I wish I could…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 skill do you wish you had, either as a hobby or a career builder? 

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I wish I could sew. It comes up a lot--repairs and alternations to clothing, making useful household things. Sadly, I just don't have the hand dexterity (arthritis) and these days, the eyesight isn't what it used to be either. 

When I was a kiddo, my mother made all my clothing. I later learned that this was as much out of saving money as it was out of love, but, as a kid, I just knew how special it made me feel that I had unique items crafted just for me. 

I guess the good news that I'm not dripping in remnants of fabric and bric-a-brac, trying to figure out how to fit my hobby in my house like some of my friends who sew are! 

How about you? What do you wish you could do? I'd love to hear about it in the comments below. 

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Misshapen Crayons, 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.

People are like a box of crayons. Which crayon would you say that you are? 

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This seems like one of those Barbara Walters interview questions. Do y'all remember her? I might be dating myself…

I have trouble choosing a color. I mean…this is what I look like: 

Photo by author's husband,
on a trip to Puerto Rico, March 2023

See? I can't even choose a single hair color! So if I'm a crayon, I'm one (at least one, maybe more) of the bright ones. Maybe a nice green or purple, maybe a blue or magenta. 

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I'm probably also one of the crayons in the box with the wrapper mostly missing, a little misshapen from having gotten too warm at some point, pointy still, but slanted because it had gotten dull and someone "sharpened" it by coloring for a long time on one spot. 

I'm no pristine crayon still perfect in the box. I've seen use. I've been loved. But, I've still got beauty left to make. 

So there you go, Barbara Walters, I'm an old magenta crayon with most of the wrapper missing, bent at the middle in the shape of the hand of the kid that loves me. How's that? 

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Long Writing Sessions, and other mythological creatures: 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 get ready for a long writing session?______________________

Well, first I get down the suitcase. 

I kid. 

Well, sort of. 

I'm a writer with a day job, two rescue dogs, and a teenager still at home. It's a struggle to get writing time, and I do a lot of my writing work in 10-20 minute stretches wherever and whenever I can shoe-horn them in. 

So a "long writing session" feels like some kind of mythological creature to me most of the time. 

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A long session at home is maybe an hour, so really, my preparation is closing the door and making sure I brought a cup of tea or glass of water in there with me. 

Most summers, though, I do manage a writing retreat of several days. My critique group and I rent a house together and share the meal prep so that all of us can get lovely, long swaths of writing time. So, preparation for that does begin with getting down the suitcase. 

Writing on the deck in 2019 with one of my critique partners.

I feel so spoiled when I'm able to get three or four days in a row where my main responsibility is the creation of words on the page. And you can bet I make full use of that time! I understand the sacrifice my husband is taking on in managing all our busy household all alone for the interim. 

You know what, though? Even when I have all day, I still write in one hour chunks…I just have more of them! 

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Inspiration, Perspiration, and Determination: 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. This month's co-hosts are: Joylene Nowell Butler, Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Meka James, Diane Burton, Victoria Marie Lees, and M Louise Barbour!

May 3 question - When you are working on a story, what inspires you?

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The initial inspiration for a story is usually sort of a flash of insight, wonder, or delight for me. I have a thought and I like it. Maybe that thought came about because of something I saw, read, or heard, or maybe I don't even know why I had that thought, but I'm glad I did, and I start to noodle on it. 

The Menopausal Superhero series, for example, began with a quip about how if hormones cause superpowers, menopausal women should have the corner on that market. I was just trying to make my husband laugh, and here we are, eight books later. 

A lot of that kind of inspiration takes the form of a "What if?" question for me. 

• What if the things you see out of the corner of your eye are really there? (The Mind Plays Tricks Dark Recesses 27 April 2022) 
• What if a harpy had a male child? (Boy Chick on Apex & Abyss 1 October 2021) 
• What if my daughter had never been born? (The Beginning of You. 34 Orchard. 10 November 2022. )

But initial inspiration has never been my problem. I have more ideas than I have time to develop. 

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The kind of inspiration I need is the keep-going-kind, the come-back-and-finish-this kind. 

It maybe looks a little more like perspiration and determination than inspiration. 

For me, that stick-with-it kind of inspiration comes from remembering how happy I felt the first time I finished a story, when it came out the way I wanted it to. 

Of course, I love praise--awards, good reviews, and paychecks for my words are all more than welcome--but the real reason I keep going is a deeper kind of satisfaction than that, a feeling of having set myself a challenge and then achieving it. 

