![\"\"](\"http:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/ted-f-paul-wilson.jpg\" "\\"ted")
<\/a>a couple of Jersey boys-Ted and F. Paul Wilson<\/p><\/div>\n
A much looser, more relaxed day. Yesterday by about 3, I was fried toast. Today is better.<\/p>\n
From \u2018What Lies Are Spies Telling?\u2019 a panel discussion of spy thriller writers:<\/p>\n
-Sign in the CIA gift shop (reportedly they have a nice gift shop at Langley): Do Not Use A Credit Card While Under Official Cover.<\/p>\n
-Jeffrey Deaver, who worked for Ronald Reagan says we would have won World War II without intelligence work, we would have won the Cold War without intelligence work but we cannot survive in a terrorist environment without intelligence work. The threat isn\u2019t as total\u2014we\u2019re not up against annihilation on a national or international level\u2014but it\u2019s diffuse, all around. I find the first point doubtful and the second even moreso but the third is hard to argue.<\/p>\n
-I couldn\u2019t see all the panelists from where I was sitting, so can\u2019t give a proper attribution but here\u2019s an intriguing question: As the US doles out more and more intelligence work to private contractors, what happens when there\u2019s a conflict between the national interest and the corporate interest? What happens when the corporate agenda is different? If a former agent gets his Top Secret clearance from the federal government and his paycheck from the contractor, as they say in the spy trade, who owns him?<\/p>\n
-There is a writer\u2019s group at CIA headquarters at Langley\u2014and a lot of them not writing spy novels.<\/p>\n
-At the end of the panel, the writers were asked what was their favorite thriller. The answers: 2 for Frederick Forsyth\u2019s Day of the Jackal, 4 for John Le Carre\u2019s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Any of you who follow this blog know how highly I regard Le Carre so that made me happy.<\/p>\n
Later on, by the way, RL Stine of \u2018Goosebumps\u2019 fame said his favorite thriller was \u2018Rosemary\u2019s Baby\u2019 by Ira Levin. He said Levin was one of the very best. Never read him\u2014he goes on the list.<\/p>\n
From the Thrillermaster interview with Ken Follett:<\/p>\n
Follett was talking to his friend, a screenwriter who\u2019d done, among other things, \u2018My Beautiful Launderette\u2019 (I can\u2019t look it up here) and asked what he thought readers want. The friend said \u201cI never think about what readers want.\u201d Follett\u2019s answer: \u201cThat\u2019s why you\u2019re a great writer and I\u2019m a rich writer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now sitting listening to David Morrell on craft.\u00a0 Highlights:<\/p>\n
He sits down and writes a letter to himself about why this book? He cites a note Frank Sinatra had on the door of his dressing room that said \u2018You better have a damn good reason to knock on this door.\u2019 Morrell says, \u201cYou better have a damn good reason to write this book.\u201d So he writes a letter, about what he likes about the story, what he\u2019ll learn in the research (he got a pilot\u2019s license two years ago as a direct outgrowth of research), how the technique the story will require will expand his writer\u2019s consciousness.<\/p>\n
\u2018First Blood\u2019 the novel that introduced Rambo, was 650 pages and awful. He got discouraged and put it away. When he came back to it, he read a section from the point of view of a deputy and decided it wasn\u2019t necessary so he ripped it out. And proceeded to make the same decision about all the characters except Rambo and the officer. By the time he was done, the book was 300 pages and taut. So he says, \u201cWriters worry too much about the first draft. It\u2019s a process of discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morrell was a professor of literature first and he speaks eloquently and at great length about the pitfalls of first person. It\u2019s prone to narcissism, tends to ramble and the narrator has to justify how the narrative got to us, the reader.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are only about a thousand people in this country making a living writing novels.\u201d\u2014Morell<\/p>\n
He says the sudden success of Amanda Hocking and Joe Konrath was part of the explosion of ebook sales and that that will end soon. There will be a marketplace for writing but none of us is likely to make lots of money.<\/p>\n
Do not read in the same place you write. The associations are too strong. And change the medium\u2014if you\u2019re writing on the screen, read paper. Change the font\u2014you see it differently. Do an edit on-screen, then an edit on paper.<\/p>\n
Day Three:<\/p>\n
