School Daze

As far as I can tell, I was admitted to Dickinson College, a small, scholastically rigorous institution in Pennsylvania, on the strength of my swimming prowess. Certainly not my academic record, which should have prompted an admissions scandal. I was tipped off when I found the college swim team in my dorm room soon after I arrived. There were no athletic scholarships offered at Dickinson, but the coaches had a cozy enough relationship with the gatekeepers that the occasional standout was snuck through (someone with better high school preparation would have written “was sneaked”).

It helped that my father was prepared to pay full boat, so I opted for a different college path, one mostly involving beer, cigarettes, procrastination and rock ‘n’ roll, none of which were on the curriculum, though individual excellence in these areas was rewarded by allowing you to return every year, provided the maintenance of a shaky C average.

      My basic impediment was the theory of school itself. I could never grasp the concept of sitting together with people my age at little desks all day while someone at the front of the room told us things. That alone would have tried my patience, but they required you to

regurgitate their words at some later time, with rather harsh penalties for imprecise recollection. Worse still, once liberated at the ring of a bell, we had to use precious TV-watching and horsing around time to recapitulate much of the day’s proceedings, and even add to the burden with supplemental labor. The whole thing seemed entirely medieval.

They hadn’t yet identified ADHD in the 50s and 60, but I had such a ferocious case that my parents had to resort to drugs to keep me still in kindergarten. Thus afflicted throughout my school career, I thought “isn’t realizing his potential” was my middle name. Though I did have an ace in the hole. As with many things in my young life, it was provided by my big brother, who was an excellent student, but also an omnivorous, indefatigable reader. He caught the habit from my mother, so our house was crammed stem to stern with books.

Since I did everything my brother did, I read every book I fell over, and then some. As compulsions go, this was a lucky one to succumb to. Unsupervised as it was, my pool of knowledge was quite deep in some areas, and barely a puddle in others. My subsequent test performances had lots of hills and valleys, which evened out to around, well, a shaky C average.

The psychological lesson for me was that information I read tended to stick, whereas anything delivered from the metaphorical pulpit sounded like Charlie Brown’s TV parents. This led more than one teacher to ask my mother why a student who aced the test on Ancient Greece (didn’t every kid devour Edith Hamilton?) could barely add and subtract (still largely true.)

Although my math SATs never rose above the statistical probability of correctly guessing at least some of the answers, I did okay on the English side of the house, maybe just well enough for Dickinson to retain its accreditation. I’m not sure how much I learned in public school, but there’s an awful lot of information available when you have access to your mother’s Book of the Month subscription.

Most relevant to this platform, my bibliophilia soon blossomed into full blown hypergraphia. This not only saved my scholastic bacon, it provided the template for my entire life. When things were looking dire, I could always write myself out of trouble. In college, there was nothing more exhilarating than the option of a term paper versus a final exam. Somewhere within those ivy walls, I’d heard some critics regarded form as important as content. This theory was sorely tested across a variety of disciplines, but I made it through.

My roommate not only shared my general strategy, he honed it to perfection. A professor wrote at the bottom of one of his papers: “You write well, which is good, since you have very little command of the material.” He clinched a B in Russian Literature by using the liner notes of the Dr. Zhivago movie soundtrack as his sole reference. This is the stuff of greatness.

Since so little time was committed to slaving over The Brothers Karamazov, or door-stop biology texts, we had ample in reserve for 8 ball, making midnight grinder runs or destroying our hearing with electric guitars. Whatever was left on the schedule for actually writing those papers was usually reserved for about ten hours before the deadline. This was also, for me, an invaluable life lesson.

      It wasn’t until my Creative Writing MFA program, when the focus was entirely on matters of interest to me, that I discovered the pleasing embrace of a classroom, stimulating professors and the novelty of academic achievement. Since I had to pay for it all out of my own pocket, that might have enhanced my focus. But I came to regret being such a lousy student and all the stuff I could have learned had I been paying attention. Among my screwball college friends there are a few lawyers and corporate executives, along with a stockbroker, CEO and Dean of the Boston Cathedral. There’s no evidence that a decent grade point average distracted from their attention to the extra-curricular.

Trinity College once asked a cross-section of professionals to come speak to their students about proper career preparation. I was the designated advertising copywriter.

