Bringing my Heroes Home

 It's official, y'all. With the release of the fifth and final novel, the menopausal superhero series is now complete!

 

This has been the work of a little more than ten years, and there's a lovely symmetry in that the first book came out in 2015, and the final in 2025. 

Origin story: This series started because I watched an X-men movie with my husband, and we were talking, as we often do, while we walked the dog afterwards. I was joking that the underlying message of X-men stories is always that hormones cause superpowers, and if that was the case, menopausal women should have the corner on that market!

image source

 

 He laughed and told me to write it down. So I did. 

And to my surprise, it was more than just a little joke--it was the opportunity to create a group of female characters finding community, purpose, and love while they deal with the changes wrought in the life by changes in their bodies. Metaphorical AF, right? 

The journey: Writing them was cathartic, joyful, and sometimes heartbreaking, bringing together my personal struggles and fears surrounding aging, friendship, and what perimenopause was doing to my body, my brain, and my life alongside my lifetime love of superhero stories. 

 

The shirt says "what doesn't kill you, mutates and tries again" 

I LOVE how I ended the series, and can't wait to share this with readers. 

The whole series is available direct from the publisher as an ebook bundle: 

buy here

 

You can also get it a book at a time from the Big River site, or request it from your favorite bookseller in paperback or hardback. 

The series in order:

 

 

Going Through the Change, where it all begins. Meet Helen, Jessica, Patricia, and Linda/Leonel and laugh and cry with them as they struggle with the sudden development of unusual abilities amid their busy lives, and find each other along the way. 

Part of what I wanted to explore is what a heroic life might look like for a woman with a grown-up life: a career, children, a household, a partner. Responsibilities. This book was the start of all of that.  

 

 

  

 

Friend or Foe, a novella, serves as a bridge story between the first and second novels, and a peek inside the mind of the mad scientist who caused all this trouble in the first place, Dr. Cindy Liu. 

This novella is also included in Agents of Change, which collects the novellas and short stories in a single volume.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Change of Life, the second novel in the series, all the characters are dealing with the aftermath of the events of book one: the affects on their relationships, families, jobs, and psyches. The plot centers around Patricia, the Lizard Woman of Springfield, and her quest for answers and vengeance. 

This book introduces Daniel Price, one of my favorite creepy villains. He's been body hopping for a hundred years in a a quest to extend his own life, with no regard to who gets hurt (or killed) along the way.  

 

 

  

 

 In Face the Change, our heroes come together to work for the Unusual Cases Unit of the mysterious Department run by the Director and learn about hero life in the spotlight. As they fight The Six, a mysterious group of psychic villains, they deepen their personal connections, finding strength in each other.  

An unexpected romance came into play in this one. I LOVE it when my characters surprise me. 

 

 

 

The Good Will Tour is another novella, which works pretty well as a stand alone if you want to try the series at low investment.  Jessica "Flygirl" Roark and Leonel (formerly Linda) "Fuerte" Álvarez set out to build community good will with a celebrity visit to the local hospital and end up needing to save the day when a desperate earthquake causing woman shows up demanding experimental treatment for her wife. 

This novella is also included in Agents of Change, which collects the novellas and short stories in a single volume.   

 

 

 

Just when our heroes thought they had things figured out, a mysterious power spike challenges their control of their abilities in Be the Change. 

I had a wonderful time expanding on Patricia's backstory in this one, introducing her mother, stepfather, and some information on her siblings and half-siblings. And Daniel Price is back because he was too good not to bring back. 

 

 

 

 

 

And here's the new girl in town: the series ender: Change for the Better. Readers will probably have noticed that Jessica "Flygirl" Roark has been…odd. Things escalate in this book and the menopausal superheroes have to scramble to save one of their own, while they face down enemies within and the return of Daniel Price and the shadowy mystery man, Bertrand Dietrich.  

I'm really proud of that final fight scene and that last chapter will hit you right in the feels. 

 

 

 

 

Through Thick & Thin is a collection of side-stories for the menopausal superheroes. It’s confession time in "Coming Out as Leonel." Join Patricia, the Lizard Woman, as she unravels the puzzle of Dr. Cindy Liu's disappearance in "The Right Thing," and then see her softer side (and her "better half," Suzie) in "Underestimated." Get ready for a wedding, and a heroic rescue, in "Flygirl's Second Chance."

These can be read separately of the novels, but I think you'll enjoy them more if you've already read at least books one and two. They're also all included in Agents of Change. 

