My Favorite Bookstore, an open book blog hop post

  

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Do you have a favorite bookstore? 

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I do love a good bookstore, but I have to be careful of going too often if I want to stay in the black financially. I'm especially a sucker for bookstore/coffeeshop combos. 

It all started when I was a college student in Morehead, Kentucky and found Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Lexington, Kentucky. 

This was 1990, so the "big box" bookstore wasn't such a common thing. Borders hadn't yet made it to my part of the country and I'd never even heard of Barnes & Noble yet. My hometown of Bellevue, Kentucky hadn't had a bookstore in years, since the one we frequented when I was a child closed. But Jo-Beth was heaven on earth, a palace for books and probably responsible for my first maxed out credit card. 

These days, I'm not such a fan of the big ones, though they serve their purposes. I'm more interested in small, personally owned and operated bookstores. You know, indies. :-) The quirkier, the better. 

There are a few near me and I love them all for different reasons: 

• Purple Crow
• Flyleaf
• Epilogue
• Golden Fig
• Quail Ridge
• The Regulator
• Letters

I've probably forgotten a few. What's key for me is something hard to define, the "vibe" of a place. 

I don't want to feel hurried, but nor do I want it to be difficult to find something when I'm looking for something in particular. The staff should be pleasant to interact with and never respond with snobbery or disapproval about any requested book. It should feel like everyone, the workers and shoppers alike, enjoy being there. 

My current favorite might not actually be one near me, but one near my parents' house. Roebling Books in Dayton, Kentucky. There are three of them in the northern Kentucky area, but the Dayton one is the one I like best. Unusual books on offer, lovely treats in the coffeeshop (that babke!), an old building that had been left unloved too long and has now been made special, and very cool and kind staff. 

It's been weird, watching Bellevue and Dayton transform from the more blue-collar towns they were in my childhood into quaint shopping districts for the denizens of giant condos that no one I grew up would have been able to afford. Mostly, I'm ambivalent at best about all the development and change, but it's great to see a building come back to life and add value to the community, which Roebling definitely does. 

I'm always seeking out the bookstore, wherever I travel, and I'm always glad I found the place where the readers are, because that's always the coolest place in town. 

What makes your favorite bookstore special? 

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Seeing Myself in Literature, an Open Book blog hop post

   

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Is there a literary character you identify with (not one of your own)? 

 ______________________

I identify with characters all the time in my reading--that's part of the joy. But the most important characters that remain near and dear to my heart, are characters I found when I was young: Jo March and Meg Murry, from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, respectively. 

The book covers I remember for Little Women and A Wrinkle in Time

I read both of these books in elementary school. If I had to guess, I'd say around fourth grade. Both are determined young women, fierce at heart, stubborn, and brave. 

It's not uncommon for women who grew up to be writers to hold these two characters in their hearts, young female characters who defy the odds and expected gender roles to make a difference in the world? One of them becoming an author? Yes, please!

They're still important to me here in my fifties because they inspired me by showing me what was possible. 

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The origin of a superhero series, an open book blog hop post

   

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Do you have an "origin" story for any of your stories? Where do your ideas come from? 

 ______________________

Appropriately enough, the Menopausal Superheroes series, among all my work, is the one with an origin story. 

I've told the story before, but never in this blog hop, so here goes: 

My husband and I were out taking a walk after watching one of the X-men movies. (If anyone reading this isn't familiar with the X-men, they are a group of superheroes, specifically mutants, and most of the characters are very teenagers, all attending a special school superintended by Professor X.)

I didn't like the movie very much. Too much teen drama and not enough of the superpowers and moral dilemmas that draw me to superhero stories, so I was venting while we walked about how the secret message of all the X-men stories was that hormones, puberty in particular, cause superpower. 

"If that's true," I said, "then menopausal women should corner the market on that one!"

My husband laughed, and we spent the rest of our walk riffing on the idea. By the time we got back home, he said, "You should write that down." 

And I did. And I still am, four novels, two novellas, and a collection of short stories later. I'm hoping to finish the series concluding novel before the end of 2023 and bring it out in 2024. 

My series, so far

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Great openings, an open book blog hop post

  

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

What is the best opening paragraph you've written? 

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Interesting question! I'm not sure I've examined my own writing in that light before. Beginnings are important and hooking a reader with those opening lines can decide whether they continue on for the rest or not. 

My Menopausal Superheroes novels all seem to start with one of my characters going through something. I feel like these are the right beginnings for these novels, but they're not show-stoppingly beautiful or shocking. Superhero stories are action-oriented after all, so the characters need to be doing something. 

Openings of Books 1-4 of the Menopausal Superheroes series

In my horror stories, I'm generally trying to establish my main character, setting, and situation efficiently. Short stories are especially challenging in this way because they are, well, short. You can't take too long establishing the world and the details before you bring on the bears, or ghosts, or apocalypse or whatever you're throwing at your characters today. 

Opening lines of some of my short stories in anthologies

My favorite opening paragraph I've written so far is from an unfinished novel--a Gothic romance I intend to pick back up as my next project after I turn in Menopausal Superheroes #5: The Architect and the Heir. 

There are many kinds of ghosts. Most families are haunted in one way or another. The specter of my brother’s death hung over my childhood like a constant cloud across the sun. 

Does the opening make or break a story for you? How long do you give a story to "hook" you before you decide whether or not to keep reading? Got any favorite opening paragraphs? (Mine, not written by me, is by Shirley Jackson: the opening to The Haunting of Hill House) 

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NaNoWriMo or No?

