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.

By John Gilstrap

After twenty years of using the same business card design, I decided a couple of weeks ago that it was time for a change. There wasn’t anything wrong with the old card, exactly, but it looked old and un-cool. The front featured a stock picture of a fountain pen and showed my name with the title of “author.” Then it was junked up with the URLs for my website, Facebook page, YouTube channel, and my Twitter handle (JohnGilstrap201). The back of the card listed the names of my most recent books. It’s what I would call a busy image.

What’s the point of having a card in the first place?

I’ve done a lot of soul searching on the question of whether a business card is even necessary in this day of emails and file transfers. Clearly, my answer is yes, and for one very good reason: I leave my business card everywhere. In restaurants, I leave my card in the payment folio. When I drop off my dry cleaning, I leave a card. When people work on the house, I give the craftsman a card.

More importantly, whenever I meet someone, I ask for their business card, for which I exchange my own. Often as not, the exchange will trigger a question that goes something like, “You’re an author? What kind of books do you write?” Then, after the 10-second elevator this-is-me speech, the conversation generally ends with, “I’ll have to look up your books.” I’m confident that only a small percentage ever do actually look me up, but at least it’s a start.

Those among us who say that marketing is the part they hate most about the book biz do a real disservice to themselves by not taking advantage of such a simple ice breaker.

Who am I today?

Back when I had a Big Boy Job with a trade association, my position was a prominent one through which I met hundreds of people every year. My corporate business card listed my title as “director of safety” and offered up my various phone numbers. I tried to keep the two parts of my professional world separate. I would never, for example, present my author card to a member of the association when I was on association business.

But worlds are small. Word inevitably leaked that I was also an author, and when asked (and never before), I would present my author card and encourage the requester to go to my website for more information.

After hours, however, I was an author. Period.

What makes for a good business card?

I can answer this one from only my point of view, which comes from a place of serious thought and introspection. In no particular order:

1. The business card needs to be attractive. I’m not talking extensive design costs here, but rather a sense of proportion and symmetry.
2. It needs to be read and understood in the course of a one-second glance. If you want to trigger that elevator speech, people need to see everything they need to know right away.
3. Contact information. I jealously guard my phone number, so I know I don’t want that on the card, but I certainly want my email address and website information to be easily found.
4. Traditional shape. When I accept someone else’s business card, I slip it into a special place in my wallet that is reserved specifically for that purpose. If the card is too large or too small, it won’t fit. I like to think that I’m not the only one who’s a touch on the OCD spectrum (or CDO–alphabetical as it should be).

This is what I came up with:

I wanted to keep thing relatively simple–minimalist, really–so I went to Vistaprint.com and scrolled through their business card templates till I found one that I thought came close to the design I wanted. I thought the glossy black kinda popped. Everything I wanted the recipient to know was right there on the front.

I confess that I struggled with the job title. “bestselling thriller author” sounds clunky to me, but my old title of “author” felt too generic. This is a marketing piece, after all, so I oughta be marketing, right?

But what about all the other cool stuff? The social media platforms and my website? I solved that with QR codes on the reverse side of the card. Rather than listing all of the books I’ve written, why not let them use their cameras to zap themselves right to my website, where they’ll find everything from the various titles to how to hire me as a speaker. I don’t understand how any of the technology works, but I figure I might as well take of advantage of it.

It’s your turn, TKZ family. What do you think about business cards in this age of electronic media? Did I miss anything in what considerations go into the design of an effective business card?

One last thing . . .

Remember, I told y’all that I’ve got a spot open for you and your book if you want to want to appear on morning radio in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. Our own Debbie Burke too me up on the offer and I think she had a good time. Last week, my buddy Jeffery Deaver stopped by for at thirty-minute chat about his books and his upcoming television series. Let me know if you’re interested!

By John Gilstrap

From 2019 to 2022, I wrote two books per year–one Jonathan Grave thriller and one Victoria Emerson thriller. That’s six books in three years. Or, 200,000 words per year. During Covid. While building a house. And selling a house. And moving twice. It was exhausting.

