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50k Word Nerds

A writing community for November and beyond

#writingcommunity  #booksky #amwriting  #writing Unfettered Treacle on Substack

Hey all you writers out there!

It’s that time of year again. I wrote about NaNoWriMo and Novel November here. But my good friend Leah Salyer and I wanted to bring back the community energy that Novel November doesn’t quite have, so we (mostly Leah, hats off) built our own space: 50K Word Nerds.

We’d love to write alongside you this month! Join us for writing sprints, encouragement, a few evergreen writing modules, perfect if you’re new to writing or just want a quick refresher before diving in.

We’ll be adding new modules each week. Everything’s hosted on Canvas, and it’s completely free.

Join us here: 50k Word Nerds. Alternatively, you can sign up at https://canvas.instructure.com/register and use the following join code: MENWRH

We are not the word police, so no pressure, no guilt, just good company and support for your writing adventure.

NaNoWriMo to Novel November: A New Chapter for the Write-In

The joy of reckless writing lives on

Photo by Ajay Deewan on Unsplash

#writingcommunity  #booksky #amwriting  #writing Unfettered Treacle on Substack

I first attempted National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo, for the uninitiated) back in 2010. My project was called Revelation Void, which sounds far more finished than it ever was. I managed to hammer out 50,000 words that November, technically a win, but I didn’t finish the novel. I crossed the line exhausted, clutching a half-formed story and far too many coffee receipts.

Every year after that, I tried again. Some years I made it halfway. Other years I tanked by week three. But I never lost the thrill of “Go! Write!” the community energy, the absurd optimism, the daily word-count adrenaline. The idea of trying to draft a novel in a month was a beacon, even when I sputtered out somewhere around chapter five.

And now, NaNoWriMo, as we knew it, is gone.

What NaNoWriMo Was

For anyone who missed its glory days, NaNoWriMo (pronounced NAN-oh-RY-moh) was a U.S.-based nonprofit that inspired writers around the world to attempt the impossible: 50,000 words in 30 days, every November.

It started in 1999 with just 21 brave souls and ballooned to more than 400,000 participants by 2022. Writers could set up profiles, post synopses, and connect through a global online community. Famous authors wrote “pep talks.” Local volunteers organized coffee-shop write-ins and midnight sprints.

The focus wasn’t on perfection; it was on momentum. NaNo taught you to shut up your inner editor and just get words down, messy, sprawling, glorious first drafts. For many of us, it made writing feel communal instead of lonely.

The Fall of NaNoWriMo

In April 2025, after more than two decades of late-night typing and caffeine-fueled camaraderie, NaNoWriMo announced it was shutting down.

It wasn’t sudden, the warning signs had been flashing for a while:

AI controversy: The organization’s stance on generative AI set off a storm. Their claim that condemning AI had “classist and ableist undertones” landed poorly, to say the least.Ethics scandals: Allegations in their Young Writers’ Program and mishandled complaints eroded trust.Volunteer burnout: Forum issues, leadership missteps, and disillusioned Municipal Liaisons slowly drained the life out of the movement.

By the time the official announcement came, it felt like a creative obituary. NaNo had built something remarkable, and flawed, and when it fell, it left a crater in the writing community.

Enter Novel November — A Fresh Start

But good stories always find a sequel.

Into the void steps Novel November, a 30-day writing challenge from ProWritingAid that’s free, friendly, and very intentionally not NaNoWriMo 2.0 — though it’s clearly carrying the torch.

Here’s how it works:

It’s free to join (just make a ProWritingAid account).You get October prep time, plotting tools, workshops, and sprints.During November, you’ll find guided writing sessions, community chats, and live events with bestselling authors.You can log your word count manually or through integrations with Word, Scrivener, and Google Docs.For every writer who completes the challenge, ProWritingAid donates $2 to Room to Read , a literacy nonprofit helping kids worldwide.

It’s like they took NaNo’s best DNA, the creative chaos, the communal drive, and rebuilt it with better lighting, and fewer existential crises (hopefully.)

Why This Matters (and Why I’m All In)

I’ve danced with failure under NaNo’s banner for years. I may have missed a year or two since 2010, but I’ve always loved the idea of starting something new every November, even if I don’t get very far. There’s something pure about that collective act of creative defiance.

Novel November feels like a lifeline.
We don’t need perfection; we need motivation to try again, to fail spectacularly, and to keep going anyway.

It offers:

A fresh, cleaner slate (no baggage, no drama).A structured rhythm: prep, sprint, finish.Community and accountability without a paywall.A charitable twist that turns word counts into good deeds.

Whether you’re tackling a novel, a series of short stories, or even a pile of blog posts, it all counts.

Let’s do it together.

How You Can Join Me

Here’s the quickstart guide:

Visit the Novel November page.Register (or log in) and confirm your account.Start your October prep, plot, brainstorm, warm up with their 10k sprint.On November 1, join me in writing 1,667 words per day (or whatever pace you can swing).Use the community, attend sprints, and celebrate the small wins.

I’ll be doing it right alongside you, late nights, caffeine, and all. They don’t have friend groups yet (it’s their first year, we’ll cut them some slack), but who knows? Maybe we’ll start our own.

If you’re joining in, drop a comment and tell me what you’re working on. Let’s see if we can fill November with a few more messy first drafts.

