Author: annabowling

Typing With Wet Claws: Evening Edition

annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, all. Skye here, for a slightly later than usual Feline Friday. This is the very first thing being written with Anty’s new keyboard, because the old one died for real. She and Mama went to the computer store to get this one, which will make life much better for everybody involved. Mama said that if she had to share her computer with Uncle and Anty, she would never see her computer again. That would make Mama very sad. Everybody is much happier now that Anty can use her own computer again. We are all waiting for the computer store to tell Anty she can come and get her new tablet. That should not be too much longer. Mama thought that maybe the computer store might have gotten the tablet in and tried to tell Mama it was there, only she could not ge that message because she was not on her computer at the moment. It was not there yet, but it will be there, soon. Once Anty gets her tablet, then she will be able to write and do research in a lot more places. She will be less grumpy, and that is a good thing.

Anty was very grumpy this week, because both Uncle and Mama were sick at the same time. Then Mama got better, but Uncle was still sick. Then Uncle got better, but his hunting schedule changed. I was very happy to have him home during the day more, but by the way Anty whimpered and twitched after a few days of thinking one more day and then she could have the house to herself (and me) that might have just been me. Anty loves Uncle, but the house is where she works, and the way she has been at this book, she wants to be working a lot.

That is not easy when the computer keyboard dies, and the keyboard built into the computer does not have an H key. There are H’s in a lot of words Anty uses when she writes. Him, her, he, she, them, they, the, and a lot of other words, like hold (I do not like to be held, so I do not mind when she cannot use that word.) There are no H’s in cat or kitty or Maine Coon, so she could have written about me instead and probably have had a lot less stress. She is a romance writer, though, and I am fixed, so I kind of see her point.

Moving along. A couple of nights ago, Uncle came home from work and asked Anty if she would like to go and have dinner with only him. I had special time with Mama. She ate pizza and I ate cat food. Uncle and Anty had Chinese food and said that I could share pictures of their dinner.

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People food

This is all people food, so I do not know what it tastes like, but Anty and Uncle said it was very good, there was a lot of it, and they brought some home. Uncle said it would not rain while they were out, but Anty remembered how, on their second date, he told her the sprinklers would not go off on them, but they did. She brought an umbrella. It rained.

This week, Anty took care of our family a lot. I was only trying to help her when I started to eat my own throwup, but she wanted to take care of the cleanup herself. I do not mind too much. Food does not taste as good the second time around.

Writing on the glowy box, without the letter H, is not the easiest thing in the world (although I think typing with paws is harder) but Anty is not dissuaded. When she is between external keyboards, she uses an asterisk (it looks like this: *) to represent the letter H, and keeps on going. Some of the people she emails think this is funny and others think it is extra work to have to translate all the *’s to H’s. For those people, Anty suggests cutting and pasting into Word, then doing a search and replace.

That is what she is going to do with the pages she wrote yesterday. She did not think she was going to be able to do much, but then Anty SueAnn asked if she wanted to do virtual sprints, and Anty said yes. Then they both wrote as fast as they could (Anty can still type pretty fast when using an * instead of an H) and Anty got into the story. There are a lot of *’s, but now she can make them H’s again. That will be very helpful. The new keyboard has all of its letters and all of its keys. We will see how long that lasts.

Time for me to give Anty her shot at the new keyboard, so I will see you next week, unless she needs me to blog for her sooner. One never knows. She has the conference to prepare for, Camp NaNo to keep up with and the tablet could be here any time now. I’m pretty sure it’s cat.-sized, and it does have its own keyboard. Plus, I need to prepare for my interview with Anty SueAnn’s pet, Bailey.

Until then, I remain very truly yours,

Skye O’Malley Hart-Bowling
(the kitty, not the book)

Until next week...

Until next week…

Card Full

annabowling 2 Comments

Okay, so I may have taken a lot of pictures in recent times, especially since I committed to blogging about the writing life. Mine in particular, that is. I can’t speak with much authority about anybody else’s, and that includes close writing friends and/or critique partners, because writing is a very individual sort of a thing. This morning, my brain refused to handle English after I participated in #1lineWed on Twitter, but I still had book work to do and a blog post due,so figured I’d make it easier on myself and combine tasks so I could get several things done at once and then treat myself to some well-deserved downtime. The original plan was to have everything done by noon and then the afternoon to rest…yeah, that’s not even close to happening. We’ll work around it.

