Signs of (Writing) Life

March 9, 2016annabowling Leave a comment

Right now, I am in my comfy chair, next to a soon to be opened window, cup of tea at the ready, headphones in, blog window open. I had a post typed out, but accidentally trashed it when I got up to take pictures to go with said entry, so I’m going to babble here, stick the pictures up anyway, and see where that takes me.

Today, our temperatures here in upstate NY should top 70. The waterfowl are back in the lake at the park. On my walk home from my meeting with N yesterday, one of the male Canada geese (should I be calling him a Canada gander?) rather pointedly strutted his stuff for the benefit of the Canada goose ladies. Waterfowl romance season, it would seem, has begun. It feels early for that, but if goose love is in the air, it must be spring.

In less than two weeks’ time, I will have filled my morning pages book. I started this one on October 26th. I’m looking forward to writing the last word on the last page and starting a new notebook (I have a few candidates in my stash already) but I’ll miss the gorgeous pages inside this one. Pretty pages make me want to write more, and knowing there is a set place where I must stop helps me focus on what I want to say in that space.

Hacking my plain cardboard binder for Her Last First Kiss clicked like wildfire. I love when colors and textures suggest themselves, and it’s easy to see where one choice flows into the next. This is my story bible, with all pertinent information gathered in one place, easily accessible. Times and distances between locations (and noting when our historical people would need to change horses matters, people) and who went to school where, owns what, and employs whom. My best way into this sort of thing is to let myself blunder blindly ahead and, after I smack into a few (dozen) walls, I’ll find what works, and then get to it. Housemate has threatened me with bodily harm if I attempt to use a regular binder again, though there is still some hacking to do.

I need to Mod Podge the cover that slipped oh so easily into the plastic pocket of the old binder (but then I never wanted to use the old binder because the plain white bothered me, so tradeoff there) and there are no pockets to hold loose papers. I can buy those at the office supply store, though, stick some coordinating paper on them, and glue the kraft envelope on the inside of the back cover, to hold smaller ephemera. I blame Moleskine for giving me a need for back cover pockets on pretty much all notebooks, including binders.

I’m working, I promise

These babies are all set to be my constant companions for this week, as I’m prepping for a post at Heroes and Heartbreakers. I did want to increase my reading for this year, and to write more book related posts for H&H, so I’d say I’m doing all right on that front. Who needs sleep when one has books? Seriously, if that could be worked out, I would be a very happy camper. In the meantime, blocking out reading time as though I were studying for a college class is the best way for me to make sure the work gets done. Family has been informed that, when my nose is in these books, I am working.

Reading that is not related to any posts (as far as I know) also needs to happen, because that also fits under the umbrella of “study.” I’m very curious about Kerrigan Byrne’s The Highwayman, and have heard wonderful things about it, so can’t wait to start that. Elizabeth Hoyt’s latest Maiden Lane novel is an auto-read, so that’s going to happen, especially since it fits with my immersion in all things Georgian. I’m still determined to get back on the Bertrice Small horse (and the fact that the book I picked, The Border Lord’s Bride, is number two in its series means I will have to go back and read book one, A Dangerous Love, because that’s how I roll) and I’m still devouring realistic YA like a starving hyena. Seeing notice of an upcoming David Levithan release in the current issue of Romantic Times Book Reviews magazine made me literally squeal (Skye is used to this kind of thing) when I read it in the upcoming releases section.

Okay, there’s the magic 700 word threshold to call this blog entry good enough and traipse off to century 18 with Hero and Heroine. See you later, Liebchens.

Midweek Rambles

February 24, 2016annabowling Leave a comment

Rainy Wednesday here, and the fact that I’m only now getting to the first blog entry of the week should be an indicator of how things have been going. The new addition to my workspace is Hedwig, (thanks, Kara!) who has shot up to mascot status in short order. Lift his head off, and he’s a flash drive. He will soon be filled with novel stuffs.

No idea what I want to write about here, so I’m going to wing it. One of the most vivid rainy day memories I have carried for a long time reaches all the way back to fifth grade. We’d recently moved from Bedford Village to Pound Ridge, and I had a playdate with Elizabeth A, to keep us both occupied and our mothers sane for the rain-soaked afternoon. I remember I had a corduroy pantsuit (it was the seventies; don’t judge me, and yes, my mom picked out my outfit) that day, red with a flower print all over it. The legs were too long, so the hems of the trousers (I preferred skirts even back then, but mom said, sooo…)were damp the rest of the day.

We spent the afternoon in Elizabeth’s room. I remember Barbies and some imaginative play, some discussion of the new TV show we both liked, Wonder Woman, probably my first fandom, though I didn’t know what fandom was at the time. Elizabeth had a Chow dog, who had particular tastes in what interactions he would allow with what humans, but he always liked me. I don’t remember his name, or the name of Elizabeth’s older brother. I don’t remember many particulars of that day, but I remember the day itself, and the memory is a good one. Elizabeth A, wherever you are, I hope you do, too.

On this rainy day, years later, there’s imaginative play still. Now, I call it writing, and it’s work as much as it is play, which suits me fine. No red corduroy pantsuit, thankfully, and I’m writing this from my favorite coffee house instead of a friend’s bedroom, but the day has some of the same feel to it. Not that I know exactly what the connection is, but some things become a part of us, and come to the fore when they will.