A Life in Stereo

Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Black Sabbath

#writingcommunity  #booksky #amwriting  #writing Unfettered Treacle on Substack

I’ve had a strange road with music. As a kid, it wasn’t all that important. We had a fading stereo console that sounded like its speakers were running a metaphysical obstacle course, and AM radio was king. My mom owned exactly one truly great album, Not Fragile by Bachman Turner Overdrive, and I wore out “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet.” But if you’d asked ten-year-old me my favorite singer, I’d have said Shaun Cassidy. Which is hilarious now, but deadly serious then.

Things started to shift when a babysitter brought over a Grand Funk Railroad record and cracked open my skull a little.

But it wasn’t until Christmas of 1978, when Mom bought my brother and me a turntable/8-track combo, that the real flood began. She asked the record store clerk what to buy, came home with four albums, and somehow nailed two all-timers: Dire Straits’ debut and Foreigner’s debut. Both are still in my top tier. The other two? A Partridge Family record and something so forgettable it actually succeeded.

From there, my brother went hard into Black Sabbath, UFO, Aerosmith, Mahogany Rush. At first, I hated it. Too heavy, too weird. But when you share a wall with someone blasting Sabbath 24/7, resistance is futile. Before long, I knew every song, every riff. Then a movie dropped called “Over the Edge.” It featured Van Halen and Cheap Trick. Late 70s hit us with AC/DC, Rush, Styx, Journey, The Cars, suddenly our lives had a soundtrack. Saturday Night Fever briefly turned me into a Bee Gees disciple, but disco was a bright flash that burned out quick.

Then came MTV in 1981, and the floodgates opened wider.

The Police, Prince, Eurythmics, Duran Duran, Asia. By college, I’d found Oingo Boingo, U2, The Fixx, Huey Lewis, Billy Idol. At pilot training I even DJ’d a college radio show where our only rule was “No Bon Jovi.” (Every other station was already running a federally mandated Bon Jovi quota.) We played Echo and the Bunnymen, Suicidal Tendencies, REM, The Cure, The Smiths, Pet Shop Boys. We were trying to sneak alt rock into Mississippi.

Music became essential. It carried me through deployments, marriages, and moves. Eric Clapton’s Journeyman spun through the Gulf War. Nirvana’s Nevermind was the echo after Desert Storm. Later I drifted back to the softer grooves of the early ’70s, Bread, America, Fleetwood Mac, Steely Dan, Al Stewart, what’s now lumped together as “Yacht Rock.” I’m not sure how half those songs got lodged in my brain, but they feel like home.

And then, maybe the most important verse in this long, strange playlist: my wife and I bonded over music. Turns out the fastest way to test long-term compatibility is not a Myers-Briggs quiz, it’s whether she also loves Bread.

So yeah, music and I had a rocky start. I ignored it, mocked it, betrayed it with disco, and nearly drowned it in Bon Jovi avoidance. But like any good relationship, it stuck around, grew up with me, and eventually introduced me to the love of my life.

Not bad for a kid whose first favorite singer was Shaun Cassidy.

BTW, Wolf Alice’s latest album The Clearing dropped last Friday.

Plot Twists: The Art of the “Wait, What?! Whoa.”

The Sneaky Joy of Surprising, Yet Inevitable

#writingcommunity  #booksky #amwriting  #writing Unfettered Treacle on Substack

Bad plot twists are like soggy fries. You expect crispy, salty glory, and instead you get limp disappointment. Readers know this pain. We’ve all been there.

The long-lost evil twin who parachutes into the story with perfect hair and zero warning.The “it was all just a dream” ending that makes you want to demand a refund from the author personally.Or the Scooby-Doo finale, where masks come off so fast you half expect the dog to turn out to be the butler.

Those aren’t twists. They’re cheats.

The good ones, though, those are magic. They’re the moments that make readers gasp, slap the page, and mutter “holy crap” while their brains start rewinding the story in real time, hunting for all the hints they should have caught. A really great twist doesn’t make you feel duped, it makes you feel delighted that the writer outsmarted you.

This isn’t a new idea. Aristotle, in Poetics, said the best reversals (peripeteia, if you want to impress your book club) should be unexpected, yet inevitable, a turn that lands like a thunderclap but also feels absolutely logical in hindsight. That’s the gold standard. Two thousand years later, we’re still trying to live up to that.

Why Twists Work

A good twist changes the story in a way that makes it tighter, not looser. It raises the stakes. It flips the game board but leaves all the pieces intact, you suddenly see the whole pattern differently. The trick is, twists aren’t just for the big finish. They can happen at any scale. A story-wide reveal, sure, but also smaller turns, little betrayals, shifts in loyalty, secrets that come out at the worst possible moment. Each one makes the road rougher for your characters and more fun for the reader. A twist worth its salt changes the game and tightens the screws. It should sting.

Take The Empire Strikes Back. Vader’s “I am your father” didn’t just shock Luke—it rewired the whole saga. Same with The Sixth Sense. Once you know the reveal, every earlier scene clicks into place like tumblers in a lock. Or Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, where the entire POV turns out to be a magician’s sleight of hand.

These twists don’t unravel the story; they deepen it. They’re the narrative equivalent of adding a new instrument halfway through a song, the melody changes, but it was always there waiting. Here’s the bottom line, a plot twist isn’t about tricking your reader. It’s about keeping a promise in a way they didn’t see coming. Surprise them, yes, but then let them feel smart when they realize they could have seen it. That balance is what makes them gasp, grin, and maybe forgive you for tormenting their favorite character.

Too much hot sauce, you burn them. Too little, it’s bland. But just the right amount? That’s when readers close the book and mutter, ‘Well played, you sneaky bastard.’”

