Typing With Wet Claws: Running Late Edition

December 12, 2014annabowling Leave a comment

Skye here, for another Feline Friday.

We had big snow this week. I am an inside kitty, so I was not out in it, but snow does make Anty happy, so she was. She did not take any pictures so far, but she says winter is young, and there wasn’t a lot of time, She said it was something to do with the domestic tornadoes we had this week. Human lives get complicated, and often involve trips to the laundromat. I am not entirely sure what happens in a laundromat, but Anty says she does a lot of her writing there. Since she always takes her notebooks with her, that makes a lot of sense.

The Christmas tree went up this week, as did the lights around the doorways to the living room and Uncle’s office. Last night, one of the light strings fell down when I was sitting under it. That was scary. It did not hit me, but still not something I would care to repeat. The humans gave me food to make me feel better.. That worked. I also got more food when Uncle decided to see if I would play with the light from the big flashlight. I did not. Silly Uncle. Lights are not toys. Crumpled papers are toys. Anty makes me a lot of them, so that works out well.

Anty worked a lot this week. She has a new post up at Heroes and Heartbreakers, about the 200th episode of Bones. It is here and it looks like this:

Beyond that, she says she has kept her head down and eyes on her own paper, which is probably a human thing. She will explain later. Since she keeps her eyes on her paper, I keep my eyes on her. Most years, she watches a lot of Christmas movies and reads Christmassy books, but so far, nothing this year. This concerns me. Writing and pre-writing time is good, but that takes a lot of energy away from important things like playing with me. Christmassy movies and TV shows usually mean she will make popcorn. I don’t eat it (as it is not kitty food) but the smell is amazing. Same with hot chocolate, of which there has not been any yet that I can tell. This also concerns me. Knowing Anty as I do, I know her Christmas fever is going to kick in sooner or later, and the longer it takes to start, the harder it will hit when it does.

Really, it’s in everyone’s best interest that she start as soon as possible. I am not sure what I can do to get that underway, (if you have suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments) but the decorations being up is a very good start.

Tomorrow, Anty will be going to her CRRWA meeting, which is always a good thing. She gets to spend time with other romance writers, hang out in a library and best of all, come home to feed me.

That’s about it for this week.

Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

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

Tools of the Trade

December 11, 2014annabowling 2 Comments

The more I tried to force it, the less it worked, until in the end I hit a wall of creative exhaustion.
–Julia Ross

Today’s quote comes from this post by author Julia Ross, whom I am afraid to read. Not that I don’t want to; I have several of her books (alas, in storage, but there’s the library and ebooks, so not an excuse there) and I’ve peeked into them and closed the covers and put them back on the touch with a reverent pet. I’m sure I’m going to love these books when I do read them, but the giant question mark hanging over the possibility of there being more books from this author in the near or far future -her post was written in 2007, after all, about when my own wandering in the woods started, would require me to read them through splayed fingers. What if I love her and there aren’t any more, ever?

It’s happened before. I love, love, love Valerie Sherwood, aka Jeanne Hines, aka Rosamund Royal, one of the first wave of historical romance writers in the late seventies and early eighties. Grand adventures, bold heroines, intriguing heroes, vivid historical detail, heartfelt author’s notes, etcetera, etcetera. Most readers have those authors who get an “oh, yes!” from the very first page and never want the stream to stop. Sometimes, however, it does. After Ms. Sherwood’s last published work, Lisbon, she let fans know she was going to spend as much time as she could with her beloved husband, Eddie, who had fallen ill. She never came back. I can’t blame her. The illness of a spouse can overshadow everything else, and I can’t even imagine the impact a loss would have. When authors disappear for reasons like this, we understand. We don’t blame them.

The sort of creative paralyisis that affects writers in Ms. Ross’s situation, that I understand all too well. Those ideas that should work, but don’t, the yen to try something new but still stay true to who we are as writers, the shifting demands of the market, all of those together, compounded with the desire not to let people down, that’s a lot of balls (and sometimes chainsaws) to juggle at one time. There’s guilt. Frustration. Downright shame. This should work. It worked for Big Name Author. It worked for Writer Friend. It worked for Critique Partner. Why doesn’ t it work for meeeeeeee? Well, because it doesn’t.

