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!