Author: annabowling

Once More Into the Breach

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Today is an odd day, and not only because it’s Wednesday’s post on Thursday. I woke around seven, which is late for me, felt completely drained, so went back to bed for a few minutes. When I woke again, it was nine forty-five. Well, then, sure sign that this was time for some well-filling. In this case, tea, because A) we have gas again, thanks to Landlady’s talented Handyman and the fine folks at National Grid, and B) it was cool enough to actually savor a cup of Lapsang Souchong and its lovely, lovely caffeine along with my morning pages. I am now one week away from filling this book, which is, for those keeping count, number three, and the first one where I’ve gone to seven days a week. I’ll be keeping that practice for the new book. As with any other exercise, the more I do it, the ehhh, don’t want to say easier, exactly, because when is it, really, but it does become more natural. As my mom often said, the more I do, the more I’ll want to do. Thanks, Mom. You were right.

It’s blog entry time now, because this is the time I have for a blog entry, and keeping the discipline is part of the whole “be better at writing” thing. After I do this, I get to go play with Hero and Heroine. One thing that working on two books at one time has taught me is that Hero and Heroine get jealous of my time. They know when I’m seeing other characters, and they are not entirely pleased with it. Guy and Girl, on the other hand, seem to be fine with the arrangement, though that may have something to do with the fact that they have two writers to bother, rather than only one. I’m all Hero and Heroine have, so it’s only natural that they’re going to want more of me, in more ways than one.

There’s a difference in the feel of a Hero and  Heroine day versus a Girl and Guy day. Writing solo versus in collaboration is one part of it; very different energy when one is co-creating, and the ability to have somebody else take a certain scene certainly isn’t there when one is writing on one’s own. Writing in different time periods is part of it. I am a historical romance writer at heart, and, while Guy and Girl’s story is what I term historical romance adjacent, with Hero and Heroine, it’s full on immersion. The tones of the books are different, and yet there are similarities. They’re both romances, so there’s that, and, in both books, there is a central character who has a parent in need of special care. That’s not something I planned on putting in two different books, but then again, both of these stories found me. I didn’t go looking for them.

That’s something I’ve found, in the time between falling off the metaphorical horse and now. The best stories are going to find me. That’s how it works for this particular writer. I can look around, read a lot, watch a lot of movies and/or TV, listen to a lot of music, wander through parks and museums, play computer games (when I actually have a computer that will run them) and, at some point, it all jumbles together and sorts itself out. When asked if I’m a pantser or plotter, I now say puzzler, because that fits me best.

Back when the writing life went off the rails, I thought that my love of organization and planning was an indicator of how I should get back on track, and, to some degree, that’s true, but trying to adhere too closely to that meant completely shutting off the intuitive part of my process, which turned into obsessions over should and forms and word counts and must, must, must, must, must, etc. Which turned into miscarried manuscripts and frustration and a whole lot of banging my head against a brick wall. Which was not good for anybody, me, the wall, or my imaginary friends, some of which packed up their stuff and left, or at least went on very long vacations.

That’s the magic seven hundred right there, so I technically could stop here, but I like to get at least some sense of completion to a post, so let’s try for that. The best stories find me. That’s how I work. I turn into a magpie and throw a bunch of things onto the table, then stand back and see what sort of order they want to sort themselves into. It has to be them, not me. I can look through lists of period appropriate names, but it’s the characters who tell me what their names are, what they look like, when they lived. Hero, for example; I wanted him to be blond and play the violin. He’s a ginger, and he draws. If I’d been intent on forcing him into my perception of him, we’d still be wrangling about his hair color, and I would have a headache from trying to remember my extremely brief stint in a class on the Suzuki method. I never got past the Kleenex box (standing in for the violin) stage. Since Hero and I can connect on a love of pen and ink, that is probably a good call on his part. Speaking of which, he’s tapping his foot, so off I go.

Coldwater Morning

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This morning, I got up around three-thirty in the morning, because my hair was dirty. Reluctantly, I should add, because it was a long-awaited cool night, and Real Life Romance Hero and I had one of Housemate’s awesome afghans on the bed, a far cry (and a welcome one) from drowning in our own sweat on top of the bare sheets, but there is no fighting the moment dirty hair becomes too much. Not even if it means dunking my head under cold water, which is exactly what happened, and I knew it was coming.

Let me explain. This Friday, while I was getting the apartment in shape for our guests, (visit went awesome, but more on that later) Housemate came home and asked if I had seen the notice from National Grid on the door. I told her I had not. She gave me the basics: in preparing to turn on utilities for the new tenant downstairs (Hi, S! :waves:) they found something that needed attention, and so shut off the gas for the entire  house. Shutting off gas when there is a gas problem is a good thing, because we don’t want any explosions, and, if the gas has to be shut off, August is the time to do it. I would hate to think what would happen if this were to happen in January. No, actually, I do know, as Real Life Romance Hero and I lived through the huge Halloween blizzard of some years back, and it was, in a word, COLD. Not merely uncomfortable cold, but dangerous cold. In comparison, heat being off in August, during the year of the heat dome, eh, not that big.

