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Craft Articles THE QUIETNESS BENEATH THE STRIVING by Clay Stafford > Drop the Pen! What Every Writer Should Know About Real Police Work: The Bladed Stance: Why Do Cops Stand Like That?

As both a bestselling novelist and an anthology editor, Don Bruns reads fiction from two vantage points: creator and gatekeeper. Through decades of writing, mentoring, and editing crime fiction, from his Caribbean series to multiple themed anthologies, he has developed a keen instinct for narrative momentum, character presence, and the invisible contract between writer and reader.

I read Plays Well with Others and knew immediately I needed to talk with #1 New York Times bestselling author Lauren Myracle about it. Not just because the book is sharp, funny, and unsettling in all the right ways, but because it carries the fingerprints of a writer who is unafraid to wrestle openly with the mess of story, character, and self. Lauren doesn’t hide the struggle. She leans into it.

Lifelines slip across the tiles like soap from a soggy hand. The drain is clogged with gunk-filled years. Nothing’s clean beyond the steam. Bloodstreams flow From tile to tile. Words fog up the mirror.. Frank William Finney is a poet from Massachusetts. A recipient of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry, his poems have appeared in Bitter Melon Review, Fairfield Scribes, Ocean Poetry Anthology, Perceptions, Songs of Eretz Poetry Review, and elsewhere.

The time has come to talk of many things we’ve covered in the first three articles in this series and wrap them up with string and sealing-wax. In Article One, we determined that writing and publishing is a business. Because successful businesses have a concrete list of goals to be achieved, we outlined the skills needed to reach them.

All it took was a simple up-and-down stroke of a paintbrush over a couple hours, and my shoulder screamed. Nerve pain shot down the back of my neck, and I dropped the tool. Holding my breath, I coaxed the joint to loosen by rotating my shoulder blade. After stirring the synovial fluid, I picked up the implement again, but my fingers went numb, and I instinctively dropped it. Project terminated. Had the wall suddenly outgrown my reach, or did the implement become weighted beyond what I could sustain?

The unicorn of publishing occurs when an author with her first book immediately gets an agent, then scores a six-figure, multi-book deal, all within a few weeks. For the rest of us, it can take anywhere from years to decades. During that time, we deal with too many people telling us our baby is butt ugly (although hopefully, not in such harsh words). As much as we try to develop Teflon-coated skin to keep the rejections from getting to us, it’s not easy.

The 2025 Killer Nashville Claymore Award Finalists are a diverse collection of the top Claymore manuscripts of 2025, each offering a unique literary journey. With the authors' permission, Killer Nashville will promote this rich tapestry of manuscripts to agents, aiming to secure representation for these unpublished works. Our goal is to see this diverse range of manuscripts find their way into readers' hearts.

The 2025 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award Finalists are a diverse collection of the Top Silver Falchion manuscripts of 2025, as determined by our judges, representing the best books published in 2024. The winners in each category and the top 3 winners overall will be announced at the Killer Nashville Awards Dinner on August 23, 2025, in Nashville, Tennessee. If you are an author on this list, feel free to use the Awards Graphic on your website, social media, or book promotion.

Article One of this series explored the hurdles faced when we begin the change to writing as a full-time endeavor. We considered why and how to avoid the ‘One Right Answer’ when setting our professional goals. Article Two examined how new goals may require major changes in our professional and personal lives. Their impact on our families, friends, and co-workers—many of whom will become the first audience for our writings—need to be addressed.