“First,” I told them, “don’t even buy the textbooks until about halfway through the semester. Take a passing glance when you get a chance, in case your parents come to visit and ask what you’re studying. On the night before your paper is due, get some pizza and sample the keg in the dorm basement, play a lot of pool, or basketball, if that’s your preference, until everyone’s gone to bed, then slip page one into the typewriter. Think desperately of something to write that will sound even remotely persuasive. Then you have to actually write something down, if you can stay awake.

“If you pass, they won’t kick you out, and you’re able to preserve your lifestyle (and in my case, stay out of the draft.) This is the life of a copywriter. Working with scant information, often exhausted, forced to produce a compelling argument under extreme pressure in a very short amount of time. Oh, and the stakes are pretty high. Just ask your kids, if you’re lucky enough to have them.”

They never asked me back. Don’t know why.

How to Win the Toughest Game

Melodie here.  In my May post, I quoted good friend and colleague Lisa de Nikolits.  
Today, I'm pleased to host Lisa on Sleuthsayers, who wrote this wonderful post - possibly one of the best I've ever read on here (and I rather like my own, so that is some praise!)  I particularly like the comparison of writers to elite athletes!  How true.  Not to mention, ego-inspiring <smile>  

How to Win the Toughest Game
Five Ways Not to Lose the Plot—Including Your Own

by Lisa de Nikolits 

Writing. Surviving (and thriving) as an author has never been easy. And right now, it feels tougher—and often more bizarre—than ever.

Let’s go back to the iconic opening line of Charles Dickens’ 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

I bet Mr. Dickens couldn’t have imagined AI, social media, the price of paper and shipping, or the increased number of players on the field, all jostling for real estate and their name in lights.

Add to that, cuts in government funding to the arts sectors, tariffs and a world that feels chaotic with war and disaster.

How can we cope? Even more importantly, how can we thrive?

My strategies are simple, and I sum them up in Five Ways Not to Lose the Plot—Including Your Own

1.               Think Like a Sports Pro

2.               Be Judicious with Social Media

3.               Have Realistic Expectations

4.               Revisit Your Slush Pile

5.               Celebrate the Wins

1.               Think Like a Sports Pro.

This is one of my favourites. I found these fridge magnets a decade ago and I’ve used them as writing mantras ever since. They sum up the dedication, discipline, relentless hard work, single-minded passion and blinkered focus that’s necessary to be on the field, never mind succeeding on the field. Athletes get injured, grow old, adjust to change, fail on a global stage in front of millions of people, encounter rivals, face scorn and derision from analysts, failed former players and couch potatoes who all think they could do it better. They are vilified on social media or held fleetingly aloft as gods. None of this is dissimilar to writing. So, train your brain to think like an athlete because as an author, you are an athlete. Protect your mental health, improve your stamina, do the rehab (in our case, the rewrites), accept the losses and never lose sight of your end goal.

I’d also like to talk about the idea that writers must produce four to five books a year to succeed. This has become a kind of shorthand in indie publishing and one that I’ve seen at conferences and online. Its origin story comes from a specific ecosystem—rapid-release, series-driven genres where visibility is tied to frequency and algorithmic momentum. But it is not a universal rule of writing, nor is it a guarantee of success.

“Super successes” of indie romance, crime or cozy bestsellers are realistically more likely to be extraordinary outliers, and not typical outcomes, in the same way that Fifty Shades of Grey is still cited to “prove” that self-publishing is the fastest route to commercial success. What it actually represents is something far more rare: a highly unusual trajectory that became visible precisely because it is not typical. Both ideas—high output as a necessity, and viral success as a model—belong to the same category of publishing mythology. They describe what has happened, not what can be reliably reproduced.

I feel it’s important to talk about this because it ties into the sporting analogy. There are phenoms in every sport, but their meteoric rise is theirs, rather than a strategy for most athletes to follow.

So, ask yourself, who are you on the sports field? Where do your specific talents and strengths lie? We’d all like to be phenoms but sometimes we’re just the hopefuls on the bench, training our hearts out, and hoping that our game day will come. One thing’s for sure; the harder you train, the more consistently you show up, the more chance you’ll have of being not only being on the playing field but succeeding in delivering your personal best. 

2. Be Judicious with Social Media.

Social media is a series of black holes within black holes. And the big question is always, does social media even sell books? The answer, unanimously, is “indirectly.” In other words, social media rarely sells books directly, but it can create visibility, credibility, and a sense of urgency that might lead to book sales.

Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, Reddit, Threads, Bluesky, Substack, Goodreads, Wattpad are just a few, some of which are already on their way out.

I recently attended a webinar titled “Promoting Books Without Social Media” by author brand/marketing expert Andréa Guevara. 1,600 authors showed up, proving that I wasn’t alone in wanting to find alternative avenues of book promotion.

My takeaway was that instead of chasing daily visibility across an (unrealistic, unreliable) ever-expanding list of platforms, we need to shift to systems that endure—libraries, book clubs, podcasts, interviews, festivals, and word-of-mouth ecosystems where a single meaningful appearance can generate momentum over months rather than minutes. In this model, marketing isn’t about feeding algorithms; it’s about becoming findable in the right places, at the right time, for the right reader.

However, even in an approach like this which rejects social media dependency, there is a strong caveat: social media still plays a role as a discovery layer. Several irate authors indicated their discontent in the sidebar chat of the webinar: “I thought this was about NOT using social media” and I understood their point. I too was disappointed because the webinar demonstrated that we have to use social media to get off social media. Social media points readers towards alternative avenues such as events, and direct relationships but it’s the unavoidable first step.

Another caveat is that we live in a world where it’s increasingly tough (and expensive) to get invited to festivals as an author or even just attend them. The reasons for this are myriad and would take an entire post in and of itself to delve into. Book tables can be costly at festivals even when shared. The cost of memberships can mount up.

And one could spend 24/7 hours a day and countless dollars on mentorships, coaching, paying for giveaways, book tours, Facebook ads, Google ads or book software programs that promise the world—and the list goes on.

I’ve always likened social media to gardening. I dedicate an hour a day, no more, to posting, liking, commenting, swiping, supporting, and seeing what’s out there. Then I walk away from my garden, knowing there are countless weeds I didn’t get to pull but I did what I could, in my allotted time. 

3. Have Realistic Expectations

As authors, we’re not entering a small pool of books. We’re entering a flood.

The scale of publishing today is difficult to overstate. Globally, estimates suggest around 2.2 million new books are published every year, and when self-published titles are included, the number can climb to nearly 4 million new books annually.

Self-published books now make up a substantial share of total annual releases—often estimated at well over 40% of all new titles, and in some datasets, outnumbering traditionally published books by a wide margin.

But volume does not equal reach.

Across both traditional and self-publishing, most books sell very few copies. Industry analyses and sales data consistently suggest that:

·                  the majority of books sell fewer than a few hundred copies in their lifetime  only a small percentage ever break into significant commercial success self-published books tend to have a wider spread of outcomes, from zero sales to occasional high performers, but most cluster at the low end of the scale

Traditional publishing offers distribution, editing, and credibility—but not guaranteed sales. Self-publishing offers control and speed—but not guaranteed quality, discovery or sales.

 

For small press and debut authors, the reality is even more sobering: most titles receive modest attention unless they benefit from sustained marketing, series momentum, awards recognition, or unexpected and uncontrollable external amplification. In other words, “being published” is not the milestone it once was. Visibility, not publication, is the scarce (and most valuable) resource.

 

Going back to my sporting analogy, we’re on a very crowded playing field.

 

The expectation, then, cannot be “success as default.” Publishing is not a finish line; it is a game in motion, played across shifting ground where visibility has to be earned and re-earned.

 

In the older model of traditional publishing, the contract itself often carried an unspoken identity shift: I am now a success. To be published was to be legitimized. Writing and recognition arrived together, and the role felt, if not secure, at least clearly defined and established.

 

That equation no longer holds in the same way.

 

Now, publication is little more than a ticket to entry on the playing field and victories are scarce. The game continues long after the book is released, and the conditions of play have changed: there are more players, more noise, more competition for attention, fewer guarantees of being seen at all. And yet this is not a reason for disillusionment—it’s a reason for clarity.

 

Because once you understand the nature of the game, you stop mistaking it for something it is not. You stop expecting permanence from limited exposure. You stop equating publication with victory. And you start building strategies that match reality rather than myth.

 

The question is no longer whether a book is good enough to be published—because these days, almost any book can be published—but whether, once it is in play, it can be found. And from that more grounded place, success becomes not a default assumption, but something you can influence, recognize, and hopefully sustain.

 

 4. Revisit Your Slush Pile
 

I recently went back to my slush pile, and it was a useful reminder about something important: writing is a long game, and I’m not the same player I was fifteen or twenty years ago.

