Where Genres Collide Traci Dowe YA Author

A Bit of Insight

Traci Dowe/Kenworth

June 18, 2024

A Bit of Insight

Traci Dowe/Kenworth

Wisdom often comes to us late/r in life. When we’re young we jolt into things, never thinking of the consequences. Life has taught me so much. How to choose wiser friendships because not everyone you consider a friend is indeed a friend. That letting the love of your life walk away, thinking you don’t care about him when you’re just too shy/awkward to express your feelings will be something I regret forever.

Marrying someone to escape your circumstances doesn’t work either. That I had two beautiful children who truly, truly are better than anything else I’ve ever done was the best gift to come out of all that darkness. They have grown into such wonderful, thoughtful human beings it sometimes makes me want to cry. From madness and darkness, such sweet blessings take place.

I can’t say I always made the smartest of choices. However, because of the love of my children, I am a better person. I understand some things better. Like you can’t take the blame for someone that’s psychotic for the failure of marriage as I did in the past. When you get to the place that you realize it’s not your fault, there is such a freedom.

I used to think I deserved what happened because of some flaw within me. That’s how our abusers work. They get into those cracks and work on a person, breaking them down until they no longer recognize themselves. I believed in myself when I was nineteen and first discovered a writing career but I let someone else take that from me.

I guess what I’m saying is: be careful. Know who you have in your life and how sincere they are. Friend or foe. Spouse or deceiver. The list goes on. Predatory people exist in all venues. The victims must be willing and able to take back their lives, even if it takes many, many years after. To feel safe, to breathe, to live again. I hear and know such wonderful relationships to realize some win the lucky draw.

There are wonderful, kind, loving people out there as well. The journey lies in finding them and holding on to them. I’m not saying there won’t be arguments and let-downs, but those things can be worked around. It’s when a person de=humanizes you that you need to find the ability to get out.

People come into our lives for many different reasons. The best ones remain and treat each other with respect and dignity. They treasure each other. Those are the kind worth finding. How I wish I’d learned that at a younger age. Then again, my life now wouldn’t be the same.

Some posts around the web you might like:

1. Ann R. Allen with Ruth Harris: Should You Show a WIP to Friends and Family? (annerallen.com) What should a new writer do when friends or family members ask to look at your fledgling WIP (work in progress)? We’re usually eager to share our work, and want to hear if we’re on the right track.

The problem is, over-exuberant praise can keep us from polishing a draft, and commands to “send it out now!” can result in a lot of rejections.

On the other hand, getting negative feedback too soon can stall a WIP, stifle creativity — or even stop a career before it starts.

When I first started writing to publish at nineteen, I managed to get some fan fiction for Star Trek published in zines of the time. My editor was wonderful despite my inexperience, he helped me through. Then I found a cp (through the mail in those days) and he was balanced and fair in his comments. He even said he preferred to read my story compared to his favorite author which was high praise to me! Unfortunately, my abusive ex tore all that down. He was jealous of my writing and the time it took away from him. I was a small shell of a human before he was through. Thankfully, I’ve recovered after many years and intend to prove him wrong.

• Fantasy Café: The Leaning Pile of Books for 6/9/2024 | Fantasy Cafe (fantasybookcafe.com) he Leaning Pile of Books is a feature in which I highlight books I got over the last week that sound interesting—old or new, bought or received in the mail for review consideration. Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, and places where you can find more information on the book are included, along with series information and the publisher’s book description.

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org, and I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Last week brought an ebook I’m rather excited about—after all, it was featured as one of my anticipated 2024 speculative fiction book releases.

I’m starting to read more fantasy books as I’m leaning more that way than horror. Don’t get me wrong, I will probably always have a horror edge to things but fantasy is more my base or foundation on my stories.

• Nail Your Novel: Six common publishing and book marketing hustles of 2024 – and what we can do – Nail Your Novel (wordpress.com)

t’s really tough for authors to sell their books at the moment. And there are people who are hoping to make money from this.

I get approached almost daily by people on Linked In or Facebook who ask to connect with me, then try to sell marketing services of dubious value. Or I get emails of offers that are not what they seem.

These aren’t necessarily scams. If I pay up, I’ll probably receive some sort of service but it might not be worth the price – perhaps because it’s not professional, or it’s unsuitable for my kind of book, or massively overpriced. Or the service might not be worth paying for at all.

Here’s a rundown.  

I was surprised to read some of these scams. How clever of the new scammers out there! Be wary, everyone!

• Fiction Favorites: Views of the Neighborhood – Lakeway Air Park Open House | Fiction Favorites (johnwhowell.com)

I do love the pics of the planes. Reminds me of the ones we saw at a museum once.

• Chris the Story Reading Ape: Expanding Your Universe – Guest Post by Jaq D Hawkins… | Chris The Story Reading Ape’s Blog (thestoryreadingapeblog.com)  grew up reading Fantasy books through the 1960s and 1970s. It was in the early 1970s when all Fantasy readers *had* to read The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, though the stories had been written four decades earlier.

Thus began a new awareness of trilogies, though some had existed before. During that era, rather a lot of authors wrote Fantasy stories in trilogy form. Very few broke out into longer series. The first of these I read was The Death Gate Cycle by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis. There were (and still are) seven books to the series. I was exhausted with the world by the time I had finished them all, yet I had to finish and see what happened to Haplo, the main character.