(Makeup) case in point: today’s picture. This is part of my daily routine. I love makeup. I love makeup like I love historical romance. I’ve got Kat von D. I’ve got Wet’n’Wild. They are usually on my face at the same time. There’s primers and color correction and a pleasing balance of neutrals and brights, accumulated from a lot of trial and error. Makeup is natural for me. I like it. It’s playtime. It’s not a mask, it’s art on my face. It’s part of me. Some women don’t wear makeup. Some men do. Yay for all of us, as long as the face we see in the mirror reflects the person behind it, I’m good with that. If I were to run errands or meet friends in jeans and tshirt and no makeup, I’d feel…awkward. Uncomfortable. Not ugly, just not-me. I spent too much time being not-me to willingly go back there again.

So it is with writing. All that striving and trying and bashing my head against the keyboard and shoving what I naturally want to do into a box because “real writers” do this or do that didn’t get me anywhere good. I’ve spoken before about writer friends, however well-meaning, who think I “really should” write their favorite genre instead of my own, or what’s popular or what’s hot or the next big thing. Stop. Just stop. If I wanted to, I would. I’ve tried genres that are not-me, and know what? They’re not-me. I’m me. I wear makeup. I write romance.

Creative exhaustion is something nobody plans on, but sometimes it happens. It’s not fun. It’s frustrating and annoying and something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. It does, however, have the potential to be a useful tool. It teaches us what we don’t want to do. What doesn’t work. When we know what doesn’t work, we can turn in the opposite direction and go in the other way. Forcing writing very seldom works, and if it does, it’s not the same as writing that comes from a natural place. It’s easy to say “relax, it will come” and for those in the throes of creative exhaustion, that can make the pressure seize up all the more.

I’m not an expert, by any means. I still seize up at times over the fact that my most recent novel release isn’t all that recent :runs around in circles, screaming.: Must get new novel out now now now now now! Accio manuscript! :taps foot: Nothing? Guess I’ll have to do it the old fashioned way. Which is fine, because it can be a wondrous adventure.

Fumbling Toward Storytown

December 10, 2014annabowling 4 Comments

You should walk towards yourself as a writer, not away.
—Chuck Wendig

Writer Friends: What are you working on right now?

Me: :shifty eyes: Um, :mumble mumble: New historical :mumble mumble: Georgian. :mumble mumble: Something about a love triangle. :mumble mumble: Canada. :mumble mumble: Hey, look, a kitty.

Even if there’s no kitty. Really, all I want is to change the subject. Current Project doesn’t want to be talked about yet. Odd for me, since extrovert me really does want to talk to Everybody about pretty much All The Things, though I’ve tried really really hard to hold myself back on that. Sometimes too much. There has to be a happy medium, and sometimes it’s tricky to find. On the other hand, there is such a thing as talking too much about a story, so much so that A) It’s all talked out and now no longer needs to be written, and/or B) there’s so much input from so many different sources that outside voices drown out the voices of the characters. In either event, nothing gets done, and the characters sit around in the author’s brain, all crabby because they were all set to have this awesome adventure and now nobody’s doing anything and what are they even here for?

Imagine various couples dressed in garb from various historical eras, drumming their fingers on various tables, sighing loudly and looking out the windows because they are sooooo booooored. Not with being historical people (except for Anthony and Christine, whom I tried to shove into a Regency setting where neither they nor I are at all happy, because Regency sells, but my heart wasn’t in it. We’ll give this a rest and try again in a different era when they are speaking to me again.) or with being couples, but with being stuck in stories that weren’t working because I was so determined to do things the way they “should” be done that I couldn’t have shipwrecked them worse if I tried.

Can they be rescued? Sure, most of them. We need some time to let the dust settle, these would-be books and I. Others will shake hands (or bow and curtsy as the case may be) and go our separate ways, glad to have been in each other’s lives for the good times we had. Time plus distance equals perspective, and taking a step back from a story-that-won’t is often the key to making it into a story-that-will, and eventually a story-that-did.

