Main Character Energy

 I have mentioned Not Always Right here before. It is a website where people anonymously report terrible encounters with customers.  I recently noticed a phrase there I want to discuss.  They have hashtags, what librarians would call subject headings: Hotels, Adorable Children, Revolting, Creative Solutions, etc.

The one that caught my eye was Main Character Energy, which they apparently used as early as 2010.   Merriam-Webster defines it as "an informal Internet expression for self-assured bearing or behavior. The phrase is used both to compliment self-confidence as well as criticize its excesses."

I am interested in those excesses, which is how Not Always Right uses it. I see it as the sense that you are the most important person in the room, or even the only one.  

The Not Always Right anecdote that inspired this column involved an older couple who ran into a woman.  Their huge car suffered little damage while the woman was trapped in her subcompact.  While the paramedics were trying to rescue her with the jaws of life the couple demanded they stop to help them find their photo album. It was clearly more important than their victim's life because it had their vacation pictures. 

Fireman: “Ma’am, do you have a concussion?”

Other Driver’s Wife: “What? No?”

Fireman: *Holds up a heavy piece of equipment.* “Want one?”

How does this relate to writing?  Well, as I have said before, every character in your story should want something.  But the way they go about trying to get it helps distinguish good guys from the not-so-good.

I have said many times that what part of what makes Elmore Leonard so good is that all of his characters think they are the heroes of the story. Especially the ones who ain't.

One of the best examples of MCE  I know is in Donald E. Westlake's novel Drowned Hopes.  In it the luckless thief John Dortmunder gets a visit from his ex-prison cellmate, Tom Jimson, who wants to get the swag from  bank robbery, currently in a flooded valley.  He wants our hero's help in blowing up a dam to do it.  When Dortmunder objects...

"You see, Al," Tom explained, and gestured at the sweet valley spread out defenseless below them,  "those aren't real people down there. Not like ME. Not even like you."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. If I go hungry three, four days, you know, not one of those people down there is gonna get a bellyache. And when the water comes down on them some night pretty soon, I'M not gonna choke at all. I'm gonna be busy digging up my money."

So Dortmunder (who definitely does NOT exude Main Character Energy) spends the rest of the book trying to find a way to get Tom's money without killing hundreds of people.  Because he's a thief but not a homicidal lunatic.

I remember being surprised at a writer's conference when someone defined evil as selfishness.  Well, yeah.  Exactly.  If I'm the main character, why shouldn't I be selfish?

So when you are trying to define your characters MCE is one more tool in your workbox.

Counterclockwise?

“That’s what made it easy,” I said.  “You were circling Margrave.  Not too close, not too far.  And counterclockwise.  Give people a free choice, they always go counterclockwise.  It’s a universal truth…”  

                                        Jack Reacher in Killing Floor

                                        Lee Child

        A year or so ago I was reading an interview with one of my favorite authors, Tana French, and was astounded by something Ms. French said. According to her, while she was writing her second murder mystery, The Likeness, she did not know how the book would end.  She did not know, in fact, who committed the murder.  The Likeness is a favorite of mine and while it is not a classic “golden age” mystery, in which all of the clues are present and can, through deduction, lead the reader to the culprit, it is nonetheless a great murder mystery and a great read.  But the interview floored me:  How can you create such a tight mystery without knowing how it will end?

        I know there has been a lot of discussion on SleuthSayers about writing with or without outlines, but on the base principle of structuring a  “whodunit” I sort of thought we were always guided by the maxim underlying an observation Francis (Mike) Nevins made back in 2005 in his speech during the Ellery Queen Centennial Symposium in New York.  Mike mentioned that people over the years have asked him how he worked out the deductive process in his stories.  Mike rolled his eyes incredulously at his audience and said “of course we know how the deduction works -- we know who did it and how they did it before we ever start writing the story!”

      The incredible bravura performance of Ms. French aside, one of the most difficult aspects of fashioning a detective story is figuring out the ending and the string of clues that will tie everything satisfactorily together, ultimately pointing the reader to one, and only one, solution.  Once you have that well in hand, the rest (as Mike Nevins observed) is simply back-filling the details of the story that will lead up to your conclusion.

      And generally we mystery writers are held to a very high standard.  Those deductions, the foundation on which we premise our story, better hold up to pretty strict scrutiny.  Those who read mysteries tend to be an unforgiving lot that delights in trying to pick holes in an author’s deductive process.  As a personal example, before Janet Hutchings accepted my latest story, Literally Dead (appearing in the December issue of EQMM -- plug, plug, plug), she questioned whether my solution to the “locked room” aspect of the mystery would actually work in real life.  In order to convince her I filmed the solution (I got to play Ellery, my elder son Devon drew the Sergeant Velie straw) and emailed the filmed solution to her as a download.  (Sorry.  Can’t attach a link here.  It would be too much of a spoiler!)  Only after Janet reviewed the film did she accept my story for publication.

