By John Gilstrap 

WOODBRIDGE, VA–SUMMER, 1995. Nathan’s Run was a done deal and the marketing push to launch it was beginning to spin up. The pressure was on to submit my next book (as yet untitled) before the February, 1996 publication date as a hedge against a reality check that Nathan might not perform up to expectations. (Advances are often higher when reality is not a factor.) I was pounding away on the thriller that would become At All Costs, in which Jake and Carolyn Donovan had been exposed as longtime fugitives and now needed to flee for their lives while finding a way to prove their innocence.

In one of the early chapters, I needed an FBI agent for what I call a utility character–a walk-on that does the job required and then retreats to the literary union hall to await their next gig. I named the character Irene as a nod to my bride’s deceased mother (whom I never met). I gave her the surname Rivers because I needed a name and that was as god as any.

Those were the days when I pretended to outline my books with the result invariably turning out to be rambling, over-complicated plot lines that also invariably straighten themselves out and convinced me that I’m not an outline kind of guy. Irene Rivers ended up with a much larger role than I’d anticipated, and by the end of the story, she’d killed off a deputy director of the FBI. Cool stuff.

FAIRFAX, VA–SUMMER, 2008. With Six Minutes to Freedom in the can, and freshly inspired by all the research into Special Forces operations, I started hammering away on No Mercy, which would become the first of my long-running Jonathan Grave thriller series. I needed Jonathan to interact with a malleable but deeply honest FBI director. This character would know that Jonathan doesn’t play by the rules, but that he always finds himself on the side of the angels, so the FBI director would grease the wheels a bit for him from time to time.

I needed a name until I realized that I already had a name. Irene Rivers had fallen off the page for a decade since At All Costs, so why couldn’t she have become the director of the FBI? So now Irene, call sign Wolverine, spent 16 books lending aid to Jonathan Grave–and receiving considerable aid from him in return. In the novella, Soft Targets, I even show how Jonathan and Irene came to know each other and why they trust each other so much.

BERKELEY COUNTY, WV–SUMMER, 2023. In Jonathan Grave’s world, where time neither advance nor retreats, Anthony Darmond has been president of the United States for all 16 books. He’s beyond corrupt, and when people cross him, people disappear. Irene Rivers can’t take it anymore. Though it will likely cost her the job she loves, she conspires with Jonathan to take the Darmond administration down.

But as Emerson said, when you come at the king, you must kill him.

Now unemployed and disgraced, Irene Rivers decides to leave the Washington rat race and retire to he family estate in . . . wait for it . . . West Virginia. But she has a past that won’t go away, and she no longer has the security detail that will protect her and her family from retribution.

Which is why I just signed a two-book deal to launch a new series centered on Irene’s efforts to assimilate into her new surroundings and deal with threats that are both old and new.

The funny thing about playing with your imaginary friends is that they don’t always go home when you tell them to. I’m really excited about this. Look for the first Irene Rivers thriller in early 2025.

What about you? Do characters and story lines you thought you’d finished with find their way back into your new stuff?

By John Gilstrap

We talk about treating the process of writing as if it were a job a job, we talk about quotas, we talk about pressing through to completion on a project. As November approaches, bringing with it the stress of NaNoWriMo to compete with the other stresses of what for many is the most stressful time of year, some of you will be pounding your fingers bloody on the keyboard in effort to produce the 50,000 words that Club Nano has declared to be the goal of the 30-day writing spree.

What we don’t talk about very much is the need to enjoy the ride. It’s important to set goals and achieve them, but it’s also important to cut yourself a break and realize that life happens. If you’re adhering to the adage to treat writing as if it were a job, remember that most desk jobs bring the perquisites of sick leave and vacation time. Meeting a self-imposed deadline is nowhere near as important as attending your kid’s soccer game or giving the puppy a half hour of Frisbee frolic.

If you’re not under a legal contract to produce a work by a date certain, then a date approximate is a fine substitute. Yes, it’s important to plow through the muddled middle to complete your project, but if your February 1 deadline slips to March 15, so what? If you look back on the week and you find that you only wrote 300 words–or no words at all–of your 7,500-word goal, the Earth will remain on its axis. In fact, the world will be a better place if those squandered words paid for a smile from a family member.