The story I’d thought I could maybe possibly have done and dusted, at least to the halfway mark, if I did do NaNo merely laughed at me. It didn’t want to be plotted with charts or GMC’d into marching order. No, these two have banded together and want to play with me. They’ll tell me this much, but I have to figure out this other thing before they’ll say anything else, but when I do, they have something special for me. I haven’t had a hero and heroine do this to me before, but that’s kind of the whole point, having those characters find me while I’m still wandering around in the woods at night, bumping into trees and getting my foot caught in decayed logs. One of them will help me sit on some boulder I never noticed before and the other one will calmly disengage my foot from the rotted log, chase off whatever wildlife was inside said log (because there usually is) and then we’ll have a talk. They’ll tell me their story and I will write it down.

Because that’s what it’s all about for me. The hero, the heroine, their story. All the rest, word counts and GMC and plot and historical versimilitude (far better than historical accuracy, but that’s another post altogether) and character charts and all the rest, those come secondary. Listening to too many voices has resulted in the past with me stomping about in the woods at night, during a rainstorm, with both feet in rotten logs and a bucket stuck in my head, and I’m over all that, thankyouverymuch. Here’s this couple (even when they unite to make me their plaything, but I’m not minding much, really; it’s fun for me, too.) and here’s me and we’re going on an adventure. Feels about right.

Typing With Wet Claws: Traditional Christmas Zombie Edition

December 5, 2014December 5, 2014annabowling 3 Comments

Skye here, for another Feline Friday. It has been an eventful week around the house for everybody. The leftovers from Thanksgiving are all gone now, except for a little bit of gravy, so I still get that nice warm birdy smell every now and again. Anty is very happy to have over three hundred followers and says she is working on something to say thank you for that.

The big change around here is Anty planning Christmas decorations for another year. That usually means lights get strung in the doorways to the living room and Uncle’s office, and the tree goes up maybe a day after that. There is some talk this year of a second tree to go in the front window, but I have not seen them bring it in yet. One tree is still good, full of lights and shiny dangly things. I do not get near the tree, since it is up on a table and I do not jump or climb, so I watch it from the floor.

Mama got Anty a lot of new batteries, so that Anty will not be without her camera over the holiday season. I mean a lot of batteries. Like this many. This means she can chase me around the house for a long time in order to get my picture for this blog. She says it is for holiday pictures, but I know what she really means. She wants kitty pictures.

lots of batteries mean lots of pictures

We also have something the humans say counts as holiday decoration, but I think they have the wrong holiday in mind. Since I am only a kitty, I have not had a lot of Christmases, and someone may have to help me out here, but is there such a thing as a Christmas zombie? Because we have this zombie hand that Anty says is going to hold a Christmas ornament and be the centerpiece on the dining room table. It looks like this:

Traditional Christmas zombie?

I think all that time on the glowy box is making Anty loopy. She says she has her head down and her eyes on her own paper. She has big purple headphones on so she can listen to the playlist she made for her story, and that’s pretty much where her attention goes most of the day. Sometimes, she looks at pictures she has on the computer that she says look like the people and places in her head. I sit really really close to her chair so she knows I love her and I stare at her a lot. I hear kitty stares help writers make better stories. She says I do not have to sleep under her footrest, but I feel safe with that roof over my head, so she has to be very very careful when she gets up to feed me. Or get tea. But mostly feed me.

That is about it for this week. Lots of clicking of keys and scratching of pen on paper. I know that makes Anty happy, and there is always the chance that she will feed me when she gets up to make more tea.

Until next week, I remain,

Very truly yours,

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

NaNot Ramblings Wrap-up: So That Was November…

December 1, 2014annabowling Leave a comment

Talk about writing exactly as much as you, personally, need to talk about writing.
–Seanan McGuire

So here we are, December first, and NaNo 2014 is a memory, hopefully a good one for those who did and did not participate. I was a not this year, but I’m still counting it as a success. My plans for sneaking into write-ins resulted in exactly zero attempts at doing so; I was too busy keeping my head down and eyes on my own paper, which was a big surprise. I also visited the forums a grand total of zero times. I did meet a NaNo friend to write at a coffee house once and have plans to repeat the experience later this month. My source of community this month was emails and instant messaging with writer friends, notably a critique partner I will call CP, either casually while each worked on our own projects or dedicated chats scheduled in advance.

I found that nattering in detail with one trusted writer friend gave me what I needed to go into the head down, eyes on own paper mode. Some days, that was so I would have something about which to natter. It’s a delicate balance between the thinking and talking happening at the same time while at the same time (yes, repetitive phrase, I know, but shush, gremilns. You can come back when it’s time to edit.) not getting so many other voices and expectations in my head that they drowned out the voices of characters and story.

