Wow, I am amazed at the 45!  I'm currently reading Cleeton's Next Year In Havana.  I read The Last Train to Key West last year and really enjoyed it.

I'm simultaneously reading Harry Potter 1 but that's not for the first (or second... or third...) time.

Wow, I couldn't believe it when I saw your screen name pop up on here!  Welcome back!

Harry Potter rereads are always worth it.  Any chance it will inspire you to return to Brian Potter and the Malevolent Musician?  I know it's been like a decade, but a girl can dream!

This past year I read 45 books. This year I’m setting my reading goal for 60. We’ll see what happens. Starting today with The Paris Library.

Wow, I am amazed at the 45!  I'm currently reading Cleeton's Next Year In Havana.  I read The Last Train to Key West last year and really enjoyed it.

I'm simultaneously reading Harry Potter 1 but that's not for the first (or second... or third...) time.

There's also an interesting little discussion in the same thread about how we see our characters.  Someone called their characters "dolls" because "they dont move on their own and the only people that will understand the particularitie s of your fondness are people that play along with the fantasy u set up."  Another poster disagreed and said, "I've always thought of it more like I'm 'looking' into another universe and just nit-picking until I find the exact version I like then writing it."

Can you relate to either of these views, or do you see your characters a different way?  Does this represent the difference in thinking between plot-driven and character-driven writers?

I've never thought of my characters as dolls, per se (except for Broken Nick Doll! LOL), but I'm mostly a plot-driven writer, and that view does make sense to me.  When I was little, I loved playing with Barbies and acting out stories with them.  I didn't see it as "writing" at the time, but in a way, it was - I was coming up with stories the same way I do now; I just performed them out loud in the moment instead of putting them down on paper.  As an adult writer, I've also had that mindset of "I am the god(dess) of my fictional world, and I can make these characters do whatever I want them to do."  It doesn't always work out when what I want conflicts with what the character would actually do, but I guess that works with the doll analogy on some level, too - you can only make Barbie move so many ways.  If you try to force her to bend too far, you end up breaking her.

Just sharing this post because it made me laugh.  I was reading this Reddit thread about how to write the "in-between" stuff that comes between the major events, Point A, B, and C, and someone posted:

"I write the “in-between stuff” on acid, and the important stuff on coffee.
I’m not saying this is the right way to do things, but at least it keeps the fluff from being boring."
https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/s71j4z/comment/ht76tx6/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Caffeine fuels both kinds of writing for me - coffee in the morning, soda in the evening.  I've never done acid or any other illegal drug, but it does make me wonder what the hell I would come up with if I did LOL.  I came up with and wrote my first pandaskunk story under the influence of cold medicine while I was sick with the flu, and I think that story is quite clever, so you never know!

That was my thought, too, that she would be the most obvious one because she's the most famous by far.  As I've read further, it's definitely her character that Dani is based on, so that must be the reason.

I wonder if he decided to not use Jamie because of how super famous she is? Or maybe he asked them all for permission and she said no? it’s sad how much I’ve been thinking about that since you told me that. Lol

Apparently the audiobook is read by Adrienne King!  So at least she knows LOL.  I bet they would think it was cool.

Interesting! I wonder if those people know they have characters named after them lol

Yeah! I noticed it right away when it introduced Adrienne and mentioned the camp because I remembered the final girl in Friday the 13th was played by Adrienne King.  So then I started trying to connect the other names. Heather is for Heather Langenkamp (Nightmare on Elm Street). Marilyn is for Marilyn Burns (Texas Chainsaw Massacre). I couldn't figure out Julia until it said her last name is Campbell, like Neve Campbell (Scream). Dani seems to be based on Jamie Lee Curtis (Laurie in Halloween) based on the clues I've read so far (a reference to Halloween and her having a gray buzz cut), but I'm not sure where her name comes from. I'm not sure about Lynette yet.

Fun fact I learned last fall:  The original "Halloween" has no blood.  I never realized that until I watched the Halloween episode of "The Movies That Made Us" on Netflix.  You see the knife, but never any actual blood or gore.  It's kind of like Jaws in that way; it leaves a lot to your imagination, which may make it even scarier in some ways.  So if you want to watch a slasher movie without the gore, that would be the one to watch.  The others are all very bloody LOL.

I didn’t even realize that lol cool! Ironically, I’ve never watched any of those movies because of all the gore. I just recognized the plot lines. It would make a great series.