“The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.” –Anne Lamott

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Simply put, writing is good for you. Just as physical exercise enhances your muscles, writing is strength training for your brain. And the more you practice, the better your brain adapts to writing.

In a September 2021 article on writingcooperative.com, Kristina Segarra addresses the effects of writing. She indicates our brains are fully engaged when we write. The more you write, the more neural connections are created within your brain. The brain actually grows, adapts, and makes continued writing easier. I think it’s similar to playing the piano. The more the student practices, the stronger and more nimble his/her fingers become. Musical pieces that were difficult to master at first become easy as the student progresses.

Ms. Segarra goes on to list other benefits of writing:

• You develop organizational skills — from crafting and sequencing your thoughts and ideas
• You boost your reasoning and problem-solving skills
• You integrate a wide range of vocabulary words and grow your word bank

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Even more encouraging is a July 2021 article by Annie Lennon on medicalnewstoday.com showing research that indicates a cognitively rich lifestyle of reading, writing, and playing games can delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders.

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And there’s more! A February 2017 article by Erika Rasso at craftyourcontent.com describes an interesting experiment conducted by researcher Martin Lotze of the University of Greifswald in Germany.

Using MRI data, Lotze analyzed the brain activity of 28 writers. First they were asked to brainstorm ideas and then write their own stories. He found the occipital lobe of the brain was more active during the brainstorming session, possibly indicating the writers were visualizing their ideas.

On the other hand, the hippocampus became more active in the actual writing session, possibly meaning the subjects were gathering the information they wanted to use and organizing it into a story format.

Ms. Rasso lists specific suggestions of things you can do to keep your brain in shape:

Free write every day for at least two minutes a day. You can write whatever you want in those two plus minutes. You could write a haiku, a diary entry, or something a little more ambitious. (That isn’t to say haikus aren’t ambitious.) The goal is to get used to the act of writing and coming up with content as you go.

Read your #writinggoals. If you’re a writer, you’re a reader, and all readers have their idols. Read the kind of content you aspire to write, and read a lot of it. Your brain will absorb the vocabulary, syntax, and general style of the writing you’re reading and naturally incorporate it into your own work.

Look things up. Artists, athletes, and even scientists are always learning new techniques to help them get better. Writers can do the same. Expand your vocabulary by flipping through a thesaurus or a dictionary, study grammar books, and definitely look something up if you don’t know it. Push yourself to learn more about your craft, and you’ll grow because of it.

Overwhelm your brain. The brain is pretty damn powerful. If you push it, chances are it will rise to the occasion. Test your limits by writing for an hour longer than you think you can. Read Derrida. Write a haiku! Treat your brain like a muscle and do reps until you just can’t do it anymore. Just like a muscle, your brain will grow.

Don’t think about it too much. If you put in the work, your brain will grow on its own. Your subconscious will pick up on what you are doing and adjust accordingly. Trust your brain. It’s gotten you this far, hasn’t it?

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So TKZers: How do you keep your brain in shape? Do you practice specific writing exercises? Do you have favorite word games you play?

The Watch Mysteries. Three thought-provoking novels to exercise your brain.

“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.” ~The Red Queen to Alice in Through the Looking Glass.

The Red Queen effect means that staying in the same place is falling behind. Surviving to write another day means we have to co-evolve with the systems we interact with. And the systems in our writing world are evolving in a fast-paced race.

Think about the changes in writing and publishing over the past decade. We’ve moved from the Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope (SASE) submissions to digital rejections. Most of us write electronically—maybe a few die-hards still draft in cursive longhand—and most use some form of app to help with spelling and grammar.

And now we have Artificial Intelligence (AI) coming at us in the high-speed lane. We’ve had tools like Google and Word for some time, but this ChatGPT thing is about to rewrite the rule book. When you get on this bus, there is no stop and you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.

I suppose all writers (being human) tire of running fast. However, to be “successful” in today’s writing world—success being defined as “they with the biggest backlist win”—it’s vital to accept change and work with it, not against change. Here’s a quote I dug up while researching this piece and, no, I didn’t prompt it through Chat:

Applied to our careers, we might think about adaptation and evolution as embracing change and pursuing continuous learning and development. In this realm, the imperative to evolve comes not from aspirational pursuits, such as a promotion, but from the need to continue providing value in an environment where even running our fastest as per the Red Queen effect might not be enough.