It’s a journey of discovery, to be sure, and one that isn’t over merely because November is done. Fall and winter are my most productive times of year. I’m not sure if it’s the shorter days, the feeling of the world being safely tucked in for the night around four-thirty or so that makes me want to have most of the work done by then…but then sneaking in a bit more writing while doing the rest of the evening’s stuff.

The routine is getting set in place once more, and I think the writing will be better for it. I am a morning person. This means that, despite anyone else in the household spending the morning at a leisurely pace (if not heading out the door to an early shift) nine AM needs to see me dressed, made up, computer packed and feet out the door to home office away from home office at the coffee house one block over or Panera on the other side of the park. Tush in chair, tea at hand, notebook and computer at the ready and let’s do this thing. I’ve been juggling a couple of different projects at different stages, one of which does not want to be talked about at all, apart from discussions with CP – some stories are like that- and one which may want to drop a line here now and again. Some stories are like that, too. Both are perfectly fine. Stories come as stories come. If I had to pinpoint one thing I learned about my own writing from my NaNot month, it was this: I need to get out of the story’s way. Don’t try to cram it into a box where it won’t fit, but follow its natural form. Easy to say, but took some effort to learn.

I know how to do this. I have done this. I can do this again. I am doing this now. The hypercritical gremlins that like to live in writers’ heads have their places (usually in the editing process) but it’s better, at least for me, to get that story down as wild as it comes from my brain and fix all the rough spots later, when it’s done. I had a gym teacher, Ms. Napier, back in junior high who loved athletics like I love historical romance. When she took us girls on a cross country run, even those of us straining and panting as we hobbled along at the rear of the pack, she had one bit of wisdom for us: we were not allowed to quit if we could see the finish line.

It’s like that here. Can I see the end of the story? Yes. Then onward, fleet like a gazelle some days, eating the ground with long, confident strides. Panting and stumbling other times, still others prone on the floor, dragging myself forward by my fingertips, but an inch forward is still forward. I’m liking the way it works. Now bring on December.

Typing With Wet Claws: Post Thanksgiving Edition

November 28, 2014annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Today’s picture is of me at the old house, because Anty’s camera batteries died yesterday right before Uncle asked Anty to take a picture of the Thanksgiving table. (That was because they died taking a picture of the snowy tree in front of our house, which Anty had a picture of already but it had a lot less snow on it and Mama wanted the really snowy picture. Mama did not know that would kill the batteries, so do not be mad at her.) I am sorry about that because there were a lot of food bowls on that table and a table full of food bowls is a beautiful thing.

Another beautiful thing is Anty’s new business cards. They came last week, and she is very happy with them. Here is one of them, used in the new notebook she is still altering.

Could use a frame, don’t you think?

Anty had a new post at Heroes and Heartbreakers this week. In case you missed it, you can click the link below and read it now. Anty loves to get comments and talk to readers, so feel free to chime in. Her post was on the first part of Sleepy Hollow‘s fall finale. She says it is about ships, but I watched the whole episode and there were no boats of any kind. Must be a human thing. You can read about it here; if you know where the ships come in please let me know.:

Sleepy Hollow: Ichabbie Heart to Heart: knowledge is power

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, which means there was a lot of food everywhere. I still got my regular cat food and Uncle gave me some extra treat, so my tummy was very happy. Anty was less happy when I tried to wrap my whole body around both of her feet while she was carrying one of the platters from kitchen to dining room, but who can blame me? There was warm birdy smell and I wanted to be near her. Isn’t that a sign of devotion? I know full well I do not get people food because people eat people food and kitties eat kitty food and I am a kitty, but it was the principle of the thing.

Our family did not go Black Friday shopping, but Anty did get to spend some time this morning chasing me around the apartment, asking to see what was in my mouth, and I did not want her to see that. In case you are wondering, it was shed fur. She did not seem happy to see me eat it, but if my shed fur is that important to her, she does not have to worry. She will see it again when I am done with it. She did succeed in picking me up twice in her efforts to get the fur away from me, but I still got it down and then she had to give me food to soothe my nerves from being picked up. I like to be close to my humans, but not be picked up.