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The original plan had been to get some much-needed peace by listening to an auidobook and laying down some paint backgrounds in my art books, photograph those and then blog about the benefits of art to the writing process (well, mine.)  This is where I haul out one of my favorite Dutch proverbs: man plans, God laughs. You can imagine where this is going.

I start out by taking pictures of the pages I’d left to dry last session. Four shots in, “card full.” Huh wuh? How did that happen? Well, yes, taking pictures would be the appropriate answer to that question, and, as it turns out, the right one. I seriously didn’t think I’d taken that many, but then again, I hadn’t cleared out the card, either, so set camera aside, lay down some new backgrounds, add some collage, let that batch dry. Take camera to computer and start looking through to see what can go.

Since this camera was inherited from Housemate’s lovely mother, I cannot in good conscience delete the pictures she took, in case they are ever needed at some point in the future. They haven’t been, so far, but one never knows. Pictures of hubby and kitty need to stay until I can transfer them to more permanent storage. I do take a lot of pictures of my workspace. Probably don’t need all of those. Also, food pictures. That only makes me hungry when it’s after breakfast and not yet lunch.

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My art notebooks are theraputic, personal, and a good way to let the creative part of my brain have some time off-leash while not having to deal with language. The paint backgrounds are easy; squirt different colors of acrylic paint at the top of the page, slide old credit card back and forth through them, then all the way down the page. Circles are toilet paper cores dipped in paint and stamped, and the honeycomb-ish effect is same paint on bubble wrap. I’ve been doing pages of combinations of these techniques, with whatever colors strike my fancy at the time. Some, I pick because I don’t like them, but want to see how they work together. If I don’t like a page, I can add more to it until I do, tear it out, or glue it to a facing page, so I never have to see it again. Whatever seems to work at the time.

This may not seem like it has a lot to do with writing, but it does. This is all about intiution and allowing myself to make mistakes. Maybe these colors won’t blend well together. So what? It’s inexpensive paint, inexpensive books, nobody else is going to see it (well, unless I put it on the internet or something like that) and the whole process of it is fun and relaxing. Sometimes,. story issues work themselves out while I’m laying down paint and figuring out what else might go on that page.

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For a long time, I’d look at my pitiful efforts and then the amazing work in Somerset Studio magazines and despair because I wasn’t like that. My backgrounds didn’t look like theirs, I don’t gain inspiration from the same sources as a lot of the contributors, didn’t have the fanciest tools, the word “journal” has always sounded like nails on a blackboard in my head, etc, etc.  In short, a lot like the way I used to compare myself to other writers, sometimes those who had been household names for decades, or writing in entirely different genres than my own. For some reason, getting over that hurdle was a lot easier when it came to mixed media art than it was for wriitng, but the best way I can explain it was that …it did. Somehow, when I wasn’t looking, I kept my head down, eyes on my own paper, and now, while I can appreciate and draw inspiration from others’ work, it doesn’t make me feel less than anymore.

Something I’m still learning, day by day when it comes to writing, but one thing does stand out. When my brain says  “card full,” that’s time to take a step back, take in, play a while, and get rid of the things I don’t need taking up creative space. Room made for me and for story. It’s win-win.

Telling the Story

annabowling 3 Comments

“The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”
– Terry Pratchett

Well, that’s one week of Camp NaNo in my rearview mirror, and I seem to be doing all right so far. This is a bit different from past NaNo endeavors, in that I’m not focusing on writing. Also, that I’m ahead of my goal. How’d that happen? This time, I’m telling myself the story. I’d discovered, last week, while talking with a critique partner, that I’d never bothered to write down the outline for Her Last First Kiss. Huh wuh? Nothing? Not a thing? Cue frantic flipping through notebooks both dedicated (those are new, so it didn’t take long) and multipurpose ones. Check any computer files that might possibly have been misfiled under a different name. Do a computer search for hero’s and heroine’s  names. Nope, never did.

