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Jeffrey K. Walker

Goodreads Author

Website

http://www.jeffreykwalker.com

Twitter

jkwalkerAuthor

Genre

Historical Fiction, History

Member Since

March 2017

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/jkwalkerauthor

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JEFFREY K. WALKER is a Midwesterner, born in what was once the Glass Container Capital of the World. A retired military officer, he served in Bosnia and Afghanistan, planned the Kosovo air campaign and ran a State Department program in Baghdad. He’s been shelled, rocketed and sniped by various groups, all with bad aim. He’s lived in ten states and three foreign countries, managing to get degrees from Harvard and Georgetown along the way. An attorney and professor, he taught legal history at Georgetown, law of war at William & Mary and criminal and international law while an assistant dean at St. John’s. He's been a contributor on NPR and a speaker at federal judicial conferences. He dotes on his wife, with whom he lives in Virginia, and his ...more

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Popular Answered Questions

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Jeffrey K. Walker I don't pretend to be experienced enough to give sage advice to new writers. I can just share a few things I've discovered so far.
1. Any words on the…moreI don't pretend to be experienced enough to give sage advice to new writers. I can just share a few things I've discovered so far.
1. Any words on the page--even truly malodorous ones--are better than words that are still flotsam in your anxious brain. Editing is a powerful thing.
2. Word counts matter because they represent accountability to the most important person in the writing process--yourself.
3. Beta readers come in many flavors. Don't make major edits based on each one's notes. I'm an old aviator and they used to say when teaching us to land airplanes, "Don't chase your instruments." If you see things are trending off course, make small corrections to get back on flightpath.
4. There's a lot of perverse pleasure in a) torturing your main characters relentlessly and b) killing your darlings.
5. It's hard saying out loud "I'm a writer" without sounding phony or pretentious to yourself.
6. Writing is a trade, not a lifestyle. Writers write. It's what we do.
7. Choosing to be a writer does not necessitate being neurotic. Or alcoholic. Or a crashing bore at dinner parties. It's OK to be a normal person, too.
8. Remember, your Work in Progress is infinitely more interesting to you than to the rest of the world. Modulate conversations accordingly.
9. It's OK to fall in love with your own characters. It's not cheating, since they're fictitious and there's almost always a little of your significant other in that character anyway.
10. There's nothing more satisfying than someone giving up nine or ten hours of their life to reading your novel and telling you they loved it.(less)

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How do you deal with writer’s block?

Jeffrey K. Walker Curiously, I blogged about this recently. Here's the link: bit.ly/2rlLtAU
I'm going to use a little of that blog post here.

I must be a terrible write…moreCuriously, I blogged about this recently. Here's the link: bit.ly/2rlLtAU
I'm going to use a little of that blog post here.

I must be a terrible writer. Seems to me writers as a tribe spend a lot of time whingeing and sighing about how tortured we are. (And obsessing about adverbs, which is kind of weird when you think about it.) It’s all “Oh! I didn't make my word count!” and “Don’t you understand how I suffer for my art!” What makes me a terrible writer, I’m fairly certain, is that far from being tortured, I feel kind of privileged to be writing every day. I came to fiction writing later than most. I say fiction because I’ve been writing for a living most of my adult life. I’m a lawyer—about 75% of what we call work is mostly writing. Come to think if it, many of my former opposing counsel might claim I've been writing fiction for quite some time. But I digress.

Because I started in with serious (non-courtroom) storytelling 35 years after graduating from college, I began with much more self-discipline and far better organizational chops than I would have earlier in life. Yes, I sweat my word count, but I’m such an obsessive planner and outliner that I really don't have any idea what ‘writer’s block’ means. I always know what the next scene is going to be and what objectives I have to achieve within it. So getting the words down on paper isn’t all that torturous. More like tedious some days, but not that many. Therefore, it’s a fair critique to say that I might suck at writing. It’s unfair to say I’m not efficient at writing.

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Jeffrey K. Walker’s books

Average rating: 4.25 · 206 ratings · 56 reviews · 4 distinct works • Similar authors

	None of Us the Same (Sweet Wine of Youth, #1) 4.18 avg rating — 129 ratings — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Truly Are the Free (Sweet Wine of Youth, #2) 4.30 avg rating — 46 ratings — published 2017 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	No Hero's Welcome (Sweet Wine of Youth Book 3) 4.45 avg rating — 31 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Status of Personnel, Use of force, and International Law of Armed Conflict in the Context of New United Nations Peacekeeping Operations 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.

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Jeffrey K. Walker's Blog

My Qatar Vacation

Sabah al kheir, habibi! Al salaam alaikum! (And that exhausts fully two-thirds of my Arabic vocabulary.) I’m on my first international biz trip since before Our Current Viral Unpleasantness. Back […]

The post My Qatar Vacation appeared first on Jeffrey K. Walker.

Series by Jeffrey K. Walker

Sweet Wine of Youth (3 books)
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Jeffrey K. Walker (Goodreads Author)

4.25 avg rating — 206 ratings

Jeffrey is Currently Reading

Jeffrey Walker is currently reading

Dead I Well May Be (Michael Forsythe #1)

by Adrian McKinty

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May 07, 2022 12:58PM

Jeffrey Walker is currently reading

in Sunlight and in Shadow

by Mark Helprin

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Feb 10, 2022 07:28PM

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The Magician

by Colm Tóibín

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Sep 08, 2021 04:26PM

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Jeffrey’s Quotes

“Start all over again and this time, concentrate." [to a young Ernest Hemingway]”
― Gertrude Stein

5 likes

“If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
― Stephen King

tags: reading, writing

13076 likes

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Jeffrey’s Groups

Read Scotland — 280 members — last activity Aug 25, 2025 03:08PM
Welcome to Read Scotland where we share our love of Scottish literature! Explore books written by Scots, set in Scotland or about Scotland. Set a goal ...more

Black Coffee — 3015 members — last activity Aug 25, 2025 12:32PM
This group focuses on books written by or about black people from all continents in many different genres though we focus on historical fiction and cl ...more

Retro Reads — 596 members — last activity Sep 07, 2025 09:04AM
A buddy reading group for those interested in twentieth century books and authors. From 2023 our time period will be 1900-1980. Authors like M.M. Kaye ...more

Historical Fiction — 1540 members — last activity Aug 14, 2025 08:51AM
This is a group for all lovers of Historical Fiction and History to share the wonderful books they've read and to discover new books set in the past. ...more

Blast from the Past — 64 members — last activity Aug 08, 2019 11:53AM
If you know me, you know I love a good historical fiction. What's not to like? I read at least one historical fiction a month, and I thought some of y ...more

History Buffs United — 508 members — last activity Jan 17, 2025 01:32PM
This group is for anyone who loves to read or write historical fiction. Our purpose is to recommend great reads, share our own writing, and help fello ...more

Writing Historical Fiction — 637 members — last activity Apr 18, 2025 08:41AM
I had trouble locating a group dedicated solely to those of us who love writing historical fiction (but if you love reading historical fiction, you're ...more

Action/Adventure Aficionados — 1872 members — last activity Sep 07, 2025 05:44PM
If you enjoy reading pulse-pounding, high octane action and adventure novels, this is the group for you. We discuss books from authors such as Lee Chi ...more

Great War (1914-1918): The Society and Culture of the First World War — 480 members — last activity Dec 06, 2021 05:06AM
A place to discuss the cultural milieu of the Great War (also referred to as the First World War, World War I, WWI, World War One). The intent of this ...more

UK Amazon Kindle Forum — 6619 members — last activity 14 hours, 32 min ago
Where every hour is happy hour.

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