Anty says dealing with cats is good practice for dealing with characters, since we both are supposedly subject to our writer humans but end up doing our own thing anyway. I think she may be on to something there.

Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

Skye O’Malley Hart-Bowling

(the kitty, not the book.)

NaNot Ramblings: When Enough is Enough

November 25, 2014annabowling Leave a comment

You must create because the idea isn’t to create something that’s ‘good enough’ or ‘really perfect’ or anything else. You must create because the idea is to create, to make something where something wasn’t before.

-Wil Wheaton

“Is that going to be for writing or art?” my friend asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered as my hand stroked over the smooth, creamy pages criscrossed by thin gray lines. That’s part of the process, feeling the paper, looking through the empty pages to see what will one day fill them. It’s a few days later, after this notebook and I met across a decidedly un-crowded office supply store, but when you know, you know. It was on clearance, I was in love, and when you know, you know. Sometimes, you don’t know everything, but sometimes, you don’t need everything. You need enough.

That’s something I’ve learned from my month of not-NaNo-ing this year. Month’s not over, but some things don’t need a whole month to learn. Maybe this year, I got the spirit of NaNo if not the letter of the law. I can’t tell you how many words I put on a page since November first (okay, I could if I went through and ran word count on my current projects) but I can say that there is story there where there was no story before. I can say that I get up excited to put pen to paper and then transcribe. I have characters living in my head again, jabbering at me and poking me to get their story down. They correct me. He didn’t go there, he went here. She didn’t say that, she said this. The theme of the story isn’t what I planned for it to be, but it is what it actually is.

It’s similar to bonding with a new notebook, bonding with a story, and to a greater extent, with myself as a writer. I am glad I made that my focus this month, because that, in the end, will get me closer to The End than trying to force myself into somebody else’s process. That’s never going to work, and as a living thing, it’s going to change over time. Time was, I didn’t see the point in fancy notebooks. Plain spiral bound notebooks were all I’d ever used and if the whole point was to put what was in my head on that page, what did anything else have any business there?

Don’t ask me when it changed, but over time, it did. There was an alternative to white paper? :blink blink: Ivory or cream is much easier on my eyes, looks delicious and adds a special something extra, so I look for that now. I used to be a lined paper purist. Then I discovered a gridded notebook in a discount store, became intrigued and gave it a try. Then I took a leap and tried unlined pages.. Those froze me, until I read about drawing a box around the page. Tried that, then couldn’t fill pages fast enough. Go figure.

Now, I’m voracious. I want all the notebooks. Some are ready to use right out of the gate, and some, like my newest acquisition up there, need some prep work first. I still don’t know what will ultimately go on these pages. Maybe it’s for writing. Maybe it’s for art. Maybe it’s for both. What I do know is that I’m not going to force it, and I’m not going to force my current writing projects. That’s a hard lesson to learn, but a needed one. Stories, to me, are living things, and there comes a time when they take on their own direction. Forcing them is not ever going to work, and will only end up hurting both of us. Working with their natural inclinations, however, that’s a different story, pun intended, and I can’t wait to see where that’s going to take us.

Typing With Wet Claws: A Few Skulls Couldn’t Hurt

November 21, 2014annabowling Leave a comment

Skye here, for another Feline Friday. It’s been an interesting week here. Though we are in New York, we did not get any of the big snow. We are several hours east of that, and while it is cold, all we have is sunshine and a few clouds. Anty has been at the glowy box a lot. She had two posts go live on Heroes and Heartbreakers:

A first look at Twice Tempted by Eileen Dreyer

and

Heart to Heart: The Walking Dead season 5, episode 6: Consumed by the Chemistry

I do not get to read books because I am a kitty (even though I am named after a book) so I do not know anything about the book she read, but I do get to watch The Walking Dead with my people. They seemed to really like this episode because it was Carol and Daryl and lots of things happened. I like the show because no kitties have been eaten or zombified. That is always the mark of a good show to me. Then again, I have never seen any kitties on that show, but that is my head canon.

