This story has been going on for so long, there are parts where I'm all, "I don't remember writing this. Weird." I'm almost through season 4, and pretty soon will be able to start adding new episodes. :)
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For over a year, my previous employer promised me my department would get the additional positions it needed. I was working many, many hours of overtime (unpaid because I was a salaried employee) and still couldn't keep up. But when the time came? Other departments gained positions in the re-org and mine? Nothing. So, I finally had enough and left. Tomorrow, I start a new job. The work is basically the same, but in another county. There will be a longer commute, but the trade-off is this department is fully, reasonably staffed. I will be doing the work of one person, not three or four.
I am looking forward to having my evenings and weekends back and one of the first things I can't wait to jump back into is writing. Yay! Fanfiction is dying. It's still there if you look for it, but its heyday has passed. Something that began as a way for fans to continue/expand upon stories and universes they loved grew into active online forums and groups, then slowly saw its popularity wane again as the world seemingly moved on.
I have a theory, though. Fanfiction is dying... because in many ways it went mainstream. Whether they call it "reboots" or "alternate universes," a large number of fandoms saw themselves reborn in book, TV, and movie form. As such, what was once a free offering online by dedicated fans became the new canon of "official" publication/release and the line between the original creation and additional fan contributions has been heavily blurred. For me, I've always wrote Trixie stories for my own amusement. If people enjoy them, I'm very glad, but in the end, they serve as escapism for me and in that way, I'm actually glad the Trixie Belden series has mostly stayed under the radar where the copyright holder is (as far as I can tell) content to let sites like mine go unnoticed and unremarked. That said, I do think TV Trixie would've kicked TV Nancy Drew's rear end, if she'd ever had the chance. For literally half a year now, the folks at the top of the food chain where I work have been promising to hire more people because we desperately need help. They have continued to fail spectacularly at the task. They haven't even posted the open positions to accept applications and resumes, much less gotten any further in the process. Meanwhile, I'm supposed to have Fridays off for the summer, but that keeps not happening as well. I still intend to start writing again, even if it's only a half hour or so a day, because I miss it very much.
I also do want to see what happens if I ask ChatAI to write a Trixie mystery... 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. |
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