Tag: #Library

Where to Find It? #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

April 24, 2023

What are your favorite resources for research?

It all depends. It changes depending upon the book I am writing. Now that I’ve moved, it has changed again.

I’m no professional when it comes to various types of guns. Some guys I used to work with were heavily into hunting, and they would help me with various aspects of weapon use in my stories. (I wouldn’t know the difference between an AK-15, and AK-17, and a fancy paintball gun.) I’d just walk down the hall and talk to them. Since I’ve retired, that resource is gone. But in my last couple of books, guns haven’t been a major part of the story, so it hasn’t been an issue. (Jake Hennessey, my hero, doesn’t carry a gun. Never has.)

My current WIP (work in progress) is set in Pittsburgh around 1985. That’s changed everything as far as resources. I’ve been chasing rabbits to find the information I need. Although I survived the 1980s, I am looking for the details. What were the top songs and the favorite drug of choice? Those were easy. Trying to find a description of the Penguins’ owner’s club in the Civic Arena was another story. I spent hours watching old videos on YouTube and haunting Facebook groups. I finally got what I needed through one of my brothers, who knew someone who’d been there. Shoot, trying to determine the color of the uniforms the Pittsburgh cops wore back then was a challenge, and it wasn’t that long ago. I should have called their public relations department and asked, but I didn’t think about it.

As the story writes itself, I keep discovering more details I want to incorporate, but there’s no single website that offers me everything. I keep bookmarking additional sites so I can find them again. Remind me – I’ve got to check out the resources of the Pittsburgh Public Library system and see what they offer on-line.

The internet is a wonderful starting point for research, but there’s so much more. I’ve always believed that people are our greatest source of information, if you can find the right ones to talk to.

How about out other authors? What are their favorite resources? Find out by following the links.

As always, until next time, please stay safe.

 

April 24, 2023

What are your favorite resources for research?

Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

 

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Click here to enter

 

Mixing The True and False #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

 

Nov 28, 2022

Do you use real or fictional cities in your writing? How do you incorporate them into the story?

There is a town called Oak Grove in Indiana, but it’s not my Oak Grove. I’ve never been there, but I was close. We were taking a shortcut between here and there, stopped at a gas station, and came across the town’s little newspaper. I still have it somewhere.

My fictional Oak Grove sits near the border of Pennsylvania and Ohio, north of Pittsburgh. I’ve kept its location a secret so that I can play with the differing laws and law enforcement structure between the two states. I’m writing fiction—so I can get away with it.

But Oak Grove, the home of Harmony Duprie, is based on several real small towns. As I wrote the second book in the series, I realized it was as much of a character in the story as the people, and tried to show that by focusing on events and people that shape the city. The small towns I’ve lived in for much of my life were the base for how Oak Grove developed.

In building the world around Oak Grove, I mixed in larger, actual cities to give readers a geographic reference. Pittsburgh. Cleveland. Washington D.C. Places I’ve visited so I don’t feel I’m making them up. (and the internet is a marvelous source of maps and images.) My Oak Grove boasts a marvelous Carnegie Library, but as is true in many small towns, the residents may have to travel to a bigger city for shopping or specialized health visits. Of course, these days, some of those issues are resolved thanks to on-line shopping and telehealth.

My urban fantasies are different. Because my wolf-shifters don’t want people to know where they are living, I made their location purposefully vague. I have a general location, and that’s it. The only time I identify a city is when they travel far from their home. (Easter egg: There are some crossover references to the characters from the Free Wolves series in the Harmony Duprie Mysteries. Yes, I realize they attract different types of readers, but I had fun doing it.)

I’m looking forward to seeing how the other authors on this hop answer this question. Can you use real cities in a story set in outer space? (I’m looking at you, Richard!) Just follow the links below to find out with me.

As always, until next time, please stay safe.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Nov 28, 2022

Do you use real or fictional cities in your writing? How do you incorporate them into the story?

Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

 

Learning For The Love Of It #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

October 24, 2022

If you could take a free class at a university, what course would you take?

There are many states in the US that offer free college courses to senior citizens. I always thought that was a neat bonus to growing old. Well, I’m there, age wise, and I’m also in one of those states. Now, I have to wait to be here for a full year to be eligible for the program, but that time will pass quickly. (I will have to buy books and man, they are expensive these days.)

But I have a dilemma. Do I want to tie myself down to classes again? I’m enjoying this whole ‘no schedule’ lifestyle. Or rather, a limited schedule. It’s ‘freeing’ not to worry about what time I get up or go to bed, changing what chores I will tackle any day on a whim, not taking my laptop with me everywhere I go because I might get called into work. (That was a hard habit to break!)

But if I decide to pick up a class or two or three, what class would I take? There are lots of options, many of them strictly on-line. It would have to be something I’m curious about. Or perhaps even passionate.

So, I flipped through some college catalogs, to find what i was looking for.

History courses could be fun, especially as I’ve lived through events that now appear in textbooks. To my surprise, English and writing courses don’t appeal to me like I thought they would. Maybe I’m afraid they’d cramp my style. But what would I consider tackling?