The Magician’s Trick

Here’s the dirty secret, foreshadowing rarely happens in draft one. Nobody writes that cleanly. It happens in revision. You go back, tuck in little breadcrumbs, and then smile when readers later say, “I should’ve seen that coming.”

Writers are magicians. We distract with one hand (shiny subplot, quirky side character, flashy worldbuilding), while the other hand is quietly setting up the trick. By the time the reveal happens, the audience gasps because they thought they were watching the other hand.

David Farland had a nice little rule, mention an important element three times in different contexts before it pays off. Chekhov had his own, if you’re going to fire a gun in Act Three, you’d better hang it on the wall in Act One. These aren’t rules so much as stagecraft, ways to set up the trick, so the audience feels both surprised and satisfied.

You need to outthink your reader. Your first idea for a twist? That’s the same one your reader would guess. Toss it. Go two or three layers deeper.

If you set up a mystery, you have to solve it. But a great twist solves it in a way the reader didn’t see coming.

Where Twists Go Wrong

It’s tempting to overdo it. Twist every chapter! Keep readers guessing! But too many turns start to feel like Scooby-Doo again. Better to land one clean punch than keep swinging wildly. Ned Stark was a huge surprise, but after we’ve seen fifteen other characters killed off it is no longer a twist, it’s a motus operandi.

The other classic mistake is the twist that comes out of nowhere. The Deus ex Machina. “Surprise, aliens!” in a Regency romance. Or the protagonist acting wildly out of character just to set up a shock. That’s not a twist, that’s betrayal.

Out-of-character behavior. If your twist depends on someone acting completely unlike themselves, it’s not clever, it’s betrayal.

Readers want to be surprised, but they don’t want to feel fooled. There’s a difference.

Telegraphing. If your readers guessed it in chapter two, it’s not a twist. Also, they probably won’t buy your next book.

Practicing the Craft

So how do you learn to twist? You read twisty books and take notes. Watch modern films like Relay for inspiration. They show how today’s audiences expect subtler, character-driven reversals.

Ask yourself, “What’s the worst thing that could happen to this character right now?” and then have the guts to write it. And when you get to the end of your draft, don’t be afraid to go back and salt the trail with just enough breadcrumbs that the whole thing feels fair.

Beta readers are your best truth serum here. If they say, “Yeah, I saw that coming in chapter two,” you need more misdirection. If they say, “That came out of nowhere,” you need better foreshadowing. The sweet spot is when they text you: “HOW DID I MISS THIS?”

Final Thought

Plot twists are like hot sauce. Too little, and the whole thing’s bland. Too much, and your reader’s eyebrows will sweat right off. But just enough, that perfect kick, makes the whole dish unforgettable.

So go be a magician. Plant your breadcrumbs. Wave the shiny distractions. And when the time comes, pull the rug with flair. Your reader will gasp, grin, and then flip back through the pages to find what you were hiding the whole time. That’s when you know you nailed it.

And yes, somewhere in the great amphitheater of history, Aristotle will clap politely and say, “Not bad.”

A Post About Nothing

A masterclass in wasting your time (kindly)

#writingcommunity  #booksky #amwriting  #writing Unfettered Treacle on Substack

Two months ago, I was sitting on a mountain of Substack drafts, enough to last me … well, two months.

You can do the math.

Two whole months of posts scheduled. I thought I was a genius. “This Substack thing is easy,” I said to myself smugly.

Fast forward and I’ve hit the end of that queue. Do you know how many posts I have left in the hopper right now? Zero. Nada. Nothing.

So, here’s a post … about nothing.

At first, I was on fire. Posts came to me like free refills at a diner. I’d write, slot them into the calendar, Tuesdays became “slice-of-life and stuff I find interesting,” Thursdays turned into “writerly things.” Very organized. Very professional. Like a guy who color-codes his socks.

I kept waiting for inspiration to strike, the way it did at the beginning. Turns out “inspiration” is less like a lightning bolt and more like a cat, it shows up when it feels like it, ignores you when you call, and definitely doesn’t care about your posting schedule. But I knew that. Still, I thought something would come, something interesting, if not to you at least interesting to me. But no.

Now, this dearth of posts wasn’t because I was depressed about world events (though things are going downhill faster than my golf score on a windy day). And it wasn’t because of trauma.

It’s not like I didn’t have material. I mean, I’ve been through some stuff.

Flood? Check.

Wife died of cancer? Check.

Got shot at over enemy territory? Check.

Business collapse? Check.

That’s a whole HBO miniseries! But do I sit down and write “My Trauma, My Journey”? No. I just move on. Write some space opera with vampires instead.

But here’s the weird thing, I don’t dwell on it. I don’t feel called to write self-help manifestos or trauma memoirs. That lane is packed already, and I’d rather take the frontage road. Those experiences give me grit for my fiction, sure. People tell me, “Oh, you should write about healing, recovery, overcoming.” Why? The bad stuff already happened, I’m fine, let’s not make it a hobby.

Generally speaking, I’m happy. Like, absurdly happy. I found my soulmate late in life, and our relationship is everything I could hope for. I have four grown kids who are smart, kind, successful humans. I started out just above poverty level as a kid, single mom secretary providing for us the best she could, and she did an amazing job. I was a latchkey kid, played sports, and did well in school, and got an appointment to the Air Force Academy. I made a career out of flying jets and got to see a large swath of the planet. There were a few wars thrown in there for good measure. I was shot at several times over enemy territory, but came out unscathed.

By all rights, I should be miserable! Everyone else is out here turning pain into a personal brand, and I’m sitting around thinking, what if I just … didn’t?

