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Writing Prompts

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WHAT THE FORK IS GOING ON HERE?

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hat the fork is going on here,” asked the fat man with the shiny forehead. 

I had to turn to look at him because the words did not match the tone. 

My first vision of him was one to behold. He was wearing a button up Hawaiian shirt in muted tropical colors, like it had become intimate friends with the hot water laundry over many years of beloved service. He was wearing khaki shorts that came down to his hairy knees. He was wearing loafers with white crew socks. He had his hair combed, or combed over, straight across his head, greased down to almost a perfect crease, obviously done with great care in front of the mirror. 

He looked out of place in the bar, where business men and women stood waiting for their glasses of wine or craft ale. He held out his brightly colored cocktail toward the bartender, with a bewildered look on his paunchy face. He was rather short, so he had to look up to the bartender as he spoke.

“Why is there a fork in my drink?” He asked. “There is supposed to be a festive cocktail umbrella, like I ordered. A fork looks nothing like an umbrella, I am not sure how you could have mistaken the two.” 

It was clear the man had partaken in a few of these tropical concoctions as the night had passed. He did not appear angry but more affronted by the bartender’s mistake. 

“I can’t do anything with this fork. I can’t drink through it like a straw, and when I try to use it like a spoon, the drink just goes right through it back into the glass. It would take me all night to drink it like this, and I really don’t have all night.”

The bartender smiled kindly at the man, and offered to fix him a new drink, this one with a foldable, paper umbrella, just like they had in Hawaii. The man nodded in appreciation. 

As he turned to walk back to his table with the freshened, newly umbrellaed drink, I saw that he had a red carnation pinned to his left lapel. 

It hit me like a hammer. This was my tinder date. What the fork.

That was a very short story I wrote in my writing group prior to COVID. We would meet every other week at a coffee shop, a different one each time, and work on writing prompts. This one was simply “What the fork is going on here?” What came after was all from our imaginations. I loved that group. We all loved to write, read our work, and play writing games before we would go back to our own lives which were dominated by non-writing activities. The group tried to stay together after the lockdown, but just like everything else, it faded away over a very short time as we all adjusted to our new lives.

I love going back and reading the little tidbits of stories I wrote back then. They were whimsical and fun. So much different than writing chapters for books, or whole books. They captured mere minutes in life, fleeting thoughts and actions. Something small and trivial until put to words on “paper.”

I always enjoy sharing my work, so I will treat you to a couple more today.

ALTERNATIVE VAMPIRE

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She had not fed for days. She could feel the weakness in her limbs. It had started with the tingling in her toes. She wiggled them in her Converse sneakers, and at the same time that she was developing an unsightly hole in the left shoe. She would have to take a trip to the outlet stores on the weekend to buy a new pair. Black high-tops. Chucks. She had been wearing them for 3 decades, one pair after another, through all the trends and styles. They always seemed to be in. Now she pushed that thought away and found herself shaking her wrists, like one used to do with a mercury thermometer. She hated that feeling of pins and needles. She felt uneasy, and was sure that all around her could sense her discomfort. She did a quick survey. She was sitting at an outside table at a coffee shop, her latte in front of her, ignored as she contemplated her dire situation. If anyone was looking, it was due to her spaced out appearance, not because they knew her secret. She had kept it to herself for over a century, and today would not be the day it was revealed. She had been too careful. She had lost friends and lovers to carelessness over the decades, and now, as she sat alone, watching the city dwellers go on with their daily routine, she thought it might be her time. No, I am not ready, she insisted to herself. There is too much to do, too much to fix. I must find a way to go on. She had been weak, she had succumbed to the urges to leave her past behind and move on, not preparing for what was to come. She sipped her drink and grimaced. She twirled around the contents, as if to believe that the heat resided at the bottom of the cup, just waiting to be released. She sipped again. Cold. She stood up and walked to the trash can and threw the cup inside with a look of disgust. As if she thought this could save her. How long could she go? Did she have the strength to get to where she needed to be, to get what she needed, to thrive again? 

She thought of her mother. She had not seen her since that fateful night so many years ago, when she had turned …different. Her parents and brothers would be long gone now. She did not know if they married, had children, grandchildren. It would probably be easy to find out, but to what end? How could she ever explain her affliction, how she remained forever young, and had to feed….

It was time to make a plan. She took out her cell phone and started to search. She found a likely place not too far away. It was one train and 2 bus rides from where she was. She could be there by 4pm. It was a start. 

She walked to the train stop and stood apart from the others. She could not stand the smell of humans when she was hungry. They repulsed her. It was hard to believe she used to walk among them as one of them. It was easier early on, when one could go days without seeing a neighbor, and had to make an effort to be in a crowd.  Now she could not get away, no matter where she went. They did not understand her any more than she understood their modern ways. 

The train pulled up and she got in the front car. Sat in the front and wondered if this would work. Every time was a struggle. But it was worth the effort, to keep going, to keep vital.

An hour later, she got off the bus and approached her destination. She paid her fee and went inside. She walked around looking for the most likely target. There it was, in the corner, by itself, apart from the crowd. She looked around. No one could see her, no one could stop her. She stepped over the fence. She approached it. She stooped down to its level. Now, if only she could think of a way to get the goat to surrender its tears.

MAGIC WAS THE KEY

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Magic was the key. He had been practicing since he was a child and learned about Houdini. He adored escapes and sleight of hand, although an occasional card trick kept him entertained. He was in high school now and trying to work out a plan. 

The idea of pursuing magic came on him like a strike of magic! He would pursue his dream of entertaining the masses with his tricks and illusions. He would tempt them with his deceit and reel them in with his revelations! He had to find a way to make this dream a reality. He had never heard of a college major in magic. That would be his ideal, to spend the remainder of his formative years immersed in his passion, learning from the masters, perfecting his trade and adding his own illusions to those that came before him. But the dream might not come to fruition if there was no place for him to go to learn. There was no Hogwarts University, and no owl to invite him to study with witches and wizards. If there was something like that, he had not been made aware, and had to look at all of his options.

