What’s New at The Writing King: Week of October 11, 2026

Oct 16 · Artificial Intelligence, Society

Judge the Writing, Not the Tool: What the AI Pile-Ons Get Wrong

This week, Richard argues that the AI pile-ons judge the tool and the writer instead of the writing, and that only the writing matters.

Oct 15 · Fiction, Writing

Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing, and Which Ones I Break

This week, Richard goes through Elmore Leonard's 10 rules of writing and explains which ones he follows and which he breaks on purpose.

Oct 15 · Fiction, Writing

Should Your Novel Have a Prologue? When a Cold Open Earns Its Place

This week, Richard explains when a prologue earns its place in a novel and when it should be cut.

Oct 14 · Artificial Intelligence, Society

“People Who Use AI Deserve to Be Castrated”: When the Sentence Outruns the Crime

This week, Richard looks at a writing group thread where a call to castrate people who use AI went up and stayed up.

Oct 13 · Ghostwriting, Memoirs

How Famous Memoirs Were Really Written: What the Collaborators Did

This week, Richard looks at how famous memoirs were written, from Keith Richards hearing Life read aloud to Moehringer declining credit on Open.

Oct 12 · Fiction, Writing

Does Explicit Sex Sell Books? An Answer to The Absolute Degeneracy of Modern Writing

This week, Richard answers a viral video on sex in modern fiction: what it gets right about craft and BookTok, and why the heat level shouldn't sell the book.

Oct 12 · Fiction, Writing

The Mary Sue: How a 1973 Star Trek Parody Became a Writing Term

This week, Richard traces the Mary Sue from a 1973 Star Trek fanzine parody to a standard term of criticism, and explains what the label really means.

Oct 12 · Artificial Intelligence, Ghostwriting

What the AI Writing Survey Says About Jobs, Freelancers and Fiction Authors

This week, Richard reads the second half of a major writer survey on AI: freelance demand, lost jobs, five-year outlooks and the fiction author divide.

Oct 12 · SEO, Technology

How Long Does Google Take? Crawling, Indexing and Recovery Times

This week, Richard reads the clock Google finally hung in the search waiting room: how long crawling, indexing and recovery really take.

Oct 15 · Business, Technology

Thiago Ferreira: Thinkers, Not Doers

Thiago Ferreira runs Elevate AI Consulting in Miami and turns away companies that want AI to cut jobs. He and Richard Lowe cover AI training, answer engine optimization, privacy settings, how far to trust an AI company's ethics, and the call-back and code-word defenses against voice-clone scams.

Oct 15 · Business, Technology

Yana Semova: Let AI Do the Admin

Yana Semova, a Bulgarian project manager and cofounder of ProGrowth Academy, trains professionals to hand their admin work to AI. She and Richard Lowe cover AI ethics, why Europe runs on Copilot, sticking to one or two tools, security audits in fresh sessions, and how much AI is learning about us.

Oct 15 · Business, Personal Growth

Lisa Hamilton-Smith: Unstoppable, AI Assisted

Lisa Hamilton-Smith, a UK life coach turned life and AI strategist, taught herself AI by using it and now runs the Unstoppable You program and the Dream Team AI Academy. She and Richard Lowe cover AI as an assistant, disclosure to clients and readers, Amazon's two-book limit, avatars, and turning ADHD into a superpower.

Oct 13 · Memoirs

Open: An Autobiography

This week, Richard adds Open by Andre Agassi and J. R. Moehringer to the book section.

Oct 13 · Critical Thinking

Love’s Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy

This week, Richard adds Love's Executioner by Irvin D. Yalom to the book section.

Oct 13 · Critical Thinking

Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway

This week, Richard adds Shattered Sword by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully to the book section.

Oct 13 · Critical Thinking

A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II

This week, Richard adds A World at Arms by Gerhard L. Weinberg to the book section.

Oct 13 · Fiction

I, Robot

This week, Richard adds I, Robot by Isaac Asimov to the book section.

Oct 13 · Fiction

Podkayne of Mars

This week, Richard adds Podkayne of Mars by Robert A. Heinlein to the book section.

Oct 13 · Fiction

Stranger in a Strange Land

This week, Richard adds Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein to the book section.

