July, Week One

July 2, 2024annabowling Leave a comment

Oof. It’s been a while. Everybody was sick in June, with a couple of heat waves thrown in for the challenge of things. The days kind of blended, and mental health, well, ahahahha. Anyway, it’s July now, one day after Canada Day, two days before Independence Day, and the only way out of a blogging slump is to blog, so here I am. Warning, I am going to babble.

At times, the dishes, trash, and laundry took on epic proportions, which we are conquering. Present tense. My beloved rose gold laptop developed a crack in the casing around the touchpad, resulting in her filling line after line with an endless stream of commas any time I tried to use her. While I am sure there is a way to rescue her, my research says that would mean welding or epoxy, which right now is a no. So, I now have a new lipstick red laptop, named Miss Scarlett. She can’t run Sims 4, but can run Sims 3, which I don’t mind because A) color wheel and B) open world.

One would think that a month of sick would be great for reading. It was not. It was great for watching YouTube. We will try again on reading this week. I definitely have enough books, both paper and electronic. Right now, I am sitting in front of a gorgeous turquoise retro-style fan, near an open window, in my comfy office chair. The desk is kind of chaotic, because this TV tray thing has reached the end of its usefulness, so I am small desk shopping.

But the writing, Anna. Are you doing any of that? In a word, yes. Last week, Melva and I roughed out the very loose outline for a romantic suspense we plan to pitch. I did indeed hit my Camp NaNo goal in April and outline a historical romance, which is still simmering. Next up is to whip A Heart Most Errant, my first post-apocalyptic medieval romance, into publishable shape. It’s surreal that I wrote the first form of that story ten years ago, but it’s been a wild ten years. Her Last First Kiss is slightly younger than that, but that’s up next. It feels like I’ve been on a loop of that for, well, forever, which is part of the reason I have been hesitant to blog.

So, what changed? My first indicator is to say I don’t know. The second is therapy. My therapist is awesome, and she’s a big reader. One of the first things we did was swap book recommendations. She is also very helpful when I want to bounce a story’s emotional dynamic off her. She’s also great at reminding me how far I’ve come from where I was when I figured therapy might be worth a try. In short, it’s a lot, and yes, it is worth writing about.

Journaling and planning have been an absolute rock for me in this time. I did not think to prepare pictures for this entry, so will share pictures later, but photography and photo editing are also newish interests. I am very much looking forward to pretty leaf season. We are 33% of the way through summer, so that is encouraging.

Anyway, that’s the interesting stuff for the first week of July. What are you all up to?

Typing With Wet Paws: Camp NaNo Progress Edition

April 22, 2024annabowling Leave a comment

Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. We are three weeks into this version of Camp NaNo, and Mama Anna is happy to report she is doing pretty well on it this round. Not quite at goal, but close enough to call it good, and, most importantly she is having mostly a good time doing it. Here are a few reasons why:

She is writing by hand
She is writing in only one book (so far; more on that later)
She prepares each page beforehand, with washi borders on the top and bottom of each page.
She planned in non-writing days, for when she is being domestic warrior queen
This draft doesn’t have to be perfect, or readable to anybody else. It’s only her shoveling sand into her sandbox. She wanted me to say that it is her sandbox, not mine, because we have very different sandboxes. Nobody wants to play in my sandbox.

Mama Anna wanted me to say more about the mostly writing in one notebook thing. If you have ever met Mama Anna, or read even one of her blogs, you know she has a thing for stationery, including notebooks. Normally, she likes to set up a designated notebook before she starts, but this time, she grabbed a random notebook that was full of stops and starts, with paper that was just okay (she got this before she knew about GSM) because she wanted to get the ideas down, and, well, she kept going. Now, there are only five two-page spreads left. As her purr-sonal assistant, I am fairly certain she is going to fill those before the end of Camp, and that means she will start another one, where she can do the post-camp work. After she lets it sit for a while, to sort itself out.

Part of the reason she wanted to do Camp for this session was to prove to herself that she can still do it, and what do you know, she can. There’s some confidence that comes with that. She doesn’t know if she is going to do the other Camp this summer (though maybe yes, because this approach is actually fun, and fun is important) but she does know that going back to the WIPs that have been on pause (not paws, though my paws are on pretty much everything she owns) isn’t quite as scary anymore. Maybe she will even take some aspects of this experiment into those works.