He needed a trick. One would reel everyone in. With everyone having computers now, he would be able to video tape his new trick and entrance the world with his glory. He would have to get a video camera. He could use his savings, that was set aside for college, as college now did not seem to be his calling. He would bring the world of magic to its knees. Magicians would be lining up at his door, seeking to learn his secret, but he would not reveal it, not yet. Not until his notoriety had hit a crescendo, until he was producing new tricks and drawing new audiences. It would be fantastic. No one would ever call him four eyed McGee anymore. They would be begging for his autograph, just to touch the hem of his cape.

So now he needed to invent the new trick. He looked around his room. He listed his assets. A box full of D and D dice, half spilling on to his desk on top of his loose papers and gum wrappers. An apple core that he had hurled toward the trash bin on Tuesday, but it bounced off the rim and onto a pile of dirty jeans and briefs. His fish tank with the single Siamese Fighting Fish, sitting still in the center of the tank but for the wagging of a dorsal fin. Muddy dog prints on the carpet on his white tee shirt on the floor near the hamper. Not much to go on. He could make an apple disappear, but that was simply by ingesting it. Nothing new or fancy. 

He opened the window to air out the smell of dirty socks, and to try to extend the time until his mother told him his room smelled like the inside of a gym locker. He took a deep breath of the late spring air, and caught a whiff of baking bread coming from the bakery down the street. His mind started to drift toward the rumble in his stomach. He knew the magic trick to make that go away. Just at that moment, there was a call from downstairs. “Dinner’s ready!”

As he headed barefoot down the stairs, taking them 2 at a time, he pondered asking his mother her trick for knowing when it was just the right time to feed her family. That was the real magic. 

If you are interested in writing groups, you can probably find them on Facebook or Instagram in your search bar. Many are on-line, but there are also local groups that meet too. We enjoyed using word or prompt generators to come up with ideas for our fifteen-minute writing sprints. There are a lot of options to choose from online. I wish you luck in your writing! Happy Summer!

Here again are the links to my Facebook page, Debby Meltzer Quick Author, TikTok, @dbmquick and Instagram, quickdebby_author. Please follow me on these pages. And please explore my page here at debbymeltzerquickauthor.com.

And here is the link to my new book, Don’t Say a Word

“Absolutely and Totally Smitten” and Author Takeover!

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Book number 3 is making its big debut on Valentine’s Day! But first, you can get the eBook on Amazon on pre-sale.

Absolutely and Totally Smitten

It will be delivered to your device on February 14!

On February 17, I will be doing an author takeover on BTC Bookclub https://www.facebook.com/groups/575816683857603/?ref=share_group_link&exp=7ffb

I will have control most of the day. I will be having a small launch party that day, too, and I will do a reading. It’s book number 3, which is a lot like baby number 3, so I’m not gonna throw it a huge shower! Anyway, I’ll be posting hourly on the site, and doing a giveaway. It should be fun. I hope you can check it out and show your support. It would mean a lot!

It feels pretty great to have three books published now. My favorite book is #4, which will come out next. It’s probably a good idea to read the others first so all the relationships make sense, but you can pretty much pick up any of my books and get a coherent story even if you haven’t read any of the others. Just be aware, you might not pick up on some of the background nuance. As long as you go into it aware, it will be okay!

Here is the blurb for book 3, Absolutely and Totally Smitten

Can you climb back up after you’ve fallen from the top of the world?

Chris Mahoney was born destined for greatness. He is a natural leader and rules a posse of junior high bad boys. But in high school, things start to change for Chris. He discovers first love, and he starts to mend his bad boy ways. When circumstances beyond his control lead to heartbreak and loneliness, Chris must find a way to get through, and humble himself enough to ask for help. Soon, he and his friends are off to college, and new experiences. Growth and more heartache follow him into his adult years, until something unexpected occurs. He encounters an old acquaintance from high school, and slowly becomes intrigued with her charm. But can he open himself up to possibly being hurt yet again?

Absolutely and Totally Smitten is the third book in the series McKinney High Class of 1986. It follows your favorite teens through the journey from childhood into adulthood, and the exhilarating experience of getting to know your forever friends all over again as adults.

Give it a read! What do you have to lose???

Happy Thanksgiving!-Anniversary

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Happy Thanksgiving to my not-IRL friends! This is also a big anniversary for me. It was two years ago this November that I had the dream that led me to start to write my first book. It was a vivid dream, one I can still see in my head if I concentrate hard enough. I was back in school, and it was high school. But it wasn’t my high school. I was at the public high school in my hometown. Somehow or other, I had ended up back at public high school after a year at private school. I was in the cafeteria, and I had finished my lunch. I was dumping my trash in the garbage can, when suddenly a boy I had not seen since I was in junior high approached me and asked me if it hurt. When I inquired about what would be hurting, he answered with a crooked smile, “when you fell from heaven.” In my dream, that pickup line led to a whirlwind relationship, and I got flashes of the next two years and how wonderful it was. I was so happy that I had gone back to public school. The dream was heading for happily ever after, when suddenly, a voice over spoke. “But none of this ever happened,” it said in a flowery but professional female voice, “because someone was out sick that day and the two never met by the garbage cans.

I don’t know if any Star Trek fans read my blog, but if so, do you remember the classic Next Generation episode where Jean-Luc Picard gets zapped by an alien probe, and ends up living decades on a strange planet, including having a wife, children, and grandchildren, and even learning how to play the flute, until he was a very old man, and he was returned to his ship, only to find that only 25 minutes had passed? Yeah, that’s kind of how it felt for me when I woke up from this dream. It had seemed so real, so vivid, that I had to sit there for a minute and remind myself that I graduated from high school, and not a public one, 35 years earlier! I was a bit disoriented, and couldn’t stop thinking about the dream for days.

It wasn’t the content of the dream so much, but the feelings it brought. I felt like I had missed something. There have been several times over the years when I have wondered what my life would have been like if I had gone to public school. Who would I have been friends with? The same people from junior high, or some other people from other junior highs that all converged on the same high school? Would I have met some new boy in high school, and would we have hit it off? Maybe whoever he was, he was at a private school somewhere thinking the same thing as me, about what it would have been like if things had gone differently.