I’m not suggesting laziness or sloth. I’m suggesting balance.

Fifteen years ago, more or less, I sat on a panel at Magna Cum Murder in Muncie, Indiana, when the rookie writer to my left–a practicing psychologist, no less–told this room full of aspiring scribes that in order to succeed in the publishing business, you have to be willing to sacrifice everything. Specifically, she spoke of missing family events and vacations. Failure awaited any writer who looks away from their publishing goals even for a moment. When she was done, every molecule of happiness had disappeared from the room as the newbies furiously took notes.

Mine was the next turn to speak, and I started with, “For God’s sake, it’s only a story. We’re not curing cancer here, we’re making stuff up and playing with our imaginary friends. It’s not worth sacrificing any of that. The instant that make believe feels more important than real-life relationships is the instant you need to stop writing and re-evaluate your choices.”

It’s no secret that creative types frequently eat shotguns and down piles of pills. I can’t speak to the reasons behind that, but damaged relationships are often contributing factors. If you’re a spouse, you have a commitment to the relationship you chose. If you’re a parent, you have a commitment to a human being you created. Those come first. Hard stop.

If you’re a teenager or young adult, you have an obligation to yourself to live more of your life out in the word than inside your head. Collect experiences that will serve your writing well into the future.

When you do sit down to write, enjoy the experience and celebrate what you accomplished. Don’t get distracted by what you didn’t do on the page, and instead concentrate on what you did do in the world.

By John Gilstrap

It’s been nearly 45 years since Avram Davidson, writer-in-residence at the College of William and Mary told me at the end of two semesters of toxic mentorship that I had no talent and that I should not bother to pursue my dream of becoming a writer. He was old and cranky then and he didn’t have the decency to stick around on the planet long enough for me to gloat at him.

I wish I could say that I shrugged off his cruel dismissal–well, I did eventually, I suppose–but it took more years than I care to admit. Upon publication of Nathan’s Run, one of my classmates from that workshop gave me a heartwarming plaque that hangs in my office in clear view as I write this.

I’ve written about this experience before, but it was brought back the front of my mind by a fictional confrontation that occurs in the excellent Netflix series, “Sex Education.” (Lest there be any doubt, this is not one to watch with the kiddos.) The scene in question occurs in the show’s fourth season, when our heroine, Maeve, has come to America from England to attend a college workshop conducted by the famous and fawned over literary genius, Thomas Molloy, who spills out quotable nonsense about how writing should take something from the writer. This is an exercise in suffering for one’s art.

While the other students in this workshop are bowled over by this pretentious twit, Maeve is more circumspect, sharing with him that she preferred his first book over the second one that won all the prizes. He’s impressed, he says, and then he tears her work apart under the guise of helping her tap that deep vein that makes writing hurt. When she finally pens her new first chapter, he tells her–wait for it–that she does not have the talent to make it as a writer.

Yeah, I had a flashback. I haven’t finished the season yet, but I can only hope that Maeve will be able to rub the asshat’s face in it before the final credits roll.

There’s an X Factor to teaching that I don’t pretend to understand. The best teachers in my life found a way to be thoroughly honest in their assessment of my work, driving me to be better without breaking my spirit. The problem with assessing art is that creativity is by its very nature relative. There is no objective standard, yet we all know bad when we see it. And then, in the truly confusing circumstances, we see stories and art that we know is objectively bad yet it still moves us. Those pieces are victories for the creator.

The lectern is a powerful thing. To stand there behind the mic is to be perceived as an expert by the people in the audience who are looking back at you. This is an opportunity to inspire. Or foment anger. Provide hope or project pessimism. If you’ve been to a writer’s conference, you’ve no doubt encountered the speaker who has experienced only failure, and whose mission seems to be to make the dream of publication seem hopeless.

Even if it were true, what’s the point of making people feel sad? Everybody knows that writing is hard and that getting published is even harder, yet people succeed at it every day. Why not concentrate on the probability of success–however much smaller than the probability of not-success–and fire people up to keep going?

I think there’s a special place in hell for people who try to ruin other people’s dreams.

What about you, TKZ family? Did you have teachers or coaches or bosses who inspired you to do things you never thought possible?