It does, however, make personal hygiene, shall we say, brisk. There is an impact, as well, on the grocery shopping, because it’s either no-cook, microwave, or takeout/prepared food. Again, August, so not having to cook is a good thing, and the gas people will have to light the pilots on the stove and long-dormant oven, once the gas is back on, so this may give us our oven back. Hopefully, we will see that soon, but in the meantime, we’re doing okay as we are. Minor inconvenience, not a catastrophe, so I’ll take it.

Which brings me back to this morning. This post is up today instead of yesterday, because yesterday was a flop day. We had a wonderful time with our friends, Mary and Brian (Skye will bring everyone up to speed on that on Friday) but all the excitement and preparation left me in need of a good flop. So, I took one. I regret nothing. Sometimes, one needs to put the laptop down, look at the clock, see it’s eleven AM, and go back to bed. Or recliner, in my case, but that’s beside the point. Back to where we started.

This morning, I got up between three and four, stuck my head under cold water, and then went directly to my morning pages, because that’s what I do, first thing, whenever possible. Computer was not on yet; that will come later, so assume that at least Abbie and Ichabod were still snoozing, as was the rest of the house. Except for Skye. Skye was waiting on the other side of my office door, because she knows that, when Anty comes out, Anty will feed her. Skye is smart.

I would love to say I know where I am going with this, but I don’t. It bothers me that I took a photo of a blank computer screen, though that is exactly what the desk looked like when I sat down to write my morning pages. Today, at breakfast with N, we got each other up to speed on our current projects. She’s moving toward her goals, and I am on track to having both Her Last First Kiss and the Beach Ball in at least first draft and ready to pitch at NECRWA for 2017. Today is for transcribing my handwritten scene for the Beach Ball, and sending that on to Melva. Last week, we plotted the second half of the book and discussed possible future projects. I ran my amended outline for the rest of HLFK by N, who gave a thumbs up, and, once this blog entry is posted, am diving into Guy and Girl’s world, with a Hero and Heroine chaser. I’m good with that.

Kind of like being good with cold water for a few days. If cold water for a few days is what it’s going to take for the house not to blow up, I am fine with that. If re-learning how I tell a story is what it takes to write the best books I possibly can, I am fine with that, too. Sometimes, we have to break away from the “everybody knows” and the “shoulds” and muck around for a while in the land of try-and-fail-and-try-again to see what it actually takes to get the job done. Seems to be working pretty well for my characters, so I may be on to something here.

Ever since I started increasing my morning pages to seven times a week, I’ve noticed that I write more during the day. When I write longhand, the story comes quicker. When I write longhand, on pretty paper, even faster. When I make time for reading books that call to me while I’m doing other things, plan when I can sneak in a few minutes, a few pages, to see what the characters are up to, especially in  historical romance, I want to write that sort of book, the one that will whisper to readers (or come after them and drag them back, I’m fine with that, too.)  When I can talk writing with writer friends, and reading with reader friends, wander through a museum and let the past speak to me, that’s when writing feels the most natural. I like that place. I want to stay in that place. If it means dunking my head under cold water at four in the morning, well, okay, though I hope that’s not a requirement for staying in the groove. For now though? For now, it’s fine.

Typing With Wet Claws: They’re Coming Edition

annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. There is a lot going on this week, so I will talk about Anty’s writing first. Her latest post at Buried Under Romance is about the heat levels in romance novels, and she does not mean the weather. She means how much kissing, and more than kissing, that an author puts in their stories. I, myself, am fixed, and so have no preference in these matters, but, apparently, humans do, and like to discuss them. Anty’s post is here, and it looks like this:

BURAug20

In case WordPress is being picky again and not letting Anty make links within text, click or cut and paste here:

http://buriedunderromance.com/2016/08/saturday-discussion-too-hot-to-handle.html#disqus_thread

It is also being picky and not letting her reply to comments on that page right now, but she will answer as soon as she can.

The first thing that happened this week was that the cable humans meant to turn off service to somebody who was moving, but they read the wrong number and cut our service instead. That was a mistake. We did not have cable or internet for two and a half days, except when we could get on the city internet, but that was weak. Anty did not mind all that much, because there was city internet, and because that was enough to run Spotify when she wrote. She wrote a lot this week. She and Anty Melva outlined the rest of the Beach Ball (loosely, Anty says, but it still counts) and had a Skype meeting about that. Anty Melva asked if Anty wanted to pitch a workshop they created together to the NECRWA conference (they will go, even if the conference people say no thank you) and Anty said okay. So there is that. Anty also used what she learned from Miss K. A.’s workshop last week, to take care of some things with Her Last First Kiss, which also makes her very happy. With the anticipated return of Anty’s super powers, and firm plans, this should be a very write-y autumn.