I could have let it go right there, but actually, I couldn’t. I was anxious. We had just started with the Omicron variant of COVID, and things were not looking up with the world at that moment. I was stuck at home, working a job that I felt I could perform better with in-person collaboration, especially with my ADHD. I was craving change, something different. My family was doing the best they could. My poor daughter was stuck doing on-line school, which was not the best plan for her, and my retired husband was trying to keep the house together and also respect my need for quiet and confidentiality while I worked. Poor guy. And there I was, sitting in my tiny little home office, which was more like a glorified closet with windows on the far side of our bedroom. With a desk and a bookshelf in there, there was barely room to push back my chair, and my bed was two feet away, reminding me every moment that I was not in the office, and I had just crawled out of the covers right there only hours before, and would return there later that night. I HATED working from home. And there was no end in sight.

I mentioned before that I had been knitting, and I ended up completing 42 hats. That’s a lot of hats. They were in piles on a table near the front door, and my husband kept asking me what I was going to do with them. They kept falling over. I had no idea what to do with them. But then, the dream. I couldn’t stop thinking about the dream. The feelings. The not knowing. It was pushing at my brain. So one day, I decided to do something about it.

I started to write it down. I created some people. There was the girl, Sally, who had left her friends and gone to private school, to find her way, and see if it was a better fit for her than private school. Her parents had given her a choice, and she had decided. Then there was James. James was slightly troubled. He had difficulty with focus, and a brother with lots of problems. James represented the unknown to Sally. I had to give them a slight back story, so I did. They were acquainted in junior high, but he was a bad boy, and she was, uh, well, she hadn’t figured out what she was yet at the time. But somehow, she had some kind of connection with the bad boys.

And that’s where reality ended. When Sally meets James again in the hallway of McKinney High on the first day of school, every bit of that book becomes fiction. Sally and James set the stage and told me what needed to happen. Characters do that. They tell you about themselves, and when you put them together, they tell you what they are like together. You can write something else, but it won’t work. There is a chemistry, and if your characters have it, you have to go with it. You. Have. No. Choice. But I’m glad. Because Sally and James’s chemistry worked. It worked well for them, and for me. And the next thing you know, there’s a really long story about Sally and James. And my dream is satisfied.

The only problem, of course, is that once May I Have Your Attention Please was completed, Sally and James told me something else, something new, something unexpected. Their story was over, sort of, but there were lots of other stories to tell, and I already knew the characters. They were Sally and James’s friends, the ones that supported them, and helped them to make it all happen. They all had stories. And I had to tell them.

So I did. I wrote six more books in the series, each of them featuring supportive characters that were present in the hotel room on the night of junior prom. Junior prom. Something I didn’t go to, but Sally did. And it was the most wonderful time of her young life. I’m happy for Sally. And for James. They had it easy, and they found love.

As the series progresses, things are not so easy for all of the other characters. Kim and Carl have a tough time getting it together in Book 2, I Just Can’t Say I Love You. And some of the other characters don’t even end up with who they started with, as you will see in Book 3, coming in February. In Book 4, our female lead doesn’t even really have a high school boyfriend, and in Book 5, the female lead has more than one, but is not who we thought she was. Books 6 and 7 will surprise you, and if you’re anything like me, they’ll make you cry just a little.

I am now working on another series, which is in the same time period, but not featuring our McKinney High friends. They are there in some of the books as minor characters, but this series introduces you to new players, and new settings, including New York, Delaware, and Colorado (Eastboro is still in there, though. I love Eastboro). I’m on book 7 of 7 now, so I’m about to have to figure out what I’m doing next. I might leave the 1980s and Eastboro all together, and maybe try a completely different genre. Maybe add some magical touches. Only time, and my imagination, will tell.

Here again are the links to my Facebook page, Debby Meltzer Quick Author, TikTok, @dbmquick and Instagram, quickdebby_author. Please follow me on these pages. And please explore my page here at debbymeltzerquickauthor.com.

Enjoy your holiday that has nothing to do with turkeys, and make the most of being with your family, whether the one you were assigned at birth, or the one you have chosen for yourself.

.

PenCraft Award Winner!

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Imagine my surprise on Thursday when I got an email from the PenCraft Book Award for Literary Excellence announcing their 2023 winners. I had forgotten all about the contest that I had entered in the spring. I had actually forgotten about all of the contests that I entered. Recently, I thought about the next round of book awards, in 2024, and wondered if it was worth it to even enter next time. It seemed like maybe it was a waste of time and money. Well, the money part wasn’t actually that bad. Nothing more than $100 with an average around $30. The highest prizes for winners were monetary, so it made sense to have a fee. Everyone had said to enter for prizes. It could get you notoriety, and a nice little foil seal to put on your book cover.

But these award people don’t know me very well. You see, I’m that kid who always thought I would win games of chance. I thought that every raffle prize was just minutes from being mine. I thought, “why not me?” To be honest, I wasn’t just that kid. I’m also that adult. Even now, I start to spend my lottery winnings days before I find out that I lost. I just don’t see why it won’t happen for me. Winning the lottery is part of my long-term plans, part of my retirement plan. So yeah, as you can imagine, I get disappointed and discouraged easily. My mom tells me she used to feel so bad for me, because I had so much hope, only to have it all dashed on the ground after my name or number is not called. I can’t even imagine how hard it is for people around me to see me so giddy, only to have to console me after, when I resemble a dog that just got left in a car while its owners are enjoying a steak dinner inside the restaurant.

But this time, it was a little different. I couldn’t remember anything about the PenCraft award, so I opened the email to refresh my memory. But the email did not say much about the award. What it did say was this:

“We are pleased to announce that our judges of the 2023 PenCraft Book Awards for literary excellence voted your book May I Have Your Attention Please as our Young Adult-Coming of Age Runner-Up Winner!”

Okay, wow, I thought. That’s awesome! But then it hit me. What does runner-up mean? Does it mean that other people won, and I didn’t? Am I one of hundreds of people who are “runners-up?” Is it basically the same thing as a honorable mention? So I did a bit of research (not much as it didn’t take much) and found out that no, what an honorable mention is, is pretty much third place. Third place. I can tolerate third place, especially for an award I didn’t even remember I signed up for. So then I got excited. I won an award! I immediately took a screen shot and sent it to my brother, and then called my mother. They were excited for me, even if I didn’t win the money! “It was an honor just to be nominated!” Haha. No, really. The email had gone on to say that I needed to send them my home address so they could send me a certificate and some foil seals that I can adhere to the front cover of my book. That’s pretty exciting!