 

 

 

 This anthology collects the novels and short stories into a single volume. 

• Friend or Foe
• The Good Will Tour
• "Coming out as Leonel" 
• "The Right Thing" 
• "Underestimated"
• "Flygirl's Second Chance"  

(this might be my favorite cover in the series, combining the silhouettes we used for the novels with the stripes or rays we used in the short work) 

 

 

 

I have some readings from all this work available on YouTube or in the Menopausal Superheroes slideshow on the "Read My Work" link in this website.  

And if that's not enough Menopausal Superheroes for you, you can also read another short story, "Intervention", exploring the background of Patricia and Cindy Liu in Theme-Thology: Mad Science or read a couple of free holiday stories I created for my newsletter subscribers: O Scaly Night (Patricia's version of Santa Claus is…violent) and (Flygirl's son gets to see her in action) Max's Mommy. 

If you find me or my publisher, Falstaff Books, at a convention or other in-person event, you can also get the very cool omnibus edition (second volume coming soon), and I hope to be able to share links for audiobooks in the near future.  

I'm working on a book tour this fall and winter to celebrate the completion of this series, so you may have a chance to come see me in your neck of the woods!  

Thanks to all of you who came along with me on this journey. Writing is great, but we need readers to make it worthwhile and I am so pleased that so many of you have connected to my characters and found escape and expression with me in these stories. 

May you find strength when you need it, joy in friendship, and love in one form or another.  

Getting Triggered (to write), 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 are your triggers for writing? (For instance, what gets you hyped or starts the story in your head).

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I have at least ten ideas for a story nearly every day, but not all of those make it to the page. 

Some of them only take a mental moment's exploration for me to realize that there's not enough "there" there to develop into a full-blown story. They are at best bon mots that I might toss off on social media or in a social gathering. 

Others I might explore more fully, but then find that they fizzle. That little spark that had me excited, energized, or curious enough to start just sort of dissipates and it drifts off in the breeze. 

Some are so tenacious that they take root even when I don't have the time or freedom to sit down and play with them right away--they just keep butting up against my subconscious like an orca threatening to capsize my kayak until I give in and write the darn things. 

Generally, I'd say, a story needs three at least two of three things to really get started with me: 

• a bright enough spark
• a window of exploration soon enough that the idea gets pinned to the board before it can fly away
• deep enough roots to grow under the surface even if left un-nourished
• or being "the thing" that I need to write just then, the idea that scratches an itch I might have trouble defining for myself.  

One of these isn't enough without at least one of the others. There are too many ideas to develop them all, so the competition for my keyboard and head-space can be fierce. 

For example, the Menopausal Superheroes concept came to me in a flash. A nice bright spark that made me laugh aloud and start looking for time I could devote to it. I held it out there as a bribe to myself, the "something fun" I could play with after I finished the heavier-going more literary novel I was working on at the time.  

link to book

The romance novels I'm working on now didn't come in a flash like that, but they were "the thing" I needed to write once I'd finished my Menopausal Superheroes novels--new project energy and the excitement of something I'd never written before. The idea had deep enough roots that it didn't matter that I didn't start the first one for months after I first had the thought. They'd been there growing in my subconscious substrata just waiting for me to find or make the time for them. 

How about you? What decides which ideas get developed and explored for you? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

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Fact-finding missions, 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.

How do you find the facts that inform your work?
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You end up needing to know a lot of strange little things when you're writing a book. Sure, you're making things up, but your story still needs grounding in reality, especially if your work is set in a realistic or near-realistic setting. 

For my Menopausal Superheroes series, there's obviously a lot of "hand-wave-ium" about the science of how things are possible. Jessica "Flygirl" Roark can fly and there's some exploration as to how and why, but I'm not trying to make this impossible thing realistic, so I was free to be playful and imaginative in making that part up. 

Still, I did research about buoyancy and flight, trying to decide if I'd pull more from bird, balloon, or machine in my decision-making about how Jessica's flight works. I enjoy that reading, finding facts to extrapolate from and play with. In fact, I enjoy research so much, that if I'm not careful, I can fall down a research rabbit hole and get distracted from actually writing my story. 

For many things, I pull from my own experience and from stories I've heard all my life from other people. I know what it feels like (at least from my own experience) to fall in love, to be ill, to become frustrated, etc. So, I can use my own experiences and what I've observed as a baseline.

image source

 

On the other hand, I don't know what it feels like to be shot by a gun (and I hope I never find out), so when Leonel "Fuerte" Álvarez took a bullet wound in Book 2, Change of Life, I did a lot of reading and asking questions in online groups about the medical aspects of that, making sure he was shot in a way that he could recover from, and that his recovery could be reasonably realistic. 

