Indie Publishing Journey and Current State of the Desk

October 29, 2024annabowling Leave a comment

Right now, there is a possible cover for A Heart Most Errant sitting in my in-box. Am I writing this blog to postpone actually looking at it because it is exciting but scary? Yes. Absolutely. Wil it be okay? Also yes. It is an intermittently blustery day here in NY’s capitol region. There is a cat (Storm) on my desk, formatting and uploading forms sitting in my hard drive, and have hauled our grocery delivery upstairs and put it away. The only thing left on my schedule today is publishing prep and this blog.

My birthday was last week, and it went really well. Many expressions of love both in person and online. I had lunch out with Housemate, received some lovely stationery gifts, and Real Life Romance Hero got me both a glass dip pen (yes, with ink) and a gorgeous hourglass with black sand, perfect for timing breaks when using a Pomodoro inspired schedule.

Keeping nothing but the necessities on my desk is working well. Cup is for tea. Today it’s vanilla chai. The new addition is an unfinished wooden crate turned desktop bookshelf for my most used planners and notebooks. Though I love the A5 rings format, I am mostly in disc bound right now, because folding them in half makes it a lot easier to prop open the particular page and refer to it as needed. Right now, this is the lineup for planners and notebooks:

daily planner
household planner (month/week)
writing planner (month/week)
Poison box contains 20 count Crayola Supertips, pastel edition
Current historical projects notebook
??? Love the cover but still need to decide on fillings and purpose.

I am planning some Anna Log videos to go through the above and my favorite pen pouches and the like. I find what works best for me is when I can pick up everything I need for whatever project, so if I need to pick up and take my show on the road, it’s one thing, and I don’t have to reach or search for anything.

Now that I am effectively my own (and my and Melva’s) publisher, there is a learning curve and a lot more work, which means it’s an excellent thing I am good at organization. It’s fun. Taking something from chaos to order, it’s not that different from taking a bunch of wild squirrels of ideas and snippets of scenes and turning it into a kickline of chorus dancers. Maybe that’s not the best analogy, but I am sticking with it.

One of the things on the forms is the name of the series. While Melva and I plotted out the ongoing Love by the Book contemporary series together, this is the first time I have intentionally set out to write connected historical romances. I had decided that all stories in this series will follow the pattern of A Heart Most _______. Picking “errant” for the first blank-filler was easy, as the hero is a knight errant. After that, though? :blink blink blink: Ummm….

Now, I have settled on “Ardent” and “Wicked” for the next two , which do capture the spirit of the respective stories. The plan is to put all three together in an omnibus, with a bonus short story, probably holiday themed, when they are all out, which will be another project altogether. All together, they are the Ravenwood series. Trust me, it’s better than “Heart Most” series or “Medieval Hearts” because I am new at this series naming thing. Right now, I am looking at what is on my plate at this moment, which is The Forms. Organization is essential for me to keep track of this sort of thing. I know what I need to do and when I need to do it. One thing at a time, not DO ALL OF THE THINGS RIGHT THE HECK NOW.

Yeah. Long story short (hah, pun unintended) I am entering new territory here. Do I know what I am doing? Ehh, sometimes. That’s okay. Everything anybody is good at, they did for the first time once. This, for publishing, is mine.

Indie pubbed writers, share your wisdom. Readers of indie pubbed romance, what are your favorite aspects/pet peeves? Drop them in the comments for possible discussion in future posts.

Typing With Wet Paws: Post-Birthday Edition

October 25, 2024annabowling Leave a comment

Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. The birthday I am referring to is not mine (we celebrate that on February 14th) but Mama Anna’s. Mama Anna loves birthdays. They don’t always have to be hers, but this one was. She and Aunt Linda went out for lunch and then craft store shopping, and then after Papa got home from work, he ordered Mama Anna’s favorite pizza, and they did presents and all hung out. I gave Mama Anna lots of cuddles and head bonks. I could not make her a cake, but I did make her lots and lots of biscuits, which she said are even better.