Well, then, of course, I started to doubt myself. How legit was a contest that you had to pay to enter? Is it possible that this is all a ruse, aimed to get indie authors to spend even more of their personal money on their writing, when in reality, they should be making money, not spending. So on another Google search I went, to find out if the PenCraft award was, indeed valid.

So the first hit I get is an article about scam contests. Oh no. I read the article and it said something about sending in money to these scams, not knowing who the people are, who the judges are, and if they even read your book. I mean, really. I think there were 1,100 entries or something in this contest. Each judge probably had a category. How many books in each category? How many books did these judges even have to read? I mean, okay, let’s say there are 35 categories, and each has 3 winners. That’s 105 winners. On average, each category would have about 35 entrants. So three winners out of 35. Is that percentage any good? And, after all this, did I even get my numbers right, or did I just make all of this up? And I found a list of contests, and whether or not they were legit. And PenCraft wasn’t on either list, so….

But then I read the PenCraft website, and it seemed okay. I decided to just let it be okay. And to make social media posts saying I had won a contest. And you know what? People were really great. I got a ton of hits, and people were really happy for me. People I know IRL have been really happy for me. I haven’t sold any extra books yet, but that’s okay. I don’t know if I would buy a book based on the fact that it won an award. Maybe I would. However, I would probably buy the book based on the fact that it won an award and the author had marked the eBook down to $1 on Kindle for a promotion and just kept “forgetting” to put it back to the regular price (I did that! It’s still $1 on Amazon!). But I am really looking forward to putting that little seal on my covers!

So will I enter any more contests? Well, that remains to be seen. I just don’t know. I have some time, like 4-5 months to decide. Maybe in the meantime, I’ll win something else that I forgot about, and that will keep me going on endorphins and dopamine just a little bit longer.

THIS IS THE AWARD WINNING BOOK! YOU CAN ORDER IT ON MY WELCOM PAGE, OR DIRECTLY FROM AMAZON, BARNES AND NOBLE, OR INGRAM SPARK IF YOU ARE A BOOK RETAILER!

And don’t forget book 2, I Just Can’t Say I Love You is now available at the same places, and eBook on Kindle Unlimited.

Here again are the links to my Facebook page, Debby Meltzer Quick Author, TikTok, @dbmquick and Instagram, quickdebby_author. Please follow me on these pages. And please explore my page here at debbymeltzerquickauthor.com.

Book 2 is Coming! Book 2 is Coming!

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It’s coming soon! My new book, book 2 in the series, “McKinney High Class of 1986, ” I Just Can’t Say I Love You! I’m so excited about this! Launching Book 1 was exciting and stressful. And launching Book 2 is, well, stressful and exciting! It definitely was less scary. I mean the whole process. I was so terrified to send my files to the distributors the first time, like something I did would break the whole system and steal all my money. I had to actually go to Best Buy last time to have them help me load one of my files due to the imbedded fonts. This time, everything went through almost much too easily. I’ve requested proofs to be sent to me and I just have to wait to make sure, but then I can order real copies, and start to sell them! To be honest, I love my first book, but I really feel that each of my books gets better and better than the last one. I’m writing number 11 right now. Maybe it will be a Pulitzer Prize winner! Haha.

But the struggle has been real. This whole indie scene has been a struggle. Nothing is easy about self-publishing, and the payoff, well, is not much of a payoff. I was aware that it would be slow going, but I had no idea how frustrating it would be, not being able to break through to the public. I know I have this great product, but I just can’t get it out there. I have sold a bit above 100 copies of my book. I have given away several more. I have sold a couple in bookstores, which is exciting, but there are soooo many books to compete with, including those that have become best sellers (I’m talking about you, Colleen Hoover). It doesn’t help that I have to work full time in a very stressful profession at the same time as trying to market my books. I can’t spend all day trying to push my books. So I do as much as I can on social media. I feel a bit like a telemarketer! Recently, I changed jobs, and I no longer have a commute where I can read, write, or go on social media. Sometimes, I would even market on the bus. That was fun. I would read my own book on the bus and when someone asked me what I was reading, I would tell them. And show them. And sometimes impress them. But now I have a five-block walk to work. I could try to sell to the pigeons along the way, but they like mystery books better as a group. What I need is a carrier pigeon to drop some books on the heads of random passersby.

I’m going to try to sell my new book on Kindle Unlimited. Have you tried it? I used standard Kindle for the first book. I’m not sure if it will be a different experience. I hope that doing this gives new people an opportunity to see my book who might otherwise not. I haven’t tried joining Kindle Unlimited yet. I prefer paperback books myself, although I do partake on the occasional eBook. What’s your preference? What do you like about each one? I like books because they don’t have backlighting. I like the way they feel in my hands. I like the way they smell. I like pages to turn manually. I like that they can be signed by the author. What I like about eBooks is that I can get them so quickly. If I have my Kindle in my bag, and I’m stuck somewhere, I can just order up a new book, and read it right away. Maybe some light reading or something I wouldn’t have ordered on-line and waited two days or more to receive. Right now, I’m rereading Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I read it last when I was about 14 years old. I referenced it in one of my manuscripts, so I thought it was about time for me to read it again. And it’s so worth it. Such a great book. I wish I had as good marketing as that book had! 🙂

This is the last cover reveal image I’ll show you. I still have three more days to complete on social media. Maybe you can extrapolate what it looks like from what I’m giving you here. What does it look like to you? Do you judge books by their cover? I do. I know it’s not always accurate, but I’ve read a lot about the science (well, social science, I guess) of book art. You develop your cover based on your genre. So what happens if your book covers more than one genre? I guess you go for the most prevalent one. In my case, I go toward the romantic imagery. It can be stunning, and it’s really hard to make a cover around a 1980s retro high school friend/families coming-of-age love story with social issues theme. So yeah, romance seems to sell. And there is romance in my books. Quite a bit. But for those of you who don’t love romance, there is more. There is a lot of family dynamics, and function and dysfunction. There is the connection between a group of friends who have been through so much together. There is the spanning of years in the series, and the overlap of storylines. There is the fact that every one of my books in the series has a scene that takes place at the McKinney High junior prom. And stuff happens at the prom. And not all of it is sex. Some of it might be, though, so, yeah. But other stuff, too.