I try to live fearlessly.

I do recall on my last deployment feeling like a cop walking his last beat. I was certain I was going to die. I accepted that fate and flew every mission without question. Nothing too strange happened. I had a very good boom operator1 that kept as out of trouble.

I believe wholeheartedly in servant leadership and combining that with living fearlessly, because there is nothing worse than having a boss that makes every decision from fear of consequences.

So, I had no excuses really. Just living my life and enjoying the fact that I didn’t have to sweat Substack, except for trying to post a Note now and then. I could probably do more there, but I never wanted this to be a growth focused blog. I want it to be as organic as it can be, with my focus on connection with people.

So why am I on Substack?

Because I like reading weird, funny, interesting stuff. I like humor, history, and posts that go nowhere, like this one.

The dream is that you laugh, maybe learn something, and one day buy one of my books. That’s it. That’s the whole business model.

Being a writer is ridiculous right now. Easier to publish than ever. Harder to be noticed than ever. It’s like opening a hotdog stand at a food festival where there are already 4,000 hotdog stands, and half of them are giving the hotdogs away for free, and one guy’s AI robot is handing out hotdogs that also write sonnets.

Publishing is shifting. Will there be fewer publishers? Fewer agents? More dreck? Probably. Will Gen Z and whoever comes after figure it out? Definitely. That’s what young people do, roll their eyes at us, fix the mess, and invent something we don’t understand.

So here I am again, writing a post about nothing, because nothing is what I had left in the tank. Turns out, this is just like writing a novel. You can’t count on inspiration to carry you. You’ve got to show up, do the work, and then slap on a witty closer so people come back next week.

Here’s mine:

If this post resonated with you, please like, share, and tattoo the link on your forearm.

1 – A Boom Operator is a enlisted Air Force member on a tanker crew who physically positions the boom, a long, hydraulically controlled nozzle located at the rear of the tanker, extending and maneuvering it to connect with the receiving aircraft, the one getting fuel. Thanks Nick!

Pacing Isn’t Just For Runners

How to keep your readers turning pages instead of checking their notifications

#writingcommunity  #booksky #amwriting  #writing Unfetterred Treacle on Substack

Let’s talk about pacing.

Not the kind you do in your kitchen while waiting for the kettle to boil and wondering if your protagonist is boring.

I mean the heartbeat of your story. The rhythm. The momentum. The thing that keeps readers saying, “Just one more chapter,” and then suddenly it’s 2:47 a.m. and they’re cursing themselves for a lack of self-control.

If your pacing’s off, your story drags. Or it rushes. Or worse, it runs in place like a caffeinated hamster.

So how do you get it right?

1. In Late, Out Early

This is the golden rule of scene work. Don’t spend five paragraphs describing how someone gets out of their car, walks to the door, and opens it, unless they’re defusing a bomb with every step.

Get in after the boring parts. Start with the tension already in the air. And when the scene has done its job? Leave. Don’t linger. No long goodbyes. Exit like a movie star in sunglasses.

Think of each scene like a party. Arrive just as the drama starts, and ghost as soon as things calm down.

2. Every Scene Should Earn Its Keep

Every scene should do at least one of these things:

Move the plotReveal characterRaise the stakesDeliver conflict

If it does all four? Gold star. But if it does none of these? You probably need to cut it. Or combine it with another scene that’s doing the work.

If your character is just drinking coffee and reflecting on life for three pages, make sure there’s a sniper outside the window, a betrayal in the works, or a confession brewing with that latte.

3. Conflict is the Fuel

Stories are made of people who want things and can’t get them easily. That’s conflict. Every character should want something, even if it’s just a glass of water or the last word in an argument.

When wants collide, tension crackles. Even quiet scenes get electricity when people are at odds.

Want your pace to hum? Keep the wants alive. Keep the obstacles real.

4. Snappy Dialogue is a Shortcut to Speed

Good dialogue is like a back-and-forth tennis match. Bad dialogue is like a very polite game of lawn bowls.

Keep it tight. Let characters interrupt, miscommunicate, talk past each other. Let them want things mid-conversation.

And if you can slip in subtext, humor, or a sucker punch while doing it? Chef’s kiss.

5. Thrillers Need Rest Stops

Even roller coasters have a pause at the top of the hill.

If you’re writing high-octane fiction, thrillers, action, or even emotional drama, moments of stillness are essential. They let readers breathe. They give contrast to the chaos. They allow tension to rebuild before the next drop.

Without breathers, readers burn out. Or worse, stop caring.

So, throw in a quiet beat. A human moment. A flashlight-lit heart-to-heart in the middle of the storm. Then yank the floor out again.

And Then There’s the Saggy Middle…

You close in on the halfway mark and that story that was chugging along so confidently … then slumps. You lose steam. The plot feels soft. You question everything, especially whether this book is even worth finishing.

You, my friend, have encountered the Saggy Middle.

This idea, and the smart advice below, comes courtesy of bestselling author Alessandra Torre via her excellent Inkerscon newsletter. She outlines common causes of saggy middles and, more importantly, how to fix them.

Here’s the gist:

What Causes Saggy Middle Syndrome?

Weak Stakes – Your character’s problem just isn’t dire enough.Passive Protagonist – They’re reacting, not acting.No Midpoint Reversal – The story stays on the same rails instead of veering off dramatically.Repetitive Scenes – Plot is circling instead of climbing.Wandering Subplots – They’re there, but no one knows why.

Sound familiar? It doesn’t mean your book is broken. But it does mean it’s time to pour gas back into the story.

