Really love the deals at Humble Bundle. Just got PaintShop Pro 2022, VideoStudio 2022, Painter 2022 and a whole lot of bonus brushes and effects for $35, with lifetime user licenses. I'm especially happy about VideoStudio, because MovieMaker seems to suck more and more with each new version.

Starting with, "Whatever happened to that song, anyway?"

So in trying to get an image of Trixie with short, curly hair on DALL-E, I kept getting something like the image on the left.

(And again with the eyes! I'm not sure why it can generally get one eye done well and the other is frequently quite messed up.)

But then I tried something that I wasn't sure would work, and lo and behold, here's Trixie.

Here're a couple more, too.

Tell me the one in pink doesn't look like a young Amy Adams!

So what turned out to be the secret? I had to put in a year in my description and nothing past 2000. Anything past that point was apparently blended with more racially diverse images. I started back in 1954 and worked forward. The 70s produced some funny results.

Last but not least, here's this one, which I think makes a perfect Moms.

How is it already the end of October? How? Where did this month go???

As a child, Trixie Belden wasn't my only "must-read" series. I also loved The Three Investigators. With the exception of younger teens solving mysteries, Mart talking a lot like Jupe and the, "Oh, look, another orphan!" trope, the two series weren't all that similar. And I'm about to say something er... sacrilegious here, but honestly, I feel like T3I stands up over the test of time better than TB. I think if I were to sit down and read book one from both series to a 7 or 8yo today, The Secret of Terror Castle would grab him/her much more than The Secret of the Mansion. Heck, even the title of the former sounds way more exciting than the latter.

So what turned me into a Trixie Belden writer versus someone playing in the Three Investigators sandbox? The primary thing that TB does do better than T3I - relationships. Yes, Jupe, Pete, and Bob are good friends, and yes, there are some fun secondary characters like Aunt Matilda and Hans & Konrad, but for the most part, T3I is focused on the mystery story of each book. (In this way, I suppose, though the characters and settings are more unique and fleshed out, T3I has more in common with Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys.) The Trixie series devotes so much time to the relationships of the characters, we even have mysteries that aren't really much of a mystery. That's the real attraction of the series for me and that's why I've spent 20+ years (off and on) writing Trixie stories.

I don't do crossovers, but I suppose if I was ever going to do one, it would be with T3I. I can totally see Mart and Jupe in a verbal sparring match, lol. Meanwhile, I think in honor of the approaching Halloween, I might dig up my T3I copy of The Green Ghost. Or The Sinister Scarecrow. Hmmm...

Well, I haven't devoted time to ASKOF this month, but I am really excited for the debut of All Hallows' Eve: Into the Preserve!

Side Bar: Just read back in the blog and can't believe it's been another 2 years. I did finish my Master's and at the time my job ended up being "necessary" during COVID, which found me working 60+ hours a week while most people were in lockdown. Last fall, I took a different job that has kept me extremely busy, but at least it pays more.

So, it's been awhile, obviously, and I thought maybe I should re-read ASKOF before diving into writing a new episode. I guess I never realized how long this monster really has gotten, even with the word counts. It's going to take me some time to get through it. Considering I started this about 23 or so years ago and it was mostly written on the fly with whatever struck me at the time, I should probably also take notes while I go.

My goal? Read everything and get the next 3 regular episodes written by somewhere mid-October, and then be able to get Special Episode 5.2 Ghost Walk posted by Halloween.

So, Weebly got rid of the plan I'd been on for years. As far as I can tell (*crosses fingers*) I still have all the options like embedding videos. I just have to put up with the Weebly banner or start paying $12 a month. That's not too bad, except the site used to cost me 0.38 cents a month so it is a bit of a sticker shock.

Meanwhile, I randomly selected an episode and there seems to be some wonkiness with the dividing lines I used. If that's true of all of them, yikes.

Hello, again. I am hoping to start writing again. It's not a matter of writer's block or anything like that. Just a lack of time, sadly. 

I am having a remarkably hard time writing in the soap opera-y, dialog-driven, fast-paced style of ASKOF. Usually, I can separate things. Mardi Gras Mask was "Let's pretend to be an original series ghost writer!" Cold Lake Murders is "Let's pretend to write an actual novel!" 31 Things to Do in Sleepyside When You're Dead is "Let's pretend to be a comedy writer!" And ASKOF was always, "Let's pretend there are no rules and anything goes and there is no such thing as too over-the-top!" But now, in working on Rocket Man, I keep finding myself toning things down. Or putting in details that aren't necessary. With ASKOF, I took the attitude of, "You know who these characters are. You know where they live. You know their histories." So, I didn't ever bother with, "William Regan, the Wheeler's groom" explanations. For some reason, I keep going there now... ​🙄

So, ASKOF is heavily influenced by music. When I write it, I have something playing in the background for inspiration. A few nights ago, I had Youtube running and it landed on some version of the song A Million Dreams. I didn't know this song and I had to look it up to learn it was from The Greatest Showman. 

I did not look up A Million Dreams because I particularly liked it. I looked it up because it was nagging at me. Because it reminded me too much of something I couldn't quite put my finger on. Tonight, it clicked into place for me. Linkin Park's Waiting for the End. Yeah, if you are familiar with both songs, you may think, "Huh?" But the, "All I want to do is trade this life for something new." of Waiting for the End and "Every night I lie in bed. The brightest colors fill my head." of A Million Dreams are *thisclose* to the same thing, melody-wise.

Funny how that works.