Here’s the book blurb:

Kim and Carl became fast friends in kindergarten, but they were struck by the cooties plague in second grade. For years, it was the boys versus the girls, but Kim has missed her first school friend. Now they are juniors, and Kim has a plan. She has gotten Carl to agree to go to the Junior Prom with her, and she has some ideas about how the evening will end. Carl won’t know what hit him. But both of these teens have no idea that their childhood traumas will affect their ability to thrive in a romantic relationship. As Kim and Carl start down a road to love, they must learn to trust each other with their lives, and their hearts. Their journey takes them through high school and across the country, into a new life that neither of them could ever have expected.

I Just Can’t Say I Love You is the second book in the McKinney High School Class of 1986 series. Learn about Kim and Carl during their early years, and well into adulthood as they explore growing up with the help of their loyal high school friends.

(For those who read May I Have Your Attention Please, you may remember that Kim is one of Sally’s friends, and Carl is one of James’s posse friends)

“May I Have Your Attention Please” is available now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and anywhere that eBooks are sold. Please check it out, and if you do read my book, please leave a review on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Goodreads, or whatever other platform you are using. It would mean a whole lot!

I Just Can’t Say I Love You will be available on September 15, 2023, staring Carl and Kim and the usual cast of characters.

Here again are the links to my Facebook page, Debby Meltzer Quick Author, TikTok, @dbmquick and Instagram, quickdebby_author. Please follow me on these pages. And please explore my page here at debbymeltzerquickauthor.com.

Blast From the Past

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Does anyone know what this is? It’s a Nothing Book. It was given to me at a gift when I was probably in eighth grade, as indicated by some of the entries I made at the time. It was either a birthday or Bat Mitzvah present, and I loved it! The pages were so crisp and clean, and waiting to be filled with God knows what! But I would figure it out. As time went on, I had many such books, or journals. Some had quilted covers, and lined pages and were meant for writing. The Nothing Book had unlined, rainbow colored pages, and was so neat! I was almost afraid to write in it, to ruin its pristine-ness! But I did anyway. I wrote, I drew pictures, I made lists, and I professed my love to whoever I had a crush on at the time (if I had been consistant with keeping up with my list, the book would have been pretty much filled, just with crush names!). I would put the book down, sometimes for months, sometimes for years. There are huge gaps in my entries. I picked it back up in college and wrote poetry in its pages. I have whole soliloquies of my relationship with my boyfriend when I was in my early twenties. Will I get back together with him? Will I not? Will we live happily ever after together (we will not)? That’s the last thing I wrote in my Nothing Book, as I soon moved to Houston, Texas, leaving my Nothing Book behind somewhere in my parents’ house in central Massachusetts. Only to be found again last year.

Here are some pictures I drew in my Nothing Book in junior high:

The first one is an illustration from a story I wrote about a girl who thinks she turned into a frog but then realizes that she just forgot to take off her costume for a play she is in at school. Everyone thought she was a real giant frog for some reason. And then at the end, she eats a fly. So go figure.

The next one is a picture of an area in my kitchen. Notice the two phones mounted on the wall with really long cords. One was my mother’s business phone. The other one conveniently reached all the way to the cellar steps, so you could have your own personal phone booth to chat in. You just had to hope that no one would trip over the extended cord. I actually portray this in my recent book when Sally wants privacy while talking to her friend Michelle about things she doesn’t want her parents to hear. Note the analog clock on the wall, plugged into an outlet. That clock is long gone (yes, my family still resides in that house) and replaced with something digital I think run by batteries. Then there are the two alien looking creatures on top of the phones. Those are Weeples. They were very popular at the time. They were little pompoms with googly eyes and antennae, stuck to large feet. They were sort of stickers. I had a ton of them. They all had names. These were Willy and Weepy. Businesses used Weeples for advertising purposes. Very 1980s.

Last year, I got into a conversation with a friend who is also from the 80s about what we called denim articles of clothes back then. I was specifically referring to jackets, which were prolific. I thought they were jean jackets, and we agreed on that, or maybe denim jackets. We both could not recall anyone calling them dungaree jackets. Then I was looking through my trusty Nothing Book, which I had just brought back with me from Mass to Oregon, and what did I find?

Aside from the hysterical context, I clearly called Jeff’s jacket “dungaree.” End of discussion. I have absolutely no recollection of who Jeff was, except he was wicked good looking, wore a dungaree jacket, and had a Sony Walkman. How cool could one guy (10th grader) be? I am guessing this was in 1982. I wonder if Jeff is still wicked good looking (all my friends would have to agree). I doubt it. But does he still have the dungaree jacket? They’re back in style now!

Okay, I’m not going to share all of my thoughts and creations of the 80s, but I did find a poem that I wrote that I want to share. I can’t recall when I wrote it, in high school or college (both were in the 80s of course), but it did end up getting published, unfortunately anonymously since I forgot to put my name on it, in my college literary journal. It’s called “The Rose Thorn Of Love” (I know, I know).

The fragrance drew me near.
I inhaled deeply,
The sweet addictive scent.
I reached out to the sea of red,
To touch the velvet shining bright,
But my harsh touch to delicate flesh
Burned, as it fell, rained to the ground.
I stood back, appalled,
Stunned by my dastardly deed,
By my streak of passionate violence.
Lying dormant, so very long.
But still the fragrance remained,
And drew me even closer.
Again, I reached out to grab hold of the stem,
So not to harm the precious bud,
But I did not anticipate obstacles,
Looking so willing but bearing thorns.
My blood is a small price to pay for 
The deal of innocence.

My book, “May I Have Your Attention Please” can be found on my new universal link, in both paperback and eBook! Check it out! I plan to release my second book, “I Just Can’t Say I Love You,” in September 2023. Please check it out, and if you do read my book, please leave a review on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Goodreads, or whatever other platform you are using. It would mean a whole lot!