Whatever she does, be assured I will be heavily involved in it, and probably sitting heavily on it because I am that determined to be an integral part of the process.

How’s your April going?

Everyday Carry, Spring 2024 and Camp NaNo Progress

April 16, 2024April 16, 2024annabowling Leave a comment

Welp, it’s spring. I have the window open as I write this. My ensemble for the day is a sleeveless shift dress with an unzipped oversized hoodie over it. My home office is an absolute mess because of spring cleaning. Next week means a trip to the storage unit, to put away things we aren’t using a at the moment and get out some things we’d stashed for the winter. A couple of days ago I (finally) set up an actual bookcase to hold the vintage historical romance novels that are te focus of my current reading. I have a lot to say about the whole vintage romance thing, but that is another topic for another day.

Today is the day to share my everyday carry. It all fits in this pouch, which lives in my purse and can go out on its own.

The main pocket holds a traveler’s notebook with three inserts (agenda and two notebooks) and the zip compartment looks like this:

I am currently going with a green theme for spring. We’ll see if I want to make a change at the start of the new month. The flowered notebook has perforated pages, which makes it double as a notepad or come in handy when somebody needs a piece of paper out in the wild. There is an additional zip pocket in the back, which holds a selection of Crayola SuperTips in pastel colors.

Skinny washi tapes are from Tim Holtz. The two blue items are a correction tape runner and adhesive runner, and the tin with my favorite Golden Girl (Dorothy Zbornak is an integral part of my final form) holds ephemera, including tea tags, stickers, washi samples and miscellaneous things that catch my fancy. There is also a growing collection of enamel and pinback pins, not pictured, as I am still moving them around.

It’s not perfect (what is?) but it feels right for right now, as does this entry staying pretty much as it says on the tin (of the title, not the actual tin.) Camp NaNo is going pretty well at the halfway point. Not perfect but doing its job. Not at goal, but close enough. What I set out to do was to prove to myself that yes, I can (still) do it. So far, so good. Here, we see the puzzler in her natural habitat, dogpaddling in a sea of unset gelatin, grabbing onto floating ideas as they bob past on fickle currents, and…I like it.

I don’t know all of the story yet. Most of the characters have placeholder names. the stately home where most of the story takes place is still under construction in more ways than one but that’s fine . At this stage of the game I am shoveling sand into my sandbox with all the enthusiasm and precision of a toddler on her first day at the beach.

Typing With Wet Paws: Eclipse Edition

April 8, 2024annabowling Leave a comment

Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome and this is Typing With Wet Paws. It’s been a minute, and Mama Anna is kind of busy with the actual writing thing. It was a Life Happened kind of week, but the good thing is that she is making progress with her Camp NaNo story.

Speaking of which, she is not sure what is going on with Camp seeming a lot less…camp themed this time. This probably happened in the Before Time, and she has been inactive a while. You should see the stuff she has on lists to research. I also have concerns about her musical playlist for this story. The songs are all pretty good, but a lot of the songs are from the New Romantic era of music, and she is writing historical romance, but I guess it all seems to be working out. I call that good.

Oh, and she has ugly cried to Billy Joel’s “Turn the Lights Back On” song. Like, a lot. I think that means she likes it. Anyway, she listens to it a bunch, and then she writes. Sometimes while it is still playing.

She is also back from a trip to see Aunt Mary and Uncle Brian in CT, and she went to the big bookstore that is outside. She got a bunch of vintage historical romances, and found out that she likes something called bangers and mash, which is apparently Irish food. I will stick with crunchies and gushy food.

What else? The inspector guys. Mama Anna’s anxiety does not get along well with inspector guys (though these were really nice; they even said hello to me.) She had a big anxiety night before they came, but when they did, it was only to check that our smoke alarms were okay, so they were gone in minutes. Mama Anna’s central nervous system was ready to take part in a live show of The Walking Dead. Good thing she has me and comfy pillows and lots of books.