Part Two:<\/p>\n
I just spent the two most fascinating hours of the conference so far and I doubt anything to come later will change that judgment. It was, not coincidentally, the only panel here that was not video and audio taped for future sales.<\/p>\n
The panel was Marie Harf, an impossibly cute blonde with granny glasses, a Midwest accent and a love of the Ohio Buckeyes and Chris, a very very fit lightly-bearded thinning-haired man with an easy manner and an authoritative way of speaking.<\/p>\n
Marie is the Media Spokesperson for the CIA and Chris is an active CIA officer. They answered questions for our background. Often they answered cautiously, at least in terms of substance. Far more often than I expected, they offered a sense of humor and a working person\u2019s perspective about their work. And certainly, they were the face of the Agency, the people sent out to put the best foot forward in public, Marie with the media and Chris (at the moment) recruiting potential officers on college campuses (but his background included a variety of analyst jobs all over the world).<\/p>\n
I\u2019m like most people. I am convinced I\u2019m pretty good at sizing people up. I\u2019ve hired a lot of people over the years and I\u2019ve sent people (as journalists) into a few risky situations. \u00a0I\u2019ve learned to \u00a0decide quickly upon meeting someone whether they\u2019re someone I trust, someone I don\u2019t, someone I trust publicly but watch closely or someone I can\u2019t read.<\/p>\n
These two never faltered. Their eyes wavered in a very real way when they couldn\u2019t answer a question directly. I asked if Mossad was one of the more \u2018innovative\u2019 intelligence agencies and Chris smiled. I called him on it and Marie jumped in (it\u2019s her job) about how effective Mossad is and how we have relationships with all sorts of intelligence services and the governments that run them and how our interests don\u2019t always line up with theirs. Chris declined, smiling, from adding anything. But their reactions seemed entirely unforced and genuine, particularly after frank comments both made about dealing with Pakistan. And Chris\u2019 comment that he assumed that every electronic communication he is involved in is monitored by the Chinese.<\/p>\n
They both said MI6 did have a special relationship, that the two agencies operated in parallel and that the only time it became sticky was when they were both hoping to convert the same potential asset. At that point, Chris said, usually one service has an advantage and an agreement will be reached that, okay, you\u2019re taking charge in this case and we\u2019ll back off\u2014as long as you share the tapes. \u201cAnd then,\u201d he said, \u201cyou just hope they share the tapes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some vignettes:<\/p>\n
Chris: The high points of my job are big stories that never made the papers.<\/p>\n
\u2018I have repeatedly been forced to drink for my country.\u2019<\/p>\n
He said he was in the White House the day after Hurricane Katrina and that \u2018it was fascinating to observe a wide array of personalities who lived up to their stereotypes and in some cases surpassed them.\u2019<\/p>\n
The key job of a real-life intelligence officer is to convince a friend or acquaintance, to lie, steal and betray their country.<\/p>\n
One writer in the crowded auditorium launched into a speech (there\u2019s always one in a crowd) about how the CIA had been wrong about everything in the past 50 years; wouldn\u2019t we be better off if we just told the truth about everything but tactical issues?<\/p>\n
Chris\u2019 answer was (I\u2019m paraphrasing) that if your expectation is that we will be able to accurately predict events that haven\u2019t yet occurred, we will disappoint you most of the time. That\u2019s not our job. Our job is to handle events when they happen, to provide context and find opportunities to effect change consistent with American interests.<\/p>\n
He was asked whether he\u2019d even been confronted with policy that he felt was just wrong and what did he do? His answer was that he\u2019d tried to figure out whether his leaving would changed anything. Both times, his decision was that it wouldn\u2019t. If he felt it would do any good, he said, he\u2019d have resigned and they both offered up a couple of cases where high-ranking officers did so. \u00a0It\u2019s a military mentality and, while I might quibble with it on existential grounds, it was convincing and basically all I could reasonably expect of an officer in this type of organization.<\/p>\n