One way that I know this will be a very write-y autumn is that Anty is now less than two weeks away from filling her third morning pages book. Here is the current book (the one with the Eiffel Tower) next to the next one (it says “Fearless,” which Anty wants to be in what she is writing these days.) :

PaPaYaParisFearless.jpg

The Fearless book is really half a book, because Anty started writing something else, with the wrong pen, in the first part of the book, and then set it aside. When she started writing her morning pages in the Paris book, she knew she wanted to continue with books by the same maker, PaPaYa! Art, because they look like how her brain feels. Anty says that will make sense to some other writer humans. It does not make sense to me, but then again, I am a kitty. They are pretty, though, and pretty pages help Anty write more. Here is a better look at the Fearless cover by itself, and the pens Anty will use to write in it:

 

 

Those pens are also the pens Anty has in her daily carry bag, so this could get interesting, though, with the number of times she has written her morning pages on the go, this may actually make it more convenient. She has not missed a single day since going to seven days a week, and thinks that may have something to do with writing more, in general. The rotating page designs probably have something to do with her being eager to see what pages she will write on that day, although they do rotate, which means it is the same sequence, so she should know these things. Anyway, these are the designs on which she will write her morning pages this time:

 

 

Another thing that Anty loves, besides writing, is organizing. Anty loves, loves, loves organizing. I, on the other paw, love, love, love things staying the same. You can see where we might have creative differences when it comes to moving things around. Anty is moving things around, because we are having company on Sunday. Anty Mary and Uncle Brian are friends who still live where we used to live, and they are all very excited to see each other. I, again, on the other paw (I am a kitty; I can have up to four paws in this situation. Well, any situation, because I do have four paws, all the time. I walk on them.) am not as into the concept of visitors as Anty  and the other humans.

I already had to deal with the Cable Human this week, so I am not that thrilled about more visitors. Uncle and Anty put me into Mama’s room with the door closed, so that I would not have to deal with the Cable Human, but there is a cable box in Mama’s room, too, and Cable Human had to look at it, as well as the one in the living room. I hid under the bed, but he still saw me. I do not know why. Only my tail stuck out. That was the only thing. He did his job and left quickly, so that was good. Anty Mary and Uncle Brian will stay longer than that, though (partly because Uncle will be feeding them. Also because they are good friends who have not seen each other in a long time.

They also have not seen me in a long time, so I will probably come out and say hello at some point, because they are not strangers. Also, they smell like doggy. His name is Alex. I have never met him, but Anty says he is a Golden Retriever. That is a big doggie. He will not be coming; only the humans. I will send him kitty scents on his humans to tell him hello from me. He can sniff them when they get home. He has smelled me on my humans lots of times, so that will be familiar.

That is about it for this week, as Anty needs to get back to writing and getting the house ready for company, and her office ready for working more efficiently. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

 

 

i1035 FW1.1

Until next week…

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

The Long and Winding (Writing) Road

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When you force things that aren’t meant to be, you usually wind up in trouble.

–Brenda K. Stone

 

I had a plan for this entry when I opened the window. Actually, I had a couple of them. I bored myself. Which is when I go to my fallback, my collected quotes. The last couple of weeks were pretty good for quote collecting, not from actual books, but people who write them, aka other authors I know on Facebook. Brenda K. Stone is one of my NECRWA chapter sisters, super-traveler, and writer of soon to be unleashed upon the world rock and roll romances. I tried linking her Facebook page, but technology and I are having creative differences, so feel free to cut and paste the below:

https://www.facebook.com/brenda.stone.9404?ref=ts&fref=ts

Well. That, it links. I’ll take it. Brenda and I always end up chatting when we run into each other at meetings or conferences -not nearly enough- and following her globe-trotting gives me some virtual travels, as I go about the everyday. The quote above was actually written about -surprise, surprise- an unexpected twist in some travel plans, but girlfriend rolled with it, and had a fabulous time anyway. Good lesson.

Another good lesson comes from H, she of the nightly Skype chats. Pretentious song lyrics are an endless source of titles for anything; that’s one of her bits of advice, though I should mention that Her Last First Kiss got its name before we began our association. That’s not the lesson I meant, however. It was the lesson I had to blabber through to get to what I wanted to say. That’s how I do it. I’m a talker. Let me ramble long enough, and I will get there. Which, I am very happy to report, is working out pretty darned well this week. I am highly in favor of that and would like to keep going in that direction.

This, however, is not one of those posts where I skip through fields of daisies and toss out handfuls of food pellets to the woodland creatures attracted by my ebullience. Nope. This brings me back to a couple of nights ago, when H and I checked in on how we were both progressing. I told H I was stuck on scene X.

H observed that I had been stuck on scene X for a while. I agreed. She was correct. I knew what had to happen, but I couldn’t get a handle on it, which was when H gently pointed out that maybe that isn’t what happens. Maybe it was time to try something else. Save scene X in a separate file, and write something drastically different. Insert requisite kicking and screaming and grumbling and justification of why scene X had to be scene X. H went with the broken record tactic; write something drastically different. Maybe that would stink, maybe it would be great, or maybe it would remind my writerbrain what I’d intended before I wandered off. Fiiiiiiiiiiiiine. Okay, she was right. Her advice also aligns pretty darned perfectly with my favorite all time writing advice, from K.A. Mitchell:

  1. Open the file
  2. Change your seat.

Changing one’s seat can be metaphorical as well as literal. In this case, I changed POV, and began the scene before where I saw it starting. Big surprise, it clicked. Instead of smashing Character A’s head against the wall to make them do what I had all planned out, (trust me, the boldface and italics are justified in this case) I stuck a toe in the water of Character B’s head, had them literally start walking without even a firm direction, and what do you know, without me even doing anything, there comes Character A (coincidentally doing the thing I tried to make them do,  only about three feet to the left, pretty much, and this time, doing it completely on their own, thankyouverymuch) with a very basic question that puts Character B in a spot, because this is not a situation they can get out of gracefully. Which is, yes, drastically different from the scene I had originally planned, but has the same spirit, only it actually works because I am not trying to force anything, and letting the characters do their things instead of mine.

