Author: annabowling

Declaring My Major

annabowling 1 Comment

Later start on the blog than I had expected today,  but that’s fine. I wrote two pages of a scene for Girl and Guy, from the Beach Ball, while at the laundromat, did some recon for an upcoming feature at Heroes and Heartbreakers (oh, the odious task of looking for outstanding declarations of love) and took a picture for the original concept of this post, which was going to be about my inability to resist pretty paper. Yes, the paper on which I write does have to be pretty, thankyouverymuch, and I am particular about it. Nothing wrong with having the right tools for the job. That almost works as a transition to the thought that hit me part way through my process of winding down yesterday evening.

We’ll skip the particulars of said winding down, as it happened in a room where the furniture is made of porcelain, but there I was, thinking of something entirely unrelated, and then the thought hit me: I’m focusing on the eighteenth century now. This should not have been a surprise. I wrote about that exact thing the day before yesterday. I jabbered about it at lunch with my BFF. I may or may not have sent thought waves out into the ether, because that seems to be a step in my process (much like my need to circle a scene and smash my head against a brick wall or two until I bust through) but it wasn’t until last night that it sank in that I am declaring a major here.

Back in another life, I majored in early childhood education. The most important thing I learned by studying that discipline is that I am not suited for early childhood education. If I ever master time travel and end up as a seventeen-year-old college freshman again (though, seriously, if I ever master time travel, my own seventeenth year is not where I would be going) I would strongly counsel seventeen-year-old me to go with her gut and major in drama, like I originally wanted to do. Declaring a major means deciding where the majority of  my time and mental energy is going to be allocated. That decides what I study, how much I study it, and what things have to get moved to the side to give my main area of focus some breathing room.

For a writer, that means we are now in the realm of branding. As an advertising executive’s kid, I learned, from an early age, that how a thing is presented has an effect on how that thing is perceived. Writers need to let readers know what kind of story they can expect when they pick up one of our books. What kind of story are we going to tell them? In what kind of world is this story going to take place? For historical romance readers, in what era do these stories happen, and how much is the history going to affect the romance? All important questions, and all part of building a brand.

I am still a temporal nomad at heart (can we call this interdisciplinary studies?)  I love a lot of periods. I have a rough draft of a Golden Age of Piracy romance, which may need to be two books (because I didn’t count on falling in love with my heroine’s parents in that one, and kind of want to play with them for a while) and a post-apocalyptic medieval romance (the Black Plague counts as an apocalypse – fifty percent of Europe taken out in a twenty year span? Totally counts.) and they will get written. I still want to write more seventeenth century, and I will. That dewy-eyed twenty-three-year-old hasn’t given up on the Tudor era, either, and I want to write in the Edwardian era again, but moving forward with a career plan means figuring out what kinds of stories I want to tell for the foreseeable future, and, last night, my brain told me what that was.

This is a good thing. Picking a major means focus. It means that eighteenth century romances get precedence on my TBR shelves. Not that I can’t read books set in other eras (hello, temporal nomad here :waves:) and a good story can be set anywhere, but, right now, seeing how others who have gone before me do what I am doing now becomes extra important. It’s picking a direction in which to travel, especially now that, with two WIPs viable to term, I’m looking at what comes next. I know the time in which these new stories will be set, so that settles that issue, an important one to writers who do love a wide array of settings. Back in another life, it was common for a historical romance author to write one medieval romance, then the next book might be a western, then a pirate story, then Gilded Age New York, then an Elizabethan, then Australian, then American Civil War, then…well, who knows? I would love for that sort of thing to come around again, and I hope that it does, but, for right now, picking a major and going for it is the smart move.

 

 

Eighteenth Century Love

annabowling 2 Comments

There’s the way we think things are going to go, and then there’s the way they actually do. This is true both in writing and in life, and, when it comes to the writing life, it may be doubly true. Way back when, in another life, I was a dewy-eyed twenty-three-year old, opening her very first response from a publisher, I thought the response was going to be “oh my, what a wonderful book; can we please, please, please publish it? Here’s lots of money, send us another.” It was not. What I got was a professionally worded version of “you’ve got something, kiddo, but literally nothing happens in the pages you sent us. Please send us something else. Also, learn how to plot.” The “literally nothing happens” part hit me pretty hard, and I totally missed the “please send us something else” part.

Well, for a while, that is. The “learn how to plot” part happened through writing a lot of fan fiction, membership in RWA, and reading enough historical romance novels to build a small house, if stacked correctly. I pored over every issue of Romantic Times magazine as soon as I had it in hand, scrutinized which new releases caught my eye, and why; plot, character type, character names, author’s voice, and, the first thing I screened for every time I hit the historical romance section: setting.