Even though this was Mama Anna’s birthday, I am the one who has big bed news. Aunt Linda got everybody new pillows (all the humans, that is) which means Papa and Mama Anna did not need their old bed pillows, so guess what — they gave them to me! Mama Anna had put my big cat bed on a small table next to her new desk, and, while it is super comfy, it is also too big for that table, so now it is a bed on the people bed during the day. What goes on the small table now? Glad you asked. It is the old people bed pillows. They are soft and comfy and they are parent-scented, so I love them a lot. One of them is going to go in my adventure cave, but that is for later.

Mama Anna also got another wooden crate to put on her desk to hold the planner stuff she uses on a daily basis, and before she put stuff in it, I put me in it. She didn’t get any pictures, and I didn’t stay long, because it did not have any pillows in it. I am all about the comfort. Technically, everything is a cat bed, but for actual bed-beds, I now have the big cat bed on the people bed, the pillow bed on the small table and then my tent on the desk.

There is one more thing that I should mention this week, and it is about my tent. A couple of days ago, Mama Anna put her hand into my tent, to tap the cushion, which is her way of telling me she would like me to go there. Well. She felt something under the cushion, which did not feel like cushion, so she investigated. She picked up the cushion, and underneath it were the following things:

one empty perfume sample spray (Twilly de Hermes)
two silicone earbud tips (my favorite thing to steal)
two bobby pins (Mama Anna refuses to ask why they are bent)

She. Took. Them. All. She also says that now, she will be inspecting my tent daily. Next time, Mama Anna wants to take a picture of my stash before she confiscates it. If I stash things that are okay for me to keep, then she will let me keep them, but sharp things and chemical things and swallowable things are dangerous, and best handled by grownups.

Also, I gave Papa a gift earlier this week. It was a hair tie. One of the good ones. Papa does not have hair on his head, except for his beard, but it is the thought that counts. He very appropriately praised me. Papa loves getting gifts from me, and I wanted to thank him for the gushy food he gives me every night. He wanted to be the gushy food guy, and I think that was a really good decision.

That’s about it for this week. Mama Anna is working hard on doing her very first indie publishing venture. She is nervous but also excited, so it evens out. What’s up with you?

Five Things I Love About My New Desk

October 22, 2024October 22, 2024annabowling 1 Comment

Happy Monday and happy new week. I am coming to you today from the new desk, Storm by my right elbow today because there is a sunbeam on that end of the desk. Guess I don’t need to refer to my daily task list, even if I was planning on covering my daily/weekly planning for this post. Cats, am I right?

The desk itself. I love that I put it together, with help from Housemate, and that it fits perfectly into the office corner of the primary bedroom. It’s more than twice the width of the TV tray type desk I had been using, and it really does feel like a grownup desk at last. Storm is absolutely delighted, because she gets a bed on the desk, a bed next to the desk and there is prime sunbeam real estate. The desk is also in the corner with the baseboard heating, so it will be nide and comfy on fall and winter days/nights.
A place for everything, and everything in its place. The suggested use for the space at the far right of the desk is for a printer, but I already have it on a low table that is only a chair swivel away, so I didn’t move it an inch. Instead, I plopped down a gorgeous black wicker basket to hold my most used supplies, aka a home for my medium pink Delfonics pouch. I am planning a pouch tour video for later. In the meantime, I’ll pop a picture of the current setup down at the bottom.
Drawers. This could have been included in the above, but the drawers are super cool on their own. They are actually made of fabric except for the fronts. The stuff that was cluttering the table that was next to my mini-desk is now stashed in the three drawers (two small, one deep) in the appropriate organizers, so what I reach for the most is in easy reach. I can reach for it without even looking, and still get the correct item. The bottom drawer had the ability to be set up for hanging files, but I opted not to used that, as I have a hanging file system in storage that I can bring home, so don’t need another. Now that drawer is where I put the printer paper, photo paper, sticker paper, etc. In short, paper.
Storm’s tent. Of course I had to mention the benefits to my purr=sonal assistant. For those needing proof how much Storm loves her tent, I have done my first inspection for stash, and I am not disappointed. I have removed:
- two silicone earbud covers (probably her favorite thing to steal/stash)
- two bobby pins
- one empty perfume sample (confiscated immediately! All other fragrances are now securely stored away from curious paws.)
Nothing. Wait, that’s not like it sounds. For the longest time, I have wanted to have a no desk clutter policy, and so far, I am keeping that for this desk. At the end of the day (still when Storm walks across the keyboard and plops herself between me and the laptop) I shut down, and make sure I have left nothing on the desk apart from the usual suspects: Storm’s tent, the laptop, mousepad and mouse, coaster (skull themed, of course) bottle of hand lotion (currently Crabtree and Evelyn Summerhill) and the tray with my pouch and my English Ruler ruler (I seriously do need the version with Charles III.)

