Inspiration

Return of the Video Blog?

annabowling Leave a comment

The fact that the first blog of the week is up on Wednesday should be some indicator of how the week is going over here. That picture up there? :points to featured image: Also an indicator, because the picture I did take of my workspace for the day (lan desk, on top of the air mattress, Big Pink, blush planner, and Typhoo tea in my A mug) is not showing in Google Photos. I am going to guess that not getting any sleep until six in the morning has something to do with this fact. I also suspect that said sleep only lasting three hours has something else to do with the issues at hand.

Suffice it to say I am more than a bit pushy, which may actually be a good way o go into a writing day. So far, I’ve busted open some scented pens and made some longhand notes on Drama King. Melva and I agreed to take two weeks off (this being the second) before we came back to Drama King, but Jack is a hard hero to shut up, especially when he’s been waiting totally not at all patiently, for attention.

Right now, what I want most is a nap, That will probably happen, at some point, but it’s the start of a new month, the home stretch of summer, time to fill the well and gather speed for the surge of my super powers that return in autumn. It’s off and on raining, though ambient rain sounds on my computer means rain all the time. I like rain. Rain makes me think, and thinking is good when it comes time to do actual writing. Which is big surprise, now. First order of business, blog entry (I’ll make up Monday’s entry, later.) No time to overthink that kind of thing today, so I will go with what’s been on my mind.

For the last couple of nights, I’ve meant to navigate to Netflix or Hulu, but found myself, instead, on YouTube, watching book related videos, mostly reviews or recommendations. I’d first stumbled upon these videos when I was flat out too tired to read, but still wanted to be around historical romance,  and started gobbling them like popcorn. Get me talking about the historical romances I love, and we are going to be there a while. Some of the posts are focused on what the reader doesn’t like, and, for the most part, it’s done without malice, that X didn’t work for that individual, why, and that others’ experience may be different. Also, for the most part, the historical romances touched upon are A) of recent publication, and B) the words, “fluff,” or “fluffy” get tossed around a lot, and I love how much these readers love what they love.

That’s how I feel about a lot of older, or lesser known, or gritty, or angsty, etc, historical romance, and I do miss blabbering about books I love at Heroes and Heartbreakers, so maybe this is a good time to start doing that for myself? Maybe it is. Still thinking about that one, because video blogs take time, and writing new fiction does have to come first. Even though my current pleasure reading has skewed heavily, lately, to realistic YA, my home is still historical romance, and I’m hungry for more time with it.

There are logistics to that. The Hypercritical Gremlins (it’s harder for them to get to the apartment, because we live in a secure building and there’s no way I’m buzzing them up from the entryway) needle that nobody wants to hear me blabber about books, even though I literally did that for monies for several years, so there, Hypercritical Gremlins. You guys can shush. It might, at times, be a distraction, but then again, time spent examining what I love and why I love it, is a great way to stay in touch with the reasons I do this whole fiction writing thing, in the first place.

Yesterday, I sat in a Dunkin Donuts with SueAnn Porter, over beverages and bagels, and had a marvelous discussion about works in progress, and the importance of historical fiction/romance, and…:happy sigh.: Yeah. That. There is nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing, like sinking into another time and place, where two people have to be together, but can’t…until they find a way to make it work. I live for that stuff. Fluff is often a hard sell for me (though there is some great fluff out there, for sure) but when a love story  can hit me hard in the gut, make me cry, and then pull through with the happily ever after, after all (happily ever after all?) there really is nothing better. That’s what I want to provide for my readers.

Maybe this is an additional way to do that. Maybe it’s not. What I do know is that blabbering about things I love is fun, so odds are that I am probably going to give it a shot in the not too distant future. My retreat with Skye is coming up in under two weeks, so I will have laptop, cat, and all the time in the world. Might have to give it a go. What kinds of books would you like to hear/see me blabber about? Drop suggestions in the comments, and I may give it a go.

 

Why Did It Have to Be Selkies?

annabowling 2 Comments

When I was but a wee princess, my parents, or some well meaning family friend, gave me a book of folk tales of the British Isles. I. Loved. That. Book. I still have it, though it’s in storage right now, so I can’t refer to it, but, when I needed to pick a project to work on for July’s Camp NaNo, I landed on selkies.

Not literally. They probably wouldn’t like that very much, but, once the idea was there, it put down roots, so okay. At first, it was mermaids. There I was, on retreat with Skye, and I had my Jane Davenport Whimsical Girls book out, turned to a page with two female figures. I surveyed my color choices. The faces looked similar, so maybe two versions of the same woman? Realistic and fantasy, maybe? Human and mermaid? Ooh. What if they were half sisters?

I whipped out the appropriate medium, and let my brain do its own thing while I swooped color across the page. By itself, the story formed. It’s a historical romance, first and foremost, (not between the sisters) with some familial conflict, and it doesn’t feel so much “paranormal” as one side of the family happens to be selkies. I was thinking mermaids at first, but there is the mermaid problem, Namely, how to put this gracefully, have intimate mermaid/human relations. This would be essential, so a quick bit of searching on aforementioned folklore of the British Isles was in order.

Which brings me to the selkie problem. Not the same as the mermaid problem, because selkies seem to have it easier in the human relations department. Shed seal skin, have human form. Sorted. Selkies, in many stories, become involved with humans, reproduce, and sometimes go back to the sea. Whether or not they can take their special friend with them varies, and I’m good with that. Works out rather well for what my story people want to do, and gave me a moment of clarity on why sting named one of his albums Soul Cages.