Back in the before years, my first choice of a college degree program was library science. I’ve worked in libraries, I’ve featured libraries in my stories—how much fun would it be to go back and complete my degree? Of course, everything has changed, including me, and it seems the classes that I’d need to take are on topics I can relate to. Perhaps it’s one of those ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’ occurrences.

I won’t pick any specific class. I have an entire program of classes to consider and the rest of my life to take them.

What subject would you pick if you were granted a free university class? Share in the comments if you like. And don’t forget to check out the other authors on this hop and find out what they want to try.

As always, until next time, please stay safe.

October 24, 2022

If you could take a free class at a university, what course would you take?

Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Bookmarks or Turning the Corners? #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

Feb 28, 2022

Let’s start a war. Do you dog-ear books or use a bookmark? Do you ever make notes in your books?

Warning: My original major in college was library science. I volunteered as a library aide in elementary and high school, and I worked part-time as a librarian for a few years. There should be no surprise at my answer.

Please, please, do not fold the corners of your books! Especially not a library book. Find a piece of scrap paper if you need to mark your spot and don’t have a bookmark. A piece of napkin, or ribbon or yarn, and if it comes down to extreme measures, a tissue.

I’ve found postcards and grocery lists and recipes in books I’ve borrowed. All of those are perfectly acceptable. But I’ve also run across books with page after page of folded-down corners—not just one or two and I want to scream!

And let’s talk about making notes in books. I recently bought a used book – fiction – where on the first page, almost every sentence, almost every word, was underlined. And the second page was in similar condition. After that, nothing. I don’t get it. There’s no logic to it. Did the previous owner suddenly stop reading the book after two pages? But what was so gripping about those first two pages that didn’t carry through to the rest of the story. I don’t understand.

It’s not like it was a textbook. I can understand underlining, highlighting, and making notes in a textbook. But this was a mystery, part of a well-known series. (Not mine!) Can someone explain this phenonomen to me?

As you can tell, I am a proponent of book marks. I have lots of them, in different shapes, sizes and style. Don’t worry, I didn’t lose my place in any books by pulling the bookmarks out to take the picture. They all came from books I’ve finished. I have a habit of storing my bookmarks in a book instead of on a shelf or in a drawer. They are better protected that way. I’ve had some of these for twenty or so years.

How many bookmarks do I own? Who knows? I would have to flip through the pages of every book I own to see if I left one there. That’s not going to happen.

Bookmarks can be cheap giveaways, or they can be tokens of someone’s love. When it comes to your personal books, I’ll look away if you dog-ear or write notes in them. But please, for the sake of everyone else, please don’t do that to a library book or a book you’ve borrowed from a friend!

Let’s hear from the other authors on this loop. Just follow the links below. And you can chime in too, readers. Talk to me in the comments.

As always, until next time, please stay safe.

Feb 28, 2022

Let’s start a war. Do you dog-ear books or use a bookmark? Do you ever make notes in your books?

Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Favorite Young Reader Novels #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Uncategorized

 

Nov 29, 2021

What was your favorite young reader novel growing up?

Was that even a category back in the dark ages? I had to look this up, because the definition of young reader baffles me.

What does young reader mean?
 
Both middle-grade books and young adult fiction are for young readers. Middle-grade fiction is comprised of books intended for readers between the ages of 8 and 12, while young adult fiction targets readers between the ages of 12 and 18.
 
That’s from https://www.masterclass.com/articles/whats-the-difference-between-middle-grade-fiction-vs-young-adult-fiction#what-is-young-adult-fiction. And that’s a really broad spectrum of readers. The difference between the reading ability between an 8-year-old and an 18-year-old is light years.
 
Now, for your consideration. I read James Michener’s Hawaii the summer after eighth grade. That made me 14, probably. And I read it in one weekend. I was also devouring Nancy Drew books in that same time frame. And cereal boxes, if I had nothing else nearby. In other words, I read whatever I could get my hands on.
 
To make it cleaner, let’s eliminate the adult books I was reading and stick with the ‘approved’ ones. In eighth grade, I was still in my ‘read a book a day’ phase. I’d get a book out after school, read it on the way home and after my homework was finished, and return it to the school library in the morning. I was also reading a lot of bibliographies and historical fiction. I never thought of reading only from one category. I’d read whatever looked interesting or a book the librarian suggested.
 
Then there were the Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. I’m not sure how many years my mother bought them, but I’d devour them in no time flat. Sure, they might have ‘condensed out’ the more adult portions, but they introduced me to authors I might not have come across on my own.
 
So, that’s stacks of books, many I don’t remember. That doesn’t mean some small piece of them didn’t stick with me. But, I won’t claim any of them as my favorite. I don’t have one.
 
Back to where we started – I still can’t wrap my head around the young adult definition. A good book is a good book. I may be old, but I can enjoy a well-written story about teens, and I hope the opposite is true.
 
