I didn’t know anything about writer conferences until after I’d signed a contract for my first novel back in 2011. It never occurred to me that writers would gather somewhere to discuss the craft and maybe learn from others who’re successful at spinning stories for fun and profit. It should have, because in my previous life as a communications professional, I went to a lot of Public Relations conferences.

My first mystery conference was Sleuthfest, in Florida, and I only knew about it because I had to go there to meet my editor, Annette Rogers. She arrived bearing a ream of white paper in her arms and recognized me by the hat hanging from the back post of my chair.

My eyes widened when she thumped the thick stack of papers on the tabletop. The title page was red, with either paint, or a thick application of crayon. A huge question mark rose above the manuscript’s title.

The folded corners rose thick on the upper right side, with fewer on the lower right.

Good God! She’s graded the damned thing!

I checked the upper left-hand corner, but there was no accusatory grade of F there to mock and embarrass me.

Whew.

Annette shook my hand and positioned the papers in front of her. She broke into a smile. “We absolutely love this manuscript.”

Good, because I did, too. I’d hate to see what it looks like if you didn’t care for the stinkin’ thing.

“We’re going to publish, so we need to get busy on a few things.”

Those words were a symphony. “Sure.”

Green as grass, I laced my fingers to listen.

She flipped the title page out of the way and launched into a discussion of the plot and characters, referring to them as real people. No one had ever spoken about those figments of my imagination in such a way, and I was stunned to hear her discuss their fictionalized lives.

She even frowned when she noted that Miss Becky, one of the older protagonists in the multi-level cast of characters, had to do her wash on the front porch of an old farmhouse, because there was no running water inside.

I hung my head. I am ashamed I did that to her.

“Now, Rev, I’d like you to consider a few changes.”

Wait, what? Changes!!!??? I’d written a great novel. You said you loved it. Did people change Stephen King’s work? Did they ask David Morrell, who was sitting only two feet to my right to make Rambo a little tougher, or taller?

I swallowed. “What are those?”

She began with specifics about plot and characterization that came as thick and fast as a swarm of bees. Completely unprepared for an editorial meeting, I plucked an envelope from the inside pocket of my jacket and took a few notes on the back. By the time she’d reached page fifty, I had to unfold the piece of paper and write on the inside. Napkins came next.

We eventually reached the end of the manuscript and I wondered why she even bothered to tell me they were going to publish that piece of garbage.

But there was more to come. “Now, there’s a couple more things I need you to do.”

Good lord. More?

Wilted in my seat, I could barely raise my head. “What’s that?”

“Well, the word count is a hundred and forty thousand.”

140,000. Yep, that was about right. I wanted to produce a good, hefty book worthy of the aforementioned Stephen King.

She put down her pen. “I’d like you to pare it down by fifty thousand words.”

The number was staggering. 50,000! What she didn’t know, and I haven’t discussed here, is the fact that during the Pleistocene age, I finished The Rock Hole and hit save, only to see my computer screen go a nice shade of royal blue before two words appeared.

File Corrupted.

I didn’t know enough back then to save the work in another place back then, because I’d never heard that a 5½” floppy disk and my dinosaur program couldn’t hold several years of changes along with that much data. It was all gone, vanished in an electronic hiccup.

I re-wrote the entire manuscript from memory, so in essence she was asking me to delete 100,000 words.

I swallowed. What was I gonna say?

“Sure.”

“Great. A good mystery usually comes in at around ninety thousand words. Maybe ninety-five, but no more.”

“You want me to take out whole chapters?”

“No. I have a suggestion, and I’m sure you’ll find the right way to delete the rest. Try removing most of the attributes such as ‘He said,’ ‘She asked,’ ‘He exclaimed,’ and such as that. It slows the pacing for the reader. Give your character something to do instead like, ‘Ned crossed his legs,’ ‘Norma Faye tucked a strand of hair behind her ear,’ or even, ‘Cody lit a cigarette,’ since it’s set in 1964 and Cody smokes.”

She knew Cody that well already.

Hummm.

“I can do that. What else?”