What, exactly, you might ask, is the selkie problem? For this gal, it’s names. Naming a character is an important part of the process, and, frequently, for me, it’s more a matter of them telling me what their names are. They won’t answer to anything else. I still have an outline draft with a hero who didn’t even know his own name until the very last chapter. (I am definitely going back to that one, someday,.) What the heck does one name a selkie? What do selkies, or, in a more broader scope, mythical/legendary creatures call themselves?

Thankfully, I neglected to officially sign up for July’s Camp NaNo, so I am doing it unofficially, with my goal to figure out this whole story, and what the heck I am doing even thinking about it, because I am not a paranormal writer, and the last time I ventured into that realm, my life fell apart, and I ended up ugly crying during a critique group (that had only positive comments, by the way) in the middle of a coffee house. The ugly crying incident had nothing to do with  me moving to a different state, but it does give me a sense of security that I never have to face that barista again.

This is the part of the process where I start writing down what I know about the story, telling it to myself. Kind of folktale-y, definitely historical romance, flying into the mist sort of thing. At the same time, Melva and I are thisclose to getting Chasing Prince Charming back to the editor who invited us to revise and resubmit, then will turn our attention back to Drama King. On my own, N is not letting me squiggle out of getting back in the saddle for Her Last First Kiss  so there is no lack of things to do. So, why toss another project into the mix? \

Good question. The best answer I have at this moment is “because I can.” Consider it the writing equivalent of physical/occupational therapy. I’m glad I did my May Camp Nano the way I did, and it is still simmering, goal met, so I can figure out exactly how my couple solves their problem. What is it that makes my heroine know what she has to do? I don’t know that yet, but it will come, and likely when I am slipping into a sealskin and taking it out for a spin.

In the meantime, hit me with selkie names. I’ll take anything.

020418deskscape2

A Moment Past Midnight (probably)

annabowling 2 Comments

Yesterday, I had my weekly breakfast with N, at our local Panera. Coffee for her, tea for me, each with our breakfast item of choice. Asiago cheese bagel, with butter, for me, this week, and I have learned that holding the foil cover of the butter packets against the side of the paper cup that holds my tea melts the near-frozen butter much better than tromping over to the microwave beneath the coffee urns. This is not a post about Panera, I promise. (Unless they’d like to make me a spokesperson, in which case I am listening, and being paid in bagels is a viable option.)

The first part of our time together is always for getting current on the other’s life over the past week; domestic tornado management, how real life romance heroes and feline companions are doing, etc. There’s a transition period of geeking out over pens and notebooks, especially if one or both of us have acquired a new toy since we saw each other last. There is the obligatory petting of notebooks, trying out of any new pens, highlighters, or other mark-making implements, and then the talk turns to writing.

Though we both write in different genres -contemporary romance and paranormal YA, as well as general fiction for her; historical and contemporary romance for me- we’re both juggling multiple projects, and both want to increase our productivity this year. We know how to write books. What we need to do is write more books, closer together. This is one of the reasons I’m doing Camp NaNo this April. The other reason is that I accidentally signed myself up for this. The other-other reason is that I need a win, and, since I can set my own goal, I should have a fighting chance.

Yesterday, I gave N the bare bones of my idea for my Camp NaNo project, which I am calling A Moment Past Midnight. I did debate calling it Untitled Hogmanay Story, but that is probably one of the least romantic working titles for a historical romance, ever, at least that I, personally, have almost used. Nobody has any names yet; I am still in the phase of calling them Hero, Heroine, Heroine’s Parent, That Guy, etc. I’ve done some cursory looking around at various name resources, but no names have stuck yet. I fully expect that at least the principal players will tell me what their names are, before I start actually writing. Since this will start on April first, they get one day to tell me they’re joking, and provide actual names, or I’m picking for them. Nobody has faces yet, either, but that’s not important at this stage of the game. I have other projects that need my attention, so I can’t spend too long on one thing. When I do that, I get too far into my own head, and there comes a point when the weeds choke the flowers out of the garden, so to speak. I’m done with that.

Today, I woke to this:

Snowscape140318

Don’t ask me how long I stood there, head under the blinds, staring out at All That Whtie, but that is a lot of snow. The snow on the actual power lines did give me some pause, but where my eye went, naturally, was all the fluffy white stuff on the bare tree branches, the railing of the balcony on the house next door, the roof of the building across the street. There is every possibility that there will be shoveling today, but this looks like the soft, floofy kind of snow, so it should be possible to move it without back injury, and, besides, this stuff is flat out gorgeous.

I can’t look at a snowfall like this without thinking of that snowy night Real Life Romance Hero and I bailed on our plans, and I navigated unfamiliar, hilly territory in stiletto heels, while a whole world put itself together inside my head. I don’t know if  this new story will have any snow in it, because I’ll have to dig around and see what the weather actually was like in the general area where I put my fictional village, in the year when the story takes place (once I figure out what year that is) before I deal with any weather related ramifications, but that will come, in time.

The world of Her Last First Kiss is sliding into early spring at present, and I’ve skipped ahead a bit to when spring is in full flower. That’s a bit different inside my head than what’s outside my window, but I’m not complaining. My mind compartmentalizes that kind of thing fairly easily. For these people, it’s spring, and Ruby’s hero does blow into her life on a cold March wind, so rather timely on that one.

