and the meeting room were, seemed to be the places mostly likely to have spectral apparitions, especially at night when the lights were out in the offices and after the computer lab in the meeting room had closed. Usually the apparitions were “just” noises, but sometimes people claimed they felt the touch of something invisible, or had a sensation of someone close by, only to discover there was no one else there.

The weirdest part was where the ghostly epicenter of the haunting was located: in of all places, the upstairs restroom. A wall-mounted hot air hand dryer would suddenly turn on when no one was in the restroom. The sound of the dryer’s blower echoing down the dark walnut staircase and into the main room of the library sent a chill up my spine the first time or two I heard it, but the veteran staff were used to it and just shrugged at the noise.

The unit was serviced numerous times, but it still activated when no one was in the rest room. A couple of times it was dismounted and sent to the repair shop. Each time it was tested and then returned and remounted.

It continued to turn on at odd times, often at night. Chances are it was just hard-to-fix faulty wiring, or a perhaps the dryer’s push button simply received too much wear and tear too fast and triggered on its own. Perhaps it was simply air pressure from the door being closed after someone had left the room.

Or was it the Little Chapel of the Chimes funeral home just across the street from the branch? Some people claimed it was a restless spirit or two coming over for some spectral shenanigans.

The funeral home has since closed and is now a pub. Last I’d heard, it wasn’t haunted. I haven’t heard anything recently about apparitions at the library either.

Perhaps a festive public house, with good cheer did the trick. Or perhaps there never were ghosts or a haunting. Either way, it’s a fun story and a fun place to have worked at.

Have you ever encountered a location said to be haunted? If so, please tell us in comments.

(A slightly different version of this story appeared previously in my author newsletter.)

Dumb Criminals On Halloween

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Since Saturday is Halloween, I thought I’d post a few crimes involving dumb criminals celebrating the holiday, whether it’s Halloween or not. Here’s the first one:

One clown shy of a full load.

AI generated

On July 20, 2019, motorists in Westminster, California, a black BMW drove north along the fast lane of the 405 freeway at a mere 2 to 3 miles per hour. On the roof of the car was a clown. More specifically, a man in a clown mask and a green wig, sat on top of the car. Police soon came to pull the luxury clown car over, but that’s when the clown decided to speed up. He fled up 405 at around 70 miles per hour, pursued by California Highway Patrol officers. The clown drove onto the 90 freeway before deciding to make for Venice Beach. At one point during this part of the chase, he climbed back onto the roof of the BMW and “began gesturing” at the police officers chasing him. Finally, the car stopped on the Ocean Front Walk, and the clown fled the vehicle, heading onto the beach. There, he interacted with unaware beachgoers, even stopping to help bury someone in the sand. After that, he took off his shirt and headed into the water. It was at this point that the police caught up with the clown and arrested him.  A woman who was also in the BMW was questioned but ultimately released, and the chainsaw turned out to be a toy. The man’s motive for the bizarre incident was unclear. His bail was set at $75,000 while he awaited a court date.

What is it with clowns dressing like it was Halloween?

On the evening of February 6, 2016, a Jefferson County, Alabama, deputy was flagged down by a passing motorist. The concerned citizen had just witnessed a red Ford SUV lurching and weaving all over the road. The deputy soon caught up with the loopy Ford and pulled it over. At the wheel, he found a tipsy clown.

The driver was clearly quite drunk. He claimed that he’d only had a few drinks at a nearby restaurant. It remains uncertain what his definition of “a few” was. The drunk driver provided no explanation for why he was dressed as a clown.

He was arrested, and it turned out that he also had an outstanding felony warrant for theft. Despite his troubles, when he was photographed for his mugshot, he smiled for the camera. The chief deputy just shook his head and said, “I thought I had everything, but obviously I haven’t seen it all.

No clown here, just a unicorn

created with AI

March 16, 2019, a young man set out to rob a convenience store in Baldwin, Maryland, a small community not far from Baltimore. He presumably knew surveillance cameras would capture the incident, so he needed a disguise. He chose a pink and white unicorn costume.

At 5:00 AM, he walked into High’s Dairy Store, dressed in costume and brandishing a crowbar. He used the crowbar to smash a register before leaving with cash and cigarettes. After obtaining the loot, Rogge ditched the unicorn costume and got into a silver Hyundai Elantra driven by his accomplice. The car fled the area.

This daring escape was not to last, however. The two men hadn’t gone far before the driver crossed into oncoming traffic at an intersection. As a result, the car managed to make contact with mailboxes, a Baltimore Gas and Electric pole, shrubs, and a boulder before finally hitting a tree.