That is kind of where I was when we had the eclipse today. Did you guys know about that? It was wild. There it is normal daytime, and then BOOM, it’s dark. Yeah, I did not like that. Like, at all. Mama Anna stayed with me and gave me cuddles and pets and then the sun came back and I was okay again. Then Papa came home. I made sure to tell him all about it. He’s a pretty understanding dude. He gave me crunchies and scritches.

I also helped Mama Anna take pictures of the stuff that is in her stationery pouches and everyday carry planner. I will let her share those on her own, because when I try to get near them, it’s all “stop clawing that” and “what’s in your mouth?” and my personal favorite, “get out of that pie.” Not that she always has coconut creme pie but I think it is super interesting smelling but she says it is Not For Kitties.

Anyway, Mama Anna is currently shoveling sand into her metaphorical story sandbox, and having a pretty good time oing so. Updates to follow.

How’s your week going?

Typing With Wet Paws: Marching Toward Spring Edition

March 12, 2024annabowling Leave a comment

Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. Right now, there is a sunbeam that lands exactly on the printer, and yet I am here talking to you, so take that with the honor it deserves.

Things have been all right around here. This is the first day in five days Mama Anna has had the apartment to herself (and me) which has her admittedly giddy. She is going through her to-do list for the day, which includes fun things like putting away laundry and getting trash ready for trash day (and getting me to leave said trash alone, which is not an easy task. They have really interesting trash in this family.) She is also blocking out stuff for her Camp NaNo story in a junky old notebook. She is having a fine time doing that. I have a fine time sitting on it if she leaves it unattended. The very picture of an attractive nuisance.

Speaking of me, Mama Anna insisted that I share this image:

Aunt Linda noticed that there was a special guest star in my crunchies bowl. She wondered how that got there. It is not that complicated, really. There are a few reasons. First, I might have put it there because it is a safe space for me to find it when I want to play with it later. Second I might have been playing and have cat-specific reasons you hoomans would not understand. Third, and maybe most likely, I probably got excited about the food and forgot I had one of the best toys ever (seriously. They are SUPER fun. You should try one.) in my mouth and started eating and it fell into the crunchies and then I did something else and that’s why the awesome ring of cardboard was still in my dish.

Also, I know absolutely nothing about the crack on the casing of Mama Anna’s laptop. It definitely doesn’t come from me walking across the keyboard or sitting on it. Or laying on it. Or any other activities that a cat not unlike myself might do when upon a keyboard. Like standing. She only noticed it today, and will point it out to Papa when he gets home. They have been talking about a gaming computer, so maybe this is even a step in that direction. Either that or Mama Anna will slap some pink Duck tape on it (yes, she has some) and call it a day.

What’s on your agenda? Is it a cat?

Random Valentine Blather

February 14, 2024annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, all. Happy Valentine’s Day, or it’s Wednesday, depending on any number of things. Feeling very rusty about blogging at the moment, but there is no time like the present to jump back into the swing of things, so hi.

Above, we have my current everyday carry of planning whatnot. I like being able to pick up one thing (or two) and go, especially since I am still using a backpack and knee brace. Technically, I could fit the contents of the leather cover inside the Delfonics pouch, but I like it this way, with my cover, and a small box of ephemera inside the pouch. There’s something special about pen and paper that have a quicker route to the place where my brain keeps fiction, specifically the kind I create myself.

Valentine’s Day is an interesting one for romance writers. It’s the big romantic love day. People who do not normally engage with the romance genre might be tempted to try one in honor of the holiday (yay, welcome, grab a book and stay a while) and hopefully find something they like. It’s also when other people sometimes detract from the romance genre without engaging with it. Okay I don’t have time for that right now. I love the romance genre and have ever since I stole The Kadin by Bertrice Small from my mother’s nightstand when I was eleven. Right then, I knew I had found what I wanted to read and write for the rest of my life. So far, so good.

Sometimes, there are pauses. This latest one seems big and it seems long and it seems oddly misplaced, as things are pretty stable. That’s…curious. Once again, okay. It is what it is. One foot in front of the other from where I actually am, and at some point, I’ll be back on track. Right now, I am fewer than one hundred pages away from the end of a vintage historical romance I have wanted to read for literally decades. Yes, it is worth the wait. Also, Roger de Mortimer was not a nice man. (Stuff like this is one reason I love medievals.) I am eyeing Camp NaNo in April (it is April, right? Anybody want to make a cabin?)