The calendar says really real world spring is right around the corner, so I’m going to bask in this snow while I can. Maybe, if I meet my writing goals for the day, I can byndle myself in knitted layers and waterproof boots and go out to tromp through the white stuff. The park near our house is beyond gorgeous with this kind of snowfall, so it may happen. Even if it doesn’t, I want to harness the feeling of that night with stilettoes in the snow, that feeling that anything is possible, and the rules of how things “ought” to be are, for the time being, suspended. That’s where some of the best stuff comes from, after all.

Hogmanay, They Said

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We’re almost halfway through the month, which means Camp NaNo is only a smidge over two weeks away, and I need some idea of what ,my project is going to be. Since I’d wanted to write a Christmas story for a while now, that seemed like a good idea (insert N’s comment that it doesn’t have to be Christmas) but then there came two shadowy figures who drifted into my office, drew close, and whispered into my ear.

Them: Hogmanay.

Me: What?

Them: Hogmanay. It has to be.

Me: Oh it does, does it? Let’s see what our old friend, Google, has to say about that. Hm. Scots word, referring to the last day of the year. December thirty-first, then, still close enough to Christmas, caps off Christmas week, part of the whole twelve days thing. Okay, New Year’s Eve, I can do. I was going for more of a Christmas Eve kind of vibe, but endings, beginnings, I can work with that. We have to talk about the Scotland thing, though.

Them: ….

Me: Yeah, see, the last time I tried to write a Scottish story, it did not go well. Book down in flames, me creatively paralyzed, lots of crying. I mean, that was before your time, so you probably couldn’t have known about that, unless you had to go through the backburnered characters waiting room, in which case, who knows what you heard, but the whole Scotland thing…yeah, no.

Them: …

Me: I mean, Scotland is great, and all. Essential part of the British Isles. Great Britain. United Kingdom. Tartan. Bagpipes. Shortbread. Kilts. Neighbors. The closest neighbors when w moved into our first house, were Scots. I don’t remember my first impression of them, because I was nine months old, but, from about age four and onward, I remember them as lovely people. Um. Um. Hannah Howell. Now, there’s your gal for Highland stories. Not that all Scots are Highlanders. Far from it. Lowlands. Borders. The colonies. Pamela Clare sent her Scotsmen to the American colonies. She’s mostly doing contemporaries and romantic suspense these days, but I’m sure she’d–

Them: Hogmanay.

Me: :sigh:  You two aren’t going to budge on this one, are you?

Them: :both shake heads: Hogmanay.

Me: Fine. Have it your way. Hogmanay has to be the least romantic name of a holiday, ever, but sure. Hogmanay it is. Let’s see, what are we working with, here? Hm, first footing.  That sounds — oh, don’t look at me like that. I know what first footing is. Hm. I could work with that. Tall, dark-haired male, that’s pretty standard, so no problems there, but what if it was the wrong tall, dark-haired male? Huh. That could have potential. Gifts are involved. That’s pretty Christmassy. This could happen.

Word of warning, though. I am not creating an entire clan this time. That’s kind of ambitious. Says here, they have Hogmanay in northern England, too. Similar concept on the Isle of Man, even. So, theoretically, I could put this in a remote English village. I can give somebody a Scots parent, if we’re being particular about this whole Hogmanay thing. No chance I can turn this into a New Year’s Story, is there?

Them:  Hogmanay.

Me: Can you two say anything other than “Hogmanay?” If either of you answers that with “Hogmanay,” I am deleting your file. Okay, first, I have to create a file, but then I’m putting this entire conversation in it, and then deleting it. Anything else would be great, though. Names, what year it is where you come from. Name of the village; that would be good, too. How you two know each other, because you definitely know each other.

Them:  ….

Me: Why am I not surprised, here? I’m sitting here, in my office chair, candle burning, cherry seltzer at hand, I have an online workshop that needs my attention, and then you two wander in, and the only thing you have to say to me is the name of a holiday that is different from the holiday I actually intended to write about. Not giving me a lot to go on with an attitude like that. New Year’s Eve, basically, gifts, wrong dude at the door. Do I at least get to see your faces?

Them: Hogmanay.

Me: If you mean I actually have to wait until December thirty-first of this year (2018, by the way, in case we’re exchanging what year it is in our respective realities. Throwing that out there as an icebreaker. Feel free to reciprocate at any time.)  that is not going to work. I’m writing historical romance. Faces are going to come into play at some point.

Them: Hogm–

Me: Don’t say it. I get what you’re after. Your story plays out over Hogmanay. Fine. Here’s how this venture of ours is going to work. I’m going to head on over to Camp NaNo and create the project. I will, by choice or happenstance, be put into a cabin with other writers, hopefully of historical romance. You guys get a notebook, maybe a legal pad, and a pen. When the calendar flips over to April, I start writing. You guys have until then to get chatty, or I’m doing my own thing. Got it?

Them:  :both nod:

Me: Okay, then. Glad we had this conversation. You two do your part, I will do mine, and we’ll see what we have at the end of the month.