The two men were taken to nearby hospitals and upon release, both men were charged with theft, robbery, and armed robbery, destruction of property and first- and second-degree assault. Baltimore County police were able to recover the unicorn suit.

So there you have it, TKZer…dumb criminals, dumb crimes, and they don’t wait until Halloween to show out. Readers, what’s a dumb crime you’ve read about? Or, dare I ask — what was the craziest thing you did on Halloween?

Quotable

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“There is no finer form of fiction than the mystery. It has structure, a story line and a sense of place and pace. It is the one genre where the reader and the writer are pitted against each other. Readers don’t want to guess the ending, but they don’t want to be so baffled that it annoys them. … The research you do is crucial. In mystery fiction, you have to tell the truth. You can’t fool the reader and expect to get away with it.” – Sue Grafton

Change One Word And
The Whole World Opens Up

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Original The Beatles <I>Yesterday and Today</I> Album Cover

“Scrambled eggs, oh, my baby, how I love your legs” — original lyrics for opening of Yesterday, as written by Paul McCartney.

PJ Parrish

My husband is a Tom Petty freak. So in the interest of marital bliss, I have come to know alot about Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers. Alas, never saw him in person but I have been dragged to more Petty cover groups than I can remember — including a really fabulous tribute band called The Traveling Milburys.

I’ve come to really like Petty’s music. And I now recognize that he is one of rock’s greatest lyricists.  As his biographer Warren Zanes wrote, Petty was not “the intellectual gymnast that Elvis Costello was, never as grandly romantic as Springsteen. Petty nonetheless got in there a little deeper than the others.”

I’ve come to envy Petty’s way with words. He had an emotional economy, packing more punch with fewer lines than even Dylan. As Zanes says, he was the kind of writer who “could set up a story in a couple of words.”

She was an American girls, raised on promises…

And this one’s dear to my wrtier’s heart: He had a true love of ambiguity, never hitting you over the head, never telling you what to feel. He gives the listener (or reader) more space to breathe and imagine. I always liked Petty’s song “A Room At The Top,” When I first listened to it, I felt uplifted. Until I really listened.

I got a room at the top of the world tonight
I can see everything tonight
I got a room where everyone
Can have a drink and forget those things
That went wrong in their life

Petty called it the most depressing song he’d ever writtten. But you know, it depends on your mood when you hear it.

Petty also had a gift for channeling his own life and North Florida background. This came to fruition in the Southern Accents album, where he felt free to leave behind “good rock and roll songs…and push beyond.”

There’s a Southern accent where I come from/ The young-uns call it country, the Yankees call it dumb/ I got my own way of talking but everything is done/ with a Southern accent where I come from.

Don’t we all need to push beyond? Don’t we all need to write with our own accents? And if you’ll allow me, one more note about the song “Southern Accents.” In it, the bridge is a visitation in which his dead mother arrives to her grieving son:

For just a moment, I was dreaming/ For just a moment it was oh so real/ For just a moment she was standing there, with me.

That was the power of Petty’s poetry — its emotional universality. I relate to that song not because I am Southern. But because I once had a transcedent visitation from my mother not long after her death. And I used that feeling to write a scene in one of my books when my protagonist is trying desperately to come to terms with his mother’s passing.

Petty also had an uncanny habit of finding the right word. And I know we all struggle with that. We might slip in a “holding” word or phrase until we can get unblocked. We’ve all slipped some scrambled eggs into our books. But Petty didn’t like to settle,

The other night, my husband and I drove through a pouring rain to Elk Rapids to see yet another Petty cover band. They played a song I didn’t know called “You Wreck Me.” It’s an exuberant rocker that ends the show. Petty originally wrote it as “You Rock Me.”  He realized what a pathetic cliche that was and changed ONE WORD.

It completely shifted the emotional weight and meaning of the song into a raw ode to a turbulent, high-energy romance. He did something similar with his iconic song “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”

His original lyrics were: “Hey, Indiana girl, go out and find the world.” After coming to the conclusion that “Indiana girl” was too clunky and awkward, Petty changed the lyrics to “last dance with Mary Jane, one more time to kill the pain.” Is Mary Jane a forgotten love or something else that kills the pain?

Well, shoot, Enough about Tom Petty. Because, as you can see, I have become an acolyte. And there is nothing more boring than the newly converted.

Let’s have some fun. Here are other examples of songs that were saved from the scrapheap — and from themselves.

Little Richard was no stranger to potential censorship. He changed the original, hypersexual lyrics of his signature hit, “Tutti Frutti”, to be more modest and radio-friendly. The original lyrics were “If it don’t fit, don’t force it / You can grease it, make it easy” became “Tutti Frutti, aw rooty / Tutti Frutti / aw rooty.”