At the end, Chris told us where he would set a novel if he was writing a spy thriller, but I\u2019m not sharing, particularly since I\u2019m already working on something there for the next \u2018Mindbenders\u2019. I mentioned to him, very quietly, the area I was most interested in and he said \u00a0yes, that place was \u00a0\u2018very interesting.\u2019<\/p>\n
All sorts of subjects were covered and I have Marie\u2019s business card\u2014she prefers, she says, to hear from writers ahead of time, rather than getting surprised after the fact. So anything you guys want to know, I\u2019ve got an in! (Not!)<\/p>\n
But the thing that was most striking to me was the impression the two of them made, as intelligent people who had a sense of morality and of purpose, who really believed that what they were doing was helpful and in fact important work, who were very aware of all kinds of contradictions and limitations but were trying to do their job the best they can.<\/p>\n
Either that or they were very good liars (Spies\u2014good liars\u2014who\u2019d\u2019a thought?)<\/p>\n
Actually, I\u2019ll belabor this point slightly. Not to gum up a decent joke but here\u2019s a clue to the real answer\u2014an answer that is just as murky now as it was before the session. Chris said he joined up because he wanted to know what was really happening in the world, what was really behind that war, what was really going on in that coup in Latin America. And, of course, he couldn\u2019t share any of that with us\u2014but he\u2019d shared the fact that what we think we know is only rarely related to what is really going on. And that might be the most insidious side of living in the secret world, the idea that some people should know and most people shouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, they were very good ambassadors for a very morally ambiguous profession. I will remember them when I write the CIA officer in the next \u2018Mindbenders\u2019.<\/p>\n
Part One:<\/p>\n
I rushed this morning to make an early panel, \u2018Alternatives to Traditional Publishing.\u2019 I figured, logically, this should give me some good pointers to improve my Internet networking, help me market my books and find potential readers. Maybe somebody would finally have some mechanism to get my books into bookstores or at least offer the possibility.<\/p>\n
The panel turned out to be something out of Monty Python. A panel of Romans scoffing at the Goths burning down the gates. It brought to a head all the hostility and fear I\u2019d felt here every time I told someone I was an indie (see previous post below).<\/p>\n
One panelist (I\u2019m not naming anyone because they seem like perfectly intelligent human beings and, a year from now, if they\u2019re smart, they\u2019ll deny saying any of this stuff) said that, after having published several books already, he couldn\u2019t get his latest published. His agent suggested self-publishing to him and he decided to do it.\u00a0 The next several exchanges among the panel members included references to \u2018the chaff\u2019 and \u2018the static,\u2019 etc.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s us, indie writers, just in case you missed the gist.<\/p>\n
Talk continued condescendingly about how readers were beginning to find their own gatekeepers among \u2018the bloggers\u2019 (it\u2019s a species of simian with typing skills) in order to separate the wheat from the above-mentioned chaff. One of the panelists said \u201cI tweet but I don\u2019t know why. If anyone can tell me, meet me after the panel.\u201d Laughter ensued on the riser, if not the floor.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s fascinating imagining the level of self-delusion involved in all this.<\/p>\n
The one writer up there can\u2019t get published anymore (because of \u2018industry realities\u2019) but still decides that everyone else who\u2019s self-published is still \u2018chaff\u2019, instead of just like him but with inferior contacts or luck. People who are fortunate never want to consider the luck factor\u2014it\u2019s too terrifying.<\/p>\n
He went on saying that, having decided to self-publish, he decided to do it \u2018at a higher level.\u2019 Which, to him, meant using an editor \u2018who edited Stephen King\u2019 and a \u2018designer who\u2019d been a senior executive at Random House\u2019 (a Design Executive? He didn\u2019t say). And using a distribution company affiliated with Ingram, one of the three wholesalers who fill up every Barnes & Noble, the few remaining Borders and the independent booksellers in your town (go there and buy a book today\u2014strike a blow against stupidity!) to get at least some copies into bookstores.\u00a0 How much did this cost him, he was asked? \u2018Two MFA\u2019s,\u201d he said coyly.<\/p>\n
So, the higher level approach is, the old elitist system doesn\u2019t want him anymore but he\u2019ll do his best to keep it alive anyway.<\/p>\n
