April.....fools?

So hi

What's been going on?

I hope you are well

Because. Um. Yeah. Lots going wrong in the world, isn't there?

I'm happy to report, for my part, that while the library is closed, my coworkers and I all still have jobs. Many of us even have job duties that we can still perform from home. This is a privilege that I am VERY thankful for; I feel unbelievably lucky.

And we're seeing now just how much libraries can still do from home. There are digital escape rooms, there are livestreamed storytimes (with many publishers and children's book authors generously saying "yes, it's okay to read my books for these." Many ebook lending restrictions have been lifted, and I know at my library, Hoopla, our newer streaming service, has been wildly popular. Run With the Hunted, et al will eventually be added to Hoopla...Draft2Digital started that process back in like, November, and I think both services were unprepared for how many people were gonna say yes all at once.

One of those work-from-home things is my writing group. We've just had a big email ol' email chain, that I kick off each Saturday with a collection of writing prompts, and people who feel up to it send back what they came up with. I've been working on a short story in this way, bit by bit, prompt by prompt. I'm not really sure how it will end up, but that's taking shape. It's interesting to write in that way, letting people read it as you go, instead of after you've ironed out the wrinkles and tacked down the edges and done things like give people names (....whoops...)


I've been putting the prompts on my Patreon, for free. And I'm going to link the ones I've got so far right here:

Digital Writing Group! Prompts, volume 1
Digital Writing Group! Prompts, volume 2
Digital Writing Group! Prompts, volume 3
Digital Writing Group! Prompts, volume 4
Digital Writing Group! Prompts, volume 5
Digital Writing Group! Prompts, volume 6

In addition to that, I've been working on Run With the Hunted 3: subtitle to be determined, and making satisfactory progress on that. I've even got a coveer in the works! So I'll let you know here, and everywhere, when there are pre-orders for that.

I also plan to do an omnibus that collects the first three novellas under one roof, as it were. I'm thinking hardcover AND paperback for that, which means I'll be wrangling with the Ingram book formatting program. So that'll be a new experience! And then I'll  need a cover for THAT too. So...any suggestions would be welcome!

And last but not least, I've had two short stories published so far this year! The first is "For Thine is the Kingdom", which appeared in Truancy in January. The second is "Black Market Cheerios", which appeared in Lamplight Volume 8, Issue 2, in March.

For news along these lines,  you can subscribe to my TinyLetter, which I send out with slightly more frequency than I blog anymore (I used to blog a lot...I guess now you can tell that I'm writing more!)

Stay safe out there. Stay home if you can. It's a great time for reading, and for writing, if you can. Or baking bread, as so many people are doing. Or cross stitch or doing the plank challenge or binging everything you never got around to on various streaming services.

Until next time!

Library insanity 3

A patron walked into the library around 6 or 7 in the evening. She came to the desk, looking a little nervous. This nervousness is a normal state for some of our more....interesting...patrons, but this one is normally friendly and confident.

"There's a timer outside", she said. "In the gazebo."
"Time like...on a bomb?" I asked suavely.
"Yeah, you can hear it ticking." She walked over and opened the door. Indeed, you can hear it ticking.
"Modern bombs don't tick," I said (so rarely can I apply this quote in everyday conversation. Most times, nobody even gets it. But that's all right. I know.)
"Should I touch it?" She asked. I weighed the options, quickly. My coworker was out of the room. We aren't allowed to leave the desk unattended. Did I really want to go closer to a potential bomb. Would it really be a bomb? That seemed kind of ridiculous. Luckily, the male patron by the DVDs had started paying attention.
"Oh, that's mine," he said, a little defensively. We both looked at him. "It's for my pot roast."

Oh. Of course.

Library Insanity: 2 Vignettes

The library can be busier some days than others. Also more sane than others. These three stories are all from the same day. The picture from the week prior, of one of the library puppets, discarded corpse like on the floor of the children's room.

Ebooks to end libraries?

Apparently, libraries are going to go out of business. Didn't you here? The Interweb has books now!

Not impressed? Don't think the sky is falling? Don't think the gotterdammerung of the library is nigh? Yeah, me neither.