Not an easy lesson to learn at times, but an important one. Sometimes, the best thing to do is stop, take a step back, look at the big picture, and see if there’s another way into what’s causing the block. Maybe that’s really a brick wall where one has been trying to get in, and the actual door is really three feet to the left. Maybe it’s around the corner. Maybe it’s on the second floor and one needs to climb those twisty stairs first. Maybe that’s not the easiest way in, but it’s one whale of a lot easier than trying to smash my way through the wall by repeatedly banging my head against it.

Much as I would love to be the mythical creature who gets an idea, cracks knuckles, sits down at a blank screen and taps out a perfect first draft, I’m not. I’m me. I’m going to take the scenic route, make a couple of wrong turns, before I find the right one. Maybe, instead of being angry about that, I can appreciate it for the gift that it is. Appreciate each step taken along the long and winding road that leads to HEA, instead of grumbling about it. No two writers’ journeys are going to be the same. We have to find our own ways inside our stories, and around within them, but when we do? The view is incredible.

 

The Enemy of the Good

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The perfect is the enemy of the good.

-Voltaire

 

Right now, I want a nap. Like really, really want a nap. At the same time, there is part of me entirely devoted to “we were without cable/internet for two and a half days, company is coming on Sunday, I have a Skype session with Melva tomorrow, Saturday’s workshop unlocked that part of Her Last First Kiss where I wasn’t sure what I was doing, and now I am, therefore, I cannot sleep and must do all the things. Right now. Preferably at once.”

Which, realistically, is not how things work. Our friends are not coming to see us because our apartment is a showplace (it is not) -we are going to a museum for that- and there is probably, realistically, plenty of time to get most of what I want to get done, done. For somebody as motivated by lists and planning as I am, this should be second nature, and, in some ways, it is. More on that later. Unless I forget. Because I did not outline this post. Winging it, because this is technically Monday’s post, but we did not have any internet on Monday; our service had been shut off by mistake (the subscriber the technician intended to disconnect was another house on our street; lots of moving in and out around this time of year in a college town, so understandable on their part.) Props to Tim from Time Warner Cable, for doing an A plus job, being respectful of scared-of-strangers kitty, and making sure everything worked its very  best before he left.

Okay, not entirely without internet, as one of this city’s perks is municipal internet, but we can only get one bar in our living room, so enough to get the essentials done, but not conducive to mindless web-surfing, falling down a Netflix hole, or other use that doesn’t have a specific purpose. On the plus side, it is enough to text chat on Skype while writing. I have come to know myself well enough to know when I need to blabber to another writer while I work, and when I need to be on my own, earbuds in and head fully in story world. Not a one size fits all approach to every writing session, I have found, and I like that part of the discovery process.

One of the items on my list today was to apply the lessons from K.A. Mitchell’s workshop at CRRWA, to nudge the gelatinous near-the-end part of Her Last First Kiss into shape. There is a particular joy only writers know, of getting our characters to the almost-happy place. Sure, they think they’re happy, but little do they know Everything Is About To Go Down The Crapper And It Is All Their Faults. That’s a fun part to write, even -maybe especially- in romance, because we already know things are going to work out in the end. Hero and Heroine are going to be FINE. They’re going to be better than fine. Because this is a romance, they get to live Happily Ever After (not that it means they’ll never have anything bad ever happen to them again for their entire lives, because how boring would that be? Talk about unrealistic. It means they’ll be together and happy about it, and face whatever comes, together.) so what chance does anything the author throws at them even have in the first place, right? No chance, but we writers have to make “no chance” look like “I have no idea how they’re going to get out of this one” (to the reader, that is; it looks plenty like that to the writer at this stage of the game.)

Which is what had me at my secretary desk, two notebooks open at once (notebook shown is the “official-because-I-say-it-is” notebook for this project (Abbie and Ichabod have nothing to do with this book; they’re just pretty, and they make me happy, so they can stay) and the entries in it are, hm, we shall say well-spaced, because this notebook intimidates me. It looks like this on the outside:

20160113_104226_resized

It’s the big one on the bottom; I am lazy and not scrolling. Also, hello, my legs I did not crop out of the picture. Whatever..

In short, the notebook is pretty and fancy and I did not want to ruin it with my horrible straight-out-of-my-brain writing. Especially when it is of the “I have not idea what I am doing” variety and have trouble reading my own handwriting. This is slightly better when I use better pens, like fountain pens, which I use here, or rollerballs, which I used in the other notebook, to take notes in the workshop. Basically, that part of  my day consisted of me copying things from the workshop notebook (really my all purpose notebook) into the HLFK notebook and expounding upon/applying the points to Hero and Heroine’s story. At a certain stage of the story, in any genre, readers have some expectations, and if those expectations aren’t fulfilled, readers are going to be cranky. I do not want cranky readers. On the other hand, I would take cranky readers over no readers, because my standards in that department are not that high at this stage of getting back on the metaphorical horse.