 

Back to Think Like a Sports Pro: Athletes get injured, grow old, adjust to change, fail on a global stage in front of millions of people, encounter rivals, face scorn and the derision from analysts, failed former players and couch potatoes who all think they could do it better.

 

Visiting my slush pile felt like stepping onto an old playing field and immediately being aware of how differently I move now.

 

I feel more nimble, confident and dexterous. I used to overplay (overwrite) everything, overthink every pass (sentence), and try to hold the entire match (short story/novel) together with terrified caution.

 

Now I see the patterns more clearly. I trust myself more which means I trust the play more. And a huge difference is that I don’t panic when the ask shifts.

 

It was interesting to dissect the evolution of my writing—to see what my strengths were at the time, and to notice how clearly my weaknesses are visible to me now. I am, without question, a better writer in terms of dialogue, structure, pacing, and shaping a narrative from beginning to end. I no longer stack literary ideas like a Jenga tower and hope that no one breathes too hard near the table. Back then, I was afraid that if I removed one piece, the whole structure would collapse. I played as if stability mattered more than quality and that challenging the structure would result in complete loss. I don’t have that fear anymore.

 

And what surprised me was how much value was still there in the earlier work. Concepts, images and fragments of insight—sometimes there’s no more than a line or a few words in a sentence, but those fragments aren’t games I lost, they were unfinished plays that, with my years of training and focus, still have potential. I learned that three or four concepts/sentences/ideas could be welded together and forged with new beginnings and new endings. I could, by experience, diligent studies, faith in my imagination, age and wisdom, create a different formation with a different outcome and end up with a piece of work I’m really proud of.

 

What I understand now—and I didn’t understand then—is that the slush pile isn’t evidence of failure. It’s my own personal archive.

 

But what I also realized is this. I used to think that a story was finished when really, it was 8% done. Only 8%. That’s not a lot. Now I know I have to work harder—a lot harder. It takes more time than I thought it would. And not because I’m older and slower but because I recognize all the requisite nuances, and I know how long those nuances can take. I can spend more than an hour on a paragraph and sometimes a paragraph can take an entire day.

 

Younger me was in such a hurry to get published. Being published was everything. And don’t get me wrong. Nothing beats the thrill of having your story or novel in print or online. But I realize now that there’s much more to it. Once my first draft is complete, I have to go the other 92%. And that’s the hard work. Those are the reps. That’s what sculpts. The rewriting, self-edits, the line edits, the stepping away, the coming back, the asking for input and then trusting myself to deliver.

 

Now I am not afraid of collapse because it’s part of the game and better players don’t run away from facing their mistakes in the hopes that no one else will see them either and that somehow, the world will embrace the half-finished play as magnificent.

 

Better players study their plays and pick them apart. Instead of relying on flashy sleights of hand to fake a play, better players get into the mechanics.

5. Celebrate the Wins

 
Let’s go back to where we started: Writing. Surviving (and thriving) as an author has never been easy. And right now, it feels tougher—and often more bizarre—than ever.

 

And let’s revisit the iconic opening line of Charles Dickens’ 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities one more time: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

 

And, given Be Judicious with Social Media as well as Have Realistic Expectations, one might feel discouraged at this point.

 

Which is when I go back to Think Like a Sports Pro. Have you ever watched the winning locker room after the championship is won? The champagne showers are so crazy the players have to wear goggles.

 

And it’s never been more important to celebrate our wins. The grass is always greener on the other side and there’s always someone (or a crowd!) doing better than you and winning that accolade you hoped would be yours.

 

Stay blinkered. Stay in your lane and count your wins. And you’ve got them, or you wouldn’t be here. Sit with them and look at them. Breathe in the moment. Give yourself a pat on the back. And if you didn’t win today, there’s always tomorrow. Someone’s gotta win, right? There’s no reason it can’t be you.

 

Remember the fridge magnets. I’d love to know which one appeals to you the most. I think I’d go with Billie Jean King. “Champions keep playing until they get it right.”

Thank you for reading this post. If you enjoyed it, please visit my website, lisawriter.com, and order a copy of one of my books, sold wherever books are sold. Or ask your local library for a copy. And if you’d like to go one step further, leave a rating or review. It all counts and it’s all appreciated.

Now available at Amazon, and all the usual suspects! (I've ordered my copy - Melodie)