While working on the Let It Be album, Paul McCartney was disgusted by the racist rantings of a British politician Enoch Powell. He wrote his frustations into the song “Get Back”

“Meanwhile back at home too many Pakistanis/ Living in a council flat/ Candidate Macmillan, tell us what your plan is/ Won’t you tell us where you’re at?”. 

He wrote it as an attempt at satire, but the verse was cut and the song defanged into a vague track about a guy named Jojo. The episode illustrates how tough it was (still is?) for artists to navigate social commentary.

On a lighter note, McCartney and Lennon often clashed as collaborators. Paul could be cloyingly pop and John stubbornly obtuse. But John did, early in their partnership, save Paul some cringy embarrassment. Here’s Paul’s original opening from “I Saw Her Standing There:”

“She was just seventeen, she’d never been a beauty queen.”

John changed it to: “She was just seventeen. You know what I mean.”

Which is great, because we DON’T know what he means. Or do we? Again, ambiguity can be your friend.

I’ll give the last word to Petty’s biographer Zanes: “That’s a writer’s genius. Just change one word [or phrase] and the whole song opens up.”

Keep that in mind, crime dogs, as you go rewrite chapter 15.

__________________

Postscript: The photo opening the post, as many of you will recognize, is the infamous “butcher” cover for The Beatles album Yesterday and Today. It was considered too grotesque at the time (Lennon wanted it as a statement against the Vietnam War). So they scraped it. If you happen to have a pristine sealed copy, it’s now worth $100,000.

 

Formula for Happiness

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I heard “formula for happiness” in a movie last week. Speaking as someone who went through an honest life review in my mid-fifties and left a 27-year marriage a year later, a formula for happiness piqued my interest, not because I’m unhappy—quite the opposite; leaving was the best decision I ever made—but because I wondered if a psychologist, scientist, or researcher found evidence to back up their claim of a happiness formula.

Sure enough, I found quite a few studies. Don’t you love it when fiction writers use factual information as a jumping off point?

I decided to write about this subject after a longtime-reader-turned-friend reached out to say my choice to start over gave her the courage to leave her 32-year loveless marriage. Six months later, she’s now content, happy, and loving life again. We had a deep discussion about why too many men and women stay in marriages that don’t work anymore. It’s easy to stay. It takes real courage to leave, especially after decades together.

At the time, I remember my husband said, “Why leave? We don’t even fight.” It’s true, we didn’t. Neither of us cared enough to fight. Rather than hurt him with that fact, I said, “Someday, you’ll thank me for this. I’m setting us both free.” Less than a year later, he did thank me.

That said, along with opening and closing multiple chapters in my life, I feel I have something to contribute to the subject of happiness.

First, let’s look at the studies.

According to long-term findings shared via The Atlantic, Harvard scholar Arthur C. Brooks relies on behavioral shifts rather than accumulating possessions for happiness. He believes we should:

  • Love people instead of using them.
  • Use things instead of loving them.
  • Stay physically and socially engaged to protect our health and manage stress.

I agree with the first two. I also believe staying physically active contributes to happiness. Socially engaging with people every day? No, thank you. Humans wear me out. I’ve always been a happy loner. 😉 I surround myself with animals, nature, and a chosen few close friends/family. But socially engaging every single day? Nope, not for me. I cherish my alone time.

Equations for Happiness

Happiness = Results/Expectations

Meaning, focus on lowering expectations and how you measure outcomes. I’ve said many times writers should celebrate small victories i.e., hitting a word count, completing a chapter, or writing your Nifty Fifty (winking at you, JSB!). Celebrate hitting milestones, rather than stressing about writing the entire book. Also, keep expectations in check. Penning one novel won’t make you an overnight success. Writing is a marathon, not a sprint.

Happiness = Smiles – Frowns

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak believes we should minimize complaints, arguments, and avoidable stress. I read another study that said smiling, singing, and dancing automatically induces happiness. And it’s true!

Enjoyment + Satisfaction + Meaning = Happiness

Meaning, break down happiness into active joy, accomplished goals, and a deeper sense of purpose. Enjoyment, in this context, is not a synonym for pleasure. Harvard Business School professor, Dr. Arthur Brooks, suggests, “The most miserable people pursue pleasure and stop there.” But pleasure is usually a component of enjoyment, nonetheless.

Enjoyment = Pleasure + Communion + Consciousness

Haven’t you found this to be true? We tend to enjoy pleasurable experiences more when we share them with someone else. Also, faith in a higher power (or whatever you believe in) plays a role in happiness.