And for cat tax, Storm in her tent. I guess it also doubles as a smuggler’s cave since I have now found a stash in it:

For those who haven’t yet heard, I am also blogging at MelvaAndAnna.com, which will be featuring free short reads by both myself and Melva Michaelian. If you don’t want to miss such things and get a front row seat to future Love By The Book installments, subscribe over there. We would love to have you.

Typing With Wet Paws: New Desk Edition

October 19, 2024annabowling Leave a comment

Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. The big news here is that I have two new beds, which is possible because Mama Anna has a new desk.

I think the new desk is part of Mama Anna’s birthday, which is later this week, but it came early, so she and Aunt Linda put it together, together. I did not know what was going on at first, because we haven’t had new furniture in a while, but I got scared when Mama Anna started putting lots of stuff on the bed, that does not normally go on the bed. This is because that is how she used to get ready for moving out of a room when we were on our year-long camping trip to celebrate my adoption. I was concerned because i like it here and did not want to leave, but plot twist, we were not leaving. Mama Anna was rearranging stuff so that there would be room for the new desk, and now she has a real office space that is easier to work from than a tv tray in front of a bookcase.

This is the new everyday setup. I applaud Mama Anna for knowing I will need my own space on her desk (the tent) as well as the bigger bed next to the desk, which is on top of a small coffee table so it’s off the floor. We are right over the baseboard heater, which will be nice and warm for fall and winter, and when Koolio comes back in the summer, we will be near him, too. The pink thing under the lamp is her Delfonics utility pouch. Mama Anna will give a tour of that later. I am smart enough to stay out of it.

I have indeed been alllll over this desk and inspected every inch of it. Usually, it is big enough for me and Mama Anna to have our own spaces, but when there are birds or squirrels outside, I need to be by that window. Maybe I should ask her for another bed at that end of the desk. She can’t have any plans for that area, can she?

What are you guys all doing this weekend?

Big Desk Energy

October 16, 2024October 16, 2024annabowling Leave a comment

Today is the first full day with the new desk. I am talking real, adult, this is a working writer’s desk, with drawers and everything.

Putting the desk together was an all-day thing yesterday, and the rest of the office/primary bedroom looks like we should expect our disaster relief check any minute, but as anyone who has ever un-f*cked a depression dungeon knows, progress is progress. Huge reminder how many times I had to drop something and tend to an emergency. Things are quieter now, so that’s no longer the case.

Storm will have her say about how the whole desk day went for her, and how today has been Partial Reading Nook Day. I have done enough for one day (actually two.) By this time tomorrow, reading nook should be good to go, especially since the pink velvety weighted blanket cover is due to arrive then. Having a place where I do One Thing is glorious. Having those places be for writing and for reading is even better.

No, a desk is not a magic ticket to Real Writerhood, any more than a reading nook is one to Real Readerhood, but I like having a place to do a thing, This past week has been a lot of getting things in place. New stuff is coming on MelvaAndAnna, and the journey to indie publishing progresses. Very interesting learning curve. I think I actually like it. Planning and organization are always fun and they do get my brain into the right place to do the things.