So it begins…

Anty has begun the process of “fixing” my notebook alterations. The black and white book is the book that I peed on, but I have nothing to do with the brown book’s funny smell. That one is because Anty did not make sure her water bottle was fully closed before she put it in her purse. She did not check that until things became fragrant (personally, I think it smells fine the way it is, but humans are funny that way) and says this is the last ditch effort to de-stink both notebooks. She may take the paper out of the black and white book and have different paper put in, if only the paper is smelly, and that seems to make her happy. So, with that in mind, did I really do such a naughty thing in altering the paper in this one? I don’t think so. Sometimes, it takes humans longer to grasp cat logic. Really, it’s not that difficult. If this paper is ruined, then Anty can use whatever paper she would like, and since ivory (or cream, like my undercoat) is easier on her eyes than stark white, this is actually a good move. I did what I had to do, and I did it out of love. Also a full bladder.

Listen here….

As part of Anty’s office reclamation, she has (finally) obtained earbuds for the old desktop computer. Anty really likes skulls, so these had to come home. Now if she will get rid of the speakers that came with us from the old house but have not worked in recent memory, that will get rid of some tangly wires and let me sit even closer to her while she is working. Not everybody knows this, but I can be a cat ninja when I want, and get reallyreallyclose without making a sound. Like on the humans’ feet close. It does not hurt that I am somewhat carpet-colored. Anty says I am allowed in the office, though I am not yet sure if I want to go in there. She has a lot of skulls. None of them are kitty skulls, though. Only human, and she says they are made out of things like plastic and rubber, not the actual remains of her enemies or anything like that. I don’t know; that would be an effective way of warding off interruptions. Warnings work, as a show of power and intent. Anty says a closed door does the same thing, but I think a couple of skulls on the door could not hurt.

Until next week, I remain very truly yours,

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

NaNot Ramblings: Clearing the Dust

November 20, 2014annabowling Leave a comment

This is my third time attempting to write this blog entry, on my old desktop in the office of our current apartment. Part of reclaiming my writing is reclaiming my office. First thing on my list today was to turn off the ceiling fan in the office, which required getting up on the kitchen stool, one hand braced against the semi-opened office door and having fuzzy gray dustbunny babies rain down upon me. Not something I would like to repeat in the near future, but it was a neccessary step.

Basic truth; if I’m going to get any work done in my office, it needs to be a room that I want to inhabit. It can’t be for storage. Storage took over my office in the old apartment, and climbing over boxes of books and other essentials took some of the appeal out of the process. Things had started to go in that direction here, but no time like the present to put my foot down and break the pattern. Maybe the old writer was willing to go through that. The writer I am now is not. I want and need and deserve a dedicated place where I can go, shut the door and enter into my story world. Hence the orange Post-it note that reads ‘writing cave.’

I do a lot of work in public, at the local coffee house or nearby Panera, but the desire for my own office, set up to my specifications, rose within me this week, and it’s time. As easy as that. Not that this is going to be easy, because I’m going to have to figure out what to do with the boxes that should not have made it onto the moving van. I do not serve the office; the office serves me, so what will make me want to be in this room the most and get the most done? There were nights, long nights, in the old office, when I didn’t care that it was too hot or too cold, because this was my space and there were stories that had to come out of me and onto the page, so a little discomfort was no big deal.

Here, I am comfortable. I am happy. I am healthy. I am having fun learning this new me and seeing what the new office she will inhabit will look and feel like. The best way I’ve found, at least for me, is to jump in and do. Hence this entry. My laptop, which has become my main computer, is set up in the living room, at the other end of the house. I will take it down after lunch, when I head to the coffee house, and work on the day’s scene. First, though, I’m getting myself reacquainted with working in here. The vintage burlap bulletin board is going to need some help. It took itself down a few weeks back, and that gave me the opportunity to see that the random things I had pinned to that board don’t reflect what I’m doing now as well as they could. Still figuring out what will do that trick. Maybe the board needs to go back up with new things upon it, maybe it needs to be retired and replaced with something new. I don’t know yet.

What I do know is that I am sitting now at the antique secretary desk I had coveted since childhood. I am sitting in the ergonomic chair that I bought with my own money from one of my old retail jobs. I remember how proud I was, walking out of Office Max with that cardboard box clutched awkwardly in my arms, taking it home and upstairs and figuring out how to put it together. Then sitting in it, behind the big metal desk we’d acquired through souces I do not now recall, and telling myself this was my space and I would honor it and keep it. I didn’t do that great, but y’know, those years weren’t that great, so it’s okay. I’m here now. I don’t have to keep the dust of another life if it doesn’t have anything to add to the life I am actually living. What I need to surround me are things that will feed the stories I write now. Some old, some new, some that blend the two in a new way I wouldn’t have been able to see before. Kind of exciting, that, and having a new/old place to write, that fits right in with the plan.