Worse, it wasn’t fun. Don’t get me wrong–I’m proud of the stories and the characters and all the moving parts of the books, but as I age, sitting and writing for long periods of time has become uncomfortable. Thanks to a reckless youth and too many years of catching heavy burning stuff with my fire helmet have left my neck and back pretty creaky. When I stay active–say through gardening and yard work and playing with the dog–everything works fine. But after five or six hours at the keyboard, I feel like it takes an hour just to stand upright again.

And there was a mental strain to that writing schedule, as well. Taking all the unique life-stuff out of the equation, a two-a-year contract means that I was always writing one story while editing or proof reading another. It’s just more work than I wanted to do.

But I still want to explore new ideas.

If all goes as expected, I will soon sign a contract with Kensington Publishing that will advance my Jonathan Grave series to 18 volumes. I never dreamed that the momentum of those books would continue to build as it has, and while I’m very much in love with the characters and their mission to bring justice to bad guys, it’s fun to explore different characters and different plots.

Another new series.

I had just finished the page proof edits for White Smoke, the third book of the Victoria Emerson series, when my agent called to tell me that she and my editor had been talking about me over lunch. They think I should do another new series, this one a spin-off from Jonathan that would take a regular character from the series and spin her off in a new direction while at the same time knocking Jonathan’s world a few degrees off its axis.

The idea had occurred to me before, and I find the idea exciting, but see above. I don’t want to do two books a year anymore. I want to have a life outside of my office. It’s the nature of a popular series (and one that I hope will also become popular) that people want to see new books on a regular basis. I hear all the time from people who count on the new Grave book to entertain them at the beach every year.

So, we reached a compromise: One book every 9 months, each new volume in each series dropping every 18 months. That feels doable to me. I guess we’ll find out.

I’m being deliberately obtuse about the new series because no contracts have been signed. I’ll come clean when that happens, I promise.

So, TKZ family, do you find the act of writing to be physically tiring? Inquiring minds want to know . . .

By John Gilstrap

Google is nice and convenient and all, but I miss the multi-volume encyclopedias of my youth. I used to take a volume down and read it like a book–okay, it was a book, but work with me here. So many fascinating facts to learn, people to meet and places to visit, all from the comfort of the living room.

But that was different than what’s required to research a book. When you’re telling a story that is outside the real world of what you already know, you’ve got to find the way to inject the verisimilitude necessary to make the story resonate for the reader.

HEADS UP: At the end of this post, I’m going to ask the members of my TKZ family to help out. I know we have folks here who write about topics that are completely alien to me. In the comments, please share the sources and websites that help you with the details of the worlds you create.

Consider faking it–making stuff up.

Research and writing are two different tasks, though for research junkies they can feel very much the same. In reality, especially if you’re on a deadline, unnecessary research is an advanced form of procrastination. As you approach the opening to the rabbit hole, ask yourself this question: Does this part need to be real?

Many of my books are set in and around the areas where I grew up, in the suburbs of Washington, DC–Fairfax County, Virginia, to be exact. Given the nature of the stories, though, where local politicians are corrupt and incompetent, I decided to create Braddock County, Virginia, which, if you know the area and pay close attention, you’ll recognize to be parts of not only Fairfax County, but also of Prince William and Fauquier Counties.

Think of the burden I’ve lifted from my shoulders. If I wrote about the Fairfax County Police (as opposed to the Braddock County Police), I’d need to know their command structure, the weaponry they use, their shift schedules and the details of their uniforms. The Braddock County cops wear whatever I tell them to put on.

Remember, that you’re writing fiction. By definition, it’s okay to make stuff up if it doesn’t ruin the story.

Wikipedia and YouTube

Your novel is not a doctoral dissertation. The sources you use to write your fiction don’t need to stand up to academic scrutiny. Keep it as simple as possible. For the subject matter I write about–weaponry, military tactics, machinery operation, etc.–Wikipedia and YouTube do for me everything that needs to be done. Almost.

Develop your stable of experts

Nearly everyone is an expert at something. As a Type A extrovert, when I meet someone, I chat them up and get to know what they do. If their life’s work is in an area relevant to what I write, we exchange business cards. When I’m back to my desk, I send them a brief email telling them how much I enjoyed our conversation and promising/warning that I will be giving them a call if I ever need assistance in research. No one has ever said no. Not ever.

My virtual Rolodex is filled with the names and contact information for people I’ll probably never speak to again, but they’re there if I need them.