TheWriterIsOut

Whiteout (not the office supply)

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This still counts as Wednesday’s entry. I’m writing it on Wednesday, for one thing. Okay, it’s near the end of the day (4:25 by my clock) rather than the beginning, as I’d planned, but there is white stuff falling from the sky outside, at an impressive rate, and the day had to be re-apportioned accordingly. This meant a morning spent at the laundromat, oddly deserted for the morning of a storm, and other domestic matters. It’s all good, though, as we are amply stocked with tea and candles, I have a fluffy blanket on my lap, and a perfectly firm pillow in the small of my back. and a few things on my mind.

Most of them are related to reading and/or writing, specifically historical romance, so I still count this as technically on time and on topic. Though my immediate to=be-read list stood at twenty-seven as of yesterday, it has grown since then. Other books by two of the authors on my shortlist are partly responsible for that growth. Another contributor is my recent viewing of an Australian TV series, Glitch, that made me remember how much I love reading a good Australian historical romance (of which there are far too few available these days, hint, hint, especially Australian writers, hint, hint) and the fact that I am but one chair swivel away from some select Candace Proctor titles in my TBR bookcase. I am currently reading two Tudor-era titles right now, one historical fiction with romantic elements, and one historical romance. The historical fiction has six subsequent books (to date) and the historical romance, one more. Then there’s my upcoming O’Malley binge, and who knows what after that.

Yesterday, at my weekly breakfast with N, I rambled about a vague idea for a holiday historical romance. This is the vaguest of ideas, at present, no historical period attached as of yet, but hey, a blizzard could work in there, sure. I’ve been wanting to write a Christmas story for ages, but this one might actually work better as a New Year’s story (still counts as during the Twelve Days of Christmas, so I may still be on task.) I don’t know who my hero and heroine are. I don’t know what era their story takes place in, but I know it’s a winter holiday; that’s a start. It’s also probably going to be my Camp NaNo story, but I’m not quite ready to declare at the moment. Give me a couple more days of pretending there’s an out.

There isn’t, of course. Getting a story from vague wisp of an idea, to bullet point draft, in a specified period of time, scares the stuffing out of me, so of course that’s what I’m looking forward to doing. Kind of like a twenty-seven item and counting “short’ list for the foreseeable reading future. Right now, I’m listening to songs from a playlist I’ve been studiously ignoring for coughty-cough months now, because a story (or two) is haunting me (not the Christmas/New Year/Camp NaNo story, because that would make sense) and I’m not sure what I’m going to do with that.

Write it, of course, because the not-writing has not worked out terribly well. Goes hand in hand, is my educated guess, with the re-examination of favorite books, and books I’ve been wanting to read long enough for said desires to be old enough to vote. Apparently, they did, and the vote was to quit messing around, and get down to business. Maybe it’s the snow. I have fond memories of walking around a town whose name and location I have long since forgotten, with Real Life Romance Hero, after we bailed on the evening’s planned activity.

I was not equipped for tromping through heavy snow that night, in a pair of stiletto heels and knee length skirt, but my coat was warm, and I had RLRH. The night was dark, the falling snow glittered in the streetlights, and, somehow, though the streets we wandered (never too far from the venue from which we bailed, because the other couple we came with was our ride) up and down unfamiliar hills, an idea took shape. That idea eventually became a story that became my first novel length fan fiction, and unleashed a whole lot of writing, and paved the way to my first published novel (no relation to the stilettos in the snow story.) We did eventually return to the venue, and I’m still not sure if the other couple knew we were gone. They asked if we had a good time, we said we did. I vaguely recall diner food after that, and then we went home.

Right now, it’s white outside my office window. A quick check of a weather app says we are due for upwards of twelve inches of snow. I do have stilettoes, and RLRH is home, but we’re staying inside tonight. There will be comfort food, and there will be reading, and there will be writing, and then we will see what the morning brings. My educated guess is that it will bring the shoveling of aforementioned snow. Depending on whether our downstairs neighbors, young men who have a step troupe, are home, I may not have to be the one wielding said shovel. If I am, that’s fine, because shovel time is mull over story stuff time. I could do with some of that.

Twenty-Seven

annabowling 4 Comments

Today is the first day of my online workshop, Play In Your Own Sandbox, Keep All The Toys. I’m excited (Yay, workshop! Yay, new people! Yay, I get to blabber about stuff I love, to a captive audience, and ask them nosy questions! Yay, they will give me money for the privilege of allowing me to blabber and ask nosey questions and look at their work!)) and nervous (who the heck am I to be teaching a workshop? I haven’t done this in a while. What if I forgot how to do this, or I stink, or they hate me? :runs around in circles, screaming:) This is standard operating procedure for the first day of an online workshop for me, but, if I know myself (and I should say that I do) I will soon be riding high on the energy of the other participants, and the whole darned thing will click.

The sticky notes below the monitor are a throwback to my college days, when I didn’t know any better, and blithely pounded out several pages at a time, said notes (probably a often note paper with thumbtacks as sticky notes, back then,) and used said notes as mile markers, or the writer’s equivalent of Burma Shave signs. I have never seen a Burma Shave sign in the wild, but, as the child of mature parents, I became culturally literate in a few things from a prior generation. This is one of them. Signposts may be a better term, or mile markers. Each note has a goal to write toward. When I reach that goal, the note comes down. When all the notes are down, I am done (yay!) and get to play with my new watercolors. I am extremely bribable with art or bujo supplies.

