Month: May 2025

It’s A Kick In The Pants #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

May 26, 2025

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

What chills your drive to write?

Let’s start with the easy one. What chills my drive to write? There are two main ones: stress and lack of privacy. Stress can come from a variety of sources, but financial is the primary one. (Isn’t that true for many of us?) You’d think writing would be a way to relieve stress, but that doesn’t work for me.

Then there’s the lack of privacy. My writing space is now in a public area of our house. There’s frequent foot traffic passing by. Even if I’m deep in writing, I can be interrupted frequently. Not just when I’m writing, either. I could just be surfing the net or listening to music and I’ll get a tap on the shoulder. I frequently feel as if someone is watching me. Plus, there’s too much noise. My headphones cancel out a lot, but not all of it. It makes it hard to concentrate. (I think I have a harder time concentrating in general these days.)

What gets me hyped? 

I didn’t use to need to get hyped to write. It was a constant state of being. Give me ten minutes and a piece of paper and pen, and I’d be spitting out words. But I’ve slowed down. It might be that I’m trying to work on too many stories at once. (I’m working on three.) I used to work on one at a time, so my concentration is scattered. Or it’s all the outside pressures I’m dealing with. Or maybe I’m worried no one cares about my writing.

But a good idea will spark my urge to write every time. I’m currently working on my third version of a short story, and the more I work with the main character, the plot keeps shifting into something new and better. Or maybe a twist will pop into my head as I crawl into bed after a writing session, as my character tells me what I’ve missed. (His name is Amos Headley. Love that name.)

Anyway, the longing to write is still with me constantly, even if I don’t get to it. (Which makes me feel guilty. Which, in itself, is a deterrent to writing. Vicious cycle.)

What triggers the other authors on this hop? Find out by following the links below.
As always, until next time, please stay safe.

May 26, 2025

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

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We’re Living In The Future #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

May 19, 2025

Which sci-fi invention would you like to see made real?

We’re living in the future.

A few years back, I had a few episodes of vertigo, and my doctor was trying to find the cause. They referred me to an ear, nose and throat specialist, and I went through a battery of standard tests. As we were discussing the preliminary results, I mentioned the injury I’d received as a teen when I’d had a bicycle accident. The technician asked if I’d had an MRI back then to examine potential damage to my inner ear. I laughed and reminded him MRIs didn’t exist back then. He blinked, cocked his head, and quietly said “oh” before moving on to the next test.

I’ve also been involved with personal computers since the early days. In the early days, there was upper and lower memory, accessed through DOS commands. That was before gigabyte hard drives were a thing. Now, we have access to storage thousands of times larger that we hold in the palms of our hands.

How about phones? When I was a child, party lines were a thing. Yes, you could pick up the phone attached to the wall or sitting on a desk and listen to your neighbor’s conversation (if they were talking to someone,) and you had to wait your turn. And long-distance calls cost an arm and leg. Now, land lines are almost a novelty.

Speaking of phones, cell phones didn’t exist back then. And the first ones were strictly phones. Now, we hold more computing power in the phone stuck in our back pocket than the first computers that sat on our desks.

But what does the future hold?

What hasn’t happened? How about teleportation? In these days, when our lives often take us far from friends and families, how much easier would it be if we could get from place to place in a matter of seconds? It sounds good, but I wouldn’t want to be one of the early users. From what I understand of the technology, it sounds risky. Not one I want to be a part of.

How about interstellar travel? That sounds like fun. I’d love to see far-off planets. But I’m old, and I don’t believe I’ll see it happen. That’s okay, because there are plenty of places on Mother Earth that I haven’t seen yet.

But if I could choose which sci-fi inventions would happen, it would be in the medical field. Cures for cancer. Diabetes. Alzheimers and so many more. Heck, throw better vision correction and a cure for the common cold in there. Medical care for free, of course. I’ve seen too many people who live in pain every day. I’d like to see an end to that.