I’d classify myself as more of a puzzler than plotter or pantser, but I’m not labeling at this point. What I am doing is telling the story. The fact that I’ve been able to hold so much of it in my head, so clearly, for so long, is a good thing, but the stories we keep in our heads and nowhere else don’t get a lot of circulation. The scariest thing in the world would be to get to the end of my life and think “I could have been a successful writer.”  Scratch the could be and replace with “am.”  Successful, right now, means showing up and getting this story down. That’s all I have to do right now. Tell the story. There’s time enough after I get to the end of this draft to make things all pretty and get fancy with finishing touches. For now, the emphasis isn’t on how many words there are in the file but on getting the story told. How did we get from Once Upon a Time to Happily Ever After? With romance, we know the Happily Ever After Part is a gaurantee, like we know in a mystery that the detective will find out who committed the crime, but along the way? We can do anything. I think that’s pretty exciting.

In telling myself the story, I am discovering it. Though I do like to have an outline when I write the book, in the telling the story portion, surprises come up when they will, without me trying to shoehorn them in because that’s where they should fall according to beat sheet or pinch point or any other paradigm. Not saying those things aren’t useful; they are, and I love finding out how other writers work. Some of that stuff finds its way into my own process, and some remains an interesting tidbit that works better for others. Floating bits of unrelated things (this is one of the places where that puzzler thing comes in) bump into each other and bond, and, without my having put much thought into it, they make sense.

I really had no idea why my hero impulsively bought my heroine a cheaply made china dog, but then when she tells me (only writers understand fictional characters telling us what really happened) that she knew her father was leaving the family when he took his favorite hunting dog, there was that “oh” moment. So that’s what those things were all about. Okay, that gives me some structure. I know that my hero (I really should be using their  names here, but want to keep that private for a while longer) and heroine had a conversation in which she mentioned dogs, though she doesn’t have any, and that it made an impression on him, which is why he picked that china dog (very clear in my head, and it’s actually kind of ugly) because he knew it would make her happy.

This process rather fits this book, because neither my hero nor heroine have that firm a grasp on what they’re doing. The whole falling in love thing isn’t for them, both believing they’re locked out of that game. They made plans. Love wasn’t in them. Funny, but it tends to find its way in ,anyway. Which is a lot like the process of discovering a story.

Also, we have ducks:

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Typing With Wet Claws: Special Easter Monday Edition

annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for a special Monday edition of Typing With Wet Claws. I am blogging for Anty today because she is taking a mental health day. So far today, she has cleaned throwup twice (only one was mine, but I did try to eat it again. She would not let me.) and poop once (that was mine, but I did not try to eat it) and both Mama and Uncle are at home when they were meant to be at work. Mama is resting now, to get over her tummy bug,  and Uncle got his shift changed, so that pretty  much took care of Anty’s plans to have a productive day of writing at home.

That does not mean that she will not have a productive day, or that she will not write. Anty has a lot of notebooks, and is even now deciding which ones (plural) she will take with her when she heads outfor the day. She does not have a plan at this point, and I must admit her occasional cackles give me some pause (I already have paws. Four of them.) because that is not a sound I her very often, but Uncle convinced her that it will be best for everybody if she heads out for a while. Uncle likes to putter, which is not always compatible with Anty writing in the living room. Her other plan today was to work on organizing the office while listening to Paper Towns, but that would be too noisy, as the office shares a wall with her and Uncle’s bedroom.

Anty calls days like this well-filling days. That means she needs to take in new things so that she will have more to draw from when she writes. I have seen  her try to write when she does not take in enough, and it is not a pretty sight. This day away from the keyboard (well, mostly. I know my Anty.) will be good for everybody. She mentioned something about going to the park to look for ducks, and I did see her putting her camera in her big purse. The computer is probably staying home today, unless she comes back to get it and write at the coffee house, which she might do.

Normally, Anty likes to have a plan for her days. She will make a list of things that need to be done on a given day, usually over breakfast, and pick which one is the most important, then do that one first. Then she picks the next most important, and so on. Sometimes, things get carried over to the next day, but a day without plans does not happen all that often, especially on her own. Today, though, it is necessary, not only for staying away from sick and/or cranky people, but making sure she does not become one of them herself.

Schroedinger's bunny?

Schroedinger’s bunny?