The new desk is big enough for not only my laptop and its stand, but my wrist rest mousepad, beverage of the moment, and a lovely black wicker tray holding my at-home Delfonics pouch for journal essentials. Storm has a flannel tent next to my laptop so she can be close and comfy. She loves it. Right now, I am next to a window, my feet at the heated baseboard, nice and toasty, with ample light. I also have my English Ruler ruler, which I need to update, as the one I have doesn’t include Charles III.

The most interesting thing I found in all of this moving around and repurposing and reimagining is that the person (me) putting things in order is not the same person (also me) who dumped and tossed and shoved things into chaos during times of ugh. Some stuff is going to find new homes. I’d rather have a few things I love than a lot of things that are…. there. It’s a process.

Anyway, that’s today. I’m sitting comfortably in an office chair that is the right height for a desk that is big enough to do what I want to do (and it’s not foldable.) I do miss having vertical storage, but it’s also fewer distractions. I am planning video tours of desk and nook when nests are fully feathered, so to speak. What are your writing or reading spaces like these days?

Fall Planner Revamp and Desk Setup

October 9, 2024annabowling Leave a comment

Thanks to Amazon Prime Big Deals, I now have a real desk headed my way in the extremely near future. This means I have a concentrated amount of time to take apart the makeshift bookcase I made from two wooden crates and an end table from Housemate’s old house. That table and a couple of other things need to go into storage because the desk is coming. I have been using a “foldable desk” which Housemate measured while I was asleep a few days ago (Real Life Romance Hero was present, so I assume he was aware of this) and it’s about half the size of the desk that is on the way. This is going to bring a lot of changes.

First of all, I will have twice the room I am used to having. Think of the current setup as typing with elbows flush with ribcage, with intermittent cat between me and keyboard, New desk will have space for a box/bed/space that will be for Storm (we will see if she agrees) and three entire drawers, the lowest of which is suited for hanging files. I have a lamp/pen holder/phone storage thingamaboo all ready to go. The big question there, is what pens do I put in it?

Secondly, pertinent to the image above, we have the revamped planner lineup. Here i s a fun fact about Housemate: she likes the mystery boxes/grab bags Michaels sometimes does. There were a few in our local Michaels this past weekend, and it happened to be a buy one, get two free deal. So, we got three. Inside, there were two Happy Planners, both dashboard layout. One dated, one not. I will be destashing or giving away the undated one, but the dated one has replaced the horizontal blank boxes A5 rings I had been using, but not reaching for much at all this month. For those who are new here, I do have a visual impairment, and blank pages are not my friends. Nice, dark lines, however, are my favorite. I will share the layout and a sample spread later.

I like having my planner shelf coordinated. I like the pink, the gold, the black and white. This is probably not the final form of the shelf, but it is what works for now. After the long hot summer, fall is here and my superpowers have returned. I have tentatively mapped out my writing schedule for the near future, and I’m excited about it. This includes first steps into indie publishing and some exciting new things for MelvaandAnna.com.

Also, we have reached a true sign of autumn. We have put Koolio on his winter break. He will be wintering in Housemate’s closet, along with his bestie, Oscillating Fan. The heat is not on yet, but we have freshly laundered blankets, plural, and Storm is always up for a good cuddle. We have reached the time of year when I run on tea (vanilla chai today, out of my Jolly Roger mug) and if this weekend isn’t The Weekend for foliage photography, it will be the next one. I finished reading a vintage historical romance last night, which means I now get to pick out another. Daryl Dixon: The Book of Carol is off to an excellent start.

I like the way all this is going.