Today is also the first anniversary of the passing of Bertrice Small, still a favorite author and my entrée into the world of historical romance. I’d wanted, as many Small fans, to dive into some rereading when we got the sad news, and, at the moment, I’d tried, but I couldn’t make the connection. Not a good feeling, but, at times, the best thing we can do is let the feelings do their jobs. I don’t know when I got it in my head that I would intentionally step back from reading an author whose work had been that important to me, or when the idea arose that I would resume on the first anniversary of her passing. Maybe it’s a form of literary mourning? I’m not going to question that one.

Once I knew I wanted to resume on a certain date, everything fit. I would pick up one of her books on that date, and I would read it, but which one? With forty-nine titles from which to choose (well, less than that, as the Lara books are in storage, and I don’t own the Channel titles) the options were too many. N’s advice, “make a decision,” came to me then, and I did. I decided I wouldn’t decide. I turned to my Lionesses at my Facebook group, The Lion and Thistle, and placed my choice in their capable hands.

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this is the one

Some of the suggestions, I’d expected. Skye O’Malley (the book, not the kitty) is my favorite, and The Kadin was the first historical romance I ever read. I know those books, can quote them in places, so re-reading them would be as much remembering as experiencing the story. The other choices offered, Deceived, and The Border Lord’s Bride, I haven’t read as much. Since my copy of Deceived seems to have gone walkabout (will be reaching out to the library system and/or used bookstores soon) my choice became clear. I hadn’t remembered, until I plucked my copy from my special Small bookcase, that this was the second story in the Border Chronicles, not the first, but since it’s an extremely loose connection, I’m letting that go. I can read the prior title, A Dangerous Love, later, if I want. I did put my choice in others’ hands, after all.

As with that long-ago rainy afternoon, I remember the book more in general than in specific, and it’s a different experience. The last time I read this book, it was 2007. A few things have happened since then. My critical mind is along for the ride, and has some issues with tell-y passages and instances of passive voice, but the voice itself, that’s as familiar as I remember, a welcome back to the things that drew me to historical romance in the first place. It’s also made me schedule reading time in my day, something I’d wanted to do, but put off actually doing, but if I want to make time to read all that I want and need to read, there has to be time where that’s all that I’m doing. This is different from pleasure-only reading; it’s also research.

library haul; must organize

In a way, that’s my equivalent of the art student camped out in front of the master’s painting, sketchbook in hand or canvas on easel. What did the master do? How did they do it? That thing that was never recorded, what was it? Can I do it, too? What does it look like when I do their thing, my way? Reading time, writing time, headphones in, laptop on, paper and pen at the ready. Let’s do this.

Typing With Wet Claws: This Was Uncle’s Idea Edition

February 19, 2016February 19, 2016annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for a slightly later than usual Feline Friday. Anty has had an unusual day, partly because Uncle had the day off. She had laundry to do, and then they went out to lunch together. They did not take me, because I am an indoor kitty, but I got fish jelly and treat, so I do not mind. Also, it is cold and windy out. Despite the fact that I have a super fluffy coat (actually, two of them, because I am a Maine Coon mix) I have no desire to be outside in cold, windy weather. Anty tried to set up at her usual coffee house, but the locals must have figured out that it is her favorite place to work, because all the seats were filled by the time she got there. It is okay, though, because it is only a short walk to her other favorite away-from-home place to write, and that place has refills on tea. Anty likes refills on her tea. She drinks a lot of it.

Anty has three articles she is working on this week, possibly four, depending on how things go on tonight’s Sleepy Hollow. For one of the other articles, she has to…uh, she means gets to…read a bunch of historical romance novels, so she can talk about how they all work together. Anty will talk about that later. She is also working on Her Last First Kiss, which she says seems to be finding its stride.

My blog this week is going to be a little different from the usual fare. This week, Uncle has an idea he wants me to talk about. Earlier this week, Anty looked at her sales figures from one of her publishers. Uncle thinks that was a mistake, because looking at those figures made Anty very grumpy. Then a conversation like this happened:

Uncle: Have you ever used your blog to tell people where they can buy your books?

Anty: Uh…..

Uncle: Like put up a link or something?

Anty: (something about websites and internets and monies and bookshelves and human stuff; nothing about feeding kitties, so I stopped listening.)

Uncle: Right, but none of that means you can’t put a link in a blog entry.

Anty: Uh… (Anty did not really have a good answer for that.)

Uncle is very smart, and I would do anything for Uncle. So, I will put in the links. In case you like Anty’s (or my) blogs, or her articles, then maybe you would like to read the books she has out already.

Here is where you can find the books she has from Awe-Struck E-Books. There are two of them.

Her first, My Outcast Heart, is set in colonial New York. For this book, Uncle asked Anty what sensuality level the book would get for its rating. Anty said that, because she does not go into great detail about how humans mate, the book would be classified as “sweet.” Uncle asked if this was the same book where the hero puts his hand in the fire on purpose, to cover the brand that marked him as a thief, and where the heroine sticks her grandfather’s body in the barn for the whole winter, because the ground is too hard to dig a grave. Anty said that it was. Uncle’s response was, “And they’re calling that “sweet?” Boy, are they going to be surprised.” Also, there are kitties in it. The dogs get more attention, but barn cats always make a book better. Just saying.