I have loved fantasies forever! I just didn’t want to read series that were over say three books. It just seems like you’re being dragged along too long, I guess. Although, I have enjoyed Sarah J. Maas’s series The Glass Throne. That, I think was six or seven books. So, I guess it depends, lol.

• Smorgasbord: Smorgasbord Short Stories – Life’s Rich Tapestry #Family #Rejuvenation – Onions by Sally Cronin | Smorgasbord Blog Magazine (wordpress.com)

I really, really loved this story with my past history it hit the spot.

• A Writer’s Path: How to Avoid Becoming Jealous of Other Writers – A Writer’s Path (ryanlanz.com) It’s enough to make you mad in both senses of the word.

It rears its head at unexpected times, and social media seems to be a good place to foster it these days. And let’s face it–we’re always on social media.

Jealousy-provoking content is impossible to avoid.

In five minutes of scrolling through my Instagram feed, I can see dozens of photos of places I want to visit, people I’d like to meet (or be), books I wish I had written, book deals I’d like to have, cuter kids than mine, nicer handwriting than mine, people I’d like to look like, whatever it is that attracts my

This can be a hard situation. Yes, you want to root for your friends and even those you don’t know but you still feel at loss because you haven’t made it there yet. The best thing I’ve found is to push through the negative, remember why that person’s a good friend, and tell yourself you’ll get there asap. We all have our own journeys. Keep that in mind. What a great post!

• Entertaining Stories: Global Warming | Entertaining Stories (wordpress.com) Last week it was in the mid seventies here. We got a few scattered showers, and one decent thunder shower. There are still a few flowering trees around. It was lovely.

Today we’re toying with one-hundred degrees. It’s way too early in the year for this crap. I know everywhere else has had its weather issues, and this is small potatoes compared to tornados and flooding. Still, it’s kind of a ping-pong of changes to get used to.

I’m at a loss what to say and do about global warming. We’ve faced our share of heat and thunderstorms as well as a few tornados of late. It seems to be more winter here than anything most of the year. The cold stretches on forever it seems. I’d prefer the cold even when my arthritis acts up to the heat. My HS and asthma grate on me during such. I love when it’s cool in spring and fall. Just my seasons.

• Annette Rochelle Aben: Asking For It | Annette Rochelle Aben (wordpress.com)

Lovely poem!

1. Legends of Windmere: Happy Donald Duck Day! | Legends of Windemere With the end of the school year, I’m not having a lot of time to prep stuff for Sundays.  I said long ago that those animal posts require some research to the point where making one of them takes an evening.  I’m also running out of beasties, so feel free to give suggestions in the comments.  I don’t know every animal in the world and would love to look into some I haven’t done or heard about.

Anyway, today is Donald Duck Day.  He’s always been my favorite of the Disney characters and I loved his outbursts as a kid.  Who was your favorite Disney character from the older school?  (Yeah, I know it’s weird for me to do this since people may have picked up on me not being a fan of Disney.  Donald Duck might be the only soft spot I have for the company these days.  Maybe Stitch too.)

My favorite Disney character is Sleeping Beauty. Yeah, I know. But that fight scene with the dragon and Prince Charming? Sticks out in memory.

1. The PBS Blog: Angels in Black Skin – The PBS Blog Listen, yesterday started out annoying and frustrating for me.

Watching all these Black people walk past my table and frown at the title of my book (Black History Facts You Didn’t Learn in School) was disheartening and sad.

It wasn’t about the money. It never is. It was about the sheer audacity of people to be offended.

I wanted to run to the bathroom and burst into tears at the arrogance of a people with no interest in their own history. There was even an interracial couple who walked by, him Black, her white.

I wish more people had the courage to write their history. Me, included.

1. Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes: Is the Writing on the Wall? – Jaye Marie and Anita 1Dawes (jenanita01.com) Most of the time, my memory works fine, I am glad to say.

But when it refuses to work, which is becoming increasingly frequent these days, it can reduce me to a zombie. As you can imagine, this is not welcome for someone who practically invented multitasking.

I am beginning to cherish every minute of my normal brain activity and pray I can keep hold of it as long as possible.

I have a bit of trouble with mine. It’s harder to remember things I’ve written sometimes. The names of characters from TV shows or books. I know the storyline but the names just disappear. It’s definitely different, getting older.

1. Robbie’s Inspiration: Robbie’s Inspiration – Story Empire reblog: What fiction writers can learn from reading and writing poetry Part 2 – Robbie’s inspiration (wordpress.com) Hi everyone, it’s Robbie with you today and I’m continuing my conversation about the benefits of reading and writing poetry for fiction writers. I am also discussion a few famous poets who were also novelists. If you missed Part 1, you can find it here: https://storyempire.com/2024/05/08/what-fiction-writers-can-learn-from-reading-and-writing-poetry-part-1/ Part 1 talked to increased creativity benefits resulting from … 

I am usually drawn to poetry in times of sadness or great happiness. I love to twist a phrase, give the unexpected. I don’t often write it though. I should do more so as I agree with Robbie that it can be beneficial.

1. Entertaining Stories: Not the day I had planned | Entertaining Stories (wordpress.com) I wound up with an unexpected 4:00 a.m. alarm clock this morning. Frankie decided to wake up and barf.

I ran them both outside, then prepared their breakfast. I scrubbed the carpet while they ate. Seems so silly of me now. What I need to do is burn the house down and rebuild from the ashes.

This is because we managed to hit eleven barfs in total. Including all that dog food that went down around 4:15.

The cats choose the same: carpet or rugs. What is it about that? Sigh.