Five Ways to Fix Your Middle

Drop a Midpoint Bomb
Add a twist, a betrayal, a dead body, a long-lost sibling. Something that forces everyone to recalibrate. This recharges momentum instantly.Raise the Stakes
Make the consequences of failure worse. Internal, external, romantic, whatever works. Just make your character sweat.Force Hard Choices
Stop letting your main character drift. Put a fork in the road. Choices reveal character and ripple through the plot.Add Complications That Matter
Don’t just make your character late for work, introduce a problem that redefines what they want or how they’ll get it.Tighten Threads
Subplots should start converging. Every scene should pull double duty, character and plot.

(Torre even suggests making a list of everything you need to reveal before the climax. It’s like breadcrumbs for your brain.)

Final Takeaway

Whether you’re fine-tuning a thriller or polishing your cozy fantasy, pacing matters at every level, scene, chapter, and arc. If your middle gets mushy, it’s not a sign you should quit. It’s a signal to raise the stakes, deepen the conflict, and let your characters surprise you.

Big thanks to Alessandra Torre for letting us peek under the hood of the saggy middle. You can find more of her sharp, honest writing advice at Inkerscon.

And hey, if your pacing feels like it’s limping along, just remember:

Even a roller coaster has slow climbs…
…right before the biggest drop.

TL;DR
Pacing isn’t about writing fast, it’s about writing purposefully. Every beat should matter. Every scene should crackle. Every page should pull the reader forward, even in the quiet parts.

Keep things lean. Keep things moving. And for the love of story, don’t let your protagonist spend two pages brushing their teeth (unless it’s a high-stakes dental showdown and the villain is hiding in the medicine cabinet).

September 18, 2025Still Rock and Roll: The Impact of Billy JoelFrom The Lost Souls to Madison Square Garden #writingcommunity  #booksky #amwriting  #writing Unfetterred Treacle on Substack In … September 16, 2025Don’t Let Chapter One Kill Your BookYour beginning matters, but not as much as finishing the damn story … September 11, 2025When the Blackbird SingsMy Blackbird Tattoo: A Tribute to Love and Loss My Blackbird Tattoo, … September 9, 2025Yes, It’s All Been Done. So What?When it feels like every story has already been told, tell yours …

Still Rock and Roll: The Impact of Billy Joel

From The Lost Souls to Madison Square Garden

#writingcommunity  #booksky #amwriting  #writing Unfetterred Treacle on Substack

In 1980, I was a sophomore in high school when Glass Houses dropped, and it hit me like a brick through a plate-glass window. It was loud, edgy, playful, and full of hooks. This was before streaming, before playlists, before you could hear what you wanted when you wanted. You caught your music on the radio, on vinyl, on 8-track, or on cassette. The funny thing to me is I don’t think I ever owned any of Billy Joel’s albums outright, but they lived in my head anyway. They got in through repetition and radio waves and the sheer inevitability of greatness.

Eventually, most of his songs found their way into my rotation. Billy was everywhere, at school dances, on car radios, blasting out of boomboxes. He was the soundtrack to breakups, parties, and quiet moments of clarity.

For me he was always one of those artists that I really enjoyed but never sought out. I knew the words to a lot of his songs and, he had so many that you could sing along to, but for whatever reason I never went out of my way to acquire any of his music.

Fast forward 45 years, and I finally got to see him live.

My wife and I were lucky enough to catch Billy Joel in concert earlier this year, before his recent illness forced him to step back from touring. He was sharing the bill with Sting (whom we love, and had seen in Vegas the year before), but the truth is, as much as I love Sting, Billy stole the show. At 76, he was still in perfect voice, hitting the high notes with power and ease. And beyond the voice, it was showmanship. He’s a natural. He knows how to connect. He’s funny, loose, commanding, like someone who’s been playing to packed stadiums his entire life (which he has for more than 40 years) and still gives a damn every time.

It was more than a concert. It was a masterclass in endurance, craft, and joy. Another thing that really struck me was just how good his voice was, and still is, at least before his diagnosis of hydrocephalus, and being a singer/songwriter, he was always able to write to his strengths.

Preparing to go to the show and looking at his playlist for the concert it was amazing to see just how many hits he had, easily twenty huge hits and arguably another ten. From Cold Spring Harbor in 71 to River of Dreams in 93, he made 13 studio albums as a solo artist, along with 8 live albums. He also did a classical music album after he quit making pop music. This year he put out a companion album for his documentary and it includes stuff from his earliest work with his first bands The Lost Souls, The Hassles, and Attila, outtakes and intros to songs, covering his whole career.

This week, we started watching his documentary, The Billy Joel: And So it Goes, the new one that features not just Billy but his early bandmates, his first wife, who was also his early and most successful business manager, and the people who helped shape his early rise. It’s riveting. Honest. Full of grainy footage, backstage tension, and those little musical decisions that end up defining an artist. It also includes a bunch of never-before-seen footage. I knew a lot of Billy’s music. I didn’t know his whole story. It’s fascinating. His first wife, Elizabeth Weber comes off as the hero in part one and his divorce from her is where part one ends. Without her Billy might have never had the huge career he had. It might have all ended with The Stranger, without the right singles and the right PR push at the right time. She was a notoriously tough boss and being his wife she didn’t get the credit or respect she deserved.

Part two is his life after divorcing his first wife. Three more marriages and a betrayal by his new business manager, who was his first wife’s brother and whom she advised him against hiring.