Let’s go back to that dewy-eyed twenty-three-year-old for a minute. She was absolutely sure she was going to write oodles of books in her very favorite setting, Tudor England, because her all time favorite historical romance was (and, :cough: a few years down the road :cough: still is Skye O’Malley, (the book, not the kitty) by Bertrice Small. Second place is still held by Lovesong (and its two direct sequels, same hero and same heroine) by Valerie Sherwood.

top2historicalromances

my two favorite historical romance novels:

Neither of these books has an eighteenth century setting. Skye O’Malley is set in Elizabethan era Ireland, England, Algiers and the high seas. Lovesong is set in seventeenth-century Virginia, England, the high seas (see a pattern here?) and the Caribbean. So far, I have written one kind of sort of high seas story, Queen of the Ocean, set in sixteenth-century Cornwall, but it’s more of an on-the-shore story, as my heroine comes from a family of wreckers, and she and her hero don’t  hit the high seas together until the very end. I dipped my toes into the seventeenth century waters with Orphans in the Storm, set at the end of the English Civil War. My very first book, My Outcast Heart, does have an eighteenth century setting, but it’s set on a small farm in Bedford, NY, a far cry from the glitter of the Georgian Court.

Her Last First Kiss gets closer, as it’s at least set (well, mostly) in London. I do a terrible job of staying in one place, setting-wise. In my heart of hearts, I am still a historical nomad, and fully plan to use a variety of settings (I must apologize to the Regency era for attempting to write in it, though. That did not go well for either of us.) but, lately, when I need to come up with a historical idea, my brain goes directly to Century Eighteen. In retrospect, I should have seen it coming, having spent my first ten years in a town steeped in colonial history, which had actually been burned to the ground by the British army during the war; yeah, think that imprinted on me pretty well.

I was an impressionable wee princess at the time of the Bicentennial, and eighteenth-century stuff was everywhere.  My eyes naturally went to a certain look when I watched movies set in “the olden days” – lace and heels on everybody, including the dudes, ornamentation everywhere, powdered wigs (hey, they were hot stuff back in the day) and grand houses. When I was a teen and participated in a young artists’ program at Wesleyan one summer, we had a poetry workshop that had some eighteenth century poetry in the curriculum, and I, to this day, remember walking from dorm to the building where we young writers would meet every weekday, floating on the music of those old-timey words. Yes. That was right. That was how the voices in my head naturally spoke. Doesn’t matter what side of the pond they might be.

Fast forward to now, when Melva and I first started batting around what would eventually become the Beach Ball. It’s a contemporary story, set in the world of historical romance. When we got to the point where we had to pick a historical setting for the book within the book, I had absolutely no hesitation suggesting the eighteenth century. That came as naturally as breathing, and so there it was.

Thinking ahead to what’s next, as I’m working on draft two of HLFK and Melva and I keep bringing the Beach Ball to its conclusion, my brain is pretty darned comfortable in the eighteenth century for the time being. I am okay with that. Why does this period feel like home for now? That’s a good question. I don’t know that there’s any one right answer. I’m hoping that the Hamilton effect will ripple into historical romance, and hang out there for at least a little while (though I haven’t written American Revolution yet, and the one time I tried, I had tried to force certain aspects, and it fizzled, taking part of my spirit down with it.)

In the end, I’m going to go with “it feels right,” and leave it at that. If that’s where the stories are, that’s where the stories are. At least we’ll know where to find each other.

 

Typing With Wet Claws: Anything Can Happen Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Anty and I would first like to thank everybody who asked about Uncle’s paws. They are doing much, much better, and things are getting back to normal around here. At least as normal as possible, with a writer in the house. Then again, I have always lived with a writer in the family, because I was born wild and then lived in the shelter, and this is my only family, so I do not know how it is for others. Maybe I should say normal for us. There was that one day, though, but I will tell you about that later. First, I have to tell you about where you can find Anty’s writing this week, apart from here.

As always, Anty has her Saturday Discussion topic at Buried Under Romance. This week, she talks about what anchors us to a certain kind of story. Anty will admit she was tired and loopy when she wrote this one, so it might be worth reading for the entertainment value alone. Uncle says Anty gets very entertaining when she is extra tired. That post is here, and it looks like this:

bur270117

Anty also had a post at Heroes and Heartbreakers, where she talks about how great Mogul, by Joanna Shupe is. Anty always liked the Gilded Age (a long time ago, in NYC. Anty lived in NYC when she was a very tiny people kitten, right after she was adopted, but it was not as long ago as when Miss Joanna’s books are set.) so she is always happy to see historical romances that use that setting. She thinks there are not nearly enough of them. Maybe Anty should write one of her own someday (but not now, because she is already writing two other books, and she knows her limits.) That post is here, and it looks like this:

handhmogul

 

Now that my obligations are fulfilled, we can move on to the rest of this entry, specifically the part about me. When I have a sick human at home, I work as a nurse as well as a mews. That means I need to sit very very close to the human who does not feel well and shoot love beams at them. If I could jump or climb, I would get up on the bed with them, but I have special paws, so I stay on the floor and send my love from there. Sometimes, when Uncle needs to rest, and other humans are moving around,  he closes the bedroom door. That makes me sad, because I want to be with him, but I understand where he is coming from on this one. Sometimes, I like my door closed, too.

We had one of those days this week. Uncle had asked Anty if she could please be home to let in Landlady and another human, who might like to buy the building. Anty said she would, and she was, but what she did not know what that it would be a whole bunch of humans. Some of them wanted to take pictures of the rooms (including where Uncle was resting, but they said they were sorry to disturb him.) Some of them wanted to turn faucets and light switches on and off. Some of them wanted to open and close all of the windows and doors (not at the same time.)  Some of them wanted to do other things, and none of this fit in with Anty’s plan of a quiet afternoon, spent transcribing her notes.