Which is actually a big help to the writer. This stage of the game is where we do the thing. Okay. We can do the thing. How, exactly, do these particular characters do the thing? That’s what makes this book different from all the others out there, and there are a lot of them out there, but this one  is mine. Well, actually Hero’s and Heroine’s, but I am hoping you get the drift here. Even if you are cranky; if you are cranky, reading a good book could help. Or read one of mine. That would set you apart from the crowd. (cue saxophone version of “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg” in the background)

 

So, basically, that part of my day consisted of using the pointy part of my fountain pen to stab Hypercritical Gremlins (thankfully, they bleed ink) and rough out exactly how Hero and Heroine would most likely do this particular thing. Find the worst thing that could happen to them, and then make it happen. Well, that’s easy, and provides a healthy dose of schaudenfreud (which I probably misspelled, but refer to Voltaire quote above) -the only way it’s okay to be happy that other people are miserable. I need to run this by N, but I think I am on to something, and the formerly gelatinous part is getting to a nice degree of firmness and providing forward momentum. I am going to call that good.

Typing With Wet Claws: Cat On a Hot Tin Everything Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. While Feline Fridays are, obviously, my normal days to blog, it almost feels like filling in for Anty, because this has been a very hot week. Anty does not do heat very well, so this means she has had to scale back some, which she does not like at all. Yesterday was very, very hot, so she took a flop day and concentrated on staying cool. I feel somewhat guilty about not offering her my flop space next to the big wooden thing outside my mama’s bedroom, but only a little, because that space is kitty sized. and Anty is bigger than that. Besides, I know how important it is for her to know that I am cool, so, really, my staying in my flop space was for the best.

Since the deal is that I have to talk about Anty’s writing first, her most recent Buried Under Romance post is here, and it looks like this:

BUR

How far do you dig for your next great read?

Anty is very much looking forward to tomorrow, when she gets to go to her CRRWA meeting. There, she gets to be among others of her kind (by which I mean romance writers) and she will learn some new tricks for making her books even better. Miss K.A. (Mitchell) will talk about putting one’s characters to work. She will put Anty and the other humans to work, too, which Anty likes very much. Anty is also looking forward to seeing Miss N and Anty Sue Ann and her other friends. They will be happy to see her too, and hopefully not only because she brings snacks, but I am sure that is part of it. I am always happy when she feeds me, so I assume that would carry over to others. Anty talks with some of her writer friends on the glowy box pretty much every day, but it is different, being with other writers in person. Anty likes that best of all, especially when they talk about their stories and characters.

While some writers work best when they do not talk about their work, that is not how it goes for Anty. She needs to talk to process her thoughts. When Anty was a people kitten, the worst punishment (or most effective discipline, depending on whom one asks) her mama could give would be that Anty was not allowed to talk to her for a certain number of minutes. For a talker like Anty, that was excruciating, and she did learn that doing the things that earned her the periods of not-talking were usually not worth it.

That carries over to writing, too. Anty tried, for a while, to not-talk about her stories and characters, but what happened was that they did not feel real to her, and it was like moving paper dolls around a cardboard box stage. Anty tried not-talking after talking too much got one of her books (it was the time travel) all jumbled with too many other voices in her head, and she could not get through all those other voices to hear the characters anymore. Some of the too-many voices echoed very, very loudly, and she put the story on the back burner until those voices got quiet. They are not all quiet yet, so it needs to wait a little longer. If talking too much is bad, and not-talking at all is bad, then it means that there is some place in the middle that hits the right note.

For Anty, that means talking to only a few people, and trusting herself to know how much to share, and with whom. That is why, here, she will talk about Hero and Heroine, or Guy and Girl. Their names are still private at this stage. It is the same way that she cannot put her Pinterest boards or Spotify playlists for current projects where others can see them. Those need to stay private until the book is done, and Anty does not have to guard against the wrong things getting inside. She likes to keep her own vision clear. That is one of the reasons she does not especially like fantasy casting her stories. Her story people have their own faces already, and other people trying to tell her that her character looks like some other human vexes her. I do not know if these people do the same things with kitty characters, because Anty does not have any prominent kitty characters in either of her current projects. Hmph. Maybe the next one. If Anty ever writes a Viking story, then she  can have Norwegian Forest Cats. Those are the ancestors of Maine Coon Cats, which is what I am. So, if she needed a kitty model for the cover of that book, she would not have to look very far. Maybe that would make the writing process easier. I am a good mews and want to look out for my Anty’s peace of mind.