I am also easily bribable with reading time, now that I am back on the scent of historical romance. My current read, The Queen’s Lady, by Barbara Kyle, is set during the time when Henry VIII was dead set on divorcing his first wife, but the Catholic church was not on the same page as Henry. After that, I start my O’Malley-a-thon, all of Bertrice Small’s O’Malley/Skye’s Legacy books (as a fan; I claim no insider knowledge of these books, or how they came to be written) which largely take place in Elizabethan times, and the days, and decades that follow. Have I ever mentioned how generational sagas are my very, very, very favorite sort of historical romance series? I finished my most recent Kindle read, Letter of Love, by Virginia Henley, also Elizabethan, and went looking for my next Kindle selection. I looked at my To Finally Read list, and saw Winter’s Fury, by Denise Domning, which is medieval, searched my library by author, and…waaaaait a minute. My attention fell (okay,  was drawn like an industrial strength magnet) to Lady in Waiting, the first book in her Lady duology, which has a -you guessed it- Elizabethan setting. Well, okay, then. Can’t fight that. Lady books now, Season books after. That is my next seven Kindle reads.

Because Barbara Kyle follows The Queen’s Lady with six more books in her Thornleigh saga, also a generational tale, those are on my list, after I finish with my Small binge. I am chain-bingeing historical romance novels now, which is a big change from whining about how I can’t seem to get into anything. I will take that change, even though doing the numbers is a wee bit on the scary side. Smushing the O’Malleys and their legacy, the Thornleighs, the Ladies and the Seasons into one place, that’s about twenty-seven books I have promised myself I am going to read in the near future. Twenty-seven. Twenty. Seven. When the sam hill am I going to read twenty seven books, when I have a workshop to give (I am actually posting my intro after I post this) and am working on three books, and Camp NaNo is breathing down my neck (why did I ever think that was a good idea?) Not to mention all the YA reads I want to get in there, along with various stuff, like finally getting around to reading Dragonwyck, by Anya Seton, and spring cleaning and domestic tornadoes and and and and and…..

I’m not going to say “breathe” here, because when people tell me to breathe, I want to punch them in the throat. Instead, I’m going to head in the general direction of a sign-off for this post and mention something about how doing what comes naturally works a lot better than trying to cram myself into somebody else’s box (which I am apt to do, far more often than I would like.) U didn’t mean to go on a nearly-thirty-book Tudor binge, but that was the first era a ever truly loved in historical romance, and it never hurts to go back to the source, and revisit a first love every now and again. Sometimes, poking a few embers is all that’s needed to get a fire going.

TheWriterIsOut

If it’s (Almost) March, These Must Be Llamas

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Spring and I have a complicated relationship. We don’t like each other much, but I live with two spring-lovers, Real Life Romance Hero (for him, spring is tied with fall for his favorite) and Housemate. I’m happy for them, that their favorite season is almost here, but for me, it means my lovely, cozy autumn and winter are done, and the season of avoiding the burny orange thing in the sky Is right around  the corner. On the other hand, spring is also baby ducks season, I have my upcoming online workshop starting March 5th, and, though it looks like I won’t be able to make NECRWA’s conference this year, plans are in place for some out of state writing besties to converge upon my domicile (and possibly the Schuyler Mansion) later in the season.

Said writing besties are the same critique/accountability group I had been in for coughty-cough years, the same one where I was the only person who never came to the table without some sort of pages, the same one where I would feel like I was flying on the car ride home, full of, well, pure, top grade love of writing. Plus, they’re all pretty darned nifty in their own rights, and write in genres as diverse as historical YA fiction, cozy romantic suspense, and picture books. I can promise there will not be a dull moment, there will be hugs, and at least one of us is going to cry when it’s time for them to go home at the end of the day.

The other bright spot that comes from staring a new season in the face is that I get to start a new planner.

WAIT A MINUTE! YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT NOTEBOOKS AGAIN! WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THIS SO-CALLED “WRITING BLOG?”

Oh hey, there, Hypercritical Gremlins. It’s been a while. What’s up?

NOT YOUR WORD COUNT, THAT’S FOR SURE. ALSO, NOTEBOOK TALK, AGAIN?

My blog, my topics. It’s writing related, I promise.

WE’VE HEARD THAT BEFORE.

As I was saying, I finished my last February pages in my current planner, last night, which means time to start a new one, at the start of March. As a true Leuhtrumm convert, I planned to get another notebook by the same maker, but there was one small problem; I did not get anywhere near the one store, locally, that sells them (to my knowledge.) Quelle horror. That’s when my eyes drifted to my unused notebook shelf, and spotted the orange Exceed book I didn’t end up using last fall. Love the pages, sturdy book, but it’s orange.

NOTEBOOK POST. CALLED IT.

Ahem.  Anyway, I’d been vacillating on the theme for March pages. I’d originally wanted gray, but then remembered there’s St. Patrick’s Day. I’d feel weird having an orange planner in a month when Irish heritage and culture is at the forefront, and, besides, orange and green, together, remind me of peas and carrots, specifically the canned variety, and, um, nothankyouplease. I will cut through the craft shop trawling for washi tape for another, unrelated project (my O’Malley saga reread; have to prepare for something of that magnitude) and go straight to the moment I saw these puppies on an endcap, at one third the usual going rate:

01llamatape

Cue heart-skip. Yes. This. Black, white, gray, and red, smidgen of green, a few sparklies. Also, llamas. Llamas make me think of my friend, H, whose favorite animal is the llama, and who is always great for some tough writing love. Other tapes include elephants and hippos, both gray, some flowers, some geometric shapes, some glitter. Boom. Perfect. Layouts unfolded in my head, and I couldn’t wait to get home and put those plans into action. One of the tapes even says “wild and free,” over and over, in different fonts.