Because the front and back doors had to be open a lot, Anty put me in Mama’s room (that is where my food dishes and water bowls -I have two of them- are kept, so I would not be hungry or thirsty)  and closed the door, so that I would not go where I am not supposed to go. Most of the time, I am a very good kitty, but, sometimes, the landing outside the front door gets too interesting, and I want to see what is out there. The problem is, I am not allowed to go out there, because past the landing, there are stairs, and past the stairs, there is another door, and past the other door, there is outside. I do not particularly want to go outside. I lived outside before I was rescued, and it was not that great. I also have never experienced stairs, so the humans want to make sure I do not get any surprises in that department. With all those strange humans (and I only knew Landlady; the rest were all new to me) milling about, Anty thought it was best if I stayed in one place.

Anty also thought it was best if she stayed in one place, too. I am glad she did, because her place was outside the door of Mama’s room, so I could smell her. I like it best when at least one of my humans is very close to me. I am their near girl. All the while I was in Mama’s room, I heard Anty’s pencil scratching on the pages of her notebook. Anty loves writing in her notebooks, and, this time, she shut out all the chaos going on around her and worked out what she needed to change for a scene she had written. While she does not want the apartment swarmed by strange, noisy humans, every day, it did remind her that, if she connects well enough with the story, she can write through pretty much anything. That is a good thing to know, because, in this family, anything can happen.

Anything, including Anty wanting to get back to her story worlds, so that is about it for now. Until next time, I remain, very truly yours,

 

 

skyebye

Until next week…

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

 

 

As If

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Sometimes, it’s good to be a little uncomfortable. Right now, I’m sitting in my office, in front of the desktop, open notebooks at hand, with pencilled notes. There’s a nearly-empty travel mug in front of me. I have my ears pricked for the on and off (mostly off now, I think) rain outside my window. The numbers at the bottom of my screen tell me it won’t be long until Housemate and Real Life Romance Hero return home, so my time for uninterrupted (at least by others) is ticking down to its limit for the day. What I would like to do is take a nap.
One of the best things about working from home is that one can go to work in pajamas. One of the worst things about working from home is that one can go to work in pajamas. Today, I hit the  intersection of too tired and too comfy, so I got out of the chair, swapped leggings for jeans (aka leg prison) put on makeup and everyday jewelry (one skeleton hand ring, one skull ring, earrings are also skull themed today. I love skulls.) In a few minutes, I will give in to the urge to make tea. I don’t want tea right now, but I will in a while, so acting in anticipation is probably in my best interest at the moment.
I have two notebooks, one Molieskine Volant (sage green) and one Moleskine Cahier (black,) both bearing aforementioned pencilled notes. Said notes are for transcription, and that’s my plan for the day. My body says “nap.” My brain says “write.” Since the brain controls the body, I think (pun unintended, but we’ll go with it) and there is no “handwritten novels in note form” section at either Barnes and Noble or on Amazon, it is in my very best interests to push through the afternoon slump and Get Stuff Done. Hence the actual clothing and ritual of what my mother would have called putting on my face.
Last night, my brain too pooped to do anything productive, I spent some time browsing beauty sites and researching cosmetic items I might like to add to my stash.  On one such baord, I found a thread on colorful eye makeup. Several of the posts spoke of using colors that came in pallettes, but don’t get much use. Since it was late and I was tired, I thought, hey, that might be fun. I have green eyes. I don’t usually use green shadow, because, well, green eyes.  I have green shadows, though; they came in a pallette I recieved as a Christmas gift, but I don’t normally use them. Since I’d put on actual pants precisely for the discomfort factor, why the heck not? So I did. I have green eyelids, a different shade of green on my browbone, a bit of green on the lower lid/lashline as well. The world did not end.
What did end was the mindset of still being in my pajamas and not actually being at work. Dressed and made up and with a spritz of some vintage Chanel #19 (a long-ago gift from a favorite aunt no longer with us) that’s not lounging arround the house wear. I’m sure my imaginary friends appreciate the effort; we’ll see about that, because I’m dropping by to see them as soon as I’m finished with this entry. It says so right in my daily task list, so that’s what’s going to happen.
This post is turning out to be exactly what I didn’t want it to be; I feel like I’ve done a thousand versions of the whole left foot, right foot thing. That’s not bad, exactly. There’s a place for that, but what it gets swirling around my mind is that there’s another ingredient to the whole creativity thing, and that’s the love. Not only because I write romance (though that certainly helps with matters; I’ve been crazy in love with romance novels since I was eleven, and with love stories long before then) but the love of the work.