      All of which, at long last, brings me back to that quote at the beginning of this post.  

      Up until this winter I had never read any of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels.  I decided to remedy this since so many people around me were devouring this popular series.  I now have three under the belt, and I started with the first book in the series, Killing Floor.  I was happily enjoying the roller coaster ride until I came to the above-quoted language, approximately ¾ of the way through the book.  At that point I screeched to a halt.  

      When it comes to deduction I am a strict constructionist -- like other mystery readers alluded to above, I have to be convinced that the deduction works.  There seemed to me to be a number of things wrong with Jack Reacher’s deduction that this particular character would predictably begin circling the town in question in a series of bus trips at all.  But what bothered me most was Reacher’s (and Child’s) conclusion that he would begin this by going counter-clockwise and that there is a universal tendency for people to head counter-clockwise whenever they have a choice. So I set aside the book and started to research.

     As it turns out, I was initially surprised.  There is, indeed, a counter-clockwise bias in many of our movements.  In sports, for example, all races are run counter-clockwise, and baseball is also a counter-clockwise sport.  Moreover, studies have documented that virtually all joggers, if given a free choice, will settle on a circular route that runs counter-clockwise.  After a little digging I found that Professor Watanbe Hitoshi of SOKA University in California has devoted a great deal of time studying clockwise versus counterclockwise choices.  

[Professor Hiroshi] reached a point in his research where he had to decide if it was better to design stairs that you have to go down clockwise or counterclockwise. Experiments had been carried out previously and it was known that there is tendency to turn counterclockwise, for example, if you cover your eyes and try to walk straight almost always you will end up walking a little bit to the left. But Mr. Watanabe wanted to investigate more: 

• Most . . . human beings are right handed.
• Most . . . left-handed people are right-footed, while most of the right-       handed people are also right-footed.
• Most . . . human beings have slightly longer right leg than left leg.

These three factors make our right leg . . . dominant over the left leg, which causes a tendency to turn to the left, and to be able to run faster and more comfortable in a counterclockwise direction. He also found out that:  Humans walk instinctively protecting the left part of their body (for example by putting their left part of the body nearer to walls) because our heart is in the center-left part of our chest.  Drifting to the left is basically human nature, and running in a counterclockwise direction practically an instinct.

        So.  All good so far, Mr. Child.  

      

     But consider this:  Executing a counter-clockwise circular route requires a series of left-hand turns.  Indeed, Jack Reacher’s deduction concerning where he would find that missing character was premised on a supposition that the first turn the character made would be to the left.  All of that counter-clockwise research notwithstanding, an equally large body of behavioral research indicates that, given an uninhibited choice, most people at an intersection will naturally turn not to the left, but to the right.  Professor Stephen Bitgood of the University of Alabama, in his article collecting and distilling prior studies on pedestrian movement noted the following:

The tendency to walk on the right side of a path is a common finding (at least in the United States). The sociologist William Whyte (1980, 1988) has studied people’s behavior in city plazas and on city streets. Whyte (1988), in his chapter on the “skilled pedestrian,” summarized the pattern of walking on the right of city sidewalks:

Pedestrians usually walk on the right. (Deranged people and oddballs are more likely to go left, against the flow.) 

        Summarizing earlier studies, Professor Bitgood also concludes that “[o]ne of the most frequently reported findings is a tendency for people to turn right at a choice point or intersection.”  Evidence of this is all around us.  Professor Bitgood notes that the right hand turn is always the easier and less energy consuming choice.  In recognition of this fact stores tend to be designed, as Bitgood notes, to allow shoppers to steer to the right upon entering.  There is also some evidence from highway studies that in cities circled by beltways the more predominant way to drive around the city is by beginning with a right turn, and then driving the beltway clockwise, not counterclockwise.  (A study by the Washington Post published just last Sunday noted differing commuting times for clockwise and counterclockwise trips on the Washington beltway.)  

     Bitgood also references a number of studies that have focused on museums and zoos, and by and large these have documented a pronounced tendency of visitors to enter and then turn right, although some (but not all) of the studies also indicated that the museums or zoos were then toured in a counterclockwise direction.  It has also been noted that typical grocery store design anticipates that the shopper will enter the store and turn right, usually towards the vegetables, but then circle the store counterclockwise with a series of left turns.  Professor Bitgood conducted his own study of shoppers entering several malls and found a pronounced, but far from universal, tendency of the shoppers to veer right, not left, upon entering the mall.