For some of my other work, I've needed historical details of dress and legal status, so I read nonfiction books, look details up online (always corroborating with more than one source because the Internet lies), and ask questions of experts. I'm in a couple of Facebook groups where writers can ask lawyers and doctors legal and medical questions and that's SUPER useful as those kinds of things come up in fiction all the time. 

Those little details add veracity to a story and make it easy for the reader to stay engaged in a story, so they really do matter. I know I've been frustrated by books I've read that got details wrong that conflict with own knowledge and experience. If there's enough of them, I stop reading. So, I try not to do that to my own readers. 

How about you? What do you do to make your own work feel real? Where do you learn what you need to know? What kinds of details throw you out of a story you're reading? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

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Christmas with the Menopausal Superheroes, 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.

Behind the scenes of a Holiday Scene: How did you write a holiday scene?
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I've written two Christmas stories for the Menopausal Superheroes. 

 

"O Scaly Night" has Patrica, the Lizard Woman of Springfield coming to the rescue during what should have been a quiet holiday alone and discovering that she likes helping people.

The idea for the story came to me while I was writing one of the novels in the series, which had me delving a little deeper into Patricia's background and understanding what kind of childhood experiences she had had. 

This story fits into the novel series earlier on, when there was more doubt as to how Patricia would end up using her powers and I liked exploring the ambivalence of vigilantism. The lines a hero does and doesn't cross.   

I wrote it for my newsletter subscribers, and later it was published as part of a charity Christmas anthology: Christmas Lites IX.

  

Click the image to read the entire story for free.

The other story is called "Max's Mommy" and is told by the youngest son of one of her heroes, Jessica, AKA Flygirl. One of the things I wanted for my Menopausal Superheroes was for them to still get to keep their friends, families, and homes. 

All of my heroes have a circle of trust who knows their secret identity and none of them are keeping their abilities hidden from the people they love most. I got to thinking about how her children were handling having a superhero for a mother and came up with this story of young Max watching his hero-mother in action.  

This one I also wrote as a gift to my newsletter subscribers, and I haven't sought other publication for it so far.

Click the image to read the entire story for free.

I really enjoyed writing both of these stories, focusing on just one of the heroes during the holidays and imagining how that might go. Maybe I need to write another one for Leonel, AKA Fuerte! Do you like tie-in stories for series? Do you read winter holiday stories as part of your festivities? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments. 

If these snippets caught your attention and you're interested in more, here are the details on the series: 

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My Best Lines, 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's the best line you've written recently? Or ever? 
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It is a lovely feeling to re-read your work and find lines that make you feel a bit of pride and accomplishment. It's fun to look for those jewels, moment that are beautifully crafted or emotionally resonant, and that will help attract readers to your work. I often pull them for use in ad campaigns or newsletters or social media posts. 

Four pull quotes from Going Through the Change, book 1 of the Menopausal Superheroes series.

Honestly, those sparkling little moments feel like magic and they're a big part of why I write. They give me a sort of glowing feeling.

My work-in-progress right now is a trio of Gen X romances I plan to release as my first fully indie projects. I've just finished re-writing the first one, working title Not Too Late. 

Here's a line I'm proud of from that one: 

A firetruck flew up the avenue, but Chris didn’t get out of bed to see which way it was going. He was far more concerned about a much older flame and whether he was the one who would end up getting burned.

It's an important moment in the romance, establishing Chris's character and his feelings on having his one-time crush come back into his life all these years later. I felt clever, using the firetruck to lead into the flame metaphor as applied to love. 

When I'm reading, I also look for these kinds of lines--quotable bits, insights that really hit home. I highlight them (in my kindle edition) or copy them into notebooks, and if I ever want to tell someone why I love a book, that's where I go first. 

 How about you? Are you drawn to quote-able lines? What kinds of moments in a book (one you've read or written) glow brightly for you? 

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Leave 'Em Wanting More…But Don't Leave 'Em Hangin': 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 December 4 posting of the IWSG are Ronel, Deniz, Pat Garcia, Olga Godim, and Cathrina Constantine!


December 4 question - Do you write cliffhangers at the end of your stories? Are they a turn-off to you as a writer and/or a reader?