In other news, yesterday was Easter, which means Anty gave Uncle an Easter basket. The foil wrapped chocolate bunny is important. Anty learned that the hard way, after we had to hand off at least four (I could not count higher than that, since I was counting on my paws) naked chocolate bunnies from the freezer to our former downstairs neighbor when we moved. Uncle does not like unwrapped bunnies, and Anty does not care for chocolate that much, but didn’t want to throw away perfectly good food items, so they lived in the freezer. Some of them, for a very long time.

Every basket also has to have a stuffed animal. This year, it was Cadbury Bunny. Very nice of him to come wearing a name tag, and he brought snacks. Anty and Uncle put him on the floor so that I could meet him (they are very good with that) but I am confused. This bunny talks. He makes chicken sounds. He does not move, but he does talk, and I am not sure if he is alive or not. Still figuring that one out, but Anty and Uncle seem to like him a lot, so I will follow their lead.

That ends this special entry. I will see you all on Friday, so until then, I remain very truly yours,

Skye O’Malley Hart-Bowling
(the kitty, not the book)

See you Friday....

See you Friday….

Typing With Wet Claws: It’s Not Easy Being Mews Edition

annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. It is finally feeling like spring here. That means that it is not freezing all the time, and I can watch birdies through the living room window while Anty and Mama have their breakfast. Uncle gets up a little later, and I have his breakfast with him in the kitchen. Everybody gives me kitty food when they get their people food, so I am not going to complain.

This week, Anty began Camp NaNo. That is a time when humans who write try to do a lot of writing in a short amount of time. That is like NaNo, except it does not make Anty as stressed, because she can decide how much writing she wants to do. Really, how much writing she wants to tell people she does, because she does a lot of writing. It’s the counting the words she does not like. She likes the actual writing fine. I am glad I do not have to count things. My job as a mews (see what I did there?) is to sit very very close to Anty and send out love beams. That is inspiring, I think, although I do not know how effective it is when it comes to making her put more kitties in her stories.

Yesterday, she put a dog in her new book. Only a china dog in this scene, but I looked at her outline. There will be a real dog later. She said the characters put the dog in there; she didn’t. I am not too sure about that. I know that characters are people who live inside Anty’s head, so maybe she should talk to some of them about having cats. There are horses in this book, but that is mostly because horses dragged the people carriers around in the times Anty’s stories are set. I have never met a horse, so I do not have a firm opinion on this, other than that it would not be too hard for Anty to maybe mention a barn cat or two when one of the horses is in its stable. I think that is fair recompense for all my hard work. If that is okay. Anty is most dominant in our pride, so I cannot tell her what to do, but I can make suggestions. Also look very very cute. I am good at that.

tools of the trade

tools of the trade

Anty has been doing a lot of writing this week, which keeps her busy, and that is a good thing. As you may be able to see in the picture of her keyboard, we have some casualties. There is now no letter at all on the E key, the Q key now looks like a broken O, and the L is pretty much a scratchy line. Anty says she may write letters on those keys with a silver Sharpie, but she knows what keys are where, so I do not think she is going to do that anytime soon. Also, people need to kiss on TV more, so that Anty can write about that and have more posts up on Heroes and Heartbreakers. She is part of this post on bloggers’ best reads of March, which has lots of ideas if you do not know what to read next. A word of warning: Anty’s pick is a very thick book that makes a loud sound when it is dropped. Loud sounds are scary. At least she read it by the bed, so I did not have to go far if I wanted to run under the bed for some reason. She is considerate that way.

goth laundry?

goth laundry?

This week also means it is time for Anty to get ready to go to the NECRWA conference. I have talked about that before, so I will not repeat myself here, except to say that the whole getting ready thing is not exactly cat-friendly. She does open the closet a lot and take clothes out, which I find very interesting. Sometimes, she puts them back in and sometimes she does not. Ever since she took the bright colors she does not like very much out of the closet, she has more fun playing with clothes. Most of her laundry looks like the picture above. Some of it is Uncle’s, but the stripey things and anything with a skull on it should be Anty’s. Sometimes new clothing comes home when Anty goes out hunting, and it does not smell like our things, until she washes it and wears it, and then it does. Until then, I am suspicious of all new items. I am not entirely convinced that the Skirt of Doom is not going to come back, even though I was the one who made it go away in the first place. Never you mind how. I was never sure if it was on Anty, part of Anty, or, worst of all, if it had Anty. Sometimes, a kitty has to do what a kitty has to do.