Anty’s second book from Awe-Struck is Orphans in the Storm. That book could have used more kitties, but it probably would not have changed what happened to the bad guy, because kitties are good judges of character. The heroine in this book finds out that she is not who she thought she was, and travels from the Isle of Man (note: that does not mean it is an island with only men on it. It is, however, where Manx cats come from. I am not Manx. I have a big, floofy tail.) to Holland, where those loyal to the English king fled during the English Civil War. Her hero works for the crown, and the heroine holds the key to releasing monies that will help the cause, only somebody does not want that to happen. The love story is most important, though, as with all of Anty’s books. The cover is by Kathleen Underwood, who captured one of Anty’s favorite scenes.

Anty also has two novellas with Uncial Press. Her first one there, Never Too Late, is set in Edwardian England and Italy (aka Downton Abbey times, and she wrote it long before the TV show was on the air. My Anty is a trailblazer.) Her heroine in this book is a fifty-year-old widow, who decides she is finally big enough to go after what she wants, which, in this case, means the love of her life, whom she once let get away. I will give you a hint: this time, she does not let him get away again.

Her other title there is Queen of the Ocean. I will share a bit of trivia with you; the story was originally called Frances, Queen of the Ocean, but that would not fit on the book cover. This is a reunited lovers story, with smugglers and pirates and a shipwreck (well, technically more than one) and a cave full of treasure. I do not have to tell all of you how much Anty loves pirates. She had a lot of fun writing this one.

None of Anty’s books are related to each other, so they can be read in any order, or by themselves. Anty did not figure it out until I told her, but Never Too Late and Queen of the Ocean kind of fit together, because they are both reunited lovers stories. Maybe Anty could write more like that and then they could all go together. Anty likes reunited lovers. Purr-sonally (see what I did there? Just kidding. I do not purr. That does not mean I am not a happy kitty, because I am. I show it in other ways.) I recommend them all.

Ravenwood does not have a home yet, but it is a medieval love story, where a heartbroken knight errant must escort a headstrong maiden from a plague-ravaged city, to a haven that may or may not exist. Anty will probably change the title, because it does not say much about the story. Maybe Her Errant Heart would be better? Huh. Maybe she could write other stories with “heart” in the title and put them in a loose grouping.

That is about it for this week, because Anty needs to research her articles and work on Her Last First Kiss. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

Until next week…

Skye OMalley Hart-Bowling
(the kitty, not the book)

In Here, I Rule The World

February 17, 2016annabowling Leave a comment

Right now, I am in a rotten mood. I mean really rotten. Things started early. I woke, exhausted, thinking it was about 2AM, so glass of water, trip to the water closet, and I’m good for four more hours. No such luck. 6:45. Well, crud. Tend cat, dispense Real Life Romance Hero’s morning pharmeceuticals, perform ritual albutions. Agree to disagree with hair about its direction for the day. Breakfast…okay, breakfast was uneventful, except for Skye leaving a deposit in Real Life Romance Hero’s office, but Housemate took care of that, so the two things even out.

Morning was meant to be for taking care of some routine errands. Obtain clothing from a favorite, reliable retailer. Obtain pen refills from office supply store. Possibly other errands if the first two went quickly. The first two did not go quickly. Both were abject failures, and most women understand the barren wasteland that is a sale at one’s favorite retailer, when there is not one single thing that will fit one’s body and/or color palette. One of those. Housemate fared better, but I left with a case of the grumps. Repeat fruitless mission at office supply store.

Housemate and I did not know Lunch Option A was not going to work out until we were actually there, so went for Lunch Option B instead. Rest of errands had to be put off for unspecified time in the vague future, because I had to get home in time for A) me to make a chat with a critique partner, and B) Housemate to get RLRH to work. No shot at getting in a certain part of the house where I could perform supplementary albutions and renegotiate with hair, and still make it to chat on time, so did the best I could and raced off. Made it with minutes to spare and…open email from critique partner, who could not make chat.

accurate depiction of my mood

This is, of course, the exact second I have my tea ready, notebook and sticky notes arrayed, so I’m committed now, even though I am technically free. We will now cue an instrumental version of “Song of the Lonely Extrovert” to play softly in the background. There are other people in the coffee house, but nobody I can talk to while working, and that makes a difference. Unless the college student scowling at his own laptop is interested in my Scrivener corkboard. I am going to guess that he is not.

I’ve had worse days. Nobody is bleeding or on fire, we have not needed any first responders, and are fed, housed and employed. Even so, the other irritations build. Gaming is a stress reliever for me, and, since my old laptop is currently refusing to play Sims 3, new laptop cannot support it, and we are still looking into other options, I’m going to have to accept the fact that gaming, right now, is not going to happen. Sure, I have Sims Free Play on my phone, but that’s not the same. Not even close. Bleh.

As I told Housemate, what I would like to do is huddle in a corner (under the covers in bed is also acceptable) and mainline ice cream. What I am going to do is crack open that notebook and Scrivener and transcribe some scenes. That, I can do, and it doesn’t require a lot of my brain. Transfer what’s on the page to what’s on the screen. Spend some time in my story world, and deal with Hero and Heroine’s problems instead of my own. I know what has to happen in the tailor scene, but where does the tailor scene actually go? Do I need to plant that plot point seed earlier in the story than where it actually sprouts? How is the balance between Hero scenes and Heroine scenes? Plus the joy of getting immersed in the story.