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The only series I've written so far (recently finished! hurray!) is the Menopausal Superheroes. In writing it, I used some tropes, abandoned others, and tried to twist still others. I wanted the books to feel like what they are--superhero stories--but to also be their own thing, so that was sometimes a delicate dance. 

Cliffhangers are bread and butter in superhero stories--going as far back as the oldest comic books and movie serials with superpowered characters. 

image source

I know some readers hate cliffhangers, feeling that they are a manipulation designed to pull them into the next book. That can be true, but sometimes, they are genre expectation and the best way to tell a story. 

The end of the first book has been described as a cliffhanger by some (usually by folks who don't like cliffhangers).  If you read my reviews of that first book, people who don't love it almost universally complain that it ended in a cliffhanger. 

I don't think it exactly is…my heroes had met their primary goal, and the next problem presented itself immediately. That fits the comic book feel of it to me. True that it wasn't all wrapped up…but no was left in the middle of an immediate crisis. Heroes seldom get to enjoy or celebrate their wins for long--there's always another fight looming. 

That said, the second, third, and fourth books end more fully than that first one. So maybe I came around to what some of my readers were saying. We'll find out next summer if they like what I've done with the fifth and final book in the series--coming to you in summer 2025 from Falstaff Books!

For myself as a reader, it's a case by case scenario. Some cliffhangers feel organic to the story and others just feel like tacked-on manipulations. So some I love, and some frustrate me. I don't think there's a right answer to this one. You gotta do what's right for each story. 

And, yes, a cliffhanger is a tactic to drive readers to pick up the next book in a series. Done well, it's no more manipulative than writing engaging characters, leaving a question unanswered, or showing an assumption about what's happened might be mistaken. I don't think writers are doing anything wrong if they work some curious and tension-building techniques in to pull a reader through a whole series. That's just good story telling (and a little business sense). 

So, what do y'all think? Cliffhangers, yea or no? Why? 

When to Kill (a character), 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.

Have you ever regretted killing off a character? Or not killing one off? 
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Interesting question this week! 

Killing off characters has really ranged for me. There have been times when I didn't even blink. It was obviously what the story needed. Other times, I'm waffled and written several versions trying to decide. 

People die in my horror stories all the time. They are, after all, horror stories. The stakes are high and violence is expected. You're just as likely to end up in the afterlife if you start a horror story as a hero or a villain, since both endings are common in the genre.  I do try to make these deaths matter, though. I *hate* stories where one character is killed off solely to motivate other characters or for shock value alone. 

In my superhero work, though, I have a much lighter, more optimistic tone, and I've mostly avoided killing. My heroes are not the grim-dark sort you find in some superhero stories, but the true-heart, noble-bright sort for the most part. Even Patricia, the most reluctant of heroes, doesn't use her power indiscriminately. 

Patricia "Lizard Woman" O'Neill, as drawn by Charles C. Dowd

In the field more generally, characters do die in superhero stories, but it's usually not the heroes, or at least not without a LOT of hoopla and the possibility of undoing that later in some fashion. 

I've recently turned in the series ender for the Menopausal Superheroes series. There is a death of a named, recurring character in this last one, and I feel it was the right choice for the story. But, there's another character who was on a trajectory that might well have led to her death and I chose not to kill her off. It didn't feel right. 

I think that's the key for me. This is a decision based on what feels right. Does it serve the story? Is it necessary? 

I guess we'll find out how readers feel next summer when the book comes out! 

How about you? If you write, have you killed off any characters? For readers, have there been any character deaths that you thought were handled well or badly? 

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The good bits of publicity, 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.

Many of us are frustrated by publicity. It's our least favorite part of writing. But what's your favorite part of publicity?
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Talking about my imaginary friends can be a delight, so I enjoy in-person events more than any other kind of publicity-seeking. Over the years, I have gained a lot of comfort with vending at a table and having one on one conversations with readers, and I really enjoy it when the pace is good (neither overwhelming nor lonely). 

I've got two of these events upcoming: 

Bookmarks Festival and Splatterflix Movie Festival, my next two vending venue

I also enjoy being on panels with other writers at conventions, bookstores, library events, or the like. That's half networking/socializing with other writers and half engaging with readers. It's a great opportunity to get to know other writers and build community AND, especially when the other panelists are generous with their support, a way for us to help one another reach new audiences. Someone might attend because they know one of the other writers, but stick around to hear about my work, too, just because we were paired on the panel. 

I'll be a part of one of these through Horror Writers Associations in November: 

Here lately, I've been enjoying doing panels and interview for channels on YouTube or podcasts, too. It's nice that geography doesn't have to be a limiter for a taste of some of that camaraderie. 