This is feeling babbly, so I will wrap, after a mention of how Valentine’s Day is always interesting around here, as Real Life Romance Hero is in the restaurant business, which means the big date holiday means he is working. We will celebrate later. I kind of like it that way. Storm, of course, will get her due amount of attention, a wee sniff of the nip, and, fingers (and paws) crossed, her own entry by the end of the week.

How are you doing?

Therapy Homework and Other Stories

October 12, 2023annabowling Leave a comment

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

The weather is cool and cloudy today. I have a tall tumbler, filled with vanilla chai tea, too hot yet to drink, which gives me time to start this blog. My blogging goal for this week is to blog twice. Once, to help Storm with her blog, and one that is entirely Anna. The tumbler is a plain silvery finish right now. I will probably find some vinyl stickers for personalization. I plan on taking it out in the wild with me. I want to get some foliage shots while the leaves are with us. I miss taking pictures and posting them. The only way to do that is to do it. Baby steps count.

That is some of my therapy homework for this week and the next. I also need to finish reading Lisbon, by Valerie Sherwood. I’m over three hundred and fifty pages into the five hundred and fifty page plus book, so I think I should be able to do this. I have only read this book once, when it first came out, the same year Real Life Romance Hero and I were first married. It’s like reading it for the first time again, but with enough familiarity to know this is the right sort of story to keep my attention. I also get to make notes as to why that is. what does make this book work for me?

Right now, Storm has parked herself between me and my keyboard. She would prefer to be on it, but I have work to do. After I publish this post, I will make popcorn and check out the Frasier revival. Possibly some Yellowjackets, either diving into season two, or going back to season one and binge. I am listening to creepypastas as I write this and will probably do some journal stuff while watching abovementioned shows. TV and journaling seem to go well together around here.

Journal prep will be extra special this time, as I am getting ready for my own loosey-goosey version of Preptober/NaNo-ish doings. Updates to come as I progress. From my chat with Melva this week, I have to read through what I have on Her Last First Kiss so far and report on my own books. Not only read it, but spot what’s working, what I like. On my own book. This should be interesting. I have an audiobook to finish listening to as I take care of some household chores, and then another one lined up to take its place when I am done with the first. If it’s been difficult to stick with an audiobook the way I normally listen, how about I try listening to them the way I do the creepypastas I have been inhaling like nobody’s business? More sessions of shorter duration and remember there will be no quiz on the material at any point. I don’t know why I have felt like there would be, but there isn’t. There is no wrong way to read for pleasure.

That’s about it for right now. There is reading and there is writing and at some point it will resume making sense. Specific assignments and accountability work well for me, so I will be going with that. Odds are high that I will be making some sort of trackers for my personal and writing journals. I know myself.

What’s going on with you guys?

Typing With Wet Paws: Adoptiversary Edition

October 6, 2023annabowling Leave a comment

Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. This is a special edition, because it is my adoptiversary. Well, actually, it was yesterday, October fifth, but yesterday was also Mama Anna’s talking people vet session, and the first pictures of me with these guys were taken the day after, because everybody wanted to give me some time to get used to my new family

Possibly first crunchies with forever family

I have had three mamas, and that is the final number. My cat mom was my biological mom. I don’t remember a lot about her, but she was gorgeous (I assume she looks like me) and ran one heck of a milk bar. When I was big enough to set out on my first adventure, I went to my first human mom, Mama D, who took the best, best, best care of me until it was time for me to come to my forever family. I still love my first two mamas and I think about them a lot, always fondly.

As you might be able to see from the picture above, I wasn’t done growing yet when I met these guys, because I am bigger and longer and grownup now. These guys never got to see me as a tiny jelly bean or a li’l potato, as I came to them in my long teen stage. Now I am a big long, which is my final form.

Please note that Mama Anna was kind enough to match the cover of one of her journals to the color of half of my nose. Yes, she has another one like it in black, to match the other half of my nose. I will accept this tribute. My bond with Mama Anna and her writing has been there from the very start. One of the very first times I came out of my adventure cave, she had a journal out on the bed, and was working with an India ink pen. I wanted to play with the pen. She said I should not, because the ink might stain my white paws. Well. She had not noticed the black spot I have on one of my front paw toes before then and thought that she had stained my fur. She felt awful until she realized it was original equipment.