Anty needs the computer back, and it is lunchtime, so that is about it for this week. Until next week, I remain very truly yours,

Skye O’Malley Hart-Bowling
(the kitty, not the book)

So I’m Camping

annabowling 4 Comments

Put something on the page. The story will come.
–Mairi Norris

Yesterday, I remembered I’d signed up for Camp NaNo. The day before, I’d remembered I’d signed up for RWA’s The End, and had been meeting my goal there for the last two months, so this one couldn’t be any different. This means that I am doing two writing challenges at once. I’m using the same project, Her Last First Kiss, and this is very much a rough draft I’m using for both.

Initially, I wasn’t going to do either. Word count and I are not friends. Not that it doesn’t matter how long a work is, but if I focus on that aspect during a rough draft, I am not going to get anywhere. I know myself well enough by this point that how I work doesn’t allow for that. Let me tell the story first, and then we’ll work the rest out later. So, how, or more importantly, why did I find myself participating in two -no, I tell a lie (and thank you, research on the vernacular of Northern Ireland for that one,) it’s actually three, as CRRWA is tracking member word count for this year, though I haven’t reported in there yet- at the same time?

Part of it is the way real life has swept through recently, and carefully made plans get shoved to the side when there is caregiving that needs to be done right this minute. As a person whose only reason not to have started a notebook notebook (that is, a notebook devoted to keeping track of my other notebooks) being that I have not yet found the perfect notebook to used for such a purpose, I like to have things well planned out, both in life and in writing. Good plan, but it doesn’t always work that way, in either area.

Which is basically how I found myself, yesterday, moving my laptop around the coffee house table, trying to evade the sunlight streaming in (because I have not yet comprehended that my favorite seat in that section will result in me being unable to see the screen due to aforementioned sunlight, which counters the whole going there to write thing, but I am both stubborn and determined) onto my screen and figuring out where I record my progress on two out of the three. I was going to do this, and that was that. I love this book and these characters and their story more than I’ve loved any project I’ve worked on in a long time. Years, really, so this is happening, and on my terms.

I spent some time staring at the blank Scrivener screen, stymied by where a new chapter goes, and how many scenes should be in a chapter, anyway? To which my writer brain screamed a loud, insistent, STOP. No math now. None of it. Close Scrivener. Open Word. Blink at blank Word screen. Close Word. Stick in earbuds, open hero notebook and take out pen. Write bullet points. What happens next? Wite that. How did hero react to that? Write what happens next after that, all the way to the end of the scene. When that’s done, open Word again and transcribe. Kind of comfortable, that. Punch word count button and enter number in appropriate blanks, then go play Sims. That, I can do.

That would be the blue one...

That would be the blue one…

Getting distracted from what works is all too easy for some writers to do. There are a lot of shoulds floating around out there. This person’s career is taking off. That one’s tanked. That other one had a great career, it tanked, and then they came back with another name or subgenre and all of that in the time I’ve been stomping around in the woods with a bucket on my head and both feet stuck in rotten logs. But those are their journeys, and this one is mine. I’m the one who gets to say how I do it, because I’m the one who knows this story the best, and I’m the one who’s in the best place to see what actually gets the story told. If there happen to be bullet points in pretty notebooks along the way, I’m fine with that. I’d rather have fun getting the story told than bash my head bloody against a brick wall to reach a particular number.

It’s not about the numbers for me, or even about the words themselves. It’s about this hero and this heroine, two broken people who find wholeness is within their reach after all, both individually and together. I can’t think of anything more delightful to do with my time. It’s on.

Typing With Wet Claws: Nurse Kitty Edition

annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all, Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Very exhausting week to be a kitty around here. Anty was sick, the glowy boxes staged a revolt, and all three humans were at home yesterday. Well, Anty and Mama went out hunting, so that was not everybody all day, but it is difficult for one kitty to be in so many places at once.