       But let’s get back to Killing Floor.  I don’t want to end up dishing out a “spoiler” for Mr. Child’s first Jack Reacher mystery, but suffice it to say that the purported “universal” tendency of people in all circumstances to bear left, that is counter-clockwise, is a key element in Jack Reacher’s deduction concerning where he predictably will find a critical (and missing) character.  From this postulate of “universally” predictable behavior Reacher concludes that when booking passage on an inter city bus to a random location one will always pick a bus that turns left, and heads out of town on a counter-clockwise route.  But would this be the case?  Does a person choosing a bus route on a map behave like a jogger or a baseball player, or does he or she behave like a shopper in a store, or a visitor to a museum?  And what about those beltways that have more clockwise than counterclockwise drivers?  Even in Lee Child’s native England (where driving is on the left) the answer is just not that simple nor that predictable.

        So here the deduction is simple for Reacher, but only because Mr. Child (the man behind the curtain), consistent with Mike Nevin’s observation, knows the result in advance.  But the deduction does not objectively and invariably flow from the evidence.  It is, in a word, far-fetched.  It would not, in the real world, support an incontestable conclusion.  

     Don’t get me wrong.  I enjoyed Killing Floor and the other Lee Child books that I have read thus far.  But if I structured a deductive conclusion based on a premise as suspect as Mr. Child’s, I would expect the Janet Hutchings of the world to at the least raise some very legitimate questions -- or more likely just send me one of those damned rejection notes!

Getting the Details Right in a Police Procedural

by Barb Goffman

Police officers' guns are always loaded because they never know when they're going to need them.

This was one of the great tidbits I picked up this past Saturday at my local Sisters in Crime meeting. Our speaker was Mark Bergin, who served on the Alexandria, Virginia, police force for twenty-eight years, retiring in 2014. While on the force, he was twice named his department's officer of the year for drug and robbery investigations. Bergin shared stories and answered questions for over an hour to help us authors get our police details right. Here's some of what he told us. (Any mistakes are mine.) Some of this information I already knew, and maybe you do too, but it's always good to get a refresher:

• Police work involves a ton of paperwork that you often don't see in novels and short stories.
• Patrol officers wear twenty-three pounds of gear, such as a radio, gun, extra bullets, a bullet-proof vest.
• Every cop has extra bullets, handcuffs, radios, pens, and more on them while on duty. 
• While fictional officers seem to work on one case at a time, real cops are always juggling cases. In the Alexandria police force, the average was six to eight cases at a time, and the officers work each of them as much as they can.
• Officers always like to sit with their back to the wall, especially when on duty. They want to see the whole room. Bergin called this "hyper-vigilance," and said it especially comes into play when you are in uniform.
• Cops have a presence that's different from that of other people. Cops look at other people's faces. They give off the impression of being knowledgeable, which is why people often ask them for information such as directions.
• Ninety percent of an officer's job is maintaining control of a situation. That's done mostly by walking in and being "a presence." Officers also gain control of situations through using a commanding voice, which they're taught, as well as through control holds.
• Police officers have short hair, look bulky, and are strong. They're not always physically fit because so much of the job is sitting and driving. While on the force, Bergin worked out a lot to have big arms so he'd look like he could win a fight, which was designed to make people not try to fight him.

  

  Mark Bergin

• Officers receive extensive training so that they get "muscle memory." In times of crisis, this memory kicks in so they will automatically do things the right way without having to think about it.
• Cops typically stay in the same police department throughout their career because--unless you are a chief or deputy chief--if you switch departments, you always have to start at the bottom. This is true even of homicide detectives. If an officer moves to a new city and thus a new place of employment, the officer starts out on patrol and has to work his/her way up the ladder again. 
• Ninety-five percent of the time, prosecutors don't get involved in police cases before an arrest. The exceptions can be for homicides, bank robberies, and when there is a series of crimes that seem to be by the same perpetrator. 
• Preliminary investigations of most crimes are done by patrol officers. The exceptions are rape and homicide cases, which go to detectives right away.
• Police investigate missing-person cases immediately; the twenty-four-hour waiting period often portrayed in TV and movies is a myth. However extensive resources may not be immediately available for a search.
• Patrol officers are strictly controlled in what they are allowed to do. For instance, they must ask for permission to do follow-up work on cases they're interested in that have already been handed off to detectives. 
• Most cops don't worry about fear interfering with their ability to do their jobs because the hiring process/training program weeds out potential officers with this problem. Potential officers with fear issues either are trained to overcome them or they leave the program.
• While fear isn't a problem for most officers, stress is. They think they could be attacked at any moment, and thus are always on guard.
• Ninety to ninety-five percent of police officers never fire their gun at another person.
• In Alexandria, Virginia, the police department has three shifts of officers working each day. Officers work ten-hour shifts. Eighty-five to ninety percent of each shift is spent on the street. (I didn't get the chance to ask if this information is representative for most departments.) 