By John Gilstrap

Back in 1994, when I was putting the finishing touches on the manuscript that would become Nathan’s Run, I followed a self-imposed rule that as I read through the final draft, if I came to a substantive change–something other than a typo or minor grammatical thing–I would make the change and then go back to the beginning of the manuscript and read it again, up to and beyond the point of the substantive change. When it happened again, I’d repeat the process. I think it added up to something like 30 editing passes.

After my final pass, I fired up by brand new HP inkjet printer (agents wouldn’t look at dot matrix submissions), and I watched as the manuscript printed out at the blistering rate of six pages per minute. In the end, the book launched a fun career, though I’m not sure those last five or six passes had anything to do with it.

My agent at the time, Molly, told me a story that altered my view of the editing process. A neighbor had a friend who had written a book that the neighbor thought was fantastic. Would Molly give it a look? I imagine this happens a lot in the life of a literary agent. With more than a little hesitation, Molly agreed to give the manuscript a look.

When the neighbor delivered the goods, it came as a stack single-spaced type-written pages (typewritten, as in, clackety-clack, ding) on erasable bond paper. Remember how dirty your hands felt after handling erasable bond? When she was done, Molly was moved to tears, and she instantly took on that brand new author, whose name turned out to be Frank McCourt, and whose manuscript became a little runaway bestseller called Angela’s Ashes.

The guy had broken every rule, yet somehow his talent won the day.

Welcome to the capricious world of the entertainment business. Happenstance and serendipity play huge roles, but such is the case in every professional endeavor. Many a career is launched by an introduction at a party or a business conference. The business world calls it networking. But the seed that makes the serendipity function is the underlying talent of the individual, and that individual’s willingness to work hard to improve.

A number of the regulars here at The Killzone have expressed their frustration with the editing loop. They can never get their chapter to check off all the boxes in the rule books that purport to know more than perhaps they do. This is why I profess that there are no rules to this game of writing fiction.

Of course first impressions matter, and as such, you want every manuscript to be as clean as possible, but if the story is there, it’s there in spite of a misplaced comma. If the characters are compelling, their personalities will transcend the prologue that may or may not survive through publication.

The Forbidden City of traditional publishing, as Brother Bell calls it, is not forbidden at all. Its gates stand wide open for new and experienced talent, and as I have demonstrated several dozen times now, it is not necessary to thoroughly understand how commas work, or the difference between that and which. All that is necessary is good story that is well told.

Plus a willingness to seek opportunities to spark the serendipitous event that can make it all happen. You’ve got the talent and the skill for writing, right? You’re happy with your recently completed manuscript? It’s time to network!

By John Gilstrap

Imagine a classroom filled with creative writing students. They have just finished their semester on poetry and studying the text, “Understanding Poetry” by Dr. Evans Pritchard, once made famous by Professor John Keating in “Dead Poets Society.” Now they have moved on to my unit on writing novels.

A student raises his hand. “I want to write a story but I don’t know where to start.”

“Sure you do,” I say. “You pick up a pen or put your fingers on the keyboard and you start writing. It’s really that simple. Ba-da-bing! You’ve started your novel.”

“But what about my outline? My character journals? My story web? Those aren’t done yet.”

“What a relief!” I say. “Think of all the extra time you have to play with your imaginary friends. They’re ready to go. They’ve been waiting for you all this time.”

The student looks confused. Maybe a little panicky. “They’re not ready. I don’t even know who they are yet.”

“You’ve got an idea for a story, right?” I ask.

“Yeah. Well, I have a premise.”

“If you’ve got a premise, then you’ve got a compass point to head toward. Just start walking. Your imaginary friends will find you. They have to. Otherwise there’s no story. You know what they say about necessity and inventions, right?”

“But I don’t know where the story is going to go.”

“How could you?” I ask. “You haven’t started playing with your imaginary friends yet. Once you get in their heads and in their space, things will happen. Trust me on this.”

“Suppose it’s no good?” the student asks.

“Who cares? If you’ve come this far in your writing journey–Lord, I hate that phrase–you’ve got all the basics. Everything else is subjective. Just sit down, try to ignore everything you’ve learned in classes before this one, and try having fun with your characters.”