The rest of the daily inconveniences will still be there when I’m done. It’s not a permanent break from the practical world -one of the reasons I don’t use the word “escape” when I talk about reading or writing fiction; we do still have to deal with those things when we close the book, notebook or file- but it’s a respite, a place where I can order things the way I want, no matter how much time that might take; here, I control time. Heady stuff, when one stops to think about it. Uncap my new fountain pen, open my notebook, and I step back in time, where Hero and Heroine want to know what on earth I am doing to their lives, because it all looks like one giant catastrophe from where they’re standing.

In the end, it will all be worth the trouble. I’ve assured them this book has a happy ending, because that’s what romance novels do. No matter what I throw at them during the story, they will be safe, happy, and together by the end. At the moment, things look pretty sticky for them both, individually and together (not that they’re even thinking much about “together” at this phase of the game, because it’s early days, still) but they’ll thank me for it later. Right now, I’m thankful to them for giving my day some peace. We’ll have to see how the rest of it goes, but, for right now, I rule the (okay, their) world.

Monday Morning Coming Down

February 1, 2016annabowling Leave a comment

“The really good idea is always traceable back quite a long way, often to a not very good idea which sparked off another idea that was only slightly better, which somebody else misunderstood in such a way that they then said something which was really rather interesting.”
–John Cleese

No idea what to blog about today, but I’ve hit that point on my to do list, this is the time I have for blogging, so I am going to jump in and ramble. No plan, no agenda, merely brain droppings, which will hopefully stave off the hypercritical gremilns.

NOPE, WE’RE STILL HERE!

Le sigh. Okay, well, at least I’m not alone, then. Hi, guys.

WE READ YOUR YEARLY EARNING STATEMENTS. OLD NAVY IS HIRING.

We’ve talked about that.

ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU SUCK? WE HAD TO GET A MICROSCOPE OUT TO READ SOME OF THOSE NUMBERS. WHICH IS PROBABLY THE MOST YOU’VE BEEN READ IN A WHILE.

That’s not what we’re talking about here.

YES, IT IS. IF YOU WERE ANY GOOD, YOU’D BE RAKING IN THE DOUGH, HAVE YOUR COVERS PLASTERED ALL OVER SOCIAL MEDIA, AND OUTSELL HARRY POTTER.

Harry Potter is YA fantasy. I write historical romance. That’s not even the same genre.

OK, TWILIGHT, THEN. WE ALSO READ THE START OF YOUR VAMPIRE STORY. GOOD CALL TRASHING THAT ONE.

This is the one time I am going to agree with you.

YOU AGREE THAT YOU SUCK? WE RULE! WOO HOO!

No, I agree that the vampire story wasn’t a story I wanted to tell. It also had nothing to do with Twilight.

OH REALLY? VAMPIRE YA ROMANCE IS HOT. IT SELLS. TWILIGHT IS THE ONLY ROMANCE NOVEL A BUNCH OF PEOPLE KNOW. YOU WRITE ROMANCE? LIKE TWILIGHT?

Really. I don’t think my books are like Twilight, but I’ve never read it, so I really can’t say. Why are we talking about Twilight, anyway?

YOU’D RATHER TALK ABOUT HARRY POTTER?

No.

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MANY PEOPLE CAN ONLY NAME THOSE TWO BOOKS WHEN ASKED TO NAME NOVELS?

:sigh: Sadly, yes, but that’s not my problem.

DON’T WORRY…UH, NO, DO. YOU HAVE LOTS MORE PROBLEMS. DO YOU WANT THEM ALPHABETIACLLY, CHRONOLOGICALLY, OR IN THE ORDER THE BAILIFF READS THE CHARGES?

:stares crossly over rims of glasses: I am not facing any charges.

FROM US, YOU ARE. YOU’RE A NOBODY, YOU HAVEN’T HAD A NEW RELEASE IN A LONG TIME, YOU’VE MISCARRIED ENOUGH STORIES WE CAN COUNT ON BOTH HANDS, AND YOU COULDN’T EVEN THINK OF SOMETHING TO BLOG ABOUT TODAY.

But I’m blogging right now.

YOU MEAN WE’RE BLOGGING RIGHT NOW. INCLUSIVE WE.

Still counts.

HMPH. FINE. WE’LL GIVE YOU THAT ONE. THIS MEANS WE’RE EVEN. UH, WAIT, EVEN IS NOT GOOD. WE HAVE TO BRING UP SOME DEEP SEATED INSECURITIES. CAN WE HAVE A MINUTE?

Sure. :sorts Post-Its collection:

OKAY, OKAY, WE HAVE SOMETHING. YOU MADE YOUR GOAL LIST FOR THE MEETING WITH N AT THE MEETING WITH N, AND YOU’RE PLANNING ON DOING ALL THAT WORK TODAY.

That is correct.

GOOD LUCK WITH THAT. JUST SO YOU KNOW, WE’RE BETTING AGAINST YOU.

Okay. You do you. I have some outlining to do, and then take a crack at a scene.

YOU’VE TAKEN SEVERAL CRACKS AT THAT SCENE.