Let’s see what the other writers think.  Just follow the links below.
 
As always, until next time, please stay safe.
 
 
 
Nov 29, 2021

What was your favorite young reader novel growing up?

Rules:

1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

 

The Form Found Me #IWSG

  By IWSG

 

August 5 question – Quote: “Although I have written a short story collection, the form found me and not the other way around. Don’t write short stories, novels or poems. Just write your truth and your stories will mold into the shapes they need to be.”
Have you ever written a piece that became a form, or even a genre, you hadn’t planned on writing in? Or do you choose a form/genre in advance?

The awesome co-hosts for the August 5 posting of the IWSG are Susan Baury Rouchard, Nancy Gideon, Jennifer Lane, Jennifer Hawes, Chemist Ken, and Chrys Fey!

I’ve told this story many times, but when I started to write what became The Marquesa’s Necklace, it was supposed to be a paranormal romance. My main character, a librarian, was supposed to fall in love with a handsome ghost that haunted the library. The original title was The Ghost Who Loved me.

Except Harmony, my librarian, didn’t like that. Not one bit. And the book turned into a mystery with a romantic subplot. And then became a series. And the ghost became a living, breathing man. But I didn’t erase all traces of the original story. In fact, I’ve paid tribute to it in each following book, in the form of a ghost living in an old Victorian house.

Here’s a snippet of one of their early meetings.

That’s when I ran into him the second time. I was doing my normal thing of walking through the 940’s with my nose in a book and I almost bumped into him. A sudden rush of cold air made me stop in my tracks and look up into a pair of eyes such a light blue they were almost gray.

“Oops, sorry about that.” I reached out to stop myself from falling, but he backed away. I managed to latch onto a shelf instead, so I didn’t end up with my face on the floor. My book did fall, and he bent over and picked it up. Without so much as a smile, he handed it to me and walked away without a word. Annoyed, I stood there with my mouth open and watched him turn the corner and vanish from my view. As I returned to my book I smelled the most unusual thing. I don’t know if it was his aftershave or what, but it made me think of freshly-turned dirt.

I’m currently writing the sixth (and final) book in the series, The Harmony Duprie Mysteries. Then I’m going to start on a new mystery series, unless the characters decide to make it something else.

Don’t forget to check out some of the other posts this month. There’s a whole big list to pick from!

Until next time, please be safe.

Growing Up #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

 

April 6, 2020

What did you want to be when you grew up vs. what you are today?

Once upon a time, I posed that question to Harmony, the main character in my mystery series. Well, Jake, the anti-hero, asked.

“You know, when I was a little kid, I wanted to be a cop when I grew up.” He glared at me. “Don’t laugh.”

I swallowed my chuckle with a sip of coffee. “What happened?”

He grimaced. “Life, I guess. I still think I would have been a good one.”

It was surreal, having a conversation with a renowned jewel thief about being a police officer. “Sometimes dreams just don’t work out,” I said, thinking about Janine and the library job.

“What dream hasn’t worked out for you?”

I picked up a section of the newspaper so he couldn’t see my eyes. “It’s not important. I’ve got a good life and good friends and that’s what matters.”

“Let me guess, you wanted to be an astronaut but your eyesight’s not good enough.”

“Worse. I wanted to be a cowboy. Not a cowgirl, mind you, but a cowboy.”

Jake snorted into his cup, spraying coffee everywhere. He snatched a handful of napkins from the holder and blotted the liquid from the newspaper. “Yeah, I can see where that might be a little hard to accomplish.” He eyed me. “You don’t have the right parts. But I must say, I like the parts you have.”

I crumpled up an insert from the paper and hurled it at him. I needed to find a way to keep him busy and out of my hair, and soon.

Now, I never wanted to be a cowboy. Daniel Boone, maybe. Or a hermit. There was a time I wanted to be a singer-songwriter, but only knew the basics about music. Or maybe a writer. Then I decided to be a librarian. 

Those of you who have followed this blog for awhile may remember I actually got to be one. Part-time, in a small library in a small town. But it was everything I wanted. I got to be surrounded by books, I got to do story hour for kids, I got to help pick out new books to the collection. Best of all, I got to read when there was nothing else to do!

Life happened, and I had to leave that small town and small library. Eventually, I was introduced to computers and fell in love. (I won’t talk about the many jobs in between.) Yes, I’m old. No one had a personal computer when I was a kid.. And now I’m a Windows server administrator. A job that didn’t exist when I was growing up. (And one that certainly wouldn’t have been suggested to a teenage girl.)

The best part is, I’m a writer too! Which may seem like an odd  combination. One is mathematical and the other creative. In the whole right side of the vs the left side of the brain theory, I’m using both equally, but not at the same time. And loving it.

I tell people I didn’t decide what I wanted to be when I grew up until I was over 40, and it’s the truth. Better late than never!

To find out what the other folks on this hop wanted to be when they grew up, follow the links below.

Be safe, everyone!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

April 6, 2020

What did you want to be when you grew up vs. what you are today?

Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.