Pleased, Annette took a sip of iced tea and gave me a bright smile. “I’d like you to re-write the ending.”

Worn to a frazzle, a raised eyebrow was all I could manage.

She picked up the pen and tapped it on the pages. “You killed everyone off at the end.”

“They were supposed to die.”

“Right, but if they’re all dead, we can’t continue as a series. This won’t be a standalone novel. I’m offering you a three-book contract.”

They’ll want two more of these to mark up?

I didn’t realize she’d just offered me the brass ring without having to ride the merry-go-round.

“Find a way to keep them going, and by the way, tighten up your writing. By writing tight, you can show us everything we need to know with as little fat as possible.”

I write fat?

“Remove the fat, and welcome to our publishing company.”

Yep, she said I write fat.

I went home at the end of that weekend and started to carve away everything Annette thought was wrong with the book. The Delete Button removed the vast majority the attributions and I fleshed the characters out with actions, giving them personality, habits, and worry lines.

However, the work swelled again, because “he said” takes a lot less space than a description such as the one below:

Cody plucked a pack of Chesterfield’s from his shirt pocket, lipped one out, and lit it with a gold Zippo. “We have to be careful, Ned.”

Ned speaks, but we have even more to read.

Ned rubbed his bald head in frustration and glared at Cody. “I’god. I’m always careful. You’re the one who goes off half-cocked.”

But what just happened!?

Lordy mercy, I soon learned that an incredible amount of information can be delivered in just a few words. Cody smokes. He has style when he lips one out. You can imagine him shaking one free without me telling you that part. He carries a Zippo. Cody is cool.

Ned is older. Bald. Frustrated by what is happening around them, and even by Cody himself. Does he not like him smoking? Is he frustrated with Cody’s spontaneous action? Is that going to lead to some kind of twist?

This was great!

As the conversation continues, the pacing takes over, as well as the character’s voice and I found that I’d streamlined the storyline, much like the way Elmore Leonard wrote lean, mean, sparkling conversations. The slow, fatty conversations in the first manuscript woke up with fresh dialogue that people actually use.

In the last chapters, I came into my own. Here in the Third Act, crusty Judge O.C. Rains questions his old friend, Constable Ned Parker, about what happened in the dark river bottoms only an hour earlier. Exhausted by what he’d experienced that night, Ned is half-carried into the house and placed in a rocking chair in front of the fire by Deputy John Washington, who retreats to the kitchen when Judge Rains arrives.

I’ve changed the antagonists name to avoid spoilers.

O.C. knelt beside Ned. He put a hand on his friend’s knee and leaned forward to whisper in the constable’s ear. “Ned, was it Jack for sure?”

Slumped in the rocker, Ned had little energy to answer. “Yes.

“Did you do for him?

“Yes.”

“Where is he?”

“With Cody.”

O.C. looked at his old friend for a long while, studying on what he might have done in the bottoms. “Is Cody all right?”

“Yes. I’m supposed to tell you something.”

“What?”

“Jack got away.”

O.C. thought for a moment about the conflicting answers, and then understood. “It’s over.”

“Yes.”

“But Jack’s gone.”

“That’s what I said.”

“This can’t come back.”

“It won’t.” Ned opened his eyes and they went flint hard. “Cody said. I believe him.”

“All right, then.”

“Something else.”

“What?”

“Cody weren’t there…because of what was done down on the creek.”

O.C. rose. “All right, then.”

What had taken up almost four pages in the original manuscript was distilled down into a tense, revealing conversation stripped down to speed up the pace, and cut words at the same time.

I edited with a vengeance.

The word count dropped but I needed to cut more words that took up space and nothing else. That’s when I remembered something Stephen King said in his book titled, On Writing.

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”

I was never a big fan of adverbs (still not), so away they went as I tightened up The Rock Hole even more. Within a month, the book was 90,000 words and ready for publication, all because those quick lessons from a master editor.

It was an education I could have used years earlier.

My sixty-seven-year-old memory is somewhat fuzzy on distant particulars, but I recall sitting beside the open windows in my un-airconditioned freshman high school English class, listening to Miss Linda Adams talk about writing. Had I been sitting on the inside row with the other reluctant students against the wall that first day of class, we would’ve enjoyed the dubious luxury of hot air pushed by a large fan.