:COUGH; NOTEBOOK POST :COUGH:

Did I ask for your input?

NO.

What did you say?

NO, MA’AM?

Better. This morning, I had the same heart-skip while scrolling through Facebook. A post from Susan Elizabeth Phillips showed on my feed, asking for recommendations of genre romance novels, happy ending and all, with elements that broke away from some of the conventions of the genre. My mind raced. Simple Jess, by Pamela Morsi, with a mentally slow hero, Morning Glory, by LaVyrle Spencer, with an ex-con hero, and, shall we say working class heroine, who is already pregnant with baby number three when they meet, in the years around WWII. Laura Kinsale’s heroes who survive strokes and PTSD and the heroines who see the whole person, not only one aspect. Yes. This.

This kind of thing gets my motor running. Granted, exactly what the “norm” is, will differ from person to person, depending on whom one asks, but that kind of thing gets me excited. Do my characters and my stories fit under that umbrella? Right now, Drama King has a grumpy actor-turned-line-cook intent on emotional self-flagellation, and the optimistic literary agent who is sure she can turn almost any mess into something beautiful. Her Last First Kiss has a heroine who is already another character’s mistress when the story begins, and a “portrait painter” hero (the air quotes are important) with family issues, plus the mutual friend caught in the middle. Chasing Prince Charming, which Melva and I are preparing to resubmit, has a hero who is a passionate advocate of the romance genre, and a heroine who may need some convincing. A Heart Most Errant has a jaded knight-errant, and the extroverted (and possibly delusional) baker whom he has to escort to a destination that may or may not exist. It also has a monastery that is not as abandoned as they thought it was. (Oopsie.) Did I mention this is after the Black Plague knocked out half the population of the British Isles in around twenty years?

NONE OF THAT HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH LLAMAS.

:Ah, but it does. There are, as of yet, no llamas in any of my stories, historical or contemporary, solo or co-written, but the spirit of the llamas is there. Bullet journaling has taught me a few things that carry over into the writing of commercial fiction. Mistakes happen. Inspiration will lag. When it does, it may be time to take a long walk through a favorite craft or office supply store. Stop and smell the Post-Its (or maybe just look at them. The vast majority are not scented.) Stroke the creamy ivory pages of notebooks far outside your pay grade. Quickly grab an awesome roll of clearance washi before anybody else gets a chance to know it exists. Be open to new ideas, and, when all else fails, go back to the well. Re-read old favorites. Play with an idea that always seemed like fun. Do what you need to refill the well, so that you can draw from it. If the method of choice involves llamas, well, that’s a bonus.

OKAY, THAT KIND OF FITS TOGETHER>HMPH.

Thank you, it does. Now back in the basement, you go. I have writing to do.

WE LIKE THE CLOSET.

You can’t have the closet anymore; I keep my bullet journal stuff there now. Out the back door, all the way down the stairs, to the room with the dirt floor and the hot water heater.

HEY! THAT’S WHERE YOUR STEPPER NEIGHBORS REHEARSE, WITH ALL THE STOMPING AND THE SHOUTING.

I know. :puts in earbuds, opens document:

 

 

 

The Queen’s Lady, the Hipster Kitty, and Me: A Love Story

annabowling Leave a comment

Today does not feel like a Monday. My planner says it is, so we’ll go with that and get at least seven hundred words of blabber into this text box, within the next hour, because crossing a task off my to-do list is one of the very best ways to kick off a Monday (or any other day, come to think of it.) Maybe I’m still riding on weekend fumes, because this was a pretty good weekend, especially for my focus on reconnecting with historical romance and growing the blog.

Friday nights are BFF nights, which means Housemate and I grab some sort of dinner, then trawl craft stores for geeking out over art supplies. Watercolor pencils for her (though she has yet to actually use them as watercolors) and anything bujo/art journal related for me. This week, that included picking up a copy of Artful Blogging magazine. Articles on connecting with one’s creative side and particular bloggy “voice,” be that writing or photography, resonated. I actually started petting the magazine while still in the store, so that’s a sign that the issue had to come home. This has a few different levels to it; there’s the drooling over pictures level, the taking in advice I probably already know but have made excuses not to act upon, because acting on such knowledge would be scary level, and the actually applying what I’ve learned to my actual blog level.

Saturday meant sneaking in more craft store trawling in the midst of errands (Housemate has a life goal of owning all the watercolor pencils in the world. I support her in this, because A) I want my friend to be happy, and B) I have permission to use them when she is not using them.) Saturday also meant that I got to take out the magazine and lay it on the table between us at lunch, and natter endlessly over how gorgeous the pictures are, and how I want to get to that level with my own blog, or possibly blogs, as I’ve been thinking of starting a second blog, devoted to all things pen and paper, while this one would be reserved  for writing talk. We will see how things go.

Sunday found me, along with Real Life Romance Hero, and Housemate, at our friend, M.P. Barker‘s annual book swap party. The most important thing about these parties is that the bacon-wrapped figs are mine, mine, mine. Okay, maybe that is not the most important thing, but it is a strong contender for the number two spot. They are stuffed with goat cheese, and are delicious, and I would happily pay whoever makes them, to make me a small batch. A truckload or two would do. For starters. I would say I am digressing here, but these are extremely good bacon wrapped figs. Or maybe they’re dates. I get the two confused sometimes.