Okay, sorry, I\u2019ll wave the red flag tomorrow, we can dance the socialist dance and smell the ganja. I\u2019m a capitalist, folks. I\u2019m out here everyday plugging books. But this is the sheerest crap and it\u2019s the same tunnel vision that\u2019s got the publishing business circling the drain in a whirlpool.<\/p>\n
To these guys, indie books are \u2018Aunt Mary\u2019s book of cat stories.\u2019 My first answer to that is, what\u2019s wrong with that? The second answer is, indie books are the Sex Pistols, the Clash, Joe Jackson, Pearl Jam and Nirvana. Time to move on. Get the hell out of the way. A year from now, I (or someone just like me) will be on the panel telling these guys how to sell their books in the real world. Hopefully when we\u2019re on the panel, we\u2019ll be a little more open-minded. But my inclination at the moment is to spit in their eye.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m going to a panel. I\u2019ll probably expand on this later, once the bile settles.<\/p>\n
Day Two:<\/p>\n
Something has been nagging at me the whole time I\u2019ve been here and I\u2019m just now recognizing what it is.<\/p>\n
Writer\u2019s conferences are always awkward places\u2014writers, by and large, are misanthropes, happiest when allowed to stay in their own rooms pulling the wings off of flies. And if that\u2019s writers, imagine what a convention of thriller and murder mystery writers are like. Allison Brennan, speaking about \u2018The Villain\u2019s Journey: Writing Compelling and Believable Villains\u2019 this morning, noted that, going by the statistical frequency of sociopaths in America, we could expect to find at least thirty sociopaths at the conference. This fact was met with murmurs of approval from the rest of us. We\u2019re an odd bunch.<\/p>\n
Even so, conversation is constant and these are people who are fascinated by everything<\/em>.\u00a0 It\u2019s not that we\u2019re totally indiscriminate, it\u2019s just that the world is full of weird and compelling stuff and writers remember it when they come across it. They may not remember their own phone numbers or anniversaries (I know, I know\u2014that just makes us men<\/em>) but they remember the fact that there\u2019s a crawl space between the old and new California Legislature Buildings and a panel that only the janitors know that opens into this crawl space\u2014and it\u2019s big enough to hide a body, if you might ever need to do that.<\/p>\n We remember this stuff because that\u2019s exactly the kind of stuff we will need to do, eventually.<\/p>\n So I\u2019ve had a really fine time and enjoyed almost everyone I\u2019ve met and all the conversations\u2014with one exception: when someone asks me whether I\u2019m \u2018a published author or pitching [for an agent].\u2019 \u00a0Like those are the only choices.<\/p>\n My answer\u2014\u201cNeither. I\u2019m an independent. Self-published. Ebook\u201d\u2014no matter how I put it\u2014causes such awkward silence that I cringe now whenever I\u2019m asked.<\/p>\n I feel like the Muslim at the Mary Kaye convention. I suck the air out of the room wherever I go. People smile politely and move on to another subject.<\/p>\n The interesting thing is, writers are generally very supportive of each other. But these guys seem very much relieved to hear I\u2019m spending 80% of my life on marketing and that I\u2019m selling books retail\u2014one or two at a time. As though the fact that it\u2019s onerous and difficult makes it one per cent less the way things really are\u2014and the way things are going to be.<\/p>\n I mentioned this to the only other guy I met with a \u2018Press\u2019 badge. He said I was like the guy with the cloak and sickle in \u2018The Seventh Seal.\u2019 And that\u2019s how it feels. They all know things are changing but the people who come to this festival\u2014so far\u2014are still clinging to the dream, the publishing company that\u2019s going to take them under the wing and send them out to fly. The fact that those companies\u2014even if they find them, even if they like them\u2014are unlikely to do any such thing anymore is a dirty secret that nobody wants to confront.<\/p>\n I\u2019m continuing to show up because I signed up, because I\u2019m doing this blog. I had a good time today in Allison Brennan\u2019s session, in a \u2018Buzz Your Book\u2019 workshop where I got some good ideas for marketing and in a 3-hour excursion to Greenwich Village with another author to visit the locations she was writing about in her book (because neither of us were pitching to agents, which was the major session of the afternoon). But so far, it feels like either I\u2019m just dead wrong about where things are going or the rest of them are just not ready for the world I live in.