So far as online publicity, I enjoy blogging or writing articles about some aspect of my writing life (like this blog hop, for example!). I get a kick out of choosing pull quotes and making little images to highlight them. 

The Menopausal Superheroes, as drawn by Charles C. Dowd

For me, this doesn't feel as yucky as "buy my book" types of online marketing. It's more about trying to be clever or cute and highlighting what's cool about my story and the people in it. 

I have the best time, when I look at publicity opportunities as time to engage with other artists and the public and let go the pressure to sell a lot of books. When I feel too much pressure to sell well, the interactions get tense and weird and I don't enjoy myself (and probably neither do my potential buyers). 

What about y'all? When you have to promote something, how do you like to go about it? Or when you're receiving the promotion, what's the least annoying/most engaging? I'd love to hear from you in the comments!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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IWSG: The end of an era

   

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 August 7 posting of the IWSG are Feather Stone, Kim Lajevardi, Diedre Knight, C. Lee McKenzie, and Sarah - The Faux Fountain Pen!

August 7 question - Do you use AI in your writing and if so how? Do you use it for your posts? Incorporate it into your stories? Use it for research? Audio?

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I'm tired of talking about AI right now. If you want to see what I've already said about it, you can find it here, here, and here. The short version: there are ethical issues to sort out and I'm not interested for the most part right now, but may be open to it at another time. 

So, instead, let me share my big writing news: 

I FINISHED MY SERIES!

The Menopausal Superhero Series has been a ten year journey in the creation of five novels, two novellas, and a collection of shorts (and an omnibus edition!)

The series, where it's stood since 2021

It's been a roller coaster!

• from the contract signing 

• to the end of my first publisher relationship 

• and into my new partnership with Falstaff Books 

• and the rebrand there. 

• There was that time I had a book launch party with no books. 

• And that time I had to do a complete revise and resubmit because I tried to rush and the book wasn't ready. 

• Then there was getting back in after a two-year hiatus while the publishing drama worked itself out. 

• Finally there was writing the series ender, a whole new level of writing challenge, especially for a pantser like me. 

But here I am, ten years later and I've turned in the final book and can expect publication in summer 2025! I can't wait for y'all to see it. I'm feeling good about my ending. 

Pumpkin is proud of me, too.

So, what am I doing now? Celebrating! 

And nerd that I am, I'm celebrating by writing something entirely new, my first foray into romance. Watch this space for more :-)

Celebration time, 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 special way of celebrating when you finish writing a book? Or other achievements in your journey? How do you reward yourself?
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When I finish writing the first draft of a novel, I'm so elated that I almost don't need any other celebration. I feel like I could float away from the joy of completing the book. I imagine it feels similar to what athletes experience when they get to the top of a mountain or the end of a race.  

I do, however, tell my inner support circle right away--my husband, my kids, my sister, my mother, my critique partners. Those are the folks who have been in the struggle with me for the months or years that it took to bring a project to fruition and they'll rejoice with me. 

In fact, I just got there once again at the end of June, on my writer's retreat to the mountains of North Carolina. How perfect to run into the main room, arms in the air, and take a victory lap, with my critique partners right there to whoop and holler with me. I should always try to finish a book while on writer's retreat!

image source

Of course, finishing *writing* a novel isn't really the end of that journey. There's still editing, revisions, and the actual publishing process. 

The BEST moment is when I hold the paper copy of my work in my hands for the first time. I keep a spinner rack in my office that has paper copies of all my novels and short stories in anthologies on it and it's a major boost to me just to look over and see how many books are there. 

For my first novel in this series, which was also my debut novel, Going Through the Change,  I had a book launch party at a local bookstores. Cookies and punch, copies of the book for sale, a Phil Donahue-style interview with me by a writing friend, reading from the book. My whole family came out and so did everyone local enough to me and it was one of the best nights of my life. 

Me, my daughter, and my dad, looking happy and related at my book launch party in 2015.

In fact, I think I'm going to do it again for this book. After all, it's the series ender, coming out ten years after the first book. Finishing the entire five book series (and accompanying novellas and shorts) feels like something to really celebrate. 

4 novels, 2 novellas, some shorts, and a collection of all the shorts.
One more novel coming soon!

In fact, I'm working on setting up a book tour for it, hoping to partner with some of my writer friends across the country and hit a string of bookstores, libraries, and other venues. 