The student’s face is a mask of confusion. “One of my problems is structural. My critique group tells me I can’t have a prologue.”

“Do you like your prologue?”

“Yes.”

“Is it a good prologue? Necessary to the story?”

“They think it’s not.”

“What do you think?”

“I think it’s both good and necessary.”

“Then tell your critique group to kiss your hind quarters. They can do it individually or together with one giant pucker.”

Another hand goes up. It belongs to a young lady with purple hair and a pound of steel hanging out her ears and nose. “Excuse me, Professor Gilstrap,” she says. “You seem to think that anyone can write a story.”

“Yes.”

“You mean anyone who’s trained for creative writing, right?”

“Nope. I mean anyone. Just as anyone can sing Irish ballads on St. Patrick’s Day.”

Purple Hair scoffs, “A drunk on a bar stool isn’t exactly Pavarotti.”

“Fair enough,” I say. “Maybe he’s only Frank Sinatra. I’ll bet Little Boy Frankie started off singing because it was fun. I’ll bet he was singing even before he knew what an F sharp or B flat were. I’ll bet he sang because it gave him pleasure. Just like the guy on the barstool.”

“I call bull fritters on that,” Purple declares. “There’s only one Frank Sinatra.”

“There’s only one you,” I say. “And only one me. Only one Michael Bublé, Tony Bennett, Barbra Streisand or Justin Bieber. In each case, I’ll bet that their fame and fortune began with the simple enjoyment of their art.”

Another hand. Given the curve in his nose, I’m betting its owner plays rugby. “Most of us could sing all day and study our butts off in music class and we’d never be a Pavarotti or a Sinatra.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Because they were born with a gift.”

“What gift?” I ask. “I’ve got a larynx and a set of lungs just like they do. If I wanted to, why couldn’t I go to music school, learn breath control and diction and be a gifted singer? I did a lot of musical theater in high school.”

“It’s not that kind of gift,” Rugby Boy says. “Crooners like Sinatra made the words of a song come alive. It’s like he lived the songs he wrote.”

“Kind of like he saw the world in a different way?” I ask. “A unique way?”

“Exactly,” Rugby Boy says.

“Suppose I went to Julliard and studied the performances of the masters of music?” I ask. “Couldn’t I do just like them?”

“A paint by numbers Rembrandt will never be a real Rembrandt,” says the student who started this.

“You make a good point,” I say. I’m enjoying the Socratic exercise. “Now, remind me which music schools Sinatra and Streisand went to. Did they even have art schools when young Rembrandt was causing trouble?”

The class stares back at me.

“Here’s the thing,” I say. “While anyone can write, not everyone can capture the hearts of readers. The mechanics of writing can be taught, but the soul of the story must flow from the soul of the writer, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call talent. So it is with all of the arts–acting, singing, painting, sculpting, and, yes, writing. Writers born with talent can be coached to hone it and improve it. But no amount of training and schooling can create talent where none exists.”

“Are you saying that some of us are wasting our time here at school?” Purple Hair asks.

“Only you can answer that question,” I say. “But you’ll never have that answer unless you write, and you’ll never have the stamina to produce the required number of words to make it matter unless you write because you love the process.”

Okay, TKZers, I know there’s red meat here for some of you. Have at it, but please be polite. And as an aside, I am on vacation as you read this, living in Zulu time. Maybe Zulu+1. I’ll be monitoring the responses, but my own responses will be oddly timed, I’m sure.

By John Gilstrap

First things first. As I write this, it’s Book Launch Day! Harm’s Way, the 15th entry in my Jonathan Grave thriller series drops today. In this story, Jonathan is summoned by FBI Director Irene Rivers to rescue someone special from the grips of a drug cartel that has taken a group of missionaries hostage in Venezuela. Once the team arrives, however, they discover trouble far more horrifying than a standard hostage rescue. When the first book in the series appeared in 2009, I never would have thought it would have the kind of legs that it has.

Thanks to everyone who has shown support over the years. Hopefully, there’s much more to come!

Which brings me to the topic of today’s post: What does retirement look like for a writer?