Adaptation. Continuous learning. Development. Embracing change. Providing value.

Given that change can affect a writer’s sense of value and belonging, why is it that so many of us are resistant to the community’s natural flow of evolution and are content to run with the Red Queen? Maybe these bullet points from the Journal of Applied Psychology sum it up:

• Reluctance to lose control.
• Unwillingness to think differently.
• Lack of psychological resilience when coping with change.
• Intolerance of the adjustment period involved in change.
• Tendency to perform poorly outside familiar framework.
• Reluctance to give up old habits.

Now, I admit to being an old dog trying to learn new tricks. But I also plead (somewhat) guilty to all the above. What’s really driving me forward, though, is the concept of value. Creating something from nothing and repeating as necessary.

I look at writing and publishing evolution not as a linear process but rather as a dynamic and ongoing race. It’s like an infinite game that never ends and whose purpose isn’t to win, but to keep playing as long as possible. The key to surviving in this game is proactive evolution where you anticipate future changes to fundamentally transform your products and/or strategy before you’re forced to do so. And by doing so, you don’t just survive—you also benefit from it.

So, all this “Blah” is fine and dandy. The question is how to beat the Red Queen. Here are some practical Queen-beating tips I sourced.

Continuous Learning — Committing to life-long learning is essential to staying ahead of the Red Queen. Fortunately for writers, there’s a pleasantly overwhelming amount of material to learn from.

Adaptability — The Red Queen effect highlights adapting to perpetual change. It’s the core survival principle in the evolution of every species, including the writer.

Persistent Practice — Developing routines, setting goals, and meeting deadlines are part of the business. Missing these is a sure sign of falling behind the Red Queen.

Networking and Collaboration — The saying “we’re all in this together” definitely applies to writers. The Kill Zone is a good example of collaboration and networking where we regularly discuss changes and advances in the writing world.

Embracing Feedback and Criticism — Can anyone say “Arc” and “Beta”? Ask these guys how you can better your work and stay ahead of the Queen.

Resilience and Perseverance — This isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon. Pace yourself, accordingly, but do not get behind the Red Queen.

Embrace Technology — This part of the game is moving faster than the sum of all the parts. And it shows no sign of slowing down.

Personal Brand — There’s a lot of misconception about what a “brand” really is. I think it’s simply how others see you and, in this race, it’s critical to be seen.

Innovation and Experimentation — Have some fun during your evolution. Try new things. Explore other writing forms and see what you can work into your WIF (Work In Future)

Standing Out — Do you know how Alice beat the Red Queen? She teamed up with the Queen and used the combined momentum to push ahead. Alice made up her mind—took the mindset—to stand out. And she won.

Kill Zoners: Where do you run in the race with the Red Queen? Please share some thoughts and some tips! BTW, what changes in writing and publishing do you foresee on the horizon?

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!

You can’t fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal. — William S. Burroughs.

By PJ Parrish

Would it have been the same if Freddy Mercury had gone with his first instinct and called it Mongolian Rhapsody?

I dunno. I don’t see Mongolians as a very rapturous bunch. But yes, that was the original title of Bohemian Rhapsody. This tidbit came out recently when Mercury’s handwritten lyric sheets for his magnum opus surfaced as part of an upcoming Sotheby’s auction. Mercury wrote with pencil on stationery from the defunct airline British Midland Airways. On one sheet, an early draft of Bohemian Rhapsody can be seen with the title Mongolian Rhapsody, which was later crossed out and replaced with “Bohemian.”

I love this story. Because I love stories about bad titles that almost saw the light of day. Desert Song doesn’t fire the imagination like A Horse With No Name does. Van Morrison started out singing about a Brown Skinned Girl until taming it down to a brown-eyes girl for radio station play. The Big Bopper was calling it What I Like before he decided Chantilly Lace was sexier. When Mick Jagger set out to write a song about political violence he titled it Did Everyone Pay Their Dues? (huh?) before changing it to Street Fighting Man. And my favorite Beach Boys’ song, the gorgeous paeon to lost love Caroline No began as Carol, I Know. So glad you changed it, Brian.

Titles are important, friends. Especially if you’re writing a novel.

Your book’s title is the most important marketing decision you will make. You can self-publish or go traditional. It doesn’t matter. You can have a great professionally produced cover. You can have a killer opening line. But if your title is bad, you’ve lost that vital chance to make a great first impression.

