st louis « Robin Writes

Changes, they are a-comin’!

Due to, er, our financial situation, we’re making a few changes. NO, WE ARE NOT CLOSING!

However, starting Monday (I think!), Dennis will be going back to work. You know – a real one job, with a paycheck and all that. Whew! So, that means that yours truly will be running the bookstore. Oh, sure, he’ll be in and out, but mostly it’ll be me up at the store.

Seriously, how often do you get a real, live author behind the counter at a bookstore? Oh. I guess you could run down to Parnassus, but whatshername already gets a lot of press for being a bookstore owner/author. Probably too busy touring or whatnot to be in the store very often. Anyway, *I* don’t have that problem (darn the luck!), so I’ll be up at AOTSP every day.

Besides that particular change, our hours will adjust. Don’t panic! We’re only going back to our fall/winter hours, year round. So we’ll be open from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

There MIGHT be a gap in open hours come mid-afternoon, though. Someone will need to pick up the kid from school around 3:00 p.m. But it all depends on scheduling. If it happens, the door might be locked between 2:30 and 3:30. Unless I can get a volunteer to drive carpool or man the register? Anyone? Bueller?

We’ll still do all your special ordering and we’ll still sell online. And of course, we’ll definitely have all our local authors and all our events. NONE of those things will change!

The place might look a little different, though. I’m going to be officing (Heh. New word!) in the back of the store and so will have to rearrange a bit. Oh, and once school starts, every day may turn into “take your puppy to work day.”

So, there it is. Changes. We love ‘em!

This week, I’m going to tell you how it all started and why some people think I’m a prepper. Am I? Maybe…

I grew up on a farm. My great-great-great grandfather started that farm in 1850. We lived there from the time I was born until I was three, then again when I was 13 until I left for college. My earliest memories are playing in the yard around the old farmhouse, washhouse, smokehouse, and in and out of the barns and chicken coop.

Those of you who are wondering about that last, well, my abject fear of birds came later, when I was about six or seven!

My great-grandfather was still farming in the late 1960s and I followed him around the garden and played with his pet squirrel, Curly. My dad took over in the 70s and that’s when the Monsanto connection began. Keep in mind, please, before you shut your browser and delete me from your friends’ lists, this was before the average person – including many farmers – knew about GMOs and what they did.

Growing up, I loved being outside. I camped and rode our horses, hiked, explored. And I was very interested in history and the “old days.” If I’d had a time machine, I would have gone back, not forward.

I’ve been writing for years, and kept saying I was going to write a book. Someday. No one ever discouraged me, and in fact kept telling me to it – now! So, finally, the book that had to be written was started and finished last year. REDUCED came out in late August 2012. REUSED followed in mid-December, and RECYCLED will be released next week.

Three books in one year – I don’t recommend it!

The basic premise of REDUCED is “what if.” “What if” one of these government screws we read about on an almost daily basis reduced the population to nearly unsustainable levels? “What if” everyone had to start over – no electric, no Internet, communications towers inoperable? A lot of people think this could happen, regardless of the catalyst, and the more I read, the more intrigued I became.

As an old Girl Scout, I know the value of “be prepared” so I started doing a little preparing myself. Just a little. I’m not a fanatic or anything, although I do apparently have a crazy cousin who’s planning to gather people to move to Oklahoma at some point.

Anyway, I do some prepping, sure. And the characters in my books did, too. And after it all went down, they had to scramble a bit to survive – although it helps when the competition for supplies has been, er, reduced!

My characters heard about something going down, soon, but there was no announcement, no emergency sirens, nothing like that. And they were ready, for… well, they didn’t really know how bad it was going to be. And they spent the next ten years or so surviving. And fighting back. But, when it’s all over, for the most part, this decade-long crisis, it’s time to buckle down and go back in time and start over. And no, I’m not talking about time travel – back to pioneer days, homesteads, and again, surviving.