Instead, I got to look out the window, at the same time keeping an eye on my fresh-faced, just-out-of-college teacher. Miss Adams was…splendid…in a short skirt, white top, and loose blond hair enhanced with what back then was called a “fall” that came down past her shoulders.

I also recall white go-go boots, but that’s probably from an adolescent dream, long forgotten and dried. Teachers couldn’t dress that way back then, and even the girls in my class couldn’t wear jeans. The school district reluctantly allowed pant suits instead, as long as the top came down below their…um…buttocks.

Anyway, pardon my digression that sets the scene for My Awakening. I fell in love with when she leaned back against her desk and crossed her arms that distant day, finished with outlining what we’d do that semester. “We’re going to have some fun, too. Y’all know the rules of writing, and we’ll practice them in this class.”

Moans filled the room.

Her lips were red, as were her fingernails. I’m afraid my concentration was mostly on her appearance until the sweetest words I ever heard fell from those lips at the same time a bright beam of light illuminated her person, followed by an angelic chorus of beautiful voices.

“But when we get into creative writing, I want you to break all those rules you’ve learned in the past and explore the creative process as much as you can.”

That statement sizzled through my brain, yanking me back from a particularly enthusiastic fantasy and into class.

What’d she say!!!???

Since I’m a Gemini, I answered myself.

She said there were no rules in creative writing.

That means I can do what I want!

Apparently.

She’d freed me! I could break those dusty old shackles of formal writing and be myself.

Huzzah!

I rose and did the Happy Dance, a unique blend of gyrations taken from Snoopy, American Bandstand, and Elvis movies.

Not really, but I wanted to.

“Break the rules.” Her statement came to mind years afterward when I finally discovered my writing Voice in 1988 and published an inaugural humor column that was nothing like I’d ever read in a newspaper.

I was successful in getting published that first time because I broke the rules and created something no one else was doing in newspapers. I took a new and different trail again when I embarked on my first novel a dozen years later.

The opening chapter was in first person, from the viewpoint of ten-year-old Top Parker, and I learned pretty quick that writing the entire novel from Top’s POV was limiting, but I needed to see rural 1964 through a kids’ eyes. First person speaks to me, and the words flow with startling ease when I’m in those chapters.

But the next chapter switched to third person, the change was intentional, because I wanted readers to see the story from the boy’s granddad’s more experienced point of view. Both a farmer and the local constable in their rural community of Center Springs, Ned Parker’d already lived a lifetime before the youngster showed up.

The alternating POV worked well in my mind, and it never occurred to me at that time that I was breaking some sort of rule. I was simply describing what I saw as the first two chapters developed, because I think differently than many authors. When writing a novel, I see the story from different lenses, sometimes involving POVs for more than one character

I did the same thing in Burrows (a suspenseful and claustrophobic novel that people either love or hate, with no in between, but the critics loved it, so there) and I was on my way, blissfully ignorant of the fact that many editors, agents, and critically acclaimed and bestselling authors said it was wrong.

That little revelation came along as I was sitting in an audience between two well-known and very successful authors listening to a panel discussion at Bouchercon, the country’s largest conference devoted to mysteries and detective fiction. When it was his time to speak, one of my favorite and influential writers on the stage pulled microphone closer to his lips and stated with absolute authority, “You cannot switch back and forth between points of view. It’s a sin, and if you do it, Jesus won’t love you no more, and you’re going to Hell with your pockets full of dandruff and adverbs.”

He sat back to let that sink in.

Well, he didn’t say it that exact way, but the gist was the same. My friends on either side turned their heads to gauge my reaction, but I had nothing and refused to make eye contact. I was a sinner for sure and no amount of water was ever going to wash me clean.

But I didn’t care and I kept writing the way I wanted, because I had a Voice, and a style (which is dramatically different than these blog posts for some reason), and I wasn’t going to change. With twelve novels in print, one scheduled for release in February, 2022, and two others under contract for the next two years after that, I’ve continued this particular style of storytelling and have no intention of changing.