Satisfaction = Haves vs. Wants

Brooks recommends a “want less” strategy, rather than “have more.” Serial consumption often has the opposite effect of fueling our wants, thereby shrinking our satisfaction. He also recommends a “reverse bucket list.” Meaning, write down the things we strive for but don’t need to be happy. It’s healthy to have goals, but if you don’t reach them (yet), that’s okay. Accept it and move on. Persevere. We learn more from failure than we do from victory.

Writer Scott H. Young’s Modern Rules for Happiness

(my comments are in magenta)

Embrace Life Seasons.

Accept unchangeable factors while maximizing current opportunities.

Is he talking about aging? If so, aging is part of life, yes. Accept it and move on.

Strive vs. Achieving

View the process of striving as energizing, while recognizing that hitting a fixed goal is often overrated.

Disagree. Hitting a goal should be celebrated. It is not overrated. It feels wonderful. Do we need to hit goals to be happy? No, of course not. Perhaps that’s what he means.

Meet others more than halfway.

Overcome natural human self-obsession through outreach.

I’ve never thought of myself as “self-obsessed,” but I understand the gist of this. It’s better to give than to receive.

Apologize and forgive often.

Use frequent apologies and forgiveness to prevent small conflicts from turning into long feuds.

Disagree. The phrase “I’m sorry” is so overused it’s lost all meaning. How about living without doing things you need to apologize for? If you do hurt someone, show them how awful you feel and try to fix it, rather than tossing out a  meaningless apology.

Also, I don’t believe we should “forgive and forget” just to avoid conflict. If someone harms you, don’t be a doormat. Stand up for yourself. You matter just as much as they do. Afterward, yes, let it go. Life’s too short to hold on to anger and/or resentment.

Stop consuming enraging media.

Cut out toxic media streams driven by engagement algorithms designed to make you angry.

100% Agree.

Look for small novelties.

Actively search for tiny joys and moments of novelty in daily life.

100% Agree.

Exercise a psychological choice.

Remember that how you interpret events is a choice, which helps reduce feelings of helplessness.

100% Agree.

The Happiness Pie Chart

According to psychological research studies, like the “happiness pie chart,” 50% of our happiness comes from our genetics (our baseline “set point”) and 40% comes from our intentional activities, thoughts, and attitudes. Together, these two internal factors account for 90% of our overall happiness.

The Breakdown of the 90%:

  • Genetics (50%): Our biological “set point” inherited from our parents, which dictates how we naturally bounce back from triumphs and setbacks.
  • Intentional Activities & Mindset (40%): Our daily choices, how we process the world, gratitude, and relationships.
  • Life Circumstances (10%): External factors like our income, job, marital status, or where we live account for only a small fraction of our overall well-being.

For me, this breakdown makes perfect sense. My mother wore a constant warm smile, viewed the world through rose-colored glasses (pardon all the cliches in this post!), and never uttered a cross word about anyone. And my brother and I have always been inherently happy people. No matter what life throws at us, we bounce back and rarely, if ever, complain about anything or anyone.

What if you don’t have “happy” genetics?

Don’t worry, you are not doomed. Modern science added a vital caveat to the 50% rule: genes are not a rigid destiny. While you may inherit a specific genetic predisposition, your lifestyle choices and mindset act as environmental switches—a field known as epigenetics. For more on this caveat, visit Neuroscience News.

7 Tips for a Happy Life

  1. Let go of the past. Don’t allow old mistakes to dictate your present or future.
  2. Focus on things within your control. Ignore the rest.
  3. Practice daily gratitude. Appreciate life’s splendor, like sunrises, sunsets, the moon, fall foliage, a warm breeze, snow-kissed trees, birdsong…I could go on and on. In other words, be thankful for another day. None of us know how many we have left.
  4. Prioritize physical and mental health. Maintain proper sleep, nutrition, and exercise.
  5. Surround yourself with positive people. Protect your peace from toxic environments.
  6. Keep learning. Maintain curiosity and personal growth.
  7. Live in the moment. Practice mindfulness instead of dwelling on the past or future.

One last interesting nugget I uncovered…

The U-Shaped Happiness Curve

According to psychological studies across 130+ countries, people typically start adulthood relatively cheerful, hit a significant emotional low point in midlife (between 47 – 50 y.o.), and then experience a major happiness rebound later in life. Globally, life satisfaction climbs at a steady pace after age 50 and peeks at 70.

Over to you, TKZers. Thoughts? Let’s discuss.