Getting closer to the right version every time.

SUUUURE. IT’S A WELL KNOWN FACT THAT REAL WRITERS BANG OUT THE ENTIRE MANUSCRIPT IN ONE GO, OR AT LEAST SEVERAL THOUSAND WORDS PER DAY -AND COUNTING THOSE WORD IS SUPER IMPORTANT- AND IF YOU DON’T DO EITHER OF THOSE THINGS, YOU HAVE FAILED FOREVER.

Um, I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.

SAYS WHO?

Experience, for one thing. Romance Writers of America, for another, and any number of writer friends. Everybody has their own method, and their own journey. Finding out what doesn’t work is as much a part of that as typing The End.

WHAT PART IS LISTENING TO BROADWAY SHOW TUNES?

That’s part of the magpie stage.

MAGPIE STAGE? WHAT IS THAT? THE LEAST SUCCESSFUL FORM OF TRANSPORTATION IN THE OLD WEST? BY THE WAY, YOU’VE NEVER WRITTEN A WESTERN.

That’s not by accident, and to answer your question about the magpie stage, that’s when I gather shiny things that catch my attention and dump them all in my creative pot, to make idea soup.

WHICH PART OF YOUR HISTORICAL ROMANCE NOVEL INVOLVES EAST GERMAN GLAM ROCKERS WITH IDENTITY ISSUES AND PHILANDERING AMERICAN POLITICIANS?

No East Germans or Americans in this book, but I do touch on issues of identity, the difference between what’s seen on the surface and exists beneath, and lots of romantic complications. Inspiration comes in a lot of forms, and it’s a writer’s job to dig for the gems. Sometimes, it’s a tiny glimmer from here, an interesting idea from there, flip a concept or two, mix with everything the writer has ever experienced in their own life, and it all turns into something entirely new. It’s an ongoing process.

WE HAVE SEEN YOU CHAIR DANCING.

I have never denied chair dancing.

YOU’VE NEVER SEEN YOURSELF CHAIR DANCING, EITHER. ALSO, ARE YOU EVEN PUTTING ON MAKEUP TODAY? LOOKING KIND OF PALE THERE.

That’s because I am pale. I’ve been pale my whole life. What’s your point?

THAT YOU ARE A PALE IMITATION OF WHAT YOU WANT TO BE. JUST SAYING.

So, I’m supposed to do what, give up because I’m not at my ultimate goal right this very second?

BY JOVE, WE THINK SHE’S GOT IT. BY THAT, WE MEAN OUR POINT, NOT, YOU KNOW, TALENT OR DEDICATION OR DRIVE OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT.

Well, look at that, we’ve come to the end of time we have for this entry today. I’m opening my file.

BUT WE’RE NOT DONE YET. UNLIKE YOUR CAREER.

:opens file:

:puts in headphones:

:turns to fresh page, uncaps pen:

I can’t hear you gremlins over the sound of my writing. Later.

Typing With Wet Claws: Creative Differences Edition

January 29, 2016annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Anty and I are having some creative differences this week. There was a topic Anty had suggested for me to write about, but I had to exercise my duties as a mews, and let her know (gently, because this insomnia thing makes her grumpy) that her idea was not very interesting, which it was not. Fridays are my day to blog, and Anty needs to trust me to do the job she asked me to do. At the moment, she is too busy chair dancing to “You’ll Be Back,” from the Broadway musical, Hamilton, to put up much of an argument anyway.

One of the things Anty has come to realize about days when it is difficult to focus is that she probably needs more stimuli. New music is always a good thing, and when it comes highly recommended by people whose opinion Anty values, that is a good sign she may want to have a listen. Anty has not seen Hamilton, but she loves when things people may not think go together -the American Revolution, Broadway, and rapping? What?- do go together, and not only work, but work far better than one would expect.

So far, Anty is only a few songs into Hamilton, but she has already listened to this song five times. No, wait, it is six now. When Anty finds a song that clicks with her, she is going to listen to that a LOT of times in a row, and she does get something new from each listen. I think it has something to do with that whole more layers thing. I probably should remind Anty that she has her DVD of Idlewild sitting on the DVD shelf in her office, and the combination of Prohibition and hip hop probably is going to jog something loose in her brain. Movies and art journal time are very good for things like that.

Anty has also never seen A Knight’s Tale, but that is on her list, too. She did not see it when it first came out, because it had too much of a modern slant – fighting for the honor of the queen, sure, but to the music of Queen? Uh, no, they did not have Queen in the middle ages, thankyouverymuch. Anty’s outlook has changed some since then. Now, she is more concerned with the feel of the story world, verisimilitude instead of strict accuracy. People who lived in other centuries wanted the same things as we do today, but the ways they got them were different.

Now that Anty thinks on it, some of these creative mismatches are the truest of all. Anty loves Elton John and Tim Rice’s version of Aida. Did I mention how one of Anty’s favorite-favorite tropes is star-crossed lovers? Well, it is. It is probably her favorite of all. Anty’s best definition of historical romance, the way she writes it and likes to read it, is a love story worthy of history. She thinks “Written in the Stars” has to be one of the greatest star-crossed lovers songs of all time. I will give you a spoiler here: Aida and Radames do not get a happy ending (well, not in this life) but in a historical romance novel, they absolutely would. I should amend Anty’s favorite trope as “star-crossed lovers who make it work.” She cannot get enough of that stuff, so she has to make more, of her own.