One of the most important kitty duties is nursing. Anty does not get sick very often, which is a good thing, but when she does, I am there. This week, Anty only thought she was tired after she got back from the critique group, but then she was hot and cold at the same time, and things ached that should not be aching, and Uncle had to be the one to break it to her. She was sick. Anty does not like being sick, because she does not like “doing nothing” as she puts it. That makes her grumpy. Really, the best thing for the other humans to do in times like that is to give her some books and some movies and make sure she has lots of liquids.

Food, beautiful food

Food, beautiful food.

She did not want food for a couple of days (I cannot imagine how horrble that must be. I always want food. Can I have some food now? I am very cute, if that influences your answer any.) but she has her appetite back now, which is a very good thing. I heard her and Uncle talking about dinner tonight (theirs, not mine, but I will assume my dinner was implied. I would like fish jelly, please.) and they seemed happy about that. She is also putting on real people clothes and even makeup, so I know she is better. This does also mean that she will be leaving the house again to go hunt (I assume she is hunting; why else would she leave a comfortable house with a kitty in it?) and do laundry. There was not a lot of laundry last time, because she only had pajamas on for most of the week, but there was still laundry. Ever since she found out how she can send her manuscripts to her Kindle, she has been taking those along and reading her own work as though she were the reader and not the writer. She says that gives a different perspective and likes to take notes on anything that stands out.

I helped her rest by sitting very very very close to her recliner and sending love beams in her direction. She says that helped a lot. I also helped her watch some movies. We liked The Perks of Being a Wallflower, although it did not have any kitties in it. It had friends and a love story, though, and Anty likes movies with those things in them. Also angst. There was a lot of angst. Angst makes Anty happy. This is not as alarming as it sounds. These sorts of things are perfectly normal for writers. She is open to suggestions for other movies with the same feel. She has already seen The Fault in Our Stars, and liked that one, and is looking forward to Paper Towns. She is listening to the book of that on her mp3 player right now. Well, maybe not right now. I do not know when you are reading this, so she may be listening to something else. Probably one of her story soundtracks, because she is back to writing. That is a big relief. She is cranky when she is not writing.

It is a good thing that Anty loves notebooks. Yesterday, Mama suggested that, since the computer power cords come in two peices, maybe switching the peices around would help them hold a charge. Anty tried that, and Mama is right. Anty now calls these “Frankencords,” and they hold a steady charge, where the other ones did not. New cords are on the way, and may be here as soon as tomorrow. That will make everybody happy. I heard Anty and Uncle talking about a tablet. I got worried for a minute, but it is all right. They do not mean they want to give me a tablet, and they do not mean the pill kind, anyway. The best I can tell, it is a very small glowy box. Maybe even kitty sized. It is hard to tell from the picture on the glowy box. Hm. Maybe they do want to give me a tablet, but the glowy box kind, not the kind the vet dispenses. Either that, or Anty wants to carry a really small glowy box instead of packing up the laptop every time she goes to the coffee house to write.

Speaking of writing, Anty has a new post up on Heroes and Heartbreakers, on the season finale of The Mindy Project. It is here and looks like this:

DANDY
Anty and Uncle get grumbly sometimes about season finales in March. When they were younger, TV seasons went from September to June and that was that. It is much more complicated these days. Personally, I like watching birds through the window. There are no commercials there, but sometimes trucks and busses with ads on them drive by. I guess that is kind of the same thing.

Well, it is that time again. Anty needs the glowy box so she can write, and it really is my lunchtime, so that is about it for this week. Until next time, I remain very  truly yours,

Skye O’Malley Hart-Bowling
(the kitty, not the book)

Until next week...

Until next week…

Electronic Ragnarok

annabowling 4 Comments

The robot uprising has begun, at least in my house. It started some months back, with the old printer stubbornly insisting it had a paper jam, though taking the back off and inspecting the are in question reveals that it absolutely does not. Barring some miniscule scrap stuck deep in the gears, we’re stumped. Still, the darned thing insists it’s jammed, and more puzzlingly, Will Not Turn Off, so yanking the plug is the only solution. There is a lovely new printer standing by, which is not compatible with the extant coputers, but a solution to that is on the way in the near future, so we manage.