It’s hard to replace real exposure

“Hey, Loo, just got a call from EOC. They’re detailing the wagon and crew to Twenty-Seven.”

Translation: “Excuse me, Lieutenant. Just got a call from the Emergency Operations Center and their sending the pumper and its crew to Fire Station Twenty-Seven.”

Every group, like every geographic region, develops a patois that is unique to them. The only way I know of to actually learn those speech patterns and traditions is to immerse yourself in that world. How do you do that?

You make a phone call and ask. Whether it’s the police station, the local hospital or an Air Force base, there’s someone on staff whose job it is to give you a tour and answer your questions. While you’re there, you trade business cards with as many subject matter experts as you can find.

Write around what you don’t know

Jonathan Grave has access to vast amounts of intelligence data that is collected by his right-hand-gal, Venice Alexander. Venice is a master computer hacker, with cyber skills that rival any expert in the world. Like Jonathan, I don’t understand how she does what she does, but she’s able to take an order from her boss and return vast amounts of information. And she does it all off the page, presumably between the chapter breaks.

I’m not a technology guy. As such, I know that the deeper I research the topic and present my research on the page, the greater chance that I’m going to get a very important something wrong. So, I write around the holes in my knowledge.

Okay, your turn

It’s a big world out there, and we’re all chasing different research rabbits down different holes. Please share your tricks and sources and websites for the topics near and dear to you. Consider them to be virtual business cards to help other writers find the information they’re looking for.

By John Gilstrap

Two days ago, on May 1, our own Sue Coletta posted an outstanding article here about newsletters, with the promise of more to come. As I read her piece, I found myself dealing with a low grade sense of anxiety–not because I disagreed with her, but rather because I think everything she said was exactly right.

I’ve stated here before that social media in general is my Achilles’ heel. I deeply don’t understand Twitter, which seems bloated and toxic, and I don’t photograph nearly enough of my life to drive my Instagram account. My social media safe space is my Facebook author page, where I’ll post a few times a week with interesting tidbits and photos–leaning heavily into dog pix because Kimber is the cutest creature on the planet. I don’t post book news unless it is timely and new, so that leaves me with the daily chores, pleasures and ironies of life.

I never post anything negative about health or family because I’m aware that I live a very blessed life and people don’t need to add my burdens to their own. I’m in the entertainment business, after all, so I figure it’s best to be, well, entertaining.

My YouTube channel, to which I have not posted in a while, is dedicated to helping writers learn their craft, but I would guess that most of my fans have little interest in becoming writers themselves.

Which brings me to my newsletter, which has over two or three times the number subscribers as my Facebook page has followers. Here’s where I start thinking too much. To me, newsletter articles need to reach a higher bar than social media posts. I’m invading a busy person’s inbox, which is a lot more intrusive than having a post sit passively on Facebook for people to see or ignore as they amble by. I use my newsletter for significant announcements about book launches, signings, appearances, that sort of thing, but they tend to all concentrate around the date. At Christmas, I’ll send out a virtual card with a link to the family Christmas letter, if people want to read it.

I know I should do more, if only because everyone tells me that, but what am I supposed to talk about, beyond the topics mentioned above? Fern Michaels’s website is a wonderful mix of newsy newsletter, recipes, a touch of technology and flowers. I think it’s great, informative, and very Fern Michaels-y. Her books aren’t about blowing stuff up, killing bad guys and saving the world.

I could always write about what interests me, such as guns, politics, gardening and cooking, but those pose challenges. Certainly, politics are a non-starter, and guns fall close enough to that high-voltage wire that I don’t want to submit myself to long screeds and diatribes. As for gardening (at which I suck but am learning) and cooking (at which I’m pretty good, if I do say so myself), neither one of those topics does much to advance my brand.

My lovely bride and I took a trip to Alaska back in February, about which I posted extensively on Facebook, but again, is that worth invading someone’s inbox with a newsletter? Isn’t it self-aggrandizing to show people who may be slogging through their day that I have the time and the wherewithal to go mushing and snowmobiling?

It is in my nature to overthink just about everything, and perhaps that’s what’s happening here. Rest assured, though, that if I had a better idea of what to post (outside the confines of book stuff), I’d be much more active with my newsletter.