Here again are the links to my Facebook page, Debby Meltzer Quick Author, TikTok, @dbmquick and Instagram, quickdebby_author. Please follow me on these pages. And please explore my page here at debbymeltzerquickauthor.com.

One Month In-How it’s Going

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This was my first attempt at making my own cover. Luckily for everyone, I decided to go with a professional cover designer. I highly recommend it!

So now I’m one month in. I published my book on March 4, and now, I’m just sitting back and watching the royalties roll in. Ha! That would be nice, wouldn’t it? No, it’s not quite that easy. I have to admit, the first few days were exciting for sales, as people I know and knew I was writing a book purchased it, all on the same day, driving up my numbers, and actually putting me in a few top 100 lists for new releases. That was really cool. I took a lot of pictures on my phone when that happened. This was about the highest I got:

Number 64. Not bad (it’s also the number of books I sold in March)! I enjoyed it, I posted it on Facebook, and texted it to my friends. I am sorry to say that a few days later I was off all of the lists, and probably about 4,000 in most categories. I didn’t expect to come out of nowhere and become an immediate best seller. I knew it would take time. People don’t know to buy your book if they don’t know about it, and really, I don’t have a publicist. I wish I did. So I have to do my own marketing. And it’s hard! I’m just not young and hip enough to advertise to the young, hip kids and young adults out there! Just ask my daughter. Apparently, I appeal to older adults, and they seem to be the ones not only buying my books, but also reviewing them, and giving them five stars! So thank you, 48–59-year-old men! Who knew you would like a coming-of-age-romance/love story taking place in the mid-1980s? I bet they didn’t even know they would. Hey, I think it’s a story everyone can enjoy. I enjoy it. Haha.

I’ve been working on finding more ways to get the word out there. I have embarrassed my teenager so much by approaching women on the street (not really on the street. Maybe in line in the grocery store where I am also in line) and asking them if they remember the 80s. Then there are the college age girls I’ve run into and asked if they like a nice love story. I thought everyone was supposed to be so into the 1980s right now?!

I did a group promotion, which was kind of cool. It finished up at the end of March, and there was a winner, and all I had to do was mail out the signed book. It went to Tennessee. That was also cool. The winner got 29 romance books. I can venture to say that my book might be a bit different. There is for sure some romance. But it is pretty tame. Tame enough to let my mother read it. I mean, I was embarrassed to have her read it, but not horrified. Had my father still been alive, I wouldn’t have let him within 15 states of my love scenes. Uh uh. No way. My brother wasn’t embarrassed, and he even told me when certain things didn’t seem realistic. Anyway, all this to say that my story is a love story, a story that tries to prove that love can last forever. So if you know a great way to get the word out there, please let me know. I really think that it would sell well if the people knew it was there. Plus, there are six more books after this one. I want them to do well.

So here is what I have done the past couple of weeks. I decided to publish on Barnes and Noble. I know some people don’t like to shop on Amazon, so I thought a choice would be good. Then, I lowered the price of my eBook. I ran an ad on Facebook letting folx know that the book was cheaper. I quickly sold three copies! A friend sent me a notice from our local library letting me know that they are taking submissions for eBooks from local indie authors for the month of April. All I had to do was put my eBook on Draft2Digital and fill in a form. I completed that today (I had to get a new library card to do it, but the new card is really cool looking!). They will select a certain number of books, and then one lucky author will actually be eligible to have their book published in print! I haven’t researched the publisher yet, but I will. But I think it’s wicked cool to have your book in the library. That’s my reader geek showing. I have also been pursuing local bookstores. I have a few books in one, but I learned from another that I didn’t have the right settings online for my distributer. I needed to give a bigger discount to retailers, and also allow returns. I went on Ingram Spark and changed my settings. I emailed a few places and told them I made the change. Now all I have to do is find a few spare hours to go to every bookstore in Portland and talk to them about carrying my book. My brother is also trying to get the book into a Massachusetts bookstore I shopped in as a kid. Maybe the promotion winner in Tennessee will get into stores there. Who knows, anything could happen.

I’m also still at it on the social media pages, trying to chip away at the folx who follow me so they will finally give in and buy the book. I think my algorithm is majorly flawed on TikTok, though. I just can seem to get my videos even seen, let alone liked. I’ll keep trying. I’ve gone headfirst into Instagram, and still plugging away at Facebook Pages. People have recommended that I do a Spotify playlist for my book, but that would mean I have to join Spotify. It might be worth it.

Here is my most recent TikTok video. It did pretty well. I think people want more smut. I might have to give in and post some. I was hoping to leave that alone so they could read about it in the book, but I guess, give the people what they want, right?

My book, “May I Have Your Attention Please” can be found on my new universal link, in both paperback and eBook! Check it out! I plan to release my second book, “I Just Can’t Say I Love You,” in September 2023. Please check it out, and if you do read my book, please leave a review on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Goodreads, or whatever other platform you are using. It would mean a whole lot!

Here again are the links to my Facebook page, Debby Meltzer Quick Author, TikTok, @dbmquick and Instagram, quickdebby_author. Please follow me on these pages. And please explore my page here at debbymeltzerquickauthor.com.

Is it real…or it is AI?

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Is it me writing this blog post right now? Are you sure? I mean, someone at my house might have borrowed my computer and decided to pretend to be me for a few minutes and write a blog post. That’s pretty unlikely, though, since the computer scans my face for security. My child looks kind of like me, but not enough to access my computer. And my husband would just, well, never do that. So it’s probably me, right? Sure. I assure you today that it is me. But what if someday, it’s not? I could go to an AI app and put in a few key words about what I want in my blog, and the AI would spit out a full article, most likely saying the gist of what I want it to say. Boy, that would save me time, wouldn’t it? I could be a writer, but I wouldn’t even have to write! I wish they had AI for social work, too. I could just stay in bed all day while the AI counsels people and provides them with resources. Oh, what’s that you say? You say that you can do text therapy now, and the AI therapist just responds appropriately to what you tell it? Uh…