Over the weekend, a friend (Jim) and his wife visited the West Virginia Compound for a good old fashioned cookout. As the meal was being prepared, Jim announced that he has finally made the decision to retire from the sales position in which he’s thrived for well over a decade. An affable guy, and very much a people person, he seems to me to be a perfect fit for the high-end products he sells, and to be honest, to the outsider (that would be moi), he seemed to make a really good living by not doing very much. He’d built his base of customers over the years, and now he just worked the phones for a couple of hours every day, and then he was done. He could have retired some time ago, yet chose not to, so “Why now?” I asked.

Management had changed, the compensation package had changed, and bottom line: his give-a-damn quotient had been met. He just didn’t want to do it anymore. Hey, I can’t think of a better reason to punch out and explore the rest that life has to offer.

Not long into the discussion, Jim turned the conversation to me. “How long are you going to keep doing this writing thing? Every time we talk, you’re on some deadline. You’ve got close to 30 books out there. When do you close the computer and retire?”

I confess that I didn’t have an answer. Sure, there are current contracts that need to be fulfilled, but that’s very short term. All it would take to walk away from the writer life would be a telephone call to my agent with the announcement that I don’t want to pitch another contract.

But I don’t think I could do that. It wouldn’t be a problem financially (though more is always better than less), but I think I’d have trouble with it emotionally. While being a writer is not a critical part of my identity in the psychological sense, it is the best job I’ve ever had. I’ve worked hard to build the “brand momentum” that I have, and I know that such momentum is not recoverable once I take my foot off the accelerator. That’s the practical side, reminding me that you’ve got to be very, very comfortable with your mooring location before you burn the lifeboats.

I enjoy the company of writers, and I love having a key to the clubhouse door. Back in the early aughts, when my career took it’s monumental dip and I didn’t have a book either recently released or even in the works, I felt like an outsider among my friends at conferences–like I was watching people enjoy the banquet while not having a seat at the table for myself. That’s all on me, and much of the angst was driven by the fact that I was not in charge of my situation. Being dropped by a publisher is an entirely different world than choosing to walk away. But still . . .

I don’t have any hobbies to speak of. The world of plants and vegetables considers me a mass murderer as I try my hand at gardening, I’d rather put a fork in my eye than chase a little white ball across a field with a golf club, and there are only so many holes to poke in paper from 50 feet (or 300 yards) away.

And let’s be honest. What I do for a living is what I used to do in my spare time before I did it for a living. I enjoy the process of writing, and I love seeing books with my name on them. I don’t enjoy deadlines, and as I’ve written here before, I can’t sit and type for long periods as I used to.

I can think of very few things in life that trigger the same sense of contentment that comes from creating a scene or an exchange between characters the is just right, just what I wanted it to be.

So, no. I’m nowhere near close to burning the lifeboats. In fact, I plan to start yet another thriller series.

What about y’all? What does retirement look like for you?

By John Gilstrap

When I first started down the path of what would become a long writing journey, the act of sitting down and making stuff up was a guilty pleasure. Our son was young, I had a fulltime job–in fact, I owned the company–and life was packed with semi-mandatory activities. When I carved out 15 or 30 or 45 minutes of writing time, I had to be focused and efficient.

Those stolen moments mostly came in the evenings. At home, they were wedged between our son’s bedtime and the final hours of the day when Joy and I would settle in for an hour or two of evening television. On travel (I spent most of my Big Boy Job years as a road warrior), I would write my way through dinner, often not leaving my table or barstool until the staff was doing their final cleaning before locking the doors. This explains why large portions of my first drafts were handwritten. (I think it’s rude to clack on computer keys while the people around me are trying to enjoy an evening of dining and conversation.)

In those very early days–pre-Nathan’s Run–I was driven by the dream of possibilities. Then, after the unimaginable success of that first novel, I rode the wave of affirmation that I actually had the skills and talent to legitimately call myself an author. Truth be told, it was many years before I used that word to describe myself. Poser syndrome and all that.

Now, nearly 30 years later, the motivations to sit down and write are . . . different. With over 3 million words in print, I’ve proven everything that I set out to prove–if not to others, then to myself. My deal with my publisher allows me to write pretty much whatever I want with the promise that they will publish it. All the conflicting pressures are gone. I no longer feel guilty for the stolen writing hours because writing is what I do for a living.