NaNot Blather: The Way I Do It Is The Way I Do It

November 18, 2014November 18, 2014annabowling Leave a comment

“You are not a mistake. You are not a problem to be solved. But you won’t discover this until you are willing to stop banging your head against the wall of shaming and caging and fearing yourself.”
~Geneen Roth

Yesterday, at about this time, I was all set to get my Monday post up on schedule. It’s probably still somewhere in my drafts folder, lurking under (no title) or something else equally obscure. I had pictures embedded, all good to go, feeling rather smug about staying on track with the “other” tasks of the day so I could buckle down and write, and then…because there is always an ‘and then,’ an email notice popped up; could I possibly write a post for Heroes and Heartbreakers on the all-Caryl (Carol and Daryl shipping) episode of The Walking Dead that aired the night before? Well, yes, of course, I’d be glad to. Which meant the world’s fastest rewatch of the episode so I could verify some quotes and count scenes (which ended up being all of them.) Do the first draft blabber, which is basically throwing words at the page like I’m talking, which is fast and rambly, and then whittle it down to the suggested word count. (Fun bit of Anna Trivia here; word count is not a problem with nonfiction, but comes darned near close to paralysis in first drafts of fiction) Anyway, the end result is here, for those curious to see what i can turn out in about ninety minutes.

View from my front door yesterday -gorgeous gray weather is like catnip for me.

Today’s quote is from Geneen Roth, and is a new addition to my quote file, but is among those that have had the most effect on my current writing adventure. I haven’t read Ms. Roth’s books, been to any of her events, and I’m not even sure where I found this quote in the first place, but it has stuck with me. Since the gist of the post I was going to write yesterday wandered off after getting that request for the Walking Dead post, I’ll go with this instead.

Picture of yesterday’s lunch, which went perfectly with the day’s weather.

The big thing that tipped me away from NaNo this year was the word count, and realizing that I was not the problem, that I did not have to change myself to fit into a program, that meant something. I don’t know that I got that before now. Even so, it’s scary to let go of things I’ve thought should be my guidelines. I should aim for a word count. I should plot. I should pants. I should do character charts and GMC and I should make sure there are ~~absolutely~~ no adverbs and whatever else piles on in there, because shoulds tend to multiply.

One thing I’ve noticed in the should family -and I have no idea how this happens- is that I often find myself in proximity to people who say lovely things about my writing…but I should be writing in their preferred genres. I’ve kept a list: contemporary romance, SF/F, YA, inspriational romance, nonfiction, historical mystery, literary, erotica, children’s books, thrillers, suspense, humor, and (I am not making this up) standup comedy aimed specifically at people with IQs over 150. There was a time, and it went on for longer than what I would care to admit, when I would bash my head bloody against a brick wall, trying to force myself to fit into that should, when it was never, ever going to happen. I love big, sweeping, emotional historical romance, high on the angst with a big payoff in the end. So that’s where I’m concentrating my time and energy. There are other authors who do all of the above amazingly well and love doing it, so those genres will not mourn my loss.

Is it possible to write in a genre or style one doesn’t love? Well, sure, it’s possible, but is it advisable? For me, generally not. No matter how much an intended audience might like a story, if I don’t, I will begin to hate that story. Avoid it. Cross the street if I run into it in public, metaphorically speaking and pray we don’t make eye contact, because it’s going to be awkward. On the other hand, there are those stories, long buried in notebooks and printouts and floppy disks (oh yes, that long ago; some of them may be painted on cave walls with swamp mud) that whisper and beckon because they are not done with me yet.

I suppose that’s a big takeaway for this month’s experiment. Lock the shoulds in a closet and do what I do. I wrote before I got tangled in shoulds, didn’t I? Then I can do it again. I’m doing it now, and there is nothing at all wrong with that.

Random picture of Skye because my brain is fried.

Skye thinks she should get more treats.

Typing With Wet Nails

for the love of romance

Author: annabowling