The Way Home by Meredith Morgan

Amazon.com

Powell's Books

Reposted from Fictional Life

A few weeks ago, I was trolling blogs on the subject of writing and I ran across a discussion about Chick Lit. Sorry, I don't remember the site. The post was from several years ago and it discussed the evolution in Chick Lit, which was morphing from Twenty-Something Sex-In-The-City storyline to stories about married women with children, i. e., Mommy Lit. Some comments indicated that might give Chick Lit even more of a bad reputation. (Does writing about motherhood automatically make it bad? Consider: Little Women for one example.)

A Commenter asked derisively what might be next: Crone Lit? To that I say: HELL, YEAH.

There is a place in the world of fiction for all of it: YA; Sexy Young Chick Lit; and, Mommy Lit, too. Highbrow readers and writers can look down their noses all they please, but real women have always and will continue to enjoy telling and reading stories about women who live lives like theirs -- while at the same time occasionally enjoying escapist forays into Romance and Fantasy about women whose lives are NOT like theirs.

Crone Lit should be the "next big thing" because the first wave of Boomer women are approaching the Crone stage. That's the niche where I am focusing at least some of my fiction.

For once in my life, maybe I haven't missed the wave. More likely, once again I'll soon be lost in the crowd of mid-cohort Boomers passing through our world like a pig through a python.

Is it not totally cool, however, to imagine what amazing old Battle-Axes we Boomer women are likely become in the very near future? I, for one, am looking forward to it.

I have in mind something like this: 

From Chapter 2 The Adventures of Miss Maybelle

Maybelle watched the sunrise on that quiet Sunday morning and the tranquil beauty of the mountains began to seep into her soul. Eventually, her coffee cup empty and the sunrise show over, she went inside and got dressed for her morning walk.

The Old Lady kept telling her that she had a big day yesterday and she should take it easy. Maybelle told the Old Lady to shut the hell up. She tied her hiking boots, slung a backpack containing several bottles of water and some snacks across one shoulder and a camera bag across the other, clipped her GPS on her waistband, picked up her walking stick and headed across the field in back of the house toward the hills.

Felicia came running out after her, shouting, “Miss Maybelle, where are you going? Don't go that way!”

Maybelle stopped and walked back to Felicia, “I won't get lost. I have my GPS with me. See, I've got the coordinates of your house, and so I can always get back here.”

“But what if you fall?”

She pointed at a red button on the GPS, “That's my super-high-tech, bad-ass mother of all medic-alerts. It bounces an SOS off the satellite and alerts the authorities to the fact that I need help and also tells them where I am, to within a few yards. Cool, huh?” She patted Felicia's hand and added, “I'll be fine, dear. You go to church and say a little prayer for me, if it'll make you feel better.”