But now, my distractions have become more interesting. The new house in a new state with a new puppy and a new radio show*, coincide with the slice of life when the hours of protracted isolation that I used to crave are mine for the taking. Why, then, do I often have to force myself to take them?

To be clear, I am observing here, not complaining. I am fully aware that I am gifted to be living my lifelong dream, and for that I am grateful every day.

I think maybe I’ve entered that sleeve of time in life when I’m paying the price for the indiscretions of my youth. Four vertebrae in my cervical spine have been surgically fused, and the rest of my spine features more damaged disks than healthy ones. Arthritis has started to invade my hands and feet and knees. To tame these maladies, nothing works better than activity. Wielding a shovel or swinging an axe is far better for me than sitting at my desk in a hunched writing position. These days, it takes 60 seconds or more to stand straight and walk normally after a 3-hour writing session.

At 66, I am already at least one year past the age I’d planned to retire back when I entered the workforce at age 15. Back then, I had no idea what I really wanted to do with my life, but I knew that after doing it for 50 years, I’d be ready to do nothing but relax.

It turns out I was wrong. As a storyteller, the spigot of story ideas and plot points has no shutoff valve. I can either write them down or they can keep me awake. Fact is, I love being an author–having a key to the club I always dreamed of belonging to, in the company of others who are far more talented than I, yet still consider me to be a peer.

But such benefits don’t come without the continuing effort to earn them. And so I continue to play with my imaginary friends whenever I can. Maybe it’s not as exciting as it used to be, but it’s still the best job in the world. And it’s fine to take time to split some wood, take a walk, or play Frisbee with Kimber.

==

*Speaking of the radio show, here’s a link to our interview last week with our very own Reavis Wortham.

By John Gilstrap

I returned to my home last Saturday after spending the better part of a week at the Midwest Writers Workshop in Muncie, Indiana, where I was part of the faculty. MWW is one of my favorite “working” conferences–that is, a conference dedicated specifically to writing technique, as opposed to other confabs that are weighted heavily toward social interaction. When you sign on to teach at MWW, you’re signing on to work. This was my fourth or fifth tour with the conference, and I’m anxious to go back when invited.

As part of my duties, I agreed to review ten, 5-page writing samples and discuss them with their authors, which I hammered out back-to-back in half-hour increments. I mentioned here last week that I’d noticed an overall decline in quality from my previous experience with MWW. None of the samples I reviewed were truly awful or beyond redemption, but none of them jumped out as sparkling with potential.

The experience did, however, provide me with the topic for this week’s TKZ missive: How to make the most (or trigger the worst) out of manuscript reviews. Presented in no particular order . . .

My opinion of your writing is merely my opinion. It’s the opinion you paid to hear, and the one that I am obliged to give. You are free to dismiss any bit of guidance that I provide. The opinions from your friends, family and beta readers, while in opposition to my own may very well be definitive. Go with them–with my blessing–but know that the fact that your Aunt Betty was an English teacher and says your characters are vivid and exciting will not cause me to change my assessment that they are neither.

If you listen to anything I say, listen to everything I say. The positive things I note about your work are every bit as honest as the negative things. I understand that we don’t know each other very well, but those who do know me will assure you that I am not a blower of unearned sunshine. Give yourself a break.

“The first five pages” actually means the first five pages. Of the ten manuscripts I reviewed, three of them were hunks of story excised from the middle of the novel, in each case chosen because the author thought those pages represented their “best writing.” Yeah, let that settle. None of the good writing happens before page 48 (and presented to me either as unnumbered pages or as “page one” of the sample). Let’s save that rant for later. Assessing a manuscript is more than just copy editing. In fact, copy editing is the last thing this kind of assessment is. If I’m going to evaluate your story, the elements of plot, setting and character all have to make sense. I’ve thought about this a lot, and I cannot think of a simpler, more understandable way to issue the instruction to “submit the first five pages of your work.”

Quit worrying about someone trying to steal your idea. If you want my help, you’re going to have to share critical elements of your story. In many years of doing this, I’ve never once heard a premise that was truly unique. I’ve seen a thousand different squints on romances and mysteries and murder weapons, but never a plot point that was unicorn-unique. When you demand that I sign a non-disclosure agreement before you allow me to dedicate my time to your writing, you double-dog guarantee that I won’t look at a word, and won’t lift a finger. Well, maybe I’ll lift one finger.