I like the idea of AI for some things. It’s kind of fascinating. It would help for some of the drudge work of research, for one thing. I mean, do we really even need to learn how to do research anymore if there is a mechanized way to do it? It would open all sorts of time for other scientific projects and thing. But I draw the line at the AI writing up the paper after the research is done. There is, and always will be, a human side to experimentation and learning. I don’t want to read a paper that was produced by a machine. I want to know who it was that wrote it, and I want to know a bit about their background. It would be like I decided to become a writer, plugged an idea into AI, let it take off and write the story, and then let it market the story on its own, by producing ads and videos. Then all I would have to do would be to show up to book signings. Maybe. I mean, maybe the AI can somehow make that work, too. Does this sound appealing to you? Because it doesn’t to me. My brother Jonathan decided to give it a try recently. He plugged the main premise of my newly released book (May I Have Your Attention Please, found on Amazon) into an AI app and set it free. The idea was, a boy and a girl are reunited after being in different schools for a year, and they fall in love. It is 1984. They both have some issues they are dealing with at home, and they are also dealing with the ups and downs of growing up and falling in love. So my brother read me what the AI wrote. And it was pretty close to my story. Not perfect, but close. It took the story in another direction, but it probably just needed a bit more information to get it right. Ok, that scared me. Is my talent as a writer going to be obsolete in a few years? Are writers going to be a thing of the past? I can see committees sitting in a room coming up with story ideas, and then passing them off to AI. I really, really don’t like that idea.

What else can AI do? It can produce images from key words. So that means that pretty soon, once everyone has access to these resources, stock photos will be a thing of the past. We can all create our own images, and they will belong to us. So far in this post, I have shown you two pictures of girls. These are images that I produced with AI yesterday in an experiment. I plugged in a description of my main character, Sally Bachman. Here is what I asked for:

“Sixteen-year-old white, Jewish girl in 1984, pretty, full length image, blue eyes, shoulder length brown hair, solid pink button-down shirt with puffy sleeves, wearing blue jeans, 1984 style hair and makeup, 34-inch chest. Show all of the girl.” And here is what I ended up with (in addition to the two photos above):

The first girl, on top of this post, looks like a mannequin. There is no escaping that fact. The second one looks like she is at her own murder trial. The third looks like some sort of weird portrait from the 1800s, the fourth is missing a face, and the fifth is most definitely possessed by the devil. NOT ONE OF THESE GIRLS LOOKS LIKE A REAL PERSON!!!! And none of them are wearing the clothing I specified. And what is the AI definition of pretty? Apparently not the same as mine. I might have been able to be a bit more specific, but not one of these girls has a 34-inch chest, amiright?

The next picture still isn’t right, but it’s at least, right-er:

She doesn’t look like I’d imagine Sally, but she looks more in the area of what Sally would look like. And why no blue jeans??? Maybe AI just can’t make real people. I have seen some drawings and other images that were pretty cute with cartoons. I might be asking too much. Just for funsies, I’m going to show you a few I got of James. The clothing is pretty good, but, ugh, the boys:

What, may I ask, is going on with those eyes? ALL of those eyes!

These next two are pretty decent. I changed James’s age from 16 to 17 and specified wavy hair, which made it a bit longer.

But still, someone needs to work on making the AI eyes a bit more realistic. These two guys look like people I might have actually gone to junior high school with. And James’s appearance is actually based on one of those people. Okay, so one win for AI images.

So that is all I am going to show you. I also tried to make some images for my future book covers (although I have an excellent cover designer. I was just goofing around) and they weren’t bad. I am thinking, AI just not good at faces. At all. But I’m glad a had a chance to play around. With Dall-E, you can get a free account with fifteen credits and month. I used up all my credits just trying to get Sally and James right, so no more credits until a month from now. If I want more, I have to pay. That doesn’t seem right. Maybe for fifteen results. You couldn’t have to use your credits for an image that doesn’t come out anything like what you were looking for. Heavy sigh. I just hope that AI keeps having problems. I guess it will be really good for my job(s) security. Small blessings.

Here again are the links to my Facebook page, Debby Meltzer Quick Author, and TikTok, @dbmquick. Please follow me on these pages. And please explore my page here at debbymeltzerquickauthor.com.

Thank you for making it to the end of my blog post! Have a great week!

Marketing, Promoting, and Social Media…A Trifecta of Fun!

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And so the games begin! I am getting much closer to my goal of self-publishing my first book, May I Have Your Attention Please. I am hoping I can push the publish button on KPD in about six weeks if everything goes as planned. As I may have mentioned before, writing the book is the easy part. Editing is tedious, but it is necessary to perfect (as much as possible) my art before I get it out to the public. Formatting seems like kind of a bear, but I’m figuring it out. So what is the hard part then, Debby? Please do tell?

It’s that part where you know that some time soon, your book is going to be released into the wild. And wild it is. No one knows what’s out there in the dangerous world of books and book sales. What becomes a best seller? Will people read my book, and if they do, will they like it? Or will they find out the horrible truth about me: that I am an imposter.

Imposter syndrome is a real thing, and it is very common in writers and authors. According to Wikipedia, “Impostor syndrome, also known as impostor phenomenon or impostorism, is a psychological occurrence in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud…Despite external evidence of their competence, those experiencing this phenomenon do not believe they deserve their success or luck.” Yes. Who am I to believe that others could like words that came out of my brain? But I do have one thing on my side: I have enlisted Beta-readers, several wonderful people who have read my first book and given me feedback. And guess what? They didn’t hate my book. As a matter of fact, they really liked it, and some of them weren’t even people I knew or family members, and I wasn’t paying them to like it! So, I know I have some good stuff, but now I have to convince millions of people out there that I have good stuff, and they should shell out their hard earned money to buy and read it. I mean, I could just give it away for free, but to be honest, if you pay for a book, you are much more likely to read it. Seriously. A lot of the time, I don’t even read the books I do pay for. You should see my To Be Read pile. It’s up to my waist.