Today, when I wrote my morning pages, I wrote about acting as if; as if I had complete assurance these books were going to find good homes. Acting as if the market were a sure thing. Acting as if there were a whole bunch of readers waiting for these particular stories, eager to meet Hero and Heroine, Girl and Guy, in the flesh…er, page. There’s a little bit of pressure in that, but also a whole lot of purpose. If I’m only telling stories for my own amusement, well, I know how they’re going to turn out, as they’re in my own head. Why decipher the stuff I wrote in mechanical pencil, at however many mph along the highway, or, also in mechanical pencil, wedged into the tiny haven of space between the tall dresser in the dining room (old house, have to be creative with furniture placement) and Housemate’s bedroom door, while pretty much everybody involved in the transfer of power, as it were, from current landlady to incoming landlord-and-lady?

Writing romance is my happy place. When the whole apartment is swarming with people with clipboards and cameras and turning on faucets and light switches and checking I-don’t-know-what, there’s the pencil and the page, and whoosh. I’m not wedged between door and dresser at all, but surveying the common room of an eighteenth century inn, getting a bead on the crowd and figuring out how hard it’s going to be for Hero to get a room for the night (or at least bed space) by dint of his charm alone. Even in Century Eighteen, leaving the house without one’s wallet (or period appropriate equivalent) has the same consequences it has now. Thankfully, Hero is a resourceful gent. He’ll be fine…eventually. first, I have to walk him straight into the last person he wants to see right now, shake up his worldview, and make him do the thing he cannot do. That’s how it works in these stories.

That’s how it works with writing, too. If I leave these notes as notes, they’re fine the way they are…but they can’t go out in public. There’s only one copy of them, it’s all in pencil, and it’s on paper. It’s in my handwriting, which is not always readable to all. There have been times Real Life Romance Hero has asked me to print notes to him, instead of writing them in cursive, and if he can’t read my handwriting, I am not going to inflict that on others. So, the transcription. The whipping of the story into shape from bullet points to prose, from present to past tense, the ordering of things that have arrows and parentheses and odd boxes with curlicues at the corners. Only then are they ready for other eyes. This process, too, has its tricks, its own colors that came with the usual suspects, that are waiting for a chance to show what they can do if I think outside the box. Looking at it that way, it’s a lot less scary, and a lot more fun.

 

 

Pilgrimage

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Yesterday, my Beach Ball collaborator, Melva, and I made our meant-to-be-monthly pilgrimage to the NECRWA chapter meeting. The topic this month, appropriately enough for January, was beginnings. I did not take  any notes during the presentation, because I spent the entire time working on notes for the Beach Ball, in the detachable pages of my all purpose Moleskine, with my newest favorite and now indispensable tool, a mechanical pencil. Melva and I talked out a couple of scenes we didn’t fully have a handle on, on our own, but when we put our heads together, boom, there they were. So, I wrote stuff.

Melva and I agreed that we both do our best work on the Beach Ball on these drives, two hours there and two hours back. We both talk fast, ideas pinging off each other like the silver ball in a pinball machines, flashing lights and bells going off all around us. She drives. I write notes on what we create, together, transcribe them when I get home, and I send the neat, orderly pages her way.

The pages I write in the passenger seat are not neat or orderly. they are a swath of bullet points, scrawled in mechanical pencil, with smudges from erasures and the odd eraser crumb wherever it falls. I have only recently discovered the joy of mechanical pencil. When I use pencil, I can erase instead of cross out, which means I don’t have to lose any space when something better comes along. Yesterday, I ran out of lead before we ran out of road. I could go on with some other writing implement, but I couldn’t reach my tote with my seatbelt still in place.

Melva said there might be some pencils in her purse. My left hand curled nervously around the red Bic Cristal I keep in my raincoat pocket for dire emergencies such as this one. I hadn’t wanted to use ballpoint in this particular Moleskine, my first ever 8×5 Volant, moss colored cover, perforated pages, so that I could write on any project on the go, take out those pages, and transcribe/file them where they actually go, but we were on a roll, and I didn’t want to break the flow.

Thankfully, Melva was right. She did have pencils. The first, I snapped the lead three or four times, as I put pencil to paper, but then I changed to the other. Cue choir of angels. Melva informed me that said pencil was school issue (she is a college professor) and not sold to civilians. Figures. I will purchase others.

We covered a lot of ground on this trip, both literally and figuratively. We joked that we should rent an RV, drive to California, from NY, where I live, or MA, where she lives, and by the time we reach the other coast, we’ll have a first draft done. Then we’d turn around and revise on the way back. Either that, or we drive around in big circles until we have a book. What matters is that we filled  a bunch of pages on this trip. Today, those pages rest.

Today, I write on Her Last First Kiss, a scene that was not in the original draft, but makes narrative sense. Maybe more importantly than that, it will be fun. I hope it will be fun. It’s got Hero, it takes place in a sort of setting I always find fun to write, and I know N is expecting that puppy, so I had better get it written today, but that doesn’t mean there has to be pressure.

What it does mean is that I unplug, settle in with open notebook and take pencil or pen and word-doodle. No, that’s not right. Story-doodle. I’m doodling story, even though I use words to do it (using interpretive dance would require rearranging the furniture and possibly obtaining proper footwear.) I need to make a few wrong turns, double back, get the lay of the land, before I can finalize my map and then follow it to my destination. There may be a few side trips and loop-de-loops while I get my bearings, make sure this scene feels/sounds like Hero, not some random placeholder character. I definitely don’t want him sounding like Guy, who made himself very much at home in my head for most of yesterday. I think that makes my brain their time share, but I am fine with that.