I hope I got all these details right. I asked Bergin to drop by today, so if I made any errors, he hopefully will weigh in in the comments. And if you have any questions, please pose them in the comments. I hope he will be able to answer them.

Now that he's retired from police work, Bergin has turned to writing fiction. His first novel, a police procedural titled Apprehension, is scheduled to be published this fall by Inkshares/Quill. More information about the book is available here.

Thanks very much, Mark Bergin!
 

One Battle After Another

I haven’t seen every contender, but One Battle After Another is a strong candidate for best mainstream American picture of 2025. Released theatrically late in the year, it’s now available streaming on HBO Max, which is where I caught it.

Basic lineaments are these. Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, from the novel Vineland by – get this – Thomas Pynchon. (You might think, reasonably, that Pynchon was impossible to adapt, but no; Anderson already took a shot at it with Inherent Vice, ten or so years ago, and there was apparently a stage production of V., in Berlin, running a little under four hours, and which seems to me a hugely quixotic undertaking.) The proof, however, is in the pudding, and One Battle After Another, quirky though it may be, is a very satisfying thriller. I feel it has a couple of blind spots, and I’ll get to that, but it sets up fast, and doesn’t slow down, and pays off big.

Leo DiCaprio, for those of you who still think he’s too cute for school – even after Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – shows off some terrific chops, very understated. Sean Penn, anything but understated, goes even more batshit than you could possibly imagine, as the heavy, and yet manages to convince you the guy isn’t a cartoon. Benicio Del Toro brings some lucid and calming energy to the scene, as a sensei. And the two female leads don’t play it safe, Teyana Taylor, as the radical mom, and Regina Hall, as her bred-to-revolution daughter – both heart-breakers, in their own way, and not always sympathetic.

The plot takes some sudden turns, and I won’t spoil it, but the story is pretty straightforward. A left-wing domestic resistance group, working to spring illegals from custody and move them through an Underground Railroad to safety, is compromised. They break up and go off the radar. ICE, in the person of the aforementioned Sean Penn, tracks them down, over the years, going for kill or capture. Leo, in a state of hallucinatory bliss, imagines he and his daughter are safe, but the devil comes to their door. Much grievous mayhem ensues.

You’ll have to take my word for it, it’s nowhere near as formulaic as this may make it sound. It hits a lot of the tropes you’d expect, but pulls some real surprises. It’s consistently entertaining, and still remains thoughtful.

Here’s the thing I’m not quite sure about.

There are, historically, left-wing groups that have turned to terror, just as there are similar right-wing organizations. The people in the movie might remind you of Edward Abbey’s Monkey-Wrench Gang, in that their intentions are good, but they’ve embraced violence, and like so many others, Left or Right, they think their cause excuses that. There is, of course, no organized AntiFa, not even an umbrella. We might remember, though, that in those damned and debated 1960’s and 1970’s, some of the more radical terror groups did in fact make common cause, the IRA Provos and the Japanese Red Army, the Weather Underground and the Panthers. Not a fever dream of J. Edgar Hoover’s, an actual alliance. Maybe it came to nothing, in the end, out of mistrust, but it was in the collective unconscious.

Their opposite number is the Great Right-Wing Conspiracy.

It features in a lot of over-heated paranoia movies, but is it a real thing? We know they’ve always had a fear of the anarchist Left, going back to the Haymarket, or Sacco and Vanzetti, but in those cases, the power of the state was mobilized. We’re talking about private money, working in the shadows. Sure, they meet behind closed doors, and wield enormous influence, but do they use secret Masonic recognition signals and practice barbaric rituals? Well, the Ku Klux Klan did, but I don’t think these guys have to. The big-money tech oligarchs are right out in the open. They’re not shy about swinging their weight around. That’s the only convention One Battle After Another uses that I’m not convinced of. I don’t think the right wing has to work in secret, or show each other their Capt. Midnight decoder rings. They recognize each other on sight, known predators stalking in the tall grass.

So, a reservation.

I guess you could say it was dramatic convenience. For sure, Thomas Pynchon has long trafficked in weird, all-powerful secret societies – and they seem, unhappily, all too authentic. I think, too, they’ve always been around: think the Jesuits. In other words, it’s an understandable temptation, and neo-Nazis and Aryan Nation supremacists are very definitely crawling around, not even in the underbrush. I wouldn’t argue that these people aren’t wicked, and capable of terrible cruelties, and they probably sit around their clubs with brandy and cigars, and gloat. They just don’t hide it.

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)