When Anty finds it difficult to put out story, then it is time for her to take some in, to fill her well. What well needs to be filled can vary from time to time. Sometimes, she needs an infusion of emotion. Other times, it is a grounding in the world of the time of the story. That does not mean facts and dates, which may surprise some. For Anty, it is the way the world felt.

Anty’s favorite research session ever, she thought was going to be a very boring one. She had gone to Old Mystic Seaport, with two other writer friends, who were excited to use the research library, and the people who could help them find the books they needed. When Anty got to the library, she felt like the walls were closing in, and didn’t know how to answer the person who asked how he could help her find what she needed. She didn’t know what she needed from all those books, so she told her friends she had to take a walk. It was cold and very, very windy, and Anty soaked it all in for hours.

She stood at the shore and watched the tide come in, walked through the completely deserted shipyard and inhaled its scents, picked up shells from the tide pools, and picked the brains of every costumed interpreter she encountered. There were not many of them, because it was really cold and really windy, but Anty did not mind. When she read, in her pamphlet, that an to talk about what life was like for a house slave in that era, she ran to the right building, so that she would not miss anything. By the time her friends met her for lunch, Anty was full of ideas and stimuli, and couldn’t wait to get all of it into her story. The story she was working on at the time -and hopes to again, in the future- was not set in the time or place of the museum, but that did not matter. What mattered was that they were near the sea, and there were the skeletons of ships, and that was the same centuries and an ocean away. Getting the feel right, knowing why a certain character loved ships more than anything else, that was what Anty had come for, and she got it.

That all feels vaguely subversive, but Anty likes it that way. It has been said that well behaved women never made history. Maybe the same thing applies to writing historical romance, as well. What is it some humans say, play by the rules, miss all the fun? I am not sure Anty is not having a little too much fun, listening to Hamilton. “Helpless” is playing, and this degree of chair dancing cannot be safe on that kind of chair. That had better be about it for this week, so, until next time, I remain very truly yours,

Until next week…

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

Talking With Wet Nails

January 20, 2016January 20, 2016annabowling 1 Comment

New title for video blog posts today . These will now be under the heading, “Talking With Wet Nails,” because it’s catchy, and that’s my best attempt for a title today. Still need to come up with an appropriate graphic, but that’s a problem for Future Anna.

Note that I am not actually doing my nails in this post, because that would be awkward, messy and probably boring. I did, however, stumble into the captions function, so we’ll see how that goes.

I’m hoping to make this a more frequent feature here, as part of my effort to stop being as quiet as I have been lately. This also means I only have to write-write one blog per week, as Skye still has Fridays. Innovative and labor saving. I like that.

TLDW (too long, didn’t watch) :

I love notebooks.
Purple notebooks go with purple notebooks.
Writing:
- Her Last First Kiss – Georgian historical
- co-writing historical-adjacent project
Reading:
- Her Hesitant Heart by Carla Kelly
- I’ll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson

Midweek Rambles and New Book, Take Two

January 13, 2016annabowling Leave a comment

I dwell on love stories, on characters who struggle hard to become the best people they can be, who defy the odds to grab the brass ring of honor, and earn their way to a committed, healthy, loving relationship.

–Grace Burrowes

This isn’t the blog post I set out to write. I thought it was going to be, as my now-weekly Tuesday morning meeting with local writer friend, whom we shall call N for now, lit a spark, and when she asked if I knew what I wanted my writing focus to be this year, I didn’t even have to think about it. Her Last First Kiss, duh. I haven’t loved a story like this in a long time, and haven’t felt confidence in my own writing in longer than that. I was going to write about focus and purpose, and then I put fingers on keyboard and it all fizzled.

My first instinct was to apply a favorite bit of writing advice, and change my seat. In this case, that meant switching from words to images and photographing the notebooks and legal pad I am currently using to work on this project. There were several pictures taken before the one I used, and no, you cannot see them. You cannot see the picture of my office desk that was fine, except for the jarring addition of two legs covered in light wash denim, because my computer tells me I don’t have permission to alter the picture I took with my own phone and emailed to my own account, so that I could crop it, but whatever, I will survive. You cannot see the beautifully arranged and edited shot of open notebook pages, which I really like, because that has text I’m not ready to share yet, and I am not opening my old laptop and doing the do-si-do of transferring the picture to jump drive, waiting for the old laptop to boot, blurring the text in Photoshop Elements, transferring that to jump drive and then uploading that. If I go through all that trouble to boot that machine, forget it, I’m playing Sims.

I am giving that serious thought right now, because I set aside all the resources I’d need to get the work I intended to do at the coffee house this afternoon done, and then left one hundred percent of them at home. D’oh. Including phone, for obligatory workspace picture. Double d’oh. Is it Friday yet? No? Phooey. I want Friday. I want Friday and a pizza and a bag of gummi bears as big as my head (the bag, that is, filled with regular size gummi bears, not one giant gummi, even if it is skull shaped.) A bottomless cup of Lapsang Souchong wouldn’t hurt, either. In short, I’m tired and grumpy. Best thing I can do at this point is to craw inside a good book and trust that I will un-grump in time. (Though the pizza really would help.)