 

 

 

Typing With Wet Claws: Uncle’s Paws Edition

annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Anty says I have my worried/hopeful look in this week’s picture, and she is right. She is very smart, and, also, she knows me. Mainly, I was worried/hopeful that there were two people in the hallway with me, so maybe one of them might feed me (one of them did, so you can relax. I thank you for your support.) but also, it has been a very full week over here, at home as well as with Anty’s writing.

Since the deal is that I have to talk to you about where you can read Anty’s posts (other than here, of course) before I can talk about anything else, I had better do that right away. As always, Anty posted on Buried Under Romance. This week, she talked about the many jobs that a first book in a new series has to accomplish, and also, what exactly constitutes a first book.  You can read the post here, and it looks like this:

burfeelslikethefirsttime

 

Anty posted a little bit on Goodreads this week, about  Mogul, by Joanna Shupe, from the Knickerbocker club series. It is only a little bit, because Anty wrote a lot more in the post she wrote for Heroes and Heartbreakers about that book, but that post is not live yet, so I cannot share that link until it is. In the meantime, her post on Goodreads is  here, and it looks like this (which is pretty much the whole thing; actually, it is the whole thing. Her post on Heroes and Heartbreakers is a lot bigger.)

acbreviewmogul

Speaking of Heroes and Heartbreakers, that is where Anty had two posts this week, and both of them are about books she really, really liked, which means she is on track with her goal of posting about more books there, this year. First, she posted about how much she liked Lawrence, the hero of The Lawyer’s Luck, by Piper Huguley. Anty (and I) talked some about that book last week, but, now, you can read the post here. It looks like this:

handhbookboyfriendlawrence

 

Anty  also talked about some of  her favorite Highland romances (she has quite a few, so picking only a few was really, really hard.) That post is here, and it looks like this:

handhessentialhighlanders

 

Okay. Now that I have that out of the way, it is time for the rest of the post. While Anty had some really good plans about working on scenes from both books, those plans got carried over, because this was one of those weeks where real life stepped in. This week, my Uncle had hurty front paws. There is a big word name for this kind of hurty paws, but I am a kitty, and do not always remember big human words, so I will say “hurty paws” instead, because that is basically what it was. Uncle’s paws got very big and turned colors that people paws are not supposed to turn. He made a lot of loud sounds, and nobody got a lot of sleep. Except me, because I am a kitty and need to have rest so I can fulfill my duties as a mews. It’s a cat thing.

On Wednesday, Anty went with Uncle, to the people vet. He was supposed to see his regular people vet, but his paws were so hurty that they decided to go to the right-now people vet instead. Which turned out to be a good call, because it turned out Uncle had another kind of hurt on top of the first kind of hurt, but the people vets there took good care of him. He had to have a shot, and some pills, but no cone of shame, and now he can use his paws again. Anty had to be his paws for a little while there (that is the “in sickness and in health” part of the wedding vows) but, thanks to the doctors and pharmacists, he has his paws back now. That is a good thing. Now he can pet me and feed me again, so that is a happy ending for all of us.

Now, it is the part where I bring things back around to writing. Most people do not like going to the people vet, especially not  the right-now people vet, and it can be harder to watch somebody we love be in pain that we can’t stop, more than it would be to have the pain ourselves. Anty read most of a whole book (it was Mogul) while she and Uncle waited for the people vets to help him, and, even though she did not get to do as much fiction writing as she wanted this week, she did get a reminder of how important it is for romance novels to show this kind of love, as well as all the nicer parts.

Anty likes to write about the kind of love that will go through some hard tests, where one person sees the other in pain that they can’t stop, but, if they can’t stop it, will go through it with them instead, and come out the other side okay. Not perfect, but together, because that is what matters most. Maybe that is not the best way to explain it, but human love is a complicated thing, and that is one of the big reasons Anty likes to write and read romance. Even if she did not fill as many pages as she would have liked  this week, Uncle is better, and Anty has that extra fuel to go into both books and remember the feelings that make her want to write romance in the first place. Also, there is me. I am on mews duty 24/7.

That is about it for this week, so, until next time, I remain very truly yours,

skyebye

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

 

Some Days are Like That

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Greatest hits picture today, because the deskscape I snapped is apparently taking the scenic route to my desktop, which is only fitting. Yesterday, Merman and I spent a big chunk of the day in the Emergency Room at Albany Med. He’s fine now, and back at work. Yay for modern medicine. Yay also for me, because I used the waiting time to read through an EARC (Electronic Advance Reading Copy) in preparation for an upcoming post on Heroes and Heartbreakers. While I was out, another post, on five (okay, really six) of my favorite Highlander heroes and the heroines who love them, went live there. I’ll leave the screenshot to Skye.