The revival of his spirits when he met Christie Brinkley was a bittersweet time. They were really happy for many years and had a daughter together, who also happens to be a singer/songwriter. But it came to light that his manager basically fleeced Billy of all his money. He had to rebuild his fortune and so dove hard into touring and writing new music. Sadly, this actually led to the end of his marriage to Christie, as the pressure of so much travelling and pushing to write new music really drove him to alcoholism, something he struggled with for most of his adult life. His third marriage was almost doomed from the start, as his drinking was a massive problem that he was unable at the time to get under control. His fourth marriage was something he didn’t expect, and he has two young children now and seems to be happily married and has finally managed to find balance.

Part one already made me appreciate him on a deeper level, as an artist, a survivor, and a man who kept showing up even when the industry tried to chew him up and spit him out. Part two revealed his desire to be the dad he never got to have. Although he did eventually find his father in Vienna and that he had a half-brother, also a piano player and conductor. It feels like this desire to get approval from his father was a driving force in his life, even though he might not have been consciously aware of it. In the end, his brother told him that his father loved him and respected him and his accomplishments, but Billy didn’t believe him, as he never heard the words come from his father’s mouth.

Part two also showed Billy’s renaissance, after he had stopped making new music and taking a long break, he was asked to perform for the Hurricane Sandy benefit, which was received so well that it led to his Madison Square Garden residency, which lasted ten years and 104 sold out shows in row. It was a feat he really didn’t expect, and it revitalized critical opinion. He finally achieved the recognition that he deserved for his talents.

Here is a quote from his last MSG show:

“Let me mention a couple of things that we’ve done,” he said. “We were the first group to play at Yankee Stadium [in 1990]. We were the last band to play at Shea Stadium [in 2008]. We played Berlin the night that the Berlin Wall came down [in 1990, so not quite]. We were the first American full-fledged performance in the Soviet Union [in 1987]. And we were the first band to play after Castro came to power, and we played Cuba [1979]. We played in front of the Coliseum in Rome for a half million people [in 2006]. And the food was great. But out of all of them, this is the best. There’s no place like this.”

We sat through each part in their entirety, which is uncommon for us. We usually do thirty minutes with dinner, maybe an hour. But these episodes were so riveting we had to watch the whole episode in one sitting. (2.5 hours a pop on back-to-back nights)

His music really turned out to be timeless and has aged immaculately. His music was honest and soulful and real. He really couldn’t be pigeon-holed into a music category and that was part of the early career negative critical review.

Billy Joel has always been part of the landscape of my life. But somehow, he keeps surprising me, showing me there’s more to the story. That may be the best any artist can hope for.

I hope he overcomes his health issues and can return to performing. If he does, I cannot suggest strongly enough that you should go see him. He is simply an amazing performer. One of a kind.

September 16, 2025Don’t Let Chapter One Kill Your BookYour beginning matters, but not as much as finishing the damn story … September 11, 2025When the Blackbird SingsMy Blackbird Tattoo: A Tribute to Love and Loss My Blackbird Tattoo, … September 9, 2025Yes, It’s All Been Done. So What?When it feels like every story has already been told, tell yours … September 4, 2025Death Becomes Her: Remembering Aeon FluxFrom Liquid Television fever dream to Hollywood reinvention, why this leather-clad chaos …

Don’t Let Chapter One Kill Your Book

Your beginning matters, but not as much as finishing the damn story

#writingcommunity  #booksky #amwriting  #writing Unfetterred Treacle on Substack

You want it perfect. I get it.

The first line. The first page. That sacred, glowing doorway where your book begins and every reader walks through.

It matters. Of course it does.

But not the way you think.

Most new writers obsess over the beginning. They write and rewrite Chapter One until the soul leaks out of it. They chase the mythical “perfect first line” like it holds the key to the whole book. And it may, but…

Here’s the truth: Your first line will almost definitely not be the first thing you write.

And your first chapter? Odds are good you’ll cut it.

Stop spinning your wheels rewriting the first three chapters.

Move forward.

Finish the story.

Then we can get crazy and overzealous about the beginning and the perfect first line, after you have a story.

Why Beginnings Matter

They set the tone.

They make promises, about voice, genre, pacing, style.

They give the reader a taste of what’s to come.

They are not where you dump your worldbuilding or monologue your backstory.

A good beginning drops us in late. Usually.

We don’t need the two-hour conversation that leads to “Let’s define our relationship.”

We need the moment the glass shatters.

Hooks Aren’t Just Gimmicks

Yes, your opening should grab attention.

But that doesn’t mean you need a snappy punchline or some overly-clever twist.

A good hook sets expectations. It matches the vibe of what follows.

Think of the start of one of my favorite books, William Gibson’s Neuromancer:

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”

You don’t know the character or the conflict yet, but you know what kind of ride you’re in for.

Write Your Way Into the Start

Most of us write ourselves into the story.

We noodle around, build momentum, and then somewhere around Chapter 2 or 3 we find the real beginning.

That’s not a problem. That’s the process.

Write scenes. Write character moments. Write out of order. Or not. I can’t. But everybody has a different way to make this work.

The important thing is to keep going until you finish.

Eventually, something will click, and you’ll say, Ah. That’s my start.

Don’t Be Afraid to Cut

Think of your first chapter like scaffolding.

It helped you build the story, but you might not need it once the structure stands.

Write it. Learn from it. Then ruthlessly delete it if it’s not pulling its weight.

(Yes, even if it has a line you love. Especially then.)

But keep the words. I have a section in my Book Guide called Boneyard. I keep the scraps there. You never know when you might want to resurrect some of this. It might be for another story.