Because Miss Adams said it was okay.

Howdy to all y’all from the Great State of Texas!

I’m Reavis Z. Wortham, and I write the Red River historical mystery series from Sourcebooks, the Sonny Hawke thrillers published by Kensington, and coming soon, the Tucker Snow series, also from Sourcebooks.

I’ve been published since 1988, starting out as a self-syndicated newspaper columnist for rural and small town papers before my work appeared in a variety of magazines including American Cowboy and Texas Fish and Game Magazine. I’m still on the masthead at TF&G as their Humor Editor. To date, I’ve written over 2,000 newspaper and magazine columns and articles, along with 13 novels and a handful of short stories.

I’ve been kinda busy, and continue to add to that worklist, because I love this profession.

Before the lockdown, I traveled the country, attending conferences where I served on writers panels and taught the craft of writing. It evolved into speaking to civic groups, writers groups, and book clubs, as well as signings for my novels.

Invariably, after my presentations or talks, someone will come up to visit while I’m signing books. “Would you sign this? It’s not for me, but for my Uncle Azariah. I just love your books.”

“Thank you! How do you spell that name? It sounded like you said Az-er-Yaw”

“Just common spelling.”

“Uh…”

“I’m gonna write a book someday about my Uncle Albert, though. He was such a character…”

“Good for you. Why some day? Why don’t you start it now?”

“Uh, well, because I have a job (you can also insert: husband, family, kids, grandkids, yardwork, cooking classes, hot-flash yoga, a future paint-by-numbers career, or anything else they can use as an excuse).”

“What’s the real reason?”

This is where they look somewhat constipated. “Those are the reasons. I don’t have the time right now to write a book.”

“Sure you do.”

“How?”

“I’d suggest writing instead of checking your Facebook page. Those are lost minutes, or hours. Or I have an idea, instead of thumbing through Instagram or Twitter, spend the same amount of time working on that novel about Uncle Yaws.”

“Uncle Albert, but like I said, I’m busy.”

“I completely understand. Let me tell you how I wrote my first novel…”

“Never mind. Bye.”

That brings us to the present. I’m writing this first Killzone column on an impending deadline, because I got the dates wrong. I’m typing in between a river of distractions. Right now I’m in my chair, pecking away at the laptop while our eight-month-old grandson chews on the toe of my boot.

He learned to belly crawl last week, and seems to have an inexhaustible supply of drool from a third tooth that’s coming in. This kid leaves a slime trail wherever he goes, and now the toe of my boot is soaked.

Oh, well, it’ll help with his immune system.

Another grandson is on the couch, stuffing strawberries down his neck and watching Paw Patrol which is apparently fascinating to a two-year-old, because he’s missed his mouth half a dozen times with the strawberries, making him look like a cute zombie.

Their parents are on vacation in Vail. Great timing.

In addition to those distractions, my Bride also presented me with a list of honey-do items yesterday, and I’ll eventually get to them, but only after weeding the garden, repairing a number of shelves in the RV, mowing the back yard, installing a screen door over the entrance coming in from the garage so flies won’t get into the house, and trimming the hedges.

Here’s the problem today. We’re leaving twenty-four hours from now to spend the weekend with friends. The only way I can finish this particular installment in time is to grab onto brief bits of time to write between diaper changes, lunches and snacks, watching the oldest grand-critters swim in the pool when they get here a little later today, making sure the baby doesn’t pull up and fall back on the hardwood floors because he’s about as graceful and coordinated as the aforementioned zombie), and lastly, I need to pack.

But I’m writing when I can, because that’s what I learned to do when I had a fulltime job and decided one day to become a columnist and eventually, an author. Fate was on my side and I found a small-town paper that believed in my style. With The Paris News as a cornerstone, I built a readership across the Lone Star State one paper at a time until I was in over 50 publications. It was then that King Features Syndicate noticed my success in 1999 and vowed to make me the Dave Barry of the outdoor world.