There is, of course, a sizeable graveyard of headphones and earbuds who gave their lives for good cause, and the debate over “let’s buy a bunch of the inexpensive ones so we have new ones when the old ones die” versus “if we spend the same amount of money on one pair of good ones, they won’t die all the time and won’t need to be replaced” can go on long enough that one party may consider reading the entire text of the Outlander saga merely to keep the filibuster going long enough for another party to consult pricing information to bolster the argument. My mp3 player is not, after all, compatible wiht my music streatming system of choice, and my laptop has decided that it and audiobooks are no longer on speaking terms. Neccessary losses, those, and while some, particularly the purple earbuds with the skulls on them, are missed, we know these things are going to happen.

I don’t remember how long ago it was that Real Life Romance Hero’s ancient desktop finally gave up the ghost, but it wasn’t pretty. We slid in the lovely silver laptop a friend had passed on to us shortly before our move. Of a slightly earlier vintage than the laptops Housemate and I use (those two being identical twins) that machine served him well, until last week, when, by his reports, it took thirty minutes to accomplish what the other computers could accomplish in two. This is not what we want. Set that machine aside, confer with Housemate to create a tmeshare arrangement on her computer, and then…

Then the power cord on her computer stops working. When I say stops working, I mean that even though we can darned well see it plugged in, the footer on the screen says the laptop is not plugged in to any power source and helpfully informs us how much battery power is left.

This, too, we can solve with some creativity. Since Housemate’s computer and mine are identical twins, let’s swap out the cord and see if that works. Success. Enter a couple of days of swapping one cord bewteen two computers used among three users. Takes some doing, but with scheduling and compromise, it works, until the next plot twist, which is that cord going from “the cord that works” to “the cord that usually works.”  A household where Real LIfe Romance Hero is deprived of YouTube, Housemate is cut off from  hidden object games is not a happy one, and, being a writer, computer access is kind of a big deal for me.

So, solutions become a priority. Housemate ordered replacement cords, plural, online, and a new-to-us desktop will make its way in our general direction, after a hiccup of its own, so relief is on the way. Housemate and I will head out later today (after tea, oh so much tea) to see if we can find replacement cords and/or batteries in stock at Big Box Electronic Store, but since the  twin laptops are older models, hopes are not too high. We may bite the bullet and price tablets. Real Life Romance Hero has a cookie theory about his laptop that does not involve chocolate chips (though baking might be good therapy right about now) and will be taking his laptop in for a diagnostic, because fixing beats replacing in such situations if his theory holds true.

Worst comes to worst, we live within walking distance of two public libraries, so there’s backup, and new cords should be here on the first of the month. It’s a good thing I love notebooks. The revolutionaries are recruiting, though. The refrigerator has started making some ominous noises…

Typing With Wet Claws: Under the Bed Edition (With Notebooks)

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Hello all, Skye here for another Feline Friday. This week’s entry is later than usual, because Anty is taking a half day to rest. Also because I am under the bed. No, I do not want to say why, but I am pretty sure that loud thing that goes by our house in the morning is a cat zamboni, and I want to make sure it does not get me. Sometimes, when it gets especially loud, I think it might be stuck on a tabby, and I am one, so I will stay under the bed for now.

Yesterday, Anty got three blog entries written, two of them posted (one of those in two different places) and looked over notes from the new critique group she visited the night before. She says it was super cold walking to the library against the wind, and she did spend a whole hour waiting in the wrong meeting room (but does not mind too much, because she wrote and writing time is always good) but she likes the group and will go back. As she expected, her pages were everybody’s first introduction to historical romance. She thinks that is kind of special. There were no kitties in anybody’s story, which I find disappointing, but that’s how life goes sometimes.

i1035 FW1.1i1035 FW1.1

Anty and Mama ran a couple of errands after dropping Uncle off at work today, and Anty came home with the notebook in the top picture, above. She already had the one in the bottom picture, and it is almost full. She did not need a new notebook, especially not one to to with this particular topic (it is on its 2nd and a half notebook already) and she prefers for all notebooks on one subject to go together, but the looks of the two books agreed (she even checked them against each other because the store still had copies of the spiral notebook) and the bond was strong, so the new one came home. Also, she likes the words on the cover, and those suggested what she can do with the new book.