Beware the Schmagent

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by James Scott Bell

“Talking of agents, when I opened the morning paper one morning last week I saw that it had finally happened: somebody shot one. It was probably for the wrong reasons, but at least it was a step in the right direction.” – Raymond Chandler, The Raymond Chandler Papers

Years ago I was teaching at one of the biggest writers conferences in the country. In addition to the conferees, this one always featured an abundance of top editors, agents, and faculty.

This particular year, a new agent was present. He had been an editor at one of the larger publishers, and was now hanging up his agent shingle. As the conference went on, I started to pick up a ripple of excitement among many of the newbies. They were giddy and saying things like, “I just got an agent!” and “He requested a full!” The bottom line was that a large number of brand-spanking new, unpublished writers came away from the conference believing they had a champion to escort them through the gates of the Forbidden City.

A year or so later the agent quit. It turns out his method was to sign as many as he could and throw their proposals out like so much wet spaghetti, hoping some would stick to the walls of the City. Not one deal was made. My surmise is that the powers inside the walls knew a “schmagent” (shady, ineffectual agent) when they saw one.

The real bottom line was that all these young writers were cast to the winds, a precious year wasted in their quest to get published.

I’ve always said having no agent is better than having a bad agent. And it is well known that anyone can call themselves a literary agent. There is no agent exam or licensing requirement.

Back in the days when proposals were submitted on actual paper (which meant printing and mailing costs), and industry relationships were formed in and around New York City (which meant office space), there was a hefty barrier to entry to the agent game. In today’s digital world, a cheap website is all you need to get started. Want to be an agent tomorrow? Get a Wix and start trolling.

According to industry expert Jane Friedman:

However you measure it, I find more literary agents operating today than in decades prior. The Guide to Literary Agents directory, published since 1995, started with about 400 listings. The most recent edition, released in 2021, had about 1,000. According to my own reporting, the number of new agents announced per year in 2023, 2024, and 2025 was at least double the number announced in 2022. If you look at the number of contacts in Publishers Marketplace that carry the agent label, there are more than 3,000, although not all of them have reported deals. The number of Publishers Marketplace editors? About 3,800.

This means there are a goodly number of schmagents, too. Without top-line clients, how are they making money? By charging writers for editorial services. This used to be frowned upon, but recently the Association of American Literary Agents (AALA) revised its Canon of Ethics to loosen restrictions. Before the revision, agents were allowed to charge for editorial services to non-clients, but were required to reimburse those costs if they signed the writer as a client. Not anymore. Friedman:

Instead, reimbursement is subject to “mutual agreement” between the agent and prospective client. What I fear: Agents may charge non-clients for editorial work knowing very well they may make an offer of representation and have no intention of returning the money. This would be a straight-forward way to get compensated for what they’re not supposed to charge for. (I do think authors will readily agree to let the agent keep the editing money if representation is on the table.) 

And this:

A big part of the problem is that writers have always cared too much about what agents think. Even people with good business sense tend to lose critical-thinking skills when offered representation and have a hard time recognizing that lackluster representation can be more harmful than no representation. Less scrupulous agents already take advantage of writers’ deep desire to be validated or discovered. I fear these changes will only fuel such behavior.

The glittering lights of the Forbidden City still burn bright for many writers (brighter than the innumerable campfires in the forests of the indie world). This despite fewer deals, fewer spaces, lower advances, and tighter contracts. The bright lights are analogous to Las Vegas. Exciting, with a chance to win big (auction, Netflix series, Good Morning America!).

But how many gamblers come away from Vegas with a big score? About as many as writers who make the A-list. But if that’s your dream, at least make sure your agent is not a schamgent.

  1. Look at their website. It should have a list of clients who are actually published. Research several of those clients on Amazon. See who publishes them and what their sales rank is. Scammers are getting quite sophisticated at putting up pretty websites with no substance behind them.
  2. Legit agents don’t make unsolicited offers to unpublished writers, by way of email or social media.
  3. Legit agents do not charge a “reading fee” to consider your proposal.
  4. It must be made clear by the agent that any paid services do not imply or guarantee future representation. This must be explicit in a written agreement. 
  5. Search the name at Writer Beware.

All that said, this is not to cast aspersions on agents as a whole. I do believe most operate in good faith. They have to make a living, too, in these most challenging of times. Income from services and third-party referrals can be a benefit so long as the terms of the arrangement are made clear up front, and do not imply a possible offer of representation.

And another thing should be clear: your glasses. Remove the rose-colored tint. This is a business, not a flowery meadow. Your homework: read this article by Jane Friedman.

Comments welcome.