So, we’ve come a long way since I was a youngster, but there’s a long way to go. 

What invention in sci-fi would you like to see become reality? Tell me in the comments. And to find out what the other authors that take part in this hop hope for, check out the links below.

As always, until next time, please stay safe.

 

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May 19, 2025

Which sci-fi invention would you like to see made real?

 

What Word Do You Despise? #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

May 12, 2025

We’ve talked about our favorite words. Is there a word you despise?

One you refuse to use in your writing?

Finding my favorite words was easy. But one I despise? Not so much. There are many ugly words in the English language. Some sound rough, while the meaning behind others is hurtful. I won’t list them here, because many people are offended just reading them. 

That doesn’t mean I won’t use those words. But they rarely come up in my writing. 

You want an example? How about racism? The word isn’t hard on the ears, but the philosophy behind it is against my beliefs.

Then there are words that are used to denigrate women. You know them. I don’t need to spell them out. I have used them in my stories, but sparingly. The words carry a punch, but if overused, become meaningless. Which may be a good thing, but defeats the reason I include them.

So, I haven’t run into a word that is off-limits. Besides, eliminating the word doesn’t put an end to the ideology it represents. Words are tools for writers, and we need to keep all of them available for our use.

Check out if any of our authors do have words they won’t use by following the links below.

And, as always, please stay safe until the next time.

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May 12, 2025

We’ve talked about our favorite words. Is there a word you despise? One you refuse to use in your writing?

 

Falling In Love Again & Again #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

May 5, 2025

Which of your characters do you have the biggest crush on?

I fall in love with most of my characters.

Even several of the villains. (Or maybe they never crossed the line from being a bad guy to a true villain.) But a few stand out.

If you’ve followed me for long, you know about how much I love Harmony Duprie, my ex-librarian turned internet researcher, turned female sleuth. I’ve mentioned more than once how I’d love to spend a quiet summer’s day with her, sitting on her steps, drinking ice tea, and swapping stories. But while she’d be a good friend, she’s not my crush. Even Eli, her good-looking retired Army Ranger boyfriend, now tech company owner, doesn’t qualify as my main crush. (In fact, I often worried about not giving him the attention he deserved.)

Neither Dot nor Gavin from Wolves’ Pawn qualifies either. As they were the main characters in the first book I released, you’d think they’d have a special place in my heart, and they do. But not as crushes. They were made for each other, and I was an outsider from day one.

But a very secondary character stuck with me. 

Lori Grenville only appeared in two or three chapters of Wolves’ Pawn. She was sassy and unafraid of authorities in any form. She was also averse to recognition, preferring to work behind the scenes. But she wormed her way into my brain.

It wasn’t until four years later that Lori demanded her own book. Of course, the story went a different direction than I’d planned. And as I wrote it, I developed a crush on her. She may have been the runt of the litter, but had developed the skills and attitude to stand up to the biggest opponents. (And allies.) She was a master of manipulation, but used the tactic sparingly. I’ve always loved the underdog, and if you looked up underdog in the dictionary, you’d find her picture next to the definition. And I absolutely love her. But …

You know he’s going to make an appearance.

Jake Hennessey, He always shows up. Jake is my gentleman, sometimes down-on-his-luck, jewel thief. He’s very much the bad boy with a heart of gold and an interesting set of ethics who I kept trying to write out of the Harmony Duprie stories, unsuccessfully.

But what makes him my top crush is how much he loved Harmony. He loved her enough to let her go, right into the arms of his cousin, who would be better able to take care of her. This, despite the fact that he’d sacrificed his own future to protect hers. She’d never known. No one, beside me and him, knew. (Well, and maybe any of you that read all the Harmony and Jake books.) How could I not have a crush on him?

Do you have a book crush? Share in the comments. And to find out which characters our other authors have a crush on, follow the links below.

As always, until next time, please stay safe.

May 5, 2025

Which of your characters do you have the biggest crush on?

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