 

That is about it for this week, as it is very close to my lunchtime, so I need to stare at Anty (or Uncle, because he does not go out to hunt until later, but probably Anty) until she knows what time it is. I will report on what she learned from the workshop next week Unti then, I remain very truly yours,

 

i1035 FW1.1

Until next week…

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

Right Now

annabowling 5 Comments

Right now, I am in the comfy chair, bare feet up on the footrest, an ice pack on my lower spine (for heat regulation, not injury; I’m fine.) My Paris travel mug sweats on the table to my right. It’s almost empty. I’ll need to get up and refill it soon. On my left, a box fan sits in the open window. Ominous gray clouds lurk low over the old brick building across the street. There was a wonderful pub there when we moved in; it’s empty now. Its neighbors, a bodega and a liquor store, remain. I am listening to a new-to-me singer, Levi Kreis, on my phone, because Spotify can be patchy when using the web player on my laptop, and I’m still hypervigilant about memory, so downloading very little to the hard drive. I suspect that the multiple YouTube videos H sent me, of the Danish Royal family (it was all for writing, really it was) may have left their ghosts in my cache, because there is a full GB less of space than there was the day before, and I clean caches daily. I’ll deal with that later.

Right now, I have enough time to focus on this entry, because it is a domestic tornado day. One of these days, I may start naming our domestic tornadoes. If I start here, this one will be “Anton.” Well, maybe not Anton, because the Anton I know in real life is the owner of my favorite coffee house, and, while he does wear a lot of hats (metaphorically and literally) he has nothing to do with today’s tornado. So, maybe not Anton. Maybe I’ll start naming tornadoes some other time, when I am not actually in the middle of one.  Not entirely sure if that is ever going to happen, so maybe it’s more of a juggling act.

Right now, I want to squeeze in as much blog entry as I can before I have to shift back to family mode. What I would like to do is pack up laptop and legal pad, ensconce myself at Anton’s establishment and delve into my eighteenth century world, but that’s not what this afternoon is going to be. Okay. Can’t change that. What I can change is my response. The day is what it is. I like my family, and spending time with them is not a bad thing. We all work together to make a good life for all of us, and, for every tornado, there is going to be a calm (or at least an eye.) So, it’s going to happen. Not a zero sum game. Since I have my purse notebook, all necessary accoutrements in the accompanying pouch, I can take my show on the road. I seriously think this may become my new default notebook:

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All that ink on paper…soooooo calm. Insert happy sigh here.

Margins are perfect for making short lists, and notes on what’s on the rest of the page, where needed. Highlighting dates and headings means I can go immediately to what I want, which I like very much. Seriously considering drawing margins on the pages of other notebooks that do not have them already. Anything at all can go in these all purpose books, and the fact that my newly discovered music crush has some songs that would fit beautifully for Hero in certain situations, should there ever be a Her Last First Kiss musical (hey, I can dream) means that musing on same is perfectly fair game. Anything specific to a particular project, I can copy into the proper book when the time comes, and there’s always transcription to computer file, but I know myself. Longhand is best.

Speaking of longhand, I am locking in these PaPaYa! Art notebooks as my next two morning pages book, since I am now on the second half of the book I am currently using:

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Notebook and a half, actually

The “Fearless” book is really half a book, since it belongs to the “uh, no, I actually don’t want to use this book for that purpose” family. It’s about halfway filled, maybe a little less than that, with ramblings in purple ballpoint, which, while a pen I love (promo pen from Hannah Howell) also one that doesn’t show up well on the surface of these pages. The “Love You to the Moon” book, I have been saving for a special occasion. Today, I decided that right now is special enough.

 

This Saturday, I get to have the great good pleasure of attending my monthly CRRWA meeting, made all the better by a workshop with the luminous K.A. Mitchell, who always puts us to work, which I greatly appreciate. Writer people, if you ever get a chance to take one of her workshops, do. Anyway, a tidbit from her workshop on breaking creative blocks feels appropriate for right now: use the good stuff. Use it now. Beautiful notebook, fun idea, character who won’t shut up; use them now. Don’t wait. There will be more. That’s how creativity works.

Marginally Speaking

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Third time I’ve started this blog entry, and both times, I bored even myself, so I am going directly to my last-resort backup, because then I get to take a reading break. That backup is playing show and tell with a favorite notebook. In this case, it’s a hardcover Case Mate, which appears to be a proprietary Wal Mart brand.

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insert own obligatory “black and white and read all over” joke here.

I have two of these Case Mate notebooks already, one blue, and partially written in, always with blue ballpoint (though that may change) and currently living on the kitchen counter (which will probably change) the other purple, and as yet untouched, as I have vague plans to start some kind of purple notebook family/dynasty (this may be the subject of the next blog entry when summer and its bestie, insomnia, have used my home for yet another non-sleepover) but when I saw this one in the back to school section (the notebooks in the regular office supply section are the same inside, but have neon covers, which does not fit with my aesthetic) I had to have it. The notebook also comes in pink and aqua versions, which may yet happen, but I can’t have every notebook (where would I put them?)

Here’s the best thing about the Case Mate book:

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Only marginally important. Get it? Marginally? I’ll see myself out. No, this is my blog. I’m staying. I’m punchy. Deal with it.

Ivory paper here, which I far prefer to white, but it was the margins that sold me. part of me would like to see the margin on the facing page on the outside instead of inside, but it’s perfect for making notations on what I’ve already written, the perfect place to affix sticky note flags and the like. I don’t currently have any sticky note flags tucked into this book (partly because it does not have a pocket) but I did stock it with the basics; two different colors of square sticky notes, and one of a larger size. Still working on the color scheme; would love to keep it black/white/red/gray or in that neighborhood.