What Not to Do at the Beginning

Don’t try to explain everything up front.
Your reader doesn’t need a full history of the kingdom, a glossary of alien species, or the character’s entire childhood trauma in paragraph one. Trust them to catch up.Don’t start with a dream.
Just…no. Unless the dream becomes literal and integral to the plot immediately, it’s usually a cheap fake-out. It signals, “I don’t know how to start, so here’s a gimmick.”Don’t bury the hook in a pile of description.
It’s tempting to wax poetic about the forest or the weather or the moonlight. But if nothing’s happening, we’re already slipping away.Don’t start with someone waking up, unless it’s the most interesting wake-up in literary history.
There are exceptions (The Hunger Games does this well), but nine times out of ten, “they woke up” is just a placeholder for “I haven’t figured out the actual start yet.”Don’t promise one thing and deliver another.
If your first line is edgy and dark but your book is a cozy mystery, readers will bounce. Your opening should reflect the tone, genre, and energy of the book they’re about to read.Don’t get stuck perfecting the beginning forever.
You’re not married to it. You’ll come back later, with a better understanding of the book, and probably a better sentence too.

Final Thought

The beginning will matter. But only after you finish.

So, stop fussing. Start writing.

The perfect first line? Don’t ask me. I’m not William Gibson. If everything works right it will coalesce from all the hard work of crafting your story.

I can tell you that for my first published book I ended up writing a brand new first chapter that actually stuck, after I finished the story.

September 11, 2025When the Blackbird SingsMy Blackbird Tattoo: A Tribute to Love and Loss My Blackbird Tattoo, … September 9, 2025Yes, It’s All Been Done. So What?When it feels like every story has already been told, tell yours … September 4, 2025Death Becomes Her: Remembering Aeon FluxFrom Liquid Television fever dream to Hollywood reinvention, why this leather-clad chaos … September 2, 2025Building Stories One Scene at a TimeA Scene-First Approach to Stronger Storytelling #writingcommunity  #booksky #amwriting  #writing Unfetterred Treacle on Substack I build every …

When the Blackbird Sings

My Blackbird Tattoo: A Tribute to Love and Loss

My Blackbird Tattoo, Still Raw

#writingcommunity  #booksky #amwriting  #writing Unfetterred Treacle on Substack

I’ve always had a soft spot for heavy guitars and deep, growling vocals. So when My Own Prison dropped in 1997, Creed hit me right between the eyes. I was hooked. Scott Stapp’s voice fit that sound perfectly, and the band exploded, until Stapp’s battles with mental health and addiction brought everything crashing down.

For a while, it seemed like that was it. But Creed’s lead guitarist and primary songwriter, Mark Tremonti, wasn’t done. He regrouped with his bandmates and brought in a new frontman, Myles Kennedy, former lead singer of The Mayfield Four to form a new band, Alter Bridge. By the time Myles joined, Mark had already written all the music for their debut album, One Day Remains, which quietly turned twenty last year. What they didn’t know then? Myles was also a world-class guitarist and a gifted lyricist. He ended up playing on tour and co-writing half the songs.

When they hit the studio again, Mark and Myles came in as true partners, and what they made still blows me away. Blackbird, their second album, is easily one of my favorite records of all time. The title track especially. It’s one of those songs that feels too personal to explain but too powerful not to share. The story behind it makes it hit even harder. Myles wrote the lyrics while watching a close friend face the end of his life.

“Blackbird was inspired lyrically by a friend of mine named Mark Morse. He sold me my first guitar when I was a kid, and we stayed friends for years and years. He actually passed away right as that song was being completed so it was dedicated to him and his memory. It’s really about seeing the suffering he was going through and hoping he would find his solace soon and be free from all of that.”

— Myles Kennedy

The solo in that song, shared by both Myles and Mark, was rated by Guitarist magazine as the greatest guitar solo of all-time in the 2011 list.

I didn’t know Mark Morse. But I knew what it meant to lose someone you love and to find a song that felt like it was written for that exact moment. I lost my wife to cancer a few years later and I ended up getting a tattoo made to honor her with the blackbird theme.

Some songs just find their way into your story.

This was mine.

Here is the song:

For a while, it seemed like that was it. But Creed’s lead guitarist and primary songwriter, Mark Tremonti, wasn’t done. He regrouped with his bandmates and brought in a new frontman, Myles Kennedy, former lead singer of The Mayfield Four to form a new band, Alter Bridge. By the time Myles joined, Mark had already written all the music for their debut album, One Day Remains, which quietly turned twenty last year. What they didn’t know then? Myles was also a world-class guitarist and a gifted lyricist. He ended up playing on tour and co-writing half the songs.

When they hit the studio again, Mark and Myles came in as true partners, and what they made still blows me away. Blackbird, their second album, is easily one of my favorite records of all time. The title track especially. It’s one of those songs that feels too personal to explain but too powerful not to share. The story behind it makes it hit even harder. Myles wrote the lyrics while watching a close friend face the end of his life.

“Blackbird was inspired lyrically by a friend of mine named Mark Morse. He sold me my first guitar when I was a kid, and we stayed friends for years and years. He actually passed away right as that song was being completed so it was dedicated to him and his memory. It’s really about seeing the suffering he was going through and hoping he would find his solace soon and be free from all of that.”

— Myles Kennedy

The solo in that song, shared by both Myles and Mark, was rated by Guitarist magazine as the greatest guitar solo of all-time in the 2011 list.