Typing With Wet Paws: Adopt-iversary Edition

October 5, 2024October 5, 2024annabowling Leave a comment

Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. This is also pretty much the time of year when we celebrate the day I came to live with these guys. My first human, Mama D, took really super good care of me from when I was a baby, which was super awesome. Now I live with Mama Anna, Papa, and Aunt Linda. Usually, I hang out with Mama Anna, keeping a close eye on her (actually both of them) like this:

I had convinced Mama Anna to work from the soft office in above picture (I smack her left elbow with my paw and then lead her to what I want. In this case, for her to be on the bed.) because she was under the weather this week. That requires close feline supervision. Like super close.

Anyway, back to the adopt-iversary stuff. We took an awesome year long camping trip to celebrate my adoption. We went all over Albany, and even back to the part of Connecticut where Aunt Linda comes from, a few times, and then we finally moved in here. For those wondering, yes I did get on the kitchen counter pretty much right away, but all of the hoomans made a big loud noise to let me know that was Not Allowed, so I have not done it again since. Which is okay. I have windows where I can sit, the big people bed is comfy, and so is Aunt Linda’s, though that one is smaller because there is only one of her. I have multiple chairs to sit in, lots of toys, and both crunchy and gushy food *every day.* It’s pretty great.

One of the things Mama D liked best about Mama Anna was that Mama Anna would let me help with her blog (Hi, Mama D. I am doing great.) and I am excited to get back to that. It’s super fun. Mama Anna has finally agreed with me that the current tv tray style desk she is using is not big enough, because I have recently come to the conclusion that me being on the desk is an important part of the writing and blogging process. Aunt Linda is helping her pick out a good desk. It needs to have room for a box or bed for me. Otherwise, I do things like this:

Overall, things are going pretty good. Mama Anna’s superpowers are getting their sea legs, and now that Aunt Linda is home during the days, I get that much more chance of daytime belly rubs. There are some rough spots, though, like this:

Here is what happened: It was back when Papa was just starting to get better. He asked for a roast chicken in the grocery order because he needed protein to get better. He put it On The Bed, Where I Already Was. He put the dish between me and the chicken. If I look like I am about to throw beans, it is because I was. Can you believe he did not give me any chicken? He did not. I did, however, get salmon gushy food, so it is arguably equal which is why he was not mauled by a tiger in his sleep. He said something about bones and seasonings, but blah blah blah. A chicken in every cat, that’s my philosophy. (Yes, I did jiggle the plate to remind him I wanted some.)

Anyway, that is about it for this week. We are all doing my favorite thing to celebrate my adoption anniversary: hanging out and chilling. What are you guys doing?

Headbonks,

The Actual Worst Reading Year of My Adult Life?

September 26, 2024annabowling 2 Comments

We are now in the “ber” months -September, October, November, December, aka the last quarter of the year. My Goodreads goal for the year is forty books. I have read eighteen. Goodreads kindly reminded me that such a number means I am eleven books behind schedule. That’s disheartening. Not impossible, but disheartening.

Trigger warning: discussion of homelessness (past) beneath the image.

A lack of interest in reading was the red flag needed to talk to my doctor about this particular flavor of depression and got me into the hands of Wonderful Therapist. WT had some excellent insights about the lack-of-reading thing. Did I use reading as a distraction during our vagabond year? My brain immediately flashed back to finishing Deposing Nathan by Zack Smedley in the parking lot where we were then camped, Storm in her carrier next to me, as the other adults were at their jobs and my job was to guard the car and our stuff. Fabulous young adult novel, which I highly recommend, and it’s a landmark in this whole reading thing.

I also think about reading fast during the daytime when we were camped, because night would be long and light would not be in great supply. When we were in a room or Housemate’s Mom’s house, of course, I could read any time I wanted, and I did. I couldn’t have my books with me, and while I will always appreciate the library system and my Kindle, the relationship between a reader and their keepers is a special one. Mine are still in storage, safe, but at the back of the unit, so I kind of wave at them when we make a drive-by visit. Soon, hopefully, soon. Even with the Kindle, reading at night, I had to gauge the battery because if we were camped, there was only one time to charge it during the day and that charge had to last.