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Top square sticky looks lavender, but it’s light gray. Trust me.

Only semi-hacked, no fancy end papers, but I already feel the calm that comes with moving into a new notebook. I’d started to feel itchy when, every time I had to switch bags, I had to dig for my pen pouch and the one all-purpose notebook that was supposed to come with me from bag to bag, be filled by now (it’s about halfway there)  and possibly grant wishes or something. I don’t know what I was thinking at the time, but I am going to assume best intent and believe that I was going for efficiency and avoidance of adding anything to the stack of whoops-that-wasn’t-their-purpose-after-all notebooks.

Whatever it was, the fuss of hunting and switching overrode the supposed ease of a one size fits all kind of deal, and so the idea popped into my head, shortly after I brought the new notebook home. My usual summer tote is black and white stripes. I have a black and white chevron case my black rimmed glasses sleep in every night. I have  gorgeous black and white chevron afghan, for when temperatures drop, and my new pen pouch is black and white, so why did I have a notebook with a color photo as my book for that bag?

As soon as I made the switch, I felt a click. This combination looks like it belongs together. It looks intentional. It feels like me, like where I want to be going. Not a magic fix-it to all my problems, not a huge thing, even, but it feels right, and that’s good enough.  It’s listening to that creative impulse and not shushing it with “shoulds” and “you don’t need thats” and “bare minimum and/or status quo is good enough,” because no, no, isn’t. If it were, then it wouldn’t feel right when I made the change. I am learning to listen to my creative brain when it says things like this. “Let’s try something different today,” or “what if we did this instead of that?” Learning to say yes when a writer friend asks if I want to bat around a story, just for fun, because we’ve both talked each other down from ledges this week, and, dangit, we want to touch the joy.

It’s easy to get away from the joy, easy to get lost in the shoulds, but easy, too, if we allow ourselves, to feel the giddy pleasure of cracking open a new notebook and leafing through the empty pages, reading the words that will be written there, imagining which ink, what format – story notes? to do lists? doodles? drafts? all of the above?- and making a conscious decision that yes, my writing has value, and it is worth the investment. It’s worth the investment of the right notebook and pens, that feel right in my hands and right in my spirit, look right to my eyes, and it’s worth the investment of my time, to get away from the rest of the world and follow my imaginary friends as they live their lives, copy it down and then put it in order.

Where am I going with all this? Well, I don’t have to go anywhere, really, since I’m already far past the magic seven hundred, nattering on about a notebook in which I’ve only written one page, and that to test ink, but I know where that took me. That took me into writing mode, into the urge to open the document and poke it with a stick, even if I have only a few minutes before family descends and I need to switch gears. If that’s the outcome, is a new notebook frivolous? Not from where I’m sitting, which is, in this case, on the edge of the eighteenth century, so if you’ll excuse me, I’m needed there.

Typing With Wet Claws: Cat Days of Summer Edition

annabowling 1 Comment

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Anty is feeling a little under the weather right now (she does not do summer very well; that is why my blog entry is late today, but she will be fine with a little rest and a lot of water) so I may have more wiggle room for artistic expression here than I usually do. I still have to talk about her writing first, though, so let us get that done first.

Anty’s latest Saturday Discussion post at Buried Under Romance is about delayed gratification, so I thought about putting it at the end of today’s entry instead, but Anty reminded me which one of us can reach the treat shelf in the pantry, so it is in the regular place, which is here, and it looks like this:

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When you have a special book, can *you* wait for it?

This has been an interesting week around here. I am all done with my antibiotics, and, from the way I run when Anty rustles my treat bag, the humans are really sure the site of my butt explosion does not hurt me anymore. I did not need the cone of shame even once during my recuperation. Anty suggested that maybe she could put the cone of shame on a stuffed animal, because I was not going to need it but Uncle did not want her to do that. I have to side with Uncle on this issue. Well, really, on every issue. Uncle is my favorite; everybody knows that. Uncle also got a new people vet (the regular kind, not the emergency kind) this week, and he likes them very much. Anty and Mama did not have to fight very hard to get him into the carrier, and he takes his own pills. I admire his fortitude. That takes courage. Also opposable thumbs, which probably have something to do with said pill taking. Anty does have power to make executive decisions, though, so I am still not sure where the cone of shame is going to end up; as long as it is not on me, I do not really care.

Anyway, it has been an interesting  week for Anty’s writing, as well. She has had better production weeks, but that is okay. These things tend to balance out, and, for every day that is less than she would have liked, there is another day where it will go much more quickly. The important thing is to keep moving forward. On both projects, Her Last First Kiss, and the Beach Ball, Anty (and, in the case of the Beach Ball, Anty Melva) has reached milestones. Anty likes milestones. Those are markers of how far she has come, and remind her that she can make it to the next one, because she’s already made it this far. Anty does not normally count words while writing a draft, because that is too distracting, but she does have an outline, and seeing how far she is into the outline makes her happy. Maybe she can find or create some kind of chart so she can track  her progress that way. Anty loves organizing things, so I think she might like being able to see at a glance how much progress she is making, her way.