Enough of that. The really important thing about this party, every year, is that it gives me a chance to reconnect with my best writing self. M.P., my contemporary co-writer, Melva Michaelian, and I spent many years’ worth of Wednesday nights, gathered around the same dining room table where, yesterday, I scarfed bacon-wrapped figs (or dates) and gabbed with Mona, a reader friend, about our shared love of reading historical romance. What we like, what we don’t, how we had each finished reading (two different) Harlequin Historical romances within the last twenty-four hours, and needed to choose our next reads pretty darned quick. This is where my love of reading and my love of planning come together and make beautiful reading plan babies.

Before the start of the new year, I made a list of books to re-read, and books to finally read, all historical romance. First up from the TFR list is The Queen’s Lady, by Barbara Kyle:

BarbaraKylethequeenslady

 

Tudor era, start of a family saga, plot that unfolds over years instead of months or weeks, and a heroine name to make me sigh with happiness. Honor Larke. Yep, I’m sold. I’m not sure why I haven’t read this before, and I’m intrigued that it was, IIRC, originally published as historical romance, though the spine on this edition classes it as historical fiction. We shall see how this goes.  After that, it’s back to the well, and a small detour from my TBRR list, as I plan to reread the entire O’Malley/Skye’s Legacy series, by Bertrice Small. That’s twelve books, with both series combined, so picking out historical romances to read is not going to be that difficult a task for me in the foreseeable future.

My heart is already going a little pitty-pat at the reading journey ahead of me, and what it’s going to do for my writing, this spring. (Can you believe it’s almost spring already? Has to be, though, as, in the next two weeks, I will be starting both a new morning pages book, and a new daily planner book.) That’s where the Hipster Kitty comes into play:

1902hipsterkitty

See how perfectly he fits with the rest of my “me” stuff? I normally don’t seek out things that are yellow, or books with white pages, but this book has me completely heart-eyes over it. I already know I want to write with black pen, and use yellow highlighter, and, since I want to take notes o n my epic O’Malley re-read, well, this seems like perfect timing. There’s still a chance I might end up using a different book for that, but even if that’s what happens, this is for something special. Maybe it’s for notes on the proposed cyber-revival Melva, M.P. and I talked about, of the weekly critique/nag group meetings that got us all through multiple manuscripts.

The weekend just past was wonderful, filled with re-filling, and re-connection, bringing me to the start of a new week, with the challenge of putting all that good stuff into practice. That’s still a little scary, but scary in the good way. I did get an offer of beta-reading from my reader friend, so I have to give her something to read, don’t I? Thought so. time to make another cup of tea, and slip back in time a few centuries.

Typing With Wet Claws: The Big One-One Edition

annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Normally, Anty makes me talk about her writing before I am allowed to talk about anything else, but this is a special occasion, so she is relaxing the rules a little bit, for this post only. That is because the reason this is a special post is because Valentine’s Day, February fourteenth, which was not my day to post, was also my birthday. It was probably my birthday. I was born wild, so my first vet had to guess how old I was when I got rescued, and by that guess, I was probably born sometime around February fourteenth, so that is when the humans decided they would celebrate my birthday.

This year, I hit the big one-one. That means I am eleven years old. A Level Eleven Feline, if you count in terms of levels instead of years. I think Level Eleven Feline sounds powerful. I will go with that way of counting. Some people say being a Level Eleven Feline makes me an experienced kitty, but I do not feel that way. The humans say I am their perpetual baby, and that, I agree with. They know me best. I do not like big fusses, so my birthday was pretty quiet. I had cat food and treat (I love cat food and treat) and I got to play my mousie game (I am super good at the mousie game) Here is a picture of me playing my mousie game on Uncle’s phone. He is my favorite, and I love him the most.

01gamerkitty

Happy (probably) birthday to me.

There has been some talk about a pet-safe laser pointer, but I will believe that when I am chasing it around the living room. Until then, that glowy box mousie better run when he sees me coming. I will catch him one day. I thought I did, once, but it was actually one of my own floofs. I think that still counts.

Now for the Anty part of this post. As usual, Anty was at Buried Under Romance on Saturday. This time, she talked about um, grown up fun times in books. I, personally, am fixed, so some of that stuff goes right over my head. Also, I am short, so most things go right over my head anyway. That post is here, and it looks like this:

BURtalkaboutsexscenes

Now we come to the part of the post where I tell you about Anty’s reading progress. I am not sure I counted everything this week, with the tail end of Anty’s cold, and my (probably) birthday and all of that, but, at current count, Anty is ahead of the numbers game, with twelve books read out of ninety for the year. This week, the books that she read and reviewed were:

GRiftheresnotomorrow

If There’s No Tomorrow, by Jennifer L. Armentrout

 

GRthetruthofrightnow

The Truth of Right Now, by Kara Lee Corthron

As you might have guessed, both of those books fit in the YA genre.  Anty has not forgotten our talk about reading more historical romance, and she actually has a plan in place to do exactly that.  Part of that plan will involve making a tracker, so that will combine two things Anty loves very much; historical romance and bullet journaling. She is reading some historical romance novels right now, and will have reviews on those, once she is finished reading them.  There will be much more time for reading, now that Anty is done watching a French TV show, called Les Revenants. That means “the returned,” or “the ghosts,” depending on how it’s translated (probably; I do not speak French. I speak kitty.) and it is scary but not bloody. Anty loves the dark aesthetic, both in subject matter and in the amount of light used in filming. There is an American remake, that only lasted one season. Anty is kind of watching that, too, but she likes the French version better, and will probably watch that again.