So, there’s stuff. Wonderful Therapist is helping me unpack it, which is good, and it is happening. It’s coming along. Slowly. I didn’t expect to be this far behind. I don’t want to move the goalposts yet, but if I’m not closer to on track by the end of October, then I will. i don’t want a smaller “body count” for my books this year, but A) nobody cares, and B ) healing happens on its own time.

I know there are things that work. Vintage historical romance. Blindly stumbling around in the figurative dark to cobble together the kind of reading journal that works for me. Right now, that is a traveler’s notebook insert where I can make notes as I read, and a different book where I print out covers of books I plan to read, all top-tier favorites. The extrovert trait of “it’s not real unless I can talk about it” is true for me in this case. It’s annoying, and the only way out is through.

Vintage paperbacks are where I gravitate most these days. I have been poking eBooks with a stick, but they are not sticking (that will change) and audiobooks, which my brain says, “no thank you” at this moment. That also will change, especially as I have a twelve-book series (two six book series that go together) in my sights to start maybe soon, my umpteenth read of these books. I do not know why my brain has these format preferences, but she’s a tricky one, so I am not going to ask. One thing at a time.

All in all, I am not upset by the current situation, reading-wise. More like “yes, that checks out. That’s to be expected. It will come back.” It will. I find my current relationship with reading to be at an interesting point. Accepting it for what it is takes a lot of the reading-related anxiety and pressure away. Since talking about it is a good thing, that will happen here more often. I am looking forward to that.

How is you relationship with reading at present?

Typing With Wet Paws: Annnnd We’re Back Edition

September 16, 2024annabowling Leave a comment

Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws.

Do not adjust your screens. Mama Anna is back to blogging and so am I. It has been a long, hot summer, with Papa not feeling that great (he is much better now.) As if that weren’t enough, Aunt Linda is now home during the day, so things are a little different. Well, except for when she helps Papa get to work. Also home from work. Or runs errands. Shockingly, she does not take me, even when she takes Mama Anna. I get to stay home with Koolio our air conditioner. I get to smell everything they bring back from their hunts, and then make it smell like us, which is part of my job as cat.

My biggest job, though, is to provide support for Mama Anna. We have moved into a new kind of routine, now that Mama Anna is getting ready to release a new novella, and I need to stick close. I am also here to supervise what she calls “unfluffing (actually, she says a word I can’t say, but Big Sister Skye used to say ‘fluff’ instead of the word I can’t say, so I will use ‘fluff’ as well.) the depression dungeon.” I am not entirely sure what that means but it does seem to involve boxes and trash bags and moving furniture around. I find this all very interesting.

One of those things she is thinking is trading in her current folding desk for a real desk, which would be normal sized (this one is too small) so that there would be room on it for not only her laptop and its stand, a place for seasonally appropriate beverages, storage, and most importantly of all, a dedicated space for me. A big part of my support services includes napping as close as felinely possible to Mama Anna while she works. Right now, I can do that in the dresser drawer that she opens while she works, but room on the desk itself, with a bed or box, would be great. In case you are wondering, one of the ways I sleep is like this:

Or sometimes, I look at her like this.

As you can imagine, I am very much looking forward to the upgrade, and I can definitely smell Mama Anna’s superpowers coming back. I think they are coming back for Papa, too. He is the only one who plays with string toys right. He is also my catnip dealer and the provider of gushy food. That is why I look at him like this a lot:

That is about it for this post. Papa and Aunt Linda will be bringing laundry home soon (the clean kind) and I will need to focus entirely on making sure it is ours and that it smells right. What’s going on in your neck of the woods?

Headbonks,
Storm

Happy Traumaversary

September 7, 2024annabowling Leave a comment

Anniversaries are interesting things. Anniversaries of meeting special people, of weddings, of pet adoptions, of moving to a new home or starting a job, etc, are all good things. Then there are the other kind. Trigger warning for discussion of depression, anxiety, homelessness (past.) I will babble for a bit, then kitty picture, then the other stuff.