I don’t get it. I don’t get why so many writers don’t pay more attention to this. I see so many dull, flaccid, trite titles these days. Like the writer used up all their energy on the story and there was nothing left so they slapped a dried-up and usually alliterative mishmash of words on their manuscript and hoped no one noticed.

Why give up so easily?

I know why. Coming up with a great title is really hard work. I used to write headlines for a living back when I was in the newspaper business. Great headline writing is an art. Try boiling down a news or feature story to its crux in less than ten words — words that will grab the reader and pull them in.

It’s even harder titling a novel. The best titles work on multiple levels. Things you want your title to do:

• Be unique. You need a title that readers will instantly remember, whether they are looking for it in a bookstore or on Amazon. And it can’t be something someone else came up with already.
• Summarize your story.  A good title gives a reader an idea of what kind of book to expect. It is a hint, a headline if you will, about what lies inside.
• Convey your mood. Which also gives the reader an idea of what genre of sub-genre you’re working in. A juicy thriller title won’t sound the same as a somber historical title will.
• Define your theme. This is the hardest and deepest level to plumb. The greatest titles manage to capture the underlying theme, the human message that you, as a writer, are trying to communicate.

Easy, right? Yeah, right. But I am here today to beg you — don’t settle. Dig deep and find the right combination of words that capture your story’s heart. A great title is like haiku — emotion pruned to its beautiful essence.

I feel so strongly about this that I’ve devoted whole workshops to this subject. So I’ve collected lots of stories about how writers come up with their titles. One of my favorites concerns Philip K. Dick’s book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I haven’t found a satisfying explanation of how or why Dick came up with this title. His working title was Electric Shepherd. Which makes some sense given the fact the protag is actually the proud owner of an electrified ewe, but it’s sort of dorky and dull. I love the wink-wink to counting sheep in the final title.

And then there’s the question of how, when it came to Ridley Scott’s movie adaption, Dick’s title morphed into Blade Runner.

The film’s title also changed several times. During the script-writing process, it was called Dangerous Days. (Zzzzz). How it became Blade Runner is a long and convoluted story involving an obscure 1974 sci-fi novel called The Bladerunner by Alan E. Nourse and the profane Beat Generation guru William S. Burrough. (An aside: Sometimes you can improve a title by merely dropping “the.”)

So what should you consider when searching for that perfect title? I repeat, look to your theme. But let’s allow other novelists to weigh in.

Carson McCullers’ The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter began life as The Mute. Prosaic, harsh, resonant of nothing. McCullers found her final title in a poem called “The Lonely Hunter” by Fiona MacLeod:

What are all songs for me, now, who no more care to sing?
Deep in the heart of Summer, sweet is life to me still,
But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill.

 

 The Heart is a Lonely Hunter captures the novel’s essential message: that each character is a “hunter,” wanting a different thing out of life, therefore sending them into this spiral of loneliness and isolation from others and the outside world. Theme!

William Golding’s Lord of the Flies was originally titled Strangers From Within. The latter isn’t a bad title, but Golding dug deeper. Lord of the Flies is another name for the devil. He is also called the Lord of Filth and Dung. Throughout the novel, the children grow dirtier and dirtier, an outward reflection of their inner state. As their savagery and evil increases, they seek a symbol, a god to worship. Theme!

Then there’s To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s first title was Atticus. Which tells us nothing. The book isn’t even really about Atticus; he is only the plot-propellant. The book is about innocence destroyed by evil. Where does the mockingbird come in? In many cultures or folklores, the bird is a totem of good omens, even seen as guardian angels or animal spirits encouraging us to protect those we love. The longest reference to the title comes in chapter 10 when Scout explains: “‘Remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” She’s referring of course to Tom Robinson and Boo Radley who, like the mockingbird, only wish to bring happiness. Theme!

Well, as usual, I have flapped my gums and run long here. Can’t help it. I love this topic. I should have added some good tips, some practical how-to advice. But I don’t have any easy answers for this, any quick fixes and I am not going to give you links to those awful title-generators.

All I can do is implore anyone of you out there struggling to find your great title to dig deeper. Your title is not to be found in worn-out adjectives. It’s not there in a string of cheap alliteration. It’s not to be found in your place or your protagonist’s name. (Sorry, you’re not Stephen King and Peyton Place has been taken). Look to your theme. Your title in waiting there, waiting for you to discover it.