<\/p>\n (Sotto voce<\/em>: David Morrell is on my side\u2026)<\/p>\n Part Three:<\/p>\n While I was writing the David Morrell portion below in a lounge just off the main section of the convention, I was having a conversation with an author who\u2019s here pitching his young adult novel.<\/p>\n By the traditional standard, he\u2019s having success. Lots of agents like his storyline. They want revisions, which is a positive sign, evidence they\u2019re seriously interested.<\/p>\n The original book, he said, was very bare-bones, plot-driven, paced and written like a Michael Crichton thriller. He\u2019d shown it to kids\u2014not kids he knew but kids of friends and in the school system he works in (he\u2019s a librarian). They loved it by and large.<\/p>\n The agents told him kids wanted more character development and that they wouldn\u2019t follow his fast-moving plot and \u00a0different points-of-view. He told me their feedback had helped his writing but it sounded like the wife talking our how her husband\u2019s infidelity had strengthened the marriage. He followed by bursting about how kids follow Lemony Snicket\u2019s storylines and have lives that are so much more complex than ours were at their age (and maybe at our<\/em> age).<\/p>\n And then he explained the thought process he\u2019s observing among the agents and it catalyzed a lot of the thinking I\u2019ve been doing since deciding to indie publish my own books.<\/p>\n He\u2019s found the agents dividing into two camps:<\/p>\n The first camp want him to change the book until it\u2019s just like something they\u2019ve already sold\u2014with one exception. The younger agents, he says, are more aggressive but have less power at their agencies. They feel they might be able to sell one new thing to their bosses but not more.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the bad news: these are the better<\/em> group.<\/p>\n The other group were the ones who wanted the same thing as last year\u2014with no<\/em> exceptions. That is by far the larger group. He\u2019s resigned himself to those few with at least a little imagination but after all the rewriting, he\u2019s still here with nothing to show.<\/p>\n I asked, \u201cHow long have you been pitching this thing?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFour years\u2014well, three, because I was in graduate school last year.\u201d<\/p>\n So they\u2019ve run him in circles and still haven\u2019t taken him on. When I asked if he hadn\u2019t considered going independent, he went on for about five minutes without ever giving me a real answer. And I saw myself a year ago, desperate for the approval and validation of a publishing establishment that has almost nothing to offer anymore\u2014except that my mother would know I was a writer if they published me. So maybe it\u2019s my mom\u2019s validation I\u2019m looking for (I\u2019m okay with that).<\/p>\n I\u2019m glad I went indie. This day is clarifying things for me in a very positive way. I may or may not ever sell a lot of books. But they\u2019ll be mine, the best I can produce. I can stand or fall on my own abilities, on stories that speak to me. If I can\u2019t find others they speak to, so be it.<\/p>\n On to the cocktail party (networking!)\u2026<\/p>\n Part Two:<\/p>\n Interesting aside: Robert Parker is a model for reinventing an archetype. In \u2018Finding Your Storytelling Voice\u2019, Bruce DeSilva talks about how Parker\u2019s Spencer character began as a direct clone of Philip Marlowe and then developed over a very short time into a very different character, developing friends (Marlowe was a strict loner), including cops (Spade and Marlowe despised cops), respecting women (I don\u2019t even need to go there) and even developing a longtime lover who wasn\u2019t a clich\u00e9.<\/p>\n But the highlight of my day and the payoff for coming, considering my doubts, was David Morrell. Dave Agranoff, you told me he was terrific and you did not lie.<\/p>\n Morrell stunned a room full of would-be series writers by telling them to stop chasing the market, stop trying to figure out what will sell, forget about the bestseller list and write what\u2019s real to you, what eats at you, what matters. If you\u2019re doing it for the money, it\u2019s not worth it\u2014the odds are too long, was the basic message. He puts it better: CD\u2019s of the lecture can be had through the International Thriller Writers Association. See www.thrillerfest.com<\/p>\n This is the man who created Rambo, folks. And another thirty or forty books. Not exactly a touchy-feely guy. I\u2019ve read a few of his books. They\u2019re good taut thrillers\u2014I like them. But he talked about how they were essentially his autobiography\u2014years of writing about sons seeking fathers and then, after the early death of his own son, fathers seeking sons. He said the only way to write and continue to write is to know why you want to do it\u2014and making the bestseller list isn\u2019t an answer to that question.