I’m not sure how much I want to talk about Her Last First Kiss at this stage of the game. I’m not sure I’m ready to even “speak” my hero and heroine’s names here. That’s new for me. I’m a talker, and there is no surer way to kill a story than to not tell anybody anything. Not sure where the reticence is coming from here. Maybe they need placeholder names so that I can talk about them without talking about them. I may need to clear that with them first.

Both my hero and heroine have trust issues, and, as I often find true in my stories, there are a lot of identity issues for these two. Hero (will he let me call him Hero? He certainly doesn’t think he is one. He’s never done one heroic thing in his life. Really more the opposite. Not cowardly, exactly. He’s not afraid, in the usual sense of the word, but he does acknowledge that there isn’t a good reason for him to exist. He doesn’t matter. He’d like to matter. He’d like to belong.) and Heroine (Pfft. Heroine. Look at the romance writer, throwing around those fanciful terms. She’d think I would know by now, after the time I’ve already spent with her, that there aren’t any such things as heroes, of either gender. Heroes believe in things. Heroes have causes. All right, she has a cause, but it’s a moral obligation, not an ideal. There’s a difference. She’s protecting her own. She doesn’t have any ideals. She wouldn’t know what to do with them if she did.) collide in their first meeting, and the fallout is messy. It gets messier.

Hero and Heroine have, so far, dragged me places I never thought I was going to go. The new opening, the one I raced home from my from last week’s meeting with N to furiously scribble with pink fountain pen, very firmly pulled one of my own personal triggers. Not the place I had planned to start a love story, but that is where the story starts. If this book has begun the way it means to go on, I am fastening my seatbelt. It’s going to be a bumpy ride. Which reminds me, I have a carriage accident scene to write.

Backing Up and Moving Ahead

January 11, 2016annabowling Leave a comment

“You do what you can for as long as you can, and when you finally can’t, you do the next best thing. You back up but you don’t give up.”
–Chuck Yeager

Another Monday, another blog entry. Not feeling it today, but discipline and practice are both important, and I find that putting order to chaos satisfies me, so here I am. Morning spent doing housework with help of Housemate. This often consists of her sitting there and letting me chatter at her, as it was today, with me sitting cross-legged on the floor, the box fan in front of me, as I took apart the covers both front and back and cleaned that sucker with grapefruit-scented all purpose cleaner and paper towels. Odds are we aren’t going to be needing that fan for a while, as furnace keeps us toasty warm, and it is January, after all. So, into the newly reorganized closet for our biggest fan. I promise I only do this to mechanical fans, not readers. No reverse Misery-ing here, and, besides, readers are good to have around during all seasons.

The great Christmas ornament harvest of 2016 went well this morning. Good crop, and we hope for an even better return next year. As much as I love the whole process of decorating for Christmas, and will inspect the placement of garland and ornaments (the fact that we use a pre-lit tree is probably best for all involved, lest I get nitpicky about light placement as well; I have in the past.) taking things down is a much quicker and more ruthless process. Down come the lights, coiled, tied, boxed. I pluck ornaments from the tree like ripened fruit, in a matter of seconds. It’s all over in a handful of minutes. This year’s crop is planted in the storage boxes, labeled, and can now germinate for next year. Maybe next year will be the year I finally go for a second tree, which would have black and white ornaments only. Supplemental tree, not replacing the traditional one; I have to have my tradition.

When I’m at a loss for what to blog about, my guiding phrases of “clean sweep” and “more layers” push me in the right direction. Taking down the Christmas décor and making better use of the closet space fits both of those criteria, as does yesterday’s library trip. Yesterday was a tough day, tired, emotionally drained and frazzled at the same time, and I strode through the library doors with one specific purpose in mind. I was going to grab an armful of romance novels.

I’ve written, recently, about how it’s been difficult for me to read a lot of more newly produced work (part of this, I am certain, is due to my reluctance to jump into the middle of a series of linked books; have to start at the beginning, for me, and there are a lot of series.) This time, I knew what I needed; romance. Historical romance. That’s my reading and my writing home. No matter what happens between Once Upon a Time and Happily Ever After, I know I am going to get that Happily Ever After, so pretty much anything is fair game in between those points. I did end up plucking a current release from the shelves, Cold-Hearted Rake, by Lisa Kleypas, which I started reading as soon as I got home.

That’s the whole haul, for those who were curious. I’d gone with a vague hope I might find one of the Russian-related historicals on my list (and did, with Forever in Your Embrace) and fingers crossed for a Georgian (but not Regency) setting (When You Wish Upon a Duke delivers on that front) but, apart from that, nothing more specific than wanting a good grounding in my favorite genre. Carla Kelly always delivers on the emotional impact, so that was enough to put the book in my hand, and it had been a while since I’d read a good time travel, so The Last Cavalier fit that bill. If I could hit the snooze button on the calendar so I could snuggle beneath my fuzzy duck blankey and read them all, with endless cups of tea at hand, I think, at this point, I would.

Life, unfortunately, doesn’t work that way, but I can make sure I get some pages read every day, the same way I make time for my morning pages and have to at least touch one of the current fiction projects every day. As K.A. Mitchell, whose wonderful workshop on character relations this past Saturday gave me even more layers to slather on Her Last First Kiss, has said, open the file and change your seat. I have to open the file, or open the notebook. When I do, well, it’s right there. I have a pen in my hand, or the keyboard is right there, too (usually both, in most cases; that’s how my brain works best) and who would it hurt if I took a poke or two at things, hm?