Okay, Killzone family, what’s your experience with giving or receiving critiques. Did you enjoy the experience? Hate it? Have any more tips to add?

By John Gilstrap

I have a problem with authority–a quirk of my personality that stretches back to my earliest memories of face-slaps and groundings. I can’t think of a single occasion when I was punished with out reason, or punished unreasonably, but I can remember dozens of times when I was given an order by my parents and I dug in my heels, knowing full well what I was getting myself into.

As I got older, my petulance moderated, but it has never gone away. I thrived in work environments where I was given goals to achieve, but foundered in jobs where I was told specifically how to achieve those goals. I don’t get along with micromanagers, and I push back with proportional force against anyone who tells me to do something that I think is wrong.

Enter the era of the pandemic. We don’t do politics here at TKZ, so I won’t delve into the specifics, but when people in power told me to do things that I thought were unreasonable, I became an angry man. I stayed an angry man for the better part of three years, and I’m not sure that I am yet 100% over it.

But I’m getting better. Events last weekend and in the coming week are bringing me much, much closer to normality. I’m teaching seminars again.

Last Saturday, at Shepherdstown Public Library, I taught a truncated version of my course called Adrenaline Rush: How to Write Suspense Fiction. The room was full of adult students, all of whom were free to breathe freely. It was a lively group, and the course went well. Next week, I will be on the faculty of the Midwest Writers Workshop at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, where I will teach that same course, plus one other on research techniques. I will also have one-on-one meetings with about a dozen writers to critique the first five pages of their manuscripts.

There will be group dinners and cocktail receptions. You know, like the old days.

While MMW is not an event reserved for college students, if past is precedent, young adults will make up a large percentage of the attendees. This will be my first encounter with that age group since the lifting of the moratorium on fun, so it will be interesting to see how the years of isolation have affected them. If the quality of manuscripts to be evaluated is any indication, the alone time has been harmful. I’ve done this conference a number of times in the past, and this year’s crop is in general of a lesser standard.

It takes a while for a train as big as the whole world to get moving smoothly again, but at least it’s once again being allowed to try. It’s good to be back in the saddle again.

By John Gilstrap

As I write this, I’m sitting at a scarred desk in my room on the third floor of the Holland Hotel in Alpine, TX. A century old, more or less, the Holland started life as a cattlemen’s hotel. Night before last, we rested our heads in the Hotel Paisano in Marfa, TX. The combined populations of the two towns is fewer than 8,000 people. Traffic doesn’t really exist (except at the moment when you want to cross the street, at which point a convoy of vehicles will roll through). At the local watering holes, my request for my standard drink–a Beefeater martini–is met with cocked-head puppy dog stares. It was 107 degrees yesterday. But it was a dry heat.

And I’m loving every minute of it.

My lovely bride and I are traveling with our good friends Reavis Wortham and his own lovely bride to enjoy a part of the U.S. that we’ve never seen and that they know so well.

People are different here than they are in bigger cities. In restaurants, strangers start up conversations with the patrons at another table. When people ask, “Where you from?” they seem to actually care. There’s no way a New Yorker (or even a West Virginian) could write about these places without having been here. They wouldn’t know about the 20-degree drop in temperature when the sun goes down, or the marvelous desert breezes that blow up out of nowhere. Or the flies. Good God, the flies. They seem to be mustering here in anticipation of the next cattle drive through town. Yesterday, Reavis treated us all to our own swatters. All I need is a cross-draw holster and I can feel like Doc Holliday as I walk the streets, ready to defend myself and my family from the winged bastards.

It’s impossible to be in surroundings like these and not be flooded with story ideas–or if not stories, the locale for a scene. Every person any of us meets on any given day carries physical and mental burdens, some of which they talk about, but most of which they don’t. How are those burdens different when living in a tiny town than in a megalopolis? I imagine it’s equal parts blessing and curse to have all of your neighbors know all of your business.

Imagine how much harder it would be to get away with a crime. Or would your neighbors rally to protect you and hand you an alibi?

Hey. I believe I just got another idea for a story.