<\/p>\n He also said that, until publishers radically change the economics of their ebook royalties, he wouldn\u2019t sign a contract. All anyone is interested in today is the ebook, he said. That ship has sailed.<\/p>\n It was like someone dropping water on me in the middle of the Sahara, folks. I might not have that much in common with most of the people at the conference, but if my consolation is to see things the same way as David Morrell, I\u2019ll take it.<\/p>\n Not sure what comes next. There is a cocktail party, where I can do some networking. But I may have had the highlight of the conference already.<\/p>\n Part One:<\/p>\n So I’m at Thrillerfest in Manhattan for the next four days. Actually I’m at Craftfest, a subset, for the next two days; then Thrillerfest kicks in.<\/p>\n I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing here, other than networking, a vague, nebulous term that could mean almost anything<\/em>. When I signed up, it was February and I thought I was going to go to Agentfest, where I could pitch my books to 40 agents (in 2 1\/2 hours!). Now that I’ve gone indie, I’m just here to learn what I can and meet whomever I run into.<\/p>\n One of the first people I ran into turned out to be one of the organizers. With my typical shrewd business sense, I failed to get his name. But I doubt it matters much. When he asked if I was a writer, I said “I’m an indie” and his eyes began to wander. But he rallied and told me this was the best conference to find an agent. Seeing the uncertainty in my eyes (writers are good at that\u2014thriller writers particularly), he added, “An agent’s always a good thing\u2014you need to sell foreign rights.”<\/p>\n “I’ll need to sell more books first,” I said and he hurried off to find a crisis to avert. I have to do something about this compulsive truthfulness issue of mine. But the whole nature of this place\u2014300 writers desperately trying to figure out how to land an agent and contract\u2014makes me feel like I must be wrong about the indie thing.<\/p>\n The other thing that makes me feel a bit odd here is that this is turning out to be the Citadel of Professionalism. These are by and large people who are trying to learn how to crank out six or sixteen books a year.<\/p>\n My first session was ‘Essentials of Story Structure’ with Steve Berry, a very nice fast-talking Southerner (Death to Stereotypes!) who could authoritatively say things like “I don’t think you should really start violating this rule until you’ve got sixteen or seventeen books under your belt.”<\/p>\n I took this one because of you, Bill. I’ve been told lately my stories meander. I like meandering. I like Springsteen’s early songs, with the fifteen time changes. But it never hurts to learn.<\/p>\n I’m not going to give away Steve’s lecture\u2014that wouldn’t be fair. But he did a really fast and entertaining job of explaining the three acts, what they have to include (unless you want to make your writing life more miserable than it already is) and the Eleven Rules of Writing.<\/p>\n I will share, for the moment, Rule Eleven. It’s a good one:<\/p>\n A Good Story will forgive bad writing; Good Writing will not forgive a bad story.<\/p>\n I skipped the session on how to pitch your book to an agent. I may be wrong but I’ll at least be consistent. I went outside and got two slices in a hole-in-the-wall with a drink for $2.75 (New York is wonderful for poverty lunch) and then doubled the bill with a small piece of 72% Cocoa Dark Chocolate Almond Bark in Grand Central. Worth it.<\/p>\n Time for my next class.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Day Four: A much looser, more relaxed day. Yesterday by about 3, I was fried toast. Today is better. From \u2018What Lies Are Spies Telling?\u2019 a panel discussion of spy thriller writers: -Sign in the CIA gift shop (reportedly they …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,1,4],"tags":[25,254,26,72,73,8],"class_list":["post-702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-e-books","category-uncategorized","category-writing","tag-business","tag-e-books","tag-publishing","tag-thrillerfest","tag-writers-conferences","tag-writing-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":718,"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions\/718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}