Those columns still continue today in a few paper but that success ended with the arrival of the Internet, which killed newspapers across the country. At the same time, I had a full-time career, a second job on weekends and weeknights as a wedding photographer (brrrrr), and I contracted as a freelance photographer for school districts while at the same time dipping my toe into the magazine world.

To make things even more interesting, I started My Novel.

The Bride and I had two daughters who were in every social club and sport in the world. I spent an inordinate amount of time on bleachers, in auditoriums, or waiting the in the car, and those activities provided brief periods of time to write. I also wrote at stop lights, while eating lunch in the car, or in boring meetings. I wrote after the kids went to bed, before work in the mornings, and while they were doing homework in the evenings.

I kept a notepad close by, and jotted down dialogue or a paragraph or two any time I could find a few minutes. Without looking, I penned cryptic notes on that aforementioned pad resting on the console of my pickup as I blew down the Texas highways, heading for another photo shoot.

There were nights when an idea or bit of dialogue came in the early morning hours and I’d get up and write in my office in order not to wake the Bride (who really doesn’t sleep anyway and I think she’s part vampire, because no matter what the hour, I can look at her and those hazel eyes will pop open…creepy).

Months stretched into a couple of years, and using my time wisely (as my elementary school teacher Miss Russell always said while at the same time reminding me that all my screwups would eventually go down on my Permanent Record which I’m sure has followed me throughout my life), those little captured moments produced sentences and paragraphs that grew into a full manuscript.

I sold The Rock Hole in 2010, and it released in 2011, the year I met my mentor and brother-from-another-mother, John Gilstrap. My publishers liked the storyline and characters and soon they unexpectedly offered me an unlimited series that has now stretched to nine titles (#9, The Texas Job, releases in February, 2022).

I achieved a lifelong dream at 56-years-of-age. You know why? Because I quit talking about it and wrote.

So when someone tells me they’re too busy, it’s all I can do not to roll my eyes. Writers write. They don’t talk about it. They don’t find excuses for not writing.

We write.

I’m getting a feeling of déjà vu here hammering this out while the grand-boys are doing their thing. It’s not just this blog post, either. Our house is a central hub for a total of seven grandkids, two daughters and their husbands, and an assortment of friends, who seem to be here all the time (in fact, I’m not sure they ever go home).

I have to produce. Here’s how I do it. I write when I can. I’ve started and stopped on this column a dozen times of the past few hours since I typed the first sentence. At this very moment, the two-year-old is on the couch with me, his feet in my lap, as he watches P.J. Mask for a few minutes before nap time. To keep him still, one hand is on his legs while I type slowwwwly with the other.

Despite this chaotic and fun life, I do my best to add at least five pages to my primary work in progress.

At the same time, I’m working on other manuscripts and on good days, I can add a couple of pages on each of those WIPs, in addition to my weekly newspaper column, a bi-monthly magazine column, (now every other Saturday here for Killzone) and other projects that arise like bubbles in a boiling pot.

On “bad” days, it’s five pages on just one project. This is no brag. Just fact. I’m telling you this for a reason.

If someone wants to write that book, there’s no reason why they can’t. It’s called discipline. I urge those folks to quit finding excuses not to write and do it.

These cold hard facts might strike some people as harsh, but to me, it’s reality. To be an author, you have to sit your gluteus maximus in a chair, somewhere, and string words together.

But I need to be clear on one point. This works for me. You might be different, and can’t manage five pages a day. That’s fine. Go ahead on, though. Write anyway. Shoot for a page a day. At the end of one year, you’ll have a novel in your hands.

I’m reminded of a line from one of my favorite movies, The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. Tuco (Eli Wallach), is in a bathtub when bad guys burst into his hotel room, guns drawn, and spend wayyyy too much time saying they’re going to kill him.

He shoots them all through the bubbles floating on the surface of the water and after they drop, delivers the perfect line with a slight shrug, stating the obvious. “If you’re gonna shoot, shoot, don’t talk.”

(I just had to quit writing and drag the eight-month-old out of the fireplace.)

So, channeling Tuco, I offer this advice. “If you’re gonna write, write, don’t talk about it.”

Thanks for reading. I’m glad to be here, and look forward to hearing from y’all soon.