I almost left the whole post for Skye, figuring I could skip the midweek post and then post again on Saturday, but I get edgy when I don’t post on time, and one day’s delay is about all I can handle when I’m already punchy. I don’t like drawing arrows next to tasks in my planner, meaning I have to carry them over from the day I’d intended to carry them out, to the next day, because…well, because of a lot of reasons. I’m tired. I don’t know all I need to know to write that part (this happens a lot) or there are not enough hours in the day to get everything done (also a big one) or something unexpected occurs, like a trip to the ER.

These things are going to happen. After Merman and I were sprung from the ER, we still had to visit the pharmacy. After that, we needed to eat (which ended up him eating, and me sulking over a cup of tea because the counter person did not include the cream cheese with my bagel, and if I have to go back and ask for it when I’m already in a hideous mood, no thank you) and wait for Housemate to come retrieve our tired selves. After that was a trip to the grocery store, because we would need food that evening. Obtain food, head home, do not remove coat, but haul two loads of laundry at once to the laundromat. Attempt to smush both loads into one machine because brain is now on auto pilot.

Realize this will only lead to frustration. Scoop dirty laundry back into overstuffed basket. Kick said overstuffed basket along the floor to the big machines at the back. Get laundry going. Purchase carbonated beverage from vending machine for much needed caffeine boost. Take one sip and realize that carbonated beverage is past expiration date. Put on best disgusty face and empty said expired carbonated beverage into the bushes (sorry, bushes) and lean against dryer in hopes heat from dryer will soothe aching back muscles. Promise to apologize to family for any scorched clothing from said drying process. Open Kindle and remind self that book one is currently reading is indeed written in one’s first language because words are getting swimmy and one has forgotten how to brain.

Wash, dry, fold, haul laundry back home, in the rain, and collapse into comfy chair while other family member prepares food. Acknowledge that no, scenes did not get written today. That stinks. On the other hand, spouse on the mend. I’ll focus on that. The scenes will be there tomorrow.

Technically, one of them already is (the benefits of writing in longhand) but what I wanted to do was to get it onto the screen, so I would have it ready to show N (at the meeting I had to postpone for another day because I was bone-weeping tired) and get her feedback, while I got to look over her pages. That will still happen, on another day, after I have slept away the bone-weeping tiredness and refilled the well, so that I can turn bullet points into prose. Still, I would have liked for it to have been today.

The day wasn’t a total loss. I wrote a post for Heroes and Heartbreakers, and sent that in, one of those posts that looks the same on the screen as it did in my head, so I consider that a success. Anything I can write that sounds like me, that sounds like I wanted it to sound, gives the feeling that I wanted to give, that’s all right. Even when life gets chaotic, if I can do that, I did well. These days are going to happen, both the chaos days and the readjusting days. The writing will be there. So will I. Read a book, take a nap, play some Sims, have some tea, look over some notes, and pick up the pen.

Wrong Turn, Right Path

annabowling Leave a comment

I am a planner. I like to have at least some idea of where I’m going, or I’m going to feel edgy (and not in the good way) until I have some sort of boundary clearly marked. Once I know, okay, good. That’s settled. Now I can go nuts within those boundaries, if desired. This is one of the reasons that I have added planning to my morning routine, after morning pages. Two pages of whatever is in my brain, with the right pen for the right page spread (this is an important part of the process, trust me on this one)  then open my planning notebook.

The notebook I use for this purpose, a magenta leatherette Markings notebook, with grid pages, has been through a few wrong turns itself, before it found its true use. I’d originally purchased it to be my all purpose notebook, the one that would go with me everywhere, catch the brain droppings as the came to me, and I had every expectation that it would. After all, I’d used three other notebooks with the same format, from the same maker, same sort of pages, one after the other. Burgundy leatherette was first, then black, then turquoise, and I was most excited to try the pink one. The cover felt all buttery soft in my hands, I loved the grid pages, soft grey on a soothing ivory, and I’d used those three notebooks prior without a hiccup, so this one had to be the best of them all, right?

Wrong. El wrong-o. Nicht, nein, nope, no way, nuh-uh, sorry, Charlie, not going to happen. To this day, I have no idea why. I did everything “right.” Hacked it to a fare-thee-well, with color coordinated end papers, the proper sizes and colors of sticky notes, even put pertinent information on the front and back pages, so it would be right there when I needed it, but, within days, my enthusiasm stopped dead in its tracks. As in pining for the fjords, the whole deal. This was not how things were supposed to go.

I tried drawing black and white top and bottom borders on the pages, hoping that would give me the structure I needed. Still boring. No connection. I tried drawing zentangle-ish dangles from the top border, adding a dash of color. Who was I kidding? Not me. I tried steering into the skid…er, grid. Break up those pages into boxes, I said. That would fix everything, I said. More boundaries, I said. It would be fun, I said. Once again, nope. Le sigh. Though I hated to do it, I put the book aside. It wasn’t happening. No reason. It wasn’t, and that’s all I needed to know. I can’t tell you what book took that book’s place, but one did, and another, and another, and, in time, I moved it to the special area for notebooks I wasn’t feeling anymore.