So how do I let people know to buy my book, and the right people? First, I have to decide who I think the right people would be. My book takes place in a high school, with high school kids. Does this make it appropriate for high school students? Well, maybe. I mean, they can relate to the kids, even though the setting is the 1980s. Kids are kids. But not all kids might like it. I think a lot would. There is some, shall we say, intimacy, in my books. It’s not explicit, but it’s there, and it’s clearly implied. That is why you never let your family read your books. Just kidding. They did, and I was horrified. But I digress. So high school kids, young adults. Ok. But as my series progresses, my stories start in high school, move out of the high school setting, into college, and in some, beyond college into adulthood, with adult issues. And my books start delving into some pretty serious subjects, like grief and loss, mental illness, substance abuse, religious abuse, spousal abuse, child abuse. Not graphic or horribly described, but the topics are there. They are a main part of the story. So new adults might enjoy these books as well. What are new adults? They are part of a new genre of readers that have turned or passed the age of 18. They are learning their way out there in a world full of responsibilities. They are coming of age, just like my characters. Who else can relate to my characters? 1980s kids. Generation X. My characters were mainly born in 1968. If you were born around that time, and you read my series, you will get a nostalgic feel from them, and you might be thrown back in time for a short while. Hopefully your 1980s were not filled with angst and pain. If so, maybe skip my books, or rewrite your own 1980s story, like I did with mine. And the last group of people I know enjoyed my books? Men in their late 40s-late 50s! I had four of these men read my book, and they all enjoyed it. That was a pleasant surprise. So maybe my books are for everyone (over the age of 14).

But to be honest, when people look at my book cover and read the blurb on the back, I am guessing they will think teen love story, and they are not wrong. It is a sweet love story about Sally Bachman and James Newell. And it has a happy ending, at least for the main characters. So it’s probably best that I market toward young women, YA and NA genres, Coming of Age Romance readers. And hope that their moms and dads pick up their copy someday and get hooked. So here’s the 15 million dollar question: where to you find these young people who would maybe want to read my book? And the most obvious, and truest answer, is TikTok. I mean, all social media, but have you been to TikTok? I hadn’t. I knew my teen child is obsessed with it, and always has their eyes glued to something on the screen, but I wrote it off to being a kid magnet, and never even bothered to look. But then I did. And you know what? It is a kid thing. But I’m absolutely hooked now! I love it! I found Booktok, a group (millions of people) who love books and reading and love talking about books and reading. And these people? THEY BUY BOOKS! Lots of them! And they review them! And they have thousands and thousands of followers! So if you can tap into these people (primarily young women) you have found a gigantic door to best seller heaven.

But the 20-million-dollar question is how do you tap in? And that, my friends, is where TikTok loses me. I have posted videos of me talking, of funny things my pets do, of text, and now, today, I made one of me coming to the coffee shop to show my writing process. Some of my posts have gotten 600-700 views and close to one hundred likes. Some others, which are similar have gotten around 100 views and maybe 15 likes. I know some of the formula. You need to use hashtags. You need to find out what is trending and get on that trend. Ok. Each time you put in a hashtag, you get to find out how many times that hashtag has been used by others. So you want to choose the ones that have 13.4 million uses, as opposed to “created a new hashtag.” So I do that. Then, there is the music. You can attach a clip to your video or post, or not. TikTok will automatically attach one if you don’t, and then you will have to either switch it to one you like or delete it. So again, you want songs that are trending. What do you do if your brand is the 1980s? You want to use 1980s music. It is very distinctive, and as soon as people hear it, they know where it came from. But unfortunately, most of it isn’t trending. I tried using “Running Up That Hill,” which I never even heard in the 80s, but apparently was very popular. It was trending due to the show “Stranger Things.” But I guess I missed that bus, because it didn’t seem to help me much. But, seriously, the music that’s trending? Like my mother used to say about my Eric Clapton CDs back when I was a teen, “that stuff hurts my ears!” Ugh. I’m old, I know. But 2020s music does not go with a pitch to sell a 1980s themed book, and series. I asked my followers what they thought would help. I was told little snippets from my book. So, I’ve been doing that. And I included the first few in this post so you can see and be intrigued, in case you are one of everyone, and might like my book. And I did the “behind the scenes at the coffee shop” that I am going to post later in the day, after I attached a trending noise song, but turn the volume all the way down so it can’t be heard, a trick someone told me about yesterday.

So, my plea to you is check out my TikTok, see my pitches, and buy my book, for your teenage niece, your Gen X sister, and your 55-year-old male coworker. But if you give it to him, maybe put in a discrete brown paper bag. He has an image to maintain, you know!

Here again are the links to my Facebook page, Debby Meltzer Quick Author, and TikTok, @dbmquick. Please follow me on these pages. And please explore my page here at debbymeltzerquickauthor.com.

Cover Reveal is Near!

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Here it is, my first teaser for my upcoming book, “May I Have Your Attention Please,” which will hopefully be available for sale in late March or early April. It all depends on when it gets back to me from the copy editor, and how many corrections need to be made! Then I have to fumble through the formatting for both e-book and paperback and hope it all turns out the way I want it! But at least, by the end of next week, you will all know what to look for as far as a cover when you are searching for my book on Amazon. Soon.

So not a long post today. I am busy writing away on book 6 in the series, and I also completed a 5035-word side story for book 5. It was fun! Now, I am concentrating on making videos for TikTok and posts on my face book author page, to promote the cover reveal. My designer made some nice graphics for me, and I look forward to sharing them. I am also spending an ungodly amount of time on TikTok and Facebook following people, so they follow me back. I am close to 500 followers on Facebook, which is hard to do, because Facebook puts restrictions on you when you try to follow pages too quickly. They think you’re a bot. I mean, it’s great that they check for these things, unless it’s happening to you. I get logged off of my page at least 20 times per day lately. Find followers, Facebook tells you. But don’t do it too fast, even though we didn’t tell you this before you started! TikTok limits how many people you can follow, but you can come back shortly after and follow more. I’m at about 2200 followers on TikTok. Please be one of them! Oh, also, I was restricted from Instagram, and I have no idea why, except for not using it for months. I had to send them a selfie of me holding a paper with numbers on it to prove I was actually me. Ugh, I hardly ever post anything on there anyway, but I thought it might be fun to put my cover reveal teasers there. Not so fun after all!

Here again are the links to my Facebook page, Debby Meltzer Quick Author, and TikTok, @dbmquick. Please follow me on these pages. And please explore my page here at debbymeltzerquickauthor.com.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. I hope you come back next week!