So even when it's hard, even when the characters seem determined to thwart me or when my initial idea proves not to hold water as well as I'd imagined at the outset, I take inspiration to go on in my hopes for what might be. 

Where do you find inspiration when you need it? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments! 

The moral of the story, 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.

Does every book have to have a moral? 

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The short answer: no. 

Really, "every" and "have to" aren't words I like to see paired with works of art. Art is about self-expression, and sometimes the creator might have a point to make or an axe to grind, but sometimes they might just have a cool idea they want to explore. 

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If we want to expand the idea of "moral" from life lesson to something more like having a point or a purpose, I can see that more easily, but I can still think of works I've read that I can't identify any grand purpose for. 

"To entertain" probably isn't a moral. But it's the purpose of many books. 

Sometimes having an obvious moral actually makes the book heavy-handed and pedantic and then I don't want to read it. 

I do like seeing writers take on meatier topics and exploring moral questions…but I'm a big girl now, and don't need anyone to try and tell me what to think. 

How about you? Do you like a moral message in the stories you create or enjoy? 

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Research Rabbit Holes and Other Fun Trips, 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 favorite resources for research? 

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Research is a lot of fun. Dangerously so, actually. I could easily spend all my time on research and never get to the actual writing. I love learning, and have been known to take a wander that had nothing at all to do with my project because I followed an interesting thread that led to another one and another one and another one after that. 

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Where I look for information depends on what I'm researching. A simple google search will do for for quick information, though I'm careful to consider the source and whether it's reliable when I get there. 

When I'm looking for an overview of something to get me started, I look to wikipedia. Sometimes you have to learn a little about something before you can effectively search for it. 

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When I want to immerse more fully, I read non-fiction books or sometimes fiction books with the right setting or set of circumstances to suit my needs. 

The best is when I can go somewhere and learn by direct observation and experience because then I get to combine three loves: learning, travel, and writing! 

How about you? What are your go-tos when you need to research something? I'd love to hear about it in the comments. 

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Any Place, Any Time, Any World: 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.

If you could live in any place, any time, any world, where would you want to live? 

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Well, if I can really live in any place, any time, any world, then why would I limit myself to one? Even just the question has my wanderlust aflame. Even with the limits of time and space I currently live within, I want to go everywhere!

But for the sake of discussion, let's pick a few options. 

1. Any Place: New Zealand

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I first became enamored of New Zealand as a child. My family and I attended the World's Fair in Knoxville in 1982. I was 11 years old. We wandered into the exhibit on New Zealand, and images like the one above adorned the walls. Already a fan of wild vistas, I gasped. This attracted the attention of one of the workers, a lovely woman who had been well-selected for her job for her winning personality and ability to wield that charming Kiwi accent to make sure that visitors fell in love with the idea of visiting the place she was from. 

Later, in the early 2000s, the Lord of the Rings trilogy was filmed in New Zealand, and watching those films reignited my interest in visiting. I haven't made it there yet, though I still hold out hope. I want a Hobbiton movie set tour as well as time exploring some of the exciting scenery, like volcanoes, geysers, and glaciers. 

2. Any Time: late Victorian England and between-the-wars America

Time travel is a tricksy proposition. But we'll assume that I can do so safely, and that my life won't be at risk because of my inappropriate clothing or because I was a woman or a Jewish person in the wrong place and time. I'd also want to avoid any Ray Bradbury situations, where I destroy the world by stepping on a butterfly. 

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Since I've got two back-burnered projects that are back-burnered because I need to do more research about the time periods before I can continue, I'd be interested in the period between WWI and WWII in Indianapolis (for my historical fiction trilogy based on a family legend, working title Cold Spring) and 1890s rural England (for my Gothic romance, working title The Architect and the Heir). 

Visiting would be way more immersive (and probably more fun) then trying to glean the details I want from nonfiction books and internet research. 

3. Any World: Wakanda!

If you've been reading this blog, then you already know that I'm a superhero fan. 

There are a lot of cool worlds in superhero stories: Themyscira, home of Wonder Woman; Atlantis, home of Aquaman; Krypton, home of Superman. But my very favorite is Wakanda, especially as portrayed in the recent Black Panther movies. Sleek and sophisticated, efficient and beautiful, a utopia of artistry and industry interwoven. 

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In the films, we don't see much outside the main city, but that city is spectacular. Even a confirmed small-town girl like me would love the chance to explore it. 

So, there you go, given the chance to go somewhere, the hardest part would be choosing. I want to go everywhere! 

How about you? With all barriers removed, where would you choose to live? I'd love to hear about it in the comments. 

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