You can’t fake a quality title any more than you can fake a good meal.

Imagination. That’s what writers possess, something invisible and hard to explain to those who don’t have such a gift. Authors have an ability to create worlds, settings, conversation, and even feelings that others can share. Readers find a way to bond with those “people” we’ve created and look forward to the next book, and the next.

I find it interesting that authors can create strong fictional entities who can carry the story, but can be quickly supplanted by a minor character intended to perform some short purpose to push the plot forward, and then depart.

But sometimes this minor supporting character starts to swell up and threaten to take over a book, or series.

Now as I continue with this thought, I suspect I might have written something similar for KillZone, but I’m on a damn tight deadline here (because I got my dates mixed up again and this thing is pouring out) at eleven in the evening, and I don’t have time to look older posts. Bear with me though, because there’s a different thrust this time and it came to mind while the Bride and I were on the road this afternoon.

By my third novel, The Right Side of Wrong, I’d built a small rural world in Northeast Texas back in 1966. The Parker family took center stage with Ned and Becky Parker who are in their golden years, Cody Parker and his (then) girlfriend Norma Faye, who represented the twenty-something crowd, and the near twin twelve-year-old cousins Top (the innocent young boy) and Pepper (a young lady who cusses like a sailor and instigates a number of issues throughout the series).

They were all well received, and reviewers were positive about the characters and series.

Somewhere in the early stages of The Right Side of Wrong (and remember I don’t outline), an old man named Tom Bell showed up out of nowhere. I wondered who he was as my fingers raced across the keyboard. My subconscious had already inserted him into the plot somehow and I was following a dim trail of discovery.

As the story progressed, Tom Bell bought a small house in need of repair, and set about rebuilding it not far from where Top lived with his constable grandfather Ned, and Miss Becky. I allowed my imagination to soar and soon Top spent more and more time with Tom Bell, who showed interest in the youngster and they became friends.

We soon learned that Tom Bell was a retired Texas Ranger seeking peace and solitude after a lifetime of fighting crime. When the plot finally reached the third act, the world around the Parker family went to hell and Tom Bell stepped in to help arrest a few bad guys, and ultimately follow Ned and Sheriff’s Deputy John Washington down across the Rio Grande to rescue Cody Parker from a Mexican prison.

Spoiler alert!

They got Cody out all right, but in the ensuing fight, Tom Bell is shot to pieces as he provides cover for the others to get back into Texas. After an over-the-top ending, the remainder of my ensemble cast lived happily ever after, at least until the next book came out.

There. I was finished with Tom, and had enjoyed this character who came from nowhere and performed his duties with honor and a strong sense of purpose.

Then came signings, and a barrage of questions from readers and hosts alike about why he’d been killed off. I explained those reasons, and for the next couple of years, the verbal assaults continued.

One lady at a signing took me to task over Tom Bell, and said she looked forward to the day that I drowned young Pepper in the Red River, but to bring the old Ranger back!

“All right! I will.”

I checked back and realized I hadn’t killed him off at the end of the novel, but left him for dead, so three years later he returned with a flourish in Gold Dust and the response was overwhelming. Tom grew in successive books, and last year I liked him so much I wrote a prequel to the Red River series entitled The Texas Job, with Tom Bell as the main character.

Set in the early 1930s, we saw him as a young man, and learned what made this guy such a good Texas Ranger. All the ingredients that created this fictional character gave readers insight into his past, and the person they wanted to read about.

I’m getting more requests right now to write the second book in a new series featuring this mythical Ranger. In fact, the novel was so well-received that The Texas Job is a finalist for the Will Rogers Medallion Award and I’ve received a slew of comments and emails about that book, the period in time we fondly call The Great Depression, and Mr. Bell.

So here’s my question to you all out there in BookLand. What is that makes some well-written and strong protagonists take a back seat to one who suddenly steps into the open and beams light? How did we do that?

Is it description?

Action?

Dialogue?

Do they do the things we wish we could?

Did we somehow create our own super hero? And why is he or she more interesting that those characters we started with?

Side note, my daughters say that I’ve written Tom Bell as myself, ten years in the future.

I just wish I was that tough and charismatic.

So whadda ya think? I sure don’t know, but I’d like to hear your thoughts.