(Hit me up, writer friends, if you might be interested in partnering with me on events in 2025, especially if our work has any obvious connections: feminism, aging, menopause, superheroes, female friendship, etc.)

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Every Novel is a Puzzle

 

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.

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Now this was fun! Are you a puzzle fan? Well, here's the first of the novels in the Menopausal Superhero series made into a jigsaw puzzle! (If you need some hints, the title is Going Through the Change, and my name is Samantha Bryant--those bits will get you a goodly portion of the puzzle). And like any jigsaw puzzle aficionado will tell you--establish the edges first. It helps. 

I enjoyed this quite a bit, and it's a nice analogy for writing as well. Writing a new book does feel like solving a puzzle. I get it in pieces and as I work the overall vision becomes clearer and hangs together better until: voilá! 

Hope you enjoy it! And be sure to check out the other puzzles in this week's blog hop at the link below. 

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Top 5 of 2023, 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.

Tell us the top five best things that have happened to you in the past year. (Focus on writing, but other things are allowed)

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I'm not sure these are in order, but here are five great things about my 2023 in writing: 

1. Day job success: 

This might seem off topic for a post about my writing successes, but my day job as a content strategist at a big financial company (a new career which I started in May of 2022) is going well. I like the work, but it doesn't drain me dry like teaching did. It pays better, too, which alleviates some stress. 

And all of that makes for a better writing life. It's hard to focus on your imaginary friends if you're worried about feeding your real family, after all. 

2. Convention time feeds my inspiration and energy

I went to several conventions and events this year, promoting my published work, networking, and just enjoying feeling successful and just a little bit famous. My work sold well at several of these, and I got to participate in some great panel discussions, and meet a few writing world celebrities. 

Highlights include having someone who had not read my work before buy the $100 omnibus edition of the Menopausal Superhero series (what a show of faith!), talking with horror author Gabino Iglesias about Puerto Rico and parenting while writing while we shared a signing table, and visiting the Poe Museum with Esther Friesner, a comedic fantasy author known for Chicks in Chainmail. 

In front of the Poe Museum with writing friends

Now that I've been doing "the con circuit" for eight years, I've got this whole family of writer friends and it's a joy to get time to spend with them a few times a year. 

3. Travel! Puerto Rico, Beach, PNW

The opportunity to travel is one of the great joys of my life and I had three lovely trips this year: to Puerto Rico with all the Bryants (including the elder daughter's partner), to the beach with my youngest kiddo and a few of their best friends for birthday aquarium fun, and to the Seattle area of Washington with my mom to visit my sister. That's a lot for one year!

The family in a park in PR

Travel always sets my brain and spirit alight, and that's got to be good for my wordsmithing. I wouldn't be at all surprised if El Yunque or the beach or Rattlesnake Lake shows up in something I write soon. 

4. Two new publications

I didn't publish a lot this year--my focus has been on the series-ending novel for the Menopausal Superheroes series, which hasn't left me much time to focus on submitting short stories or writing other new pieces. So, I was pleased as punch to still manage to get two new stories into anthologies this year!

My new anthologies!

You can read "The New Guy" a bit of science fiction set on an off-world botany lab in Breaking Free, an anthology from my critique group and "The Other Jack" a horror piece with urban legend vibes in Tangle & Fen from Crone Girls Press, a small feminist horror press I've had the pleasure of working with several times now. 

If you check them out, remember to leave a review! More reviews = more visibility, even if they are brief. 

5. Progress on that series-ending novel

The first Menopausal Superhero novel, Going Through the Change, came out in 2015 and I've been writing in that universe ever since, seeing three more novels, two novellas, and a collection of shorts into the world, as well as that omnibus edition I was telling you about. 

I love my heroes, and have enjoyed writing these action-adventure-comedy-women's fiction books, but it's time to move on to other projects, so I'm also happy to be wrapping it up. 

But writing a series-ender is a different sort of writing task than writing "the next one" and it's taken me longer than the others. I feel like I'm near the end now, though, and I'm hopeful that I'll be able to share the finished series with you in 2025! (That seems far away, but it'll also go quickly, I know). 

It'll be the end of an era, and I'm hoping to celebrate with a big publication party and maybe a book tour. We'll see what me and my publisher come up with :-)

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So, that's my year in words. I hope 2023 was kind to you as well, giving you a lot to feel grateful for as the year comes to an end. Don't forget to check out the other posts in this blog hop and leave me a comment letting me know how your 2023 went. 

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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? 

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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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