I didn’t know Mark Morse. But I knew what it meant to lose someone you love and to find a song that felt like it was written for that exact moment. I lost my wife to cancer a few years later and I ended up getting a tattoo made to honor her with the blackbird theme.

Some songs just find their way into your story.

This was mine.

Here is the song:

For a while, it seemed like that was it. But Creed’s lead guitarist and primary songwriter, Mark Tremonti, wasn’t done. He regrouped with his bandmates and brought in a new frontman, Myles Kennedy, former lead singer of The Mayfield Four to form a new band, Alter Bridge. By the time Myles joined, Mark had already written all the music for their debut album, One Day Remains, which quietly turned twenty last year. What they didn’t know then? Myles was also a world-class guitarist and a gifted lyricist. He ended up playing on tour and co-writing half the songs.

When they hit the studio again, Mark and Myles came in as true partners, and what they made still blows me away. Blackbird, their second album, is easily one of my favorite records of all time. The title track especially. It’s one of those songs that feels too personal to explain but too powerful not to share. The story behind it makes it hit even harder. Myles wrote the lyrics while watching a close friend face the end of his life.

“Blackbird was inspired lyrically by a friend of mine named Mark Morse. He sold me my first guitar when I was a kid, and we stayed friends for years and years. He actually passed away right as that song was being completed so it was dedicated to him and his memory. It’s really about seeing the suffering he was going through and hoping he would find his solace soon and be free from all of that.”

— Myles Kennedy

The solo in that song, shared by both Myles and Mark, was rated by Guitarist magazine as the greatest guitar solo of all-time in the 2011 list.

I didn’t know Mark Morse. But I knew what it meant to lose someone you love and to find a song that felt like it was written for that exact moment. I lost my wife to cancer a few years later and I ended up getting a tattoo made to honor her with the blackbird theme.

Some songs just find their way into your story.

This was mine.

Here is the song:

Yes, It’s All Been Done. So What?

When it feels like every story has already been told, tell yours anyway—because your voice still matters.

#writingcommunity  #booksky #amwriting  #writing Unfetterred Treacle on Substack

We’ve all heard it.

“Everything’s been written already.”

And in some ways, that’s true. The hero’s journey? Done. Star-crossed lovers? Check. Betrayal, revenge, redemption, chosen ones, ragtag crews, apocalypses, cozy villages with dark secrets, yes, yes, and absolutely yes.

In fact, over 3 million books are published every single year. That’s not counting the millions of stories written but never shared: fanfiction, blog posts, serial web fiction, private notebooks, and hard drives full of drafts labeled final_final_v3.docx.

So, if it’s all been done before, what are we doing here?

We’re telling our versions.

Because what makes a story feel fresh isn’t that it’s never been done. It’s that you haven’t done it. Your voice. Your worldview. Your sense of humor. Your scars and obsessions. The way you twist the familiar.

It’s Not the Ingredients—It’s the Recipe

Think of storytelling like cooking. We all start with the same basic ingredients: love, fear, loss, desire, power, survival. But just like you can have a hundred versions of spaghetti, and some of them will make you cry with joy and others will taste like 3 week old tuna casserole, stories hit differently depending on who’s making them.

Take a look:

The Hunger Games wasn’t the first dystopian rebellion story, but Suzanne Collins mixed Roman gladiators with reality TV and adolescent trauma.Circe by Madeline Miller took a well-known Greek myth and told it from the perspective of the sidelined witch, with rich emotion and modern nuance.Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik reimagined Rumpelstiltskin through an Eastern European lens and a trio of female protagonists with deeply personal stakes.Knives Out gave us a classic whodunit, but filtered through sharp political commentary and a caretaker heroine we hadn’t seen before.Even Star Wars was famously described as “Flash Gordon meets Akira Kurosawa.”

The familiar becomes new when it passes through you. (Made a rhyme there)

What Makes It Yours?

So how do you make something feel like your story, even if the bones are ancient?

Here are some ways to start:

Change the lens. Shift the point of view. Whose voice hasn’t been heard? What happens if the villain tells the tale?Blend genres. Try a spy thriller in a magical world. A romantic comedy inside a space station. A western with ghosts and golems.Twist expectations. Start with the trope—and break it halfway through. Or double down and push it to its limit.Write from the scar, not the wound. Use what you’ve lived through after you’ve gone through the healing, not while you’re in it. Filter it through fiction. The feelings will be real even if the world is not.Let your weird out. The strange details that only you would think to include? That’s your magic.

The Truth Is…

The world doesn’t need you to reinvent the wheel.

It needs your version of the wheel, how it rolls, how it breaks, how it spins out in a hail of sparks while your character clings to the axle screaming.

It needs your voice in the mix.

So yes, it’s all been done. But not like this. Not with your fingerprints on it, or with your heart.

And that’s reason enough to start.

What’s your favorite example of a story done differently?

September 4, 2025Death Becomes Her: Remembering Aeon FluxFrom Liquid Television fever dream to Hollywood reinvention, why this leather-clad chaos … September 2, 2025Building Stories One Scene at a TimeA Scene-First Approach to Stronger Storytelling #writingcommunity  #booksky #amwriting  #writing Unfetterred Treacle on Substack I build every … August 28, 2025Still Sick, Sad, and Perfect: Why Daria Still MattersCynical, Sarcastic, and Exactly What We Still Need #writingcommunity  #booksky #amwriting  #writing … August 26, 2025Why Your Character’s Choices Matter More Than Their BackstoryWe Get It, They Have Issues. What Are They Gonna Do About …