Oct 13 · Memoirs

L.L. Bean: The Making of an American Icon

This week, Richard adds L.L. Bean by Leon Gorman to the shelf of family business histories.

Oct 13 · Memoirs

Sam Walton: Made in America: My Story

This week, Richard adds Made in America by Sam Walton and John Huey to the shelf of family business histories.

Oct 13 · Business

The Columbia Restaurant: Celebrating a Century of History, Culture, and Cuisine

This week, Richard adds The Columbia Restaurant by Andrew T. Huse to the shelf of family business histories.

Oct 13 · Memoirs

A Tiger among Us: A Story of Valor in Vietnam’s A Shau Valley

This week, Richard adds A Tiger among Us by Bennie G. Adkins and Katie Lamar Jackson to the shelf of books by military leaders.

Oct 13 · Memoirs

Top Sergeant: The Life and Times of Sergeant Major of the Army William G. Bainbridge

This week, Richard adds Top Sergeant by William G. Bainbridge and Dan Cragg to the shelf of books by military leaders.

Oct 15 · Observances, Writing

Jack Kerouac Day: The Scroll and the Last Address

On Jack Kerouac Day, March 12, the writer behind On the Road gets remembered from Lowell to the St. Petersburg house where he spent his last years.

Oct 15 · Observances, Writing

Alice’s Day: The Story Told on a Rowing Boat

On Alice's Day, July 4, the anniversary of the 1862 boat trip where Lewis Carroll first told the story of Alice and the long road it took to print.

Oct 15 · Observances, Writing

International Translation Day: The Invisible Authors

On International Translation Day, September 30, the feast of St. Jerome honors the translators who write every word of the books readers think came from someone else.

Oct 15 · Observances, Writing

International Literacy Day: The Readers Books Lose

On International Literacy Day, September 8, the UNESCO observance marks the 739 million adults worldwide who still lack basic reading skills and the readers most books leave behind.

Oct 15 · Observances, Writing

Ian Fleming Day: Two Thousand Words a Morning

On Ian Fleming Day, May 28, the naval intelligence officer who wrote twelve Bond novels on a strict daily quota gets a look from the writer's side.

Oct 15 · Observances, Writing

Harry Potter’s Birthday: The Book Twelve Publishers Missed

On Harry Potter's birthday, July 31, the story of a manuscript publishers kept refusing and the planning that made seven books hold together.

Oct 15 · Observances, Writing

Harper Lee Day: The Draft Her Editor Saw Through

On Harper Lee Day, April 28, readers mark the birthday of the Alabama writer whose only finished novel came out of a Christmas gift and two years of revision.

Oct 15 · Observances, Writing

Gene Roddenberry Day: The Pilot Who Pitched the Stars

On Gene Roddenberry Day, August 19, the site looks at the pitch, the two pilots and the writers' room behind Star Trek, and what a television creator does that a novelist never has to.

Oct 15 · Observances, Writing

Fyodor Dostoevsky Day: The Novels Written Against the Clock

On Fyodor Dostoevsky Day, November 11, the novelist who wrote masterpieces against creditors' deadlines gets his due as a working professional.

Oct 15 · Observances, Writing

F. Scott Fitzgerald Day: The Masterpiece That Flopped

On F. Scott Fitzgerald Day, September 24, readers mark the birthday of the writer whose Great Gatsby sold seven copies in one royalty period of 1940 and half a million a year today.

Oct 15 · Observances, Writing

Encourage a Young Writer Day: The Adult Who Read the Pages

On Encourage a Young Writer Day, the useful gift is a close reading, a real deadline or a grandparent willing to be interviewed, and the history of teenage authors shows why.

Oct 15 · Observances, Writing

Emily Dickinson Day: The Poems in the Drawer

On Emily Dickinson Day, December 10, the poet who sewed her own books and kept them in a drawer gets read the way she wrote, dashes and all.

Oct 11 · People, Personal Growth

Gar Travis: A Tribute to One of the Best Faire Photographers

This week, Richard remembers Gar Travis, a fellow Faire photographer whose work deserves to outlive his vanished website.

Oct 11

The Diagram Gallery

Every diagram on The Writing King, in one place. Some explain how a book gets built, some explain how the internet works, and a fair number exist mainly to make a point…