This goes along with Anty being in the magpie stage. Things will have connections to her, and she will need to put them together, in different combinations, until they become something cohesive and new. These notebooks go with the first notebook she started on this subject, and the one that I peed on (and that she fixed) and also with some other things. Lists of songs that suggest a certain kind of story, images of different things (some of which she will print out on the new printer when the new computer arrives -I will probably go under the bed again when that happens, because I am pretty sure there is going to be noise involved. Also furniture moving around and there may be boxes. I am pretty sure there will be boxes.)

Now that spring is here, Anty is getting ready to go to the Let Your Imagination Take Flight conference next month. It is put on by NECRWA, the chapter Anty is gone all day long when she has a meeting, and she will be gone overnight. That makes me sad, but I will have some special time with Uncle. I can probably convince him to give me some extra treat to make up for how sad I am. Then I will not be sad. Well, not about not having enough treat. I will still miss Anty until she comes home. She will have new things with her when she does get back; free books and bookmarks and pens and other interesting things, especially things that crinkle. I like things that crinkle. If she brings home any sticky notes, she will crumple some and let me play with them. If you are going to be there, too, Anty would love to say hello and chat for a bit.

Along with writing and blogging and trying the new group, Anty had a new post go up at Heroes and Heartbreakers. She got to read The Warlord’s Wife by Sandra Lake before it went on sale. That is pretty special. You can read what she thought about it here.

Anty says it is getting late and she wants the computer so she can play Sims, so that will be it for this week. There is food in my bowl, so I will probably come out sooner rather than later so I can eat it. I want to make really really sure the cat zamboni is gone first.

Until next week...

Until next week…

Until next week, I remain very truly yours,

Skye O’Malley Hart-Bowling
(the kitty, not the book)

Paperblanks Filigree Family Portrait

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Well, it finally happened. After literally months of drooling over and longing for the Paperblanks grande blue filigree notebook, a Barnes and Noble coupon and well managed family finances allowed Big Daddy Precious to come home. Which, of course, required the family portrait above.

Paperblanks, my precioussssss...

Paperblanks, my precioussssss…

I think the reason I’d resisted Paperblanks for as long as I did was because of the plain pages inside. Technically, very lightly lined, but free of ornamentation, and I generally like to have something to look at while I’m writing. Then I learned to draw boxes around things and add curlicues to the boxes, and that generally makes my brain happy, so I no longer had an excuse.

typical planner page

typical planner page

Paper is smooooth, which I love, and  I like the rounded corners on the pages. The covers are beyond stunning, and I suspect that the family portrait is not by any means complete, as there are still other colors and formats to be had.

At present, the small black book (aka Baby Badass Precious) is my daily planner, and the rest are for Her Last First Kiss. Small blue book (aka Baby Boy Precious) was originally going to be my all purpose notebook for this project, but soon found that wasn’t going to hold everything, and I like a larger format. So, smaller books are easier to tuck in my tote or pocket and take my show on the road. The large blue book, (aka Big Daddy Precious) will be taking over from the deconstructed Studio Oh! book I’d been using (Still not sure what purpose that one will serve now; I can’t remove the used pages, and I get funny about switching purpose once a book has been started, so it may be for overflow. Maybe something else. We’ll see. Maybe it needs to go into a resting period. I do still like it, but now that I have a theme going, I like to stick to that. ) and will live on my Secretary desk. I’ve never felt that strong a connection between a notebook and writing surface before, but trust me, these fit.

Baby Boy Precious is now for working out hero stuff for HLFK, Baby Girl Precious for heroine stuff, and they all come together in Big Daddy Precious. May need to keep peepers peeled for Big Mama Precious or some other relatives for overflow.

I’ve only tested three inks so far, but sometimes, that’s all one needs.

Ink Test

Ink Test

Pilot Varsity fountain pen is winning so far, Micron 05 a close second, and I am surprised that the R-2 rollerball, a dollar store find (!) holds its own with the other two. Not much bleed through on any of the three, so I think I’m good whatever way I go with this one. Can’t make myself try a ballpoint on this paper, and it will probably be a while before I put a highlighter to it, if at all.

One parting shot, because I am not going to get tired of seeing how gorgeous these all look together. Methinks the family still needs to expand a bit.

i1035 FW1.1

Classy, huh?

Now to fill them all….