Anty is paying special attention, right now, to the kinds of stories she likes to read and watch, and making notes about what it is that she likes about them. Some of this will come into play when Anty teaches her workshop with Charter Oak Romance Writers next month. Anty thinks it is very important for writer type humans to take in the kinds of stories they want to write, and to be aware of what sorts of things make them excited about putting into their own stories. This all requires very close attention for a mews, which means I had better step up my game in reminding Anty how much I hate the office carpet, and want it gone, so that I can sit right next to her chair and send love beams from the shortest possible distance. Anty says she is concerned that she might roll over my tail, because I am a ninja kitty, and do not always let her know when I am right next to her. She may have a point there. My tail is very fluffy, but I do want to be as close to Anty as possible. I may have to think about this in more detail. (So that I do not get de-tailed, in the process.)

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

skyebye2018

 

Valentine’s Day Rambles (of the writing variety)

annabowling Leave a comment

So, it’s Valentine’s Day, which means built in blog topic for romance writers. Woo hoo.  On hour, seven hundred words, let’s go. Okay. No big plans for the day, as such. I’m writing, which is worthy of celebration, because my brain is returning from the fog of Martian Death Cold, and it’s time to write some of the rust out of the faucet, so to speak. This also means I get to spend some extra time tucked in a comfy chair (probably my office chair, which is plenty comfy and has great back support) and snuggle under a fuzzy blanket, with a cup of tea (pink skull and crossbones mug today) and the day’s soundtrack is a mixture of my Spotify daily mix and Real Life Romance Hero doing dishes on the other side of my office door. Heck yes, romance heroes wash dishes.

Okay, maybe not medieval knights or nineteenth century English noblemen. Probably not pirates, either, but, y’know, everybody does what they have to do on a pirate ship because there are only so many people to do a lot of different jobs, so maybe pirates, after all. Who can tell? Me, next time I write a pirate book? Maybe so. We will see. The point is, romance heroes do a whole lot of things. Heroines, too. That came out wrong, but I’ll let it stand, because I am in that sort of a mood.

Romance gets a lot of jabs this time of year, often from people who aren’t fans of the genre, often because they haven’t tried any recent romance fiction, or classic romance fiction, or fiction with romantic elements (though, let’s be real, that romance stuff is everywhere, and gets into many different genres, to varying degrees, but I digress.) Think pieces of this sort (of which there often does not seem to be a whole lot of thinking going on) have become commonplace enough that I can look at them, and, meh, another one of those? Okay. Whatever. What I’d really like to see is the excited discovery of a new romance reader – hey, look at all these great stories, where the focus is on the relationship and there’s history and suspense and sex and faith and it’s funny and it rips my heart out and puts it back together, and, seriously, anything can happen to these characters, as long as they end up happy and together, and, y’know what? They do. Every single time. How amazing is that?

Pretty darned, is all I’m saying. Yesterday was my weekly meeting with N, and we talked about reconnecting with what we want for our writing careers, about reconnecting with what makes a story, be it read or written, special. For me, this means a concentrated effort in reconnecting with what I love most about historical romance. If I’m going to go back to the source, the moment I fell in love with the genre, it would be when eleven-year-old me snuck a book from my mother’s nightstand, and cracked it open, by flashlight, under the brass bed in the guest bedroom. It also takes me back to countless used bookstores, where I would crawl around on the floor, inspecting the lower shelves for stories set in the sixteenth century, scanning for keywords that would catch my attention. Any mention of larger than life, or epic, or sprawling, or…:satisfied sigh:

Yeah, that. When I think of historical romance, that’s my happy place. I’m sure there’s something to be said about the role of the floor in all of this. The floor of the guest bedroom, under the big brass bed, the floors of countless bookstores, usually ending up in a tucked away corner, books spread out around me, so I could whittle down the selection to fit within the budget for that trip. To a lesser extent, there are the countless spins I made of the spinner racks in the fiction section of the library closest to my dad’s house when I was in high school, checking for fat paperbacks that meant historical romance, and the distinctive, slim spines that meant traditional Regencies, or gothics. As long as there was history, and there was romance, I was happy.

Am happy, because, decades after that first filched paperback, which now has a place of honor on the bookshelf behind me as I write, the same bookcase which once held the picture books of my preschool days, I still get that thrill. Give me two lovers who have to be together, but can’t, and I am there. If I am the one entrusted to making sure the lovers’ stars un-cross, that’s another level of fun. Frustration, sometimes, because story people can be tricky little badgers, making choices of their own, the second they hit the page. That only means they are real and alive in the sense that it becomes a collaboration between the writer and their imaginary friends. In that way, no romance writer is ever truly alone,  no matter what day it is.

Over the magic seven hundred now, and time to wrap this puppy, which can get tricky when I go on this sort of ramble. As N and I discussed, sometimes it takes a while to write the rust out of the faucet, and putting down anything is better than putting down nothing, especially when putting down anything runs smack into a wall of resistance. Even so, keep at it long enough, and the faucet runs out of rust. That’s a happy ending right there.

TheWriterIsOut