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When Anty’s story people hit a milestone, that means that they cannot go back to the way they had been before they hit that milestone, because they are different now, a sort of different that cannot be undone. At the very end, because these are romance novels, that is the biggest milestone; the humans have promised to be with each other forever, and they will never be all alone again. Before that, it is more of a matter of tracking the humans’ changes from who they thought they were (sometimes, who other humans told them they had to be) into who they really were all along.

Anty finds that kind of thing very interesting. A once-upon-a-time friend once said that all of Anty’s stories are about moving on after a loss, and that is true, because they (at least the ones that I have seen) are, and they are also about the humans finding out that they do not have to have somebody else tell them who they are; they can figure that out for themselves. That does not mean that all of Anty’s stories are the same, because they are not. Every human has their own individual challenges along the way, and when it is two unique humans, fighting their own battles, who find each other, well, that it what Anty finds the most interesting of all. Even during the cat days of summer. I know most people call them the dog days, but the only dog I know is Bailey, and he does the same thing I do; lie around and drink water, same as Anty wants to do on hot days. Also work on her stories. Some things never change.

Anty has also rallied enough to want the computer back, so that is about it for this week. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

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Until next week…

 

 

Postmidweek Rambles

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Wednesday’s post is on Thursday this week, because Thursday was a domestic tornado day. Doctor appointment for Real Life Romance Hero, which took longer than expected, but good result, trip to pharmacy afterward, then grocery store, then…collapse. The first thing I wanted this morning, when I got up, for the first time, was to go back to sleep. Also, the second, third, and fourth. At some point, I relocated to the comfy chair, mustered enough energy to get out mechanical pencil and notebook and got some good longhand done, but I still would like to trade it all in for more shuteye. Morning pages got written, because my brain has learned to follow that discipline, and, if I am able to get out of the bed, then I am dragging the bones to the office and filling those two pages. Got it? Yes, ma’am. Got that. Allrighty, then. Shooting for the same with this blog entry and my discussion post, and then we’ll  see about nappage.

Writing a whiny post is  not my intention, but if that’s what happens, that’s fine. It will still be a post, because I am still going to hit my magic seven hundred before I can cross this off my list and move on to the next items. Besides, or between, the domestic tornadoes yesterday, I chatted with a writer friend, about projects and motivation and reclaiming the fun in writing. We both have been at that place where the Hypercritical Gremlins are shouting in our ears, through megaphones, and there aren’t any dissenting voices, so the Hypercritical Gremlins must be right. That’s what it looks like, but that’s not what’s true. What’s needed, at that point, is a shift in perspective.

Last night, when I finally slipped between the sheets, ready for my nightly ritual of squinting at the teeny print in a mass market paperback, possibly but probably not through the fingerprint-covered-muck of the supposedly magnifying bookmark it feels like I’ve had since forever, but rarely used, something occurred to me. What if I took it out of the sleeve? Duh. This honestly never crossed my mind before last night, not even once. Sleeve was clear, which meant I could see through it, which meant that, obviously, I was the one doing something wrong here. Well, yes, but not the way I thought.

I checked the top of the sleeve, and, sure enough, it opened. I withdrew the bookmark. Held it over the page. Insert favorite exclamation here. Enlarged, clearly legible text. Even with only my left eye and its  ninja cataract. This was a game changer. Well, okay, then. Let’s roll. I held the bookmark over page after page.  I didn’t have to strain, and could focus (pun intended) on not the marks on the page, but the story. I finished the book in fairly short order, and fell asleep looking forward to what book I’d pick for the next night, to take its place. Current plan is to go through the stack of library books in order of when they are due. Cuts down on the possibility for overthinking there.

Where am I going with this? Mainly to the magic seven hundred, because then I get to tackle the next thing on my list, my Saturday Discussion post. Do I have a topic? No. Will I, when I get there? Yes. It’s that left foot, right foot thing, same as blogging thrice weekly and filling two pages first thing in the morning. I made my first attempt at writing this entry yesterday, had absolutely nothing to say then, and a not sure I have that much more to say now, but if I don’t make this entry, then it carries over into the weekend, because Skye is not giving up her Friday spot. Saturday is my Buried Under Romance day, and Sunday is a day of rest (supposedly) and then Monday again. Faithful readers know how long I carried a missed Wednesday post, last time, and I am not willing to go into that again. So, onward I go, babbling all the way.

Discoveries like the bookmark thing amuse me. The answer was right there, the whole darned time, and it took me how many months to figure out I should take the bookmark out of the sleeve? Really? It’s the same with discoveries about the writing process. I read mass market books more easily with a magnifying bookmark? Well, then, take it out of the sleeve and use it. My storybrain flows more freely with pen and paper? Ink that sucker and turn the page and have at it, madam. First draft goes more quickly with bullet points rather than proper prose? Lock and load, because bullets are about to fly.

Some days, it comes hard. Some days, it comes easy. What’s important is that it comes. If it’s not coming, step back an take a look. What, exactly, isn’t feeling right? Sometimes, it’s as easy as taking the bookmark out of the sleeve.