  

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the November 1 posting of the IWSG are PJ Colando, Jean Davis, Lisa Buie Collard, and Diedre Knight!

October 4 question: November is National Novel Writing Month. Have you ever participated? If not, why not?

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Yes! I have made use of NaNoWriMo. I've participated 9 times, and "won" (as in: wrote 50,000 words in the allotted time) 4 times. 

One of my NaNoWriMo projects became the third novel in my Menopausal Superhero series, Face the Change, so I've even used to bring a project towards publication.

Several of the other projects are still on my back-burners and I plan to go back and finish them and see them through to publication--after I finish the fifth and final novel in this series and fulfill my contract (with a publisher, not the devil, in case you were wondering). 

John Hartness, of Falstaff Books in my driveway

I don't regret the other times I participated, even if I didn't make the goal word count. It was still more words than I likely would have gotten on those projects without the extra impetus and it helped me focus my attention on a single project, which his often one of my struggles. 

But sometimes, my November has too much family or day-job work in it to be able to buckle down for a 50K run. 

I'm not participating this year. 

I'm in the final stretches of a Menopausal Superheroes #5 (still untitled, but I'm narrowing it down), but we're also in the middle of a lot of family things, so I don't think I can do 50K in one month next month. I'm being realistic. 

I also know that I've had the best experience with NaNoWriMo when I'm starting a new project and can use the structure to push me past overthinking and into progress. So maybe next year I'll be ready to start a shiny new project and will use NaNoWriMo for a good jumpstart, but this year, I'll be slogging along at my own pace, working my way to those magic words: THE END. 

How about you? Have you used NaNoWriMo or other productivity challenges to push you in your creative life and projects? I'd love to hear about it in the comments! And don't forget to check out the larger blog hop. I always find a lot of inspiration in the posts produced for IWSG. 

Writing from the road, an Open Book blog hop

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Do you write while you are travelling? How do you make it work? ______________________

What a great topic to welcome me back to this blog hop---since the reason I haven't participated in a few weeks has been travel! 

I was in the Pacific Northwest, if you're curious, visiting my sister with my Mum. 

Some holiday pictures

So, yes, I do write when I travel. I write every day. No matter what. How I work that out depends on what kind of travel. 

When I'm visiting my Mom and Dad or attending a convention, I know I'll get a little time to myself in a day--so I bring my laptop with me, and I write a little every day. Usually it's less than I would have written at home, but I stick to my every day writing habit as usual, keeping going on my regular projects. 

But if I'm traveling far or focused on vacation, I don't want to mess with bringing my laptop and I want to stay in the moment, not leaving to hand out with my imaginary friends, so instead of writing on my regular projects, I keep a detailed travel journal on paper--taking an hour or so each night before I sleep to record what I did with my day and my impressions of all I saw. 

These travel journals have proven useful to me in my writing life, as I use those memories and settings in things I write, as well as just for my own memories. When I'm trying to put together my photo album to share with family and friends, those notes fill in the details and remind me about the small things I'd forgotten, like the name of the cool shop or who that guy represented by that statue was. 

It's not the same as making progress on my latest novel directly, but it all feeds my work. 

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Is AI our friend or our enemy? An IWSG post

  

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the October 4 posting of the IWSG are Natalie Aguirre, Kim Lajevardi, Debs Carey, Gwen Gardner, Patricia Josephine, and Rebecca Douglass!

October 4 question: The topic of AI writing has been heavily debated across the world. According to various sources, generative AI will assist writers, not replace them. What are your thoughts? 

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(I took this topic on recently, so today's post is a re-post of those thoughts)

As much as I enjoy reading stories about AI, I haven't really had much interest in trying it out in my writing life in the real world. I've got a process that's working for me right now, and it doesn't involve using AI. 

For starters, in these early days, the ethics are unclear. Is this really just a form of plagiarism? Can people really take credit for work co-written this way? Is it just another way exploitative method of undercutting and devaluing writing and art? 

image source

Obviously technology evolves and it changes the way art is produced. I'm not against that. I'm grateful to be typing this blogpost on my laptop rather than turning over my longhand notes to a literal typesetter who lays it out in trays and presses copies. I enjoy eBooks and audiobooks and am happy about some of the ways new technologies increase access. 

But, something about AI tools in writing, at least so far, stinks of exploitation and laziness. 

When ChatGPT was all everyone was talking about earlier this year, several well-respected magazine were deluged with submissions that had been AI-created. 

More people looking for a shortcut and thinking they can make some moolah without investing any effort, let alone a slice of their soul. (I haven't read anything about this actually working for anyone so far, by the way--a story written by AI, copied and pasted and submitted has yet to find fame or fortune in a news-making way). 

image source

I do have a couple of writing friends who say they find it helpful in the brainstorming phases of things, that they use it to get unstuck. I can see that. I can respect using a tool in support of your creativity, but in place of it?

But I don't have anyone in my writing life using it in the place of their creative impetus. But then again, I don't hang with a mercenary literary crowd. While we'd all love to make money from our work, we do the work because we love it and it expresses an essential part of our selves. Why would you hand the best part over to a computer mind? 

So, yeah, I'll stick to reading about AI and talking to the one in my kitchen. 

Some stories about AI I've enjoyed recently: 

How about you? Any AI in your real life? Any AI you've loved in fiction? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.