The books that were still blank, I culled. Moved them on to new homes, where they could be loved and written in, or at least used for grocery lists and doctors’ appointments. Anything would be better than sitting there, mouldering in resentment. Having cleaned out my dad’s house after he passed, I don’t want to hoard. I want to use. I want to love. The notebooks that already have writing in them, well, they aren’t as easily passed along. Those, I taped together the already-written-in pages, and set them aside. The magenta Markings book was among those, until last week. That was when I wanted a place where I could keep my daily tasks, check them off, and move along, while, at the same time, keeping a record of what actually got done, what got modified, what got carried over to another day.

At first, I looked at the shelf I have of pristine new notebooks. All right, case. All right, cases. I really, really, really love notebooks. Yes, I do plan on using all of them. Yes, I do still need more. Nothing felt right. Then I looked through the stash of notebooks-at-rest. Grid paper? Check. (Pun unintended, but I’ll take it.) Buttery soft cover I have loved and missed, with added benefit of a crack along the spine (notebook wabi-sabi; it’s a thing) and…yes. I took a black fountain pen and wrote the day’s date at the top of one page, which had a two-colored border I’d already drawn, back in that long-ago phase of thinking maybe I could salvage the book for its original purpose. I couldn’t, back then, but this time? Yes. I wrote the date. I drew my swirly-cornered box around the date, set down my headings and bullet points, and yes. Yes. This is what it was supposed to be, maybe all along. Now it’s an essential part of my daily routine.

This is the part where I bring my ramble back around to writing. There are ideas, stories, characters, places, all the flotsam and jetsam of a writer’s brain, things I had hoped at one time would work out, but never did, still floating around, and, now that I’m at a place in both WIPs that I’m comfortable and ready to ask “what’s next?” those floating bits may be arranging themselves into some semblance or order.

I kind of like that, and I kind of don’t. I like it because I like knowing what’s going to happen before it happens, and knowing that there is some sort of writerly primordial ooze in my head is actually an encouraging thought. I don’t like it, because it’s not in my control. That’s not how it works. If that was how it worked, I would not be writing the story of a practical-minded mistress, who is half Russian, and a second son turned not terribly successful portrait painter. If that was how it worked, I would not be co-writing my first category romance, and I would not know that historical-adjacent is a thing (partly because I am making it a thing, but more on that later.)

Time to wrap this, because I’ve gone on long enough already, and the rest of the day will soon be demanding my attention, but there it is. Blog entry written, albeit slightly behind schedule. I can now check it off the list and move on to what’s next. That part, I absolutely do like.

Typing With Wet Claws: Thinking About Things Edition

annabowling 1 Comment

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Anty has been very busy this week, doing a lot of writing, which is a very good thing. I rewarded her efforts by sitting still for my picture, even if I would not look up at her. I had my reasons. This morning, a realtor human came by with an inspector human, to look at some things about the apartment that do not concern me. Anty put me in my and Mama’s room while the strange humans were here. I do not like it when strange humans come into the house, but if that is what has to happen for a while, I will find a way to deal. Probably from under one of the beds.

Since the deal is that I have to talk about Anty’s writing before I can talk about anything else, I will get right to that. First of all, Anty had her usual post at Buried Under Romance this week. Anty apologizes for not including a picture, like she usually does. This was a very full week, and some things slipped her mind. That was one of them. This week, she talked about new reads for the new year. That post is here, and it looks like this:

burnewreads

Anty already said, last week, how much she liked her first story by  Piper Huguley, and that she wanted to read more books by Miss Piper. That is exactly what Anty did, this week, when she read another book of Miss Piper’s, The Lawyer’s Luck, and she liked that one very, very much. Her review for that is here, and it looks like this:

grlawyersluck

I do not know how Goodreads decides who it should ask Anty to whom she wants to recommend a book, but it asked Anty if she wanted to let Miss Piper know about this book, too. I may not know a lot about the publishing business, being a kitty and all, but I think that if the person’s name is on the book cover, they probably know that the book exists. I would also hope that they know the book is good. Anty liked this book so much, as a matter of fact, that she wrote a post on it for Heroes and Heartbreakers. It is not live yet, so I cannot give you a link to it or picture of it. I also cannot give a link or picture of the other post Anty wrote for Heroes and Heartbreakers this week, because it is not live yet, either. I will be sure to let all of Anty’s readers know when they are live. The posts, I mean. I assume all of Anty’s readers are alive, too, although Anty does like zombies, so I guess that would be okay, too. Maybe vampires. She talked about some books that have vampires in them in the other post, but that post is not about vampires. There only  happen to be some vampires in part of it. Explaining these kinds of things can be difficult for a kitty, so I will let you figure it out when the posts (and hopefully you) are live and read it for yourselves.

Most of the work Anty has been doing this week is on her books. By that, I mean the ones she is writing, not the ones she is reading (though if any humans reading this can help Anty figure out the whole ascm file thing, she would be reading even more than she already is.) For part of most of the days this week, she worked on Her Last First Kiss, and then, for another part, the Beach Ball, which she writes with Anty Melva.