Right now, it is a cool September day. We have had rain. We still have clouds. Housemate is off at her mumblety-th high school reunion. Real Life Romance Hero had an at home date day. I am still very much an extrovert, but I like being home now more than I did before. That’s something I am exploring and seeing what I want to do about that. Today was, as Storm would say, pretty great, and not only because she got catnip (but partly because she got catnip.) I did want to post this on the fifth, but that turned out to be a full day; therapy in the morning (always awesome) then errands including three hours waiting for car people to do things to Housemate’s car, but hey, they threw in a free car wash, so yay, I guess.

Anyway, anniversaries get me thinking. September fifth is definitely one of those. Gentle readers, I will see you after the *second* kitty picture. The rest of us, let’s go.

Wonderful Therapist is good at scheduling appointments around days that may require some extra support. This was definitely one of them. As interesting anniversaries go, this was a relatively easy one. We’d expected to be between homes for a week, maybe a month. It ended up being close to thirteen months. Thankfully, around one month in, we got a new family member – Storm- who is currently happily snoozing on Real Life Romance Hero’s pillow, while RLRH does his computer things. She’ll be by to check on me soon enough, and when she has deemed that I have had enough time at the glowy box, she will sit on my keyboard, rest her head on my right hand, and refuse to move until I get up, then lead me to bed.

Sleep has been not great this week. Not surprising with the anniversary. We are secure in housing, secure in food, have air conditioning and heat as we need it, all good stuff. this has been the bouncing off the walls all night anxiety and then crashing in the morning. It is what it is for right now. I can do that safely, so it’s a win. We are all three (four if you count Storm, as supervisor) working hard on un-effing our collective depression dungeon, and it’s going fairly well. Didn’t happen in one day, doesn’t undo in one day, and with three of us working on it, under feline supervision, it does go at a pretty good clip.

Last night, I made a piece of digital art (not sharing it, thanks; personal) that is an image from a recurring nightmare, and it felt good to get it out of my head and onto the screen. It’s true that some traumas, we don’t heal from, but around. This is one of those. September fifth will always be homelessversary, because it was. We are secure now. I’m not worried. I’m…remember-y. Not wallowing, not re-experiencing, just remembering. As I told WT, I am looking forward to October, which is full of awesome-versaries. Even September has the day I met one of my best-best-besties. Our friendship can drink. (I don’t, but it can.) Good days ahead. Also, fall, with an eye on foliage.

Okay, back to it. Final-final edits are done on A Heart Most Errant, and it is now in the capable hands of Melva Michaelian, who gets one pass, then we go to formatting. One of the few things I remember from studying early childhood development/education, is that I am a kinesthetic learner, which is a fancy way of saying “let me do it and I’ll figure it out on the way.” Which is what I am doing on the indie publishing journey. I am keeping a list of adjectives I can use for further books in the series (planning on two more plus a short story) where all titles will follow the style of “A Heart Most _____.”

I have never planned a series before (late adopter, I know) so this is more uncharted territory. I do have a secondary character from AHME who has volunteered to be the hero of the next tale, but his heroine? Zero idea. Zip. Nada. Nothing so far. Likely time to delve into some history, so post-plague fourteenth century, here I come. I figure the heroine will flag me down when I get close enough to wherever it is she lives. Writers, you will understand that.

That is it for this week. Storm will get the next blog, and hopefully sooner rather than later. My main point in writing this was to check “write blog” off my list, because when I do, the non-posting-guilt has to leave the building. I am now up to date of From, finished Snowpiercer, blazed through The Accident on Netflix. Time to pick a new show. Recommendations welcome. From and Snowpiercer are both five star shows for me. Maybe a Broadchurch rewatch? What’s good these days, along such lines?

Typing With Wet Nails

for the love of romance

Author: annabowling