Thanks to a talk with a new writing friend, who listened to me whinge about how hard it’s been to find where I should (note that should, there) including roundabout analogies and a diagram drawn on a napkin with rollerball ink, I am getting the chance to do both the clean sweep and more layers things at one with Her Last First Kiss. What, she asked, was the moment that changed my heroine’s life forever? What permanently took her off the path she always thought she was going to walk in life? Huh. Well. Had to think about that one, and then the answer came out all on its own. When her father left.

Sure, she was seven then, and I didn’t want to start that far back, but darned if the whole scene didn’t play itself out on my walk back home from that meeting. I sat down at my secretary desk, with notebook and fountain pen, and out flowed the whole thing. I didn’t have to yank any teeth. Didn’t have to force anything. Huh. I…remember how to do that. Don’t write a book. Tell the story. Remember back when I didn’t know all the rules, but blithely wrote down the movie in my head? Yeah, that.

Clean sweep. More layers. Easy enough when I don’t think about it.

A Handful of Dreams and a Blogful of Opinions

January 6, 2016January 6, 2016annabowling Leave a comment

I’ve been reading a lot of older historical romances lately, mainly those first published in the 1990s. Many of these are standalone stories, in the truest sense of the word, not parts of any series, so anything can happen, to anybody, apart from the HEA we are guaranteed by the end of the book. The hero’s charismatic best friend isn’t exempt from villain status, because no, we aren’t going to need him to be the hero of book two or there, because there is none. One hero, one heroine, one HEA, off into the sunset, done and done. That’s how my story brain naturally works, anyway, and I’d been craving the big, thick doorstoppers I used to devour (and still can, because keeper shelves and UBSs and e-books, yay publishing revolution) so I dove into this subgenre once more, with overwhelmingly positive results.

One of my best (but not surprising) re-finds was Barbara Hazard. I’d re-devoured her Georgian historical, Call Back the Dream, and wanted to dive into the sequel (I know, I know, I was talking about standalones only a minute ago, but bear with me; this is going somewhere) immediately afterward. I thought I’d packed that in the same box with the original, but then it would have been in the same bookcase. It wasn’t. Instead, there was A Handful of Dreams, also excellent, and completely unrelated.

I didn’t remember too much about A Handful of Dreams, though I’d first read it when it was fairly new. I remembered the scene where child Sally catches a coin tossed to her by a British soldier on horseback, but didn’t remember if that soldier would turn out to be the hero or not. As I read on, I still wasn’t sure. I did remember, very clearly, the fictional Sally’s abusive first marriage, her return to her family of origin, and her placement as the companion of the daughter of a different soldier.

Let’s say that Sally and her employer’s daughter had different expectations of the relationship and leave it at that. I’m not sure if that might have been explored differently, had the book been written today, and that’s something I will likely think about for some time. Sally’s employer decides it’s time for Sally to move on, and her situation, as it were, becomes a commodity.

A friend of the family, Harry, Lord Darlington, purchases the care of Sally, and his treatment of her didn’t -on either read- strike me as particularly heroic. He’s a cold father to his children from other relationships, including two marriages, even when Sally expresses her desire for the children to be part of the family. As a work of historical fiction, this works fine, and that’s how I read it this time around. There’s a friend of Harry’s, who also takes a liking to Sally, and there was a good portion of the book where I was thinking maybe I’d misremembered and he was the true hero.

Not going to give away spoilers, because there are two sorts of readers involved here; the ones that are going to track this book down o they can read it themselves, and those who will not, because old book, who cares, or they don’t read romance anyway. Either way, I finished this reread a couple of days ago, and, as much as I’d like to read another romance, my brain is stuck here. Lots of thinking.

Were I to publish this book today, I would class it as historical fiction rather than romance. Sally does find love, and that love is reciprocated. There’s even an acceptable heroic grovel on the part of the gentleman who fills that role, but, in the end, this is really her story and not theirs. I am okay with that. Romantic elements, yes, but this book is about Sally’s life, her struggle to find her place in the world, and the effect the cards she was dealt do have on what she can do.

Sally starts out Irish and poor, in the early nineteenth century. She’s also beautiful, exceptionally so, and that gets her noticed, not always for the right reasons. This is one of my favorite types of characters, where that beauty has its perils as well as its perks. There are those who don’t look below the surface, those who assume a certain set of facial features means a certain personality or mindset, when that couldn’t be farther from the case. Sally’s options are limited. She’s not educated, she doesn’t have a lot of power, but she is smart and she is strong, and she is a woman of her time. That’s important.

Some aspects felt a little too neat to me, others a bit rushed, and. for a historical romance, there isn’t a lot of emphasis on the relationship that should be the center of the story. I’m not sure I would have chosen the same hero, were this my story to write, but it wasn’t. I’d love to talk to the author, but without contact information, that’s not likely, so some of these things are going to muddle around in my own mind for a while. Maybe some elements will transfer and transform in my own work, but for now, I’m still thinking

Typing With Wet Nails

for the love of romance

historical romance