That is a lot of writing. It is also a lot of researching. For Her Last First Kiss, which takes place in 1784 England, Anty sometimes has to stop and check to see if what she wants to do is all right for that time and place. There is one part in one chapter, where Hero thinks a really bad word, several times (he is a grownup,. but really, really scared, and really, really mad. That is not an excuse, but an explanation.) Anty was not sure if the bad word was the right bad word. She had to consult with some writer friends who might be able to help her figure this out. Thankfully, Miss Vicki knows this story very, very well (she has known about it since Anty was babbling random things about “the new historical,” that is how long) so she knows what Hero would probably say, and was able to offer some suggestions. This resulted in using more old-timey bad words. I am thinking this is probably not a book for gentle readers. Maybe another one will be.

Anty has also been thinking about what comes next. After she is done with Her Last First Kiss, and she and Anty Melva are done with the Beach Ball, she would like to know what she will be writing after that. One of those is already settled. Anty and Anty Melva already know that they will write two more books related to the Beach Ball. I do not know what they will call those until they get names for them. She still has some thinking to do about the next historical project, though.

In the historical romance genre, linked books dominate the market right now, but Anty naturally thinks in standalone books. That means stories that are complete in themselves, that do not continue to other related stories. Anty is not going to stop writing those, because those are what she loves the very best, but she also knows that the “commercial” part of “commercial fiction” means that market trends do come into account. That also means that Anty now gets to figure out what sort of linked books would work best for the sorts of stories she likes to tell. She has a couple of ideas on that front, and will keep thinking -and writing- about those, but she also is very firm about telling herself “this book, now,” so that she does not get distracted. She is pretty sure she will have what she needs, when she needs it.

That is about it for this week. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

skyebye

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

 

Why Historical Romance?

annabowling 2 Comments

Hi. My name is Anna, and I write historical and historical-adjacent romance. We’ll get to the adjacent part in a minute. Right now, I want to focus on the big picture. Why historical romance? My first instinct is that I was hardwired that way. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t drawn to times before living memory, though I will grant that, when one is five or so, everything falls into that category, by default. As for the romance part of things, I think I was hardwired for that, as well, because my favorite stories were always the fairy tales with a romance plot to them, even long before I had any inkling that the opposite sex could be anything even remotely close to appealing. I also preferred the more arguably obscure fairy tales, like “Donkeyskin” to any of the Disney versions (Sorry, Walt) and checked out an entire spectrum of Andrew Lang’s fairy tale collections (and wee princess me is now all, “hold on, there are more beyond the color-themed books? I must have them!” because, of course, I must.)

Though I didn’t know the concept of shipping back then, (again, five) in retrospect, I shipped Greek, Roman and Norse gods and goddesses, cartoon characters, and couples in fairy tales and folklore. I’ve often wondered if my birth mother liked romance fiction, too, if, maybe, we’ve ever read and loved any of the same books. I wouldn’t be surprised. Maybe romance, and storytelling, really is in my blood. I’ve written before about how much fun it is to listen to SF/F fans and writers talk about how they fell in love with their genre of choice, hear their origin stories, as it were, and I would love to shine more light on that same experience with readers and writers of romance, particularly historical. Let’s face it, historical romance rocks.

In the same book, we get a peek into the past, the chance to step into a world that we know existed (because, duh, history; we’ve got proof) and a story literally as old as time, and we know that there’s going to be a happily ever after at the end (or a happy for now, in serialized works) but the big question is…how? We know things weren’t as easy for those in the past as they are now; indoor plumbing is a relatively recent invention, and modern medical advances keep a lot of us on the right side of the dirt. That’s not even taking into account things like the internet, gummi bears, and Sephora. I love all of those things, and I’m glad I have them in my life, but when I’m going to dive into story world, nothing is ever going to do it the way historical romance does.

Whether or not actual historical figures come into play, the historical world is critical to the historical romance. How does the time in which these lovers lived affect their falling in love, and their chances for a future together? For my money, it’s not possible to take a couple from Ancient Rome, for example, plop them down in 1901 Texas, and have their love story play out exactly the same way. It can’t. The pieces of the puzzle are completely different, and yet, the objective is the same; finding that one person with whom they want to spend the rest of their lives and then making that happen, no matter what obstacles stand in their way. I’d be hard pressed to find a type of story I find more empowering than that. I can’t even count all the possible variations of setting, era, character type, plot trope, and a million other variables, all of which can be combined in countless ways. It really never is the same story twice.

Right now, those of us in the US, and elsewhere, but I’m in the US, so that’s where I can speak with most authenticity, live in interesting times. Since current events do affect writing and reading trends, I have asked myself if we’re headed for a surge in historical romance. A break from modern life may be exactly what some of us need to restore our resources, live a few adventures and come back, entertained and empowered, to handle the business of day to day life. Which, I should mention, is exactly what the heroes and heroines of historical romances are doing. They don’t know they’re in a historical; they think they’re in a contemporary, because Restoration England, or the American Civil War, Harlem Renaissance, etc? Those are their nows. They don’t know how their current events are going to turn out, if the war is going to go their way, if life will ever be the same again after disease or disaster upsets the routine they’ve always known up to that point. What they do know, however?

They do know love. They know, by the end of the book, that, whatever life throws at them from here on out, they won’t be facing it alone. They have someone by their side who is going to take them exactly as they are, for better and for worse, and they’re going to face it together. That sounds like a pretty good deal to me, and that’s why I do what I do.