Ever since then, we have only grown closer. I have made new human friends/aunts and uncles both online and in purr-son. If Mama Anna wants to have a video chat with anybody, I must be part of it. That is not negotiable. I don’t make the rules. Oh wait, I am a cat. I totally do.

Mama Anna wanted to remind me that one of my main reasons I get to blog once a week is that I am to be her PR kitty. That means I have to talk about her writing. She’ll admit it hasn’t been great as of late, which is one of the reasons she is seeing the talking vet. The talking vet helped her give herself a couple of assignments. First, she needs to finish reading the novel she is currently reading, which is Lisbon, by Valerie Sherwood. She loves that book and has read it only once, so it is like a new book, but one she knows she will like.

Another goal is for Mama Anna to write one of her own blogs once a week for the rest of October. It doesn’t matter the topic, so be prepared for some babbling. Some of you like that, so you’ll be in for a treat. The rest of you, maybe ask her some questions so she can maybe use those to help figure out a topic. My Aunt Mary already asked Mama Anna to blog about Lisbon, so she will probably do that at some point.

The other other goal is related to NaNoWriMo and even Preptober. Mama Anna would like to participate in those, but she’s not sure exactly how, so the idea they came up with was this:

Pick a notebook
Fill it by the end of November
That’s it.

What she fills the notebook with doesn’t matter as much as just filling it. Probably extra points for making it be about historical romance. Mama Anna plans on getting together with Aunt Melva for an in person worldbuilding session soon, about the small town they are creating for their new contemporary series. This new notebook, which she will probably introduce you to later, will be saved for stuff about historical romance and maybe fantasy romance that reads like historical.

Will I try to steal her pens that she writes with in that? Yes. Will I sit on the open pages and the closed cover? Yes. Is she fully aware that if the notebook has a leather or faux leather cover, that I will do the pricky-pricky-pricky things with my murder mittens to the cover? Yes. Might she try to foil me by putting a cover over that cover? Almost certainly. Will that stop either one of us? Probably not, but there is only one way to find out.

How was your week?

Writer Days and Almost Summer Cleaning

May 25, 2023annabowling Leave a comment

Hey there. Anna here. Hopefully this bunch of blabber counts as proof of life. I had meant to write a blog post this morning (same day though, so surely, I get partial credit for this) but I leaned into the whole monthly reset thing for planning and writing both. Jashii Corrin on You Tube has some excellent ideas on this kind of thing. The first part of that is a physical reset, aka “y’know, this mess is going down.” Some stuff is staying, some stuff is going. All the stuff gets a thorough assessment and finding neat stuff that might or might not have been appropriated as cat toys is a bonus.

This is a good time for rolling up real and metaphorical sleeves and diving into The Work. Melva and I have heard from The Wild Rose Press, and the news wasn’t what we had hoped. That’s a little disappointing, but we will have Drama King back out on submission soon and are considering whether indie publishing might be right for the rest of the Love by the Book series. We are also in the discovery draft stage of a new contemporary romance series starter, which allows me to research ice cream and honestly say I am working.

Her Last First Kiss is primed to resume. I have 45k words left to complete the revised draft, estimated at 100k words. I am using the last bit of this month to break the outline into work sessions, aka how many it will take to get to The End. I have never been that much of a word count person, but Camp NaNo is coming, so why the heck not? Besides, that means I get to make a progress tracker, which is always good.

It’s also time for A Heart Most Errant to get back out there on submission, and, again, I am considering indie publishing, but we will see. Not going to worry about following books at this point, I have a couple of places to consider submitting, so this should be an interesting journey. Let’s see what happens with this story first.

After that, there is the pirate trilogy. This story is one I have wanted to tell for a very long time, though I didn’t know exactly how I wanted to do that. It still needs some time to crawl organically out of the primordial ooze. Broadly, it’s the story of three generations of pirates, starting in the aftermath of the English Civil War, then touching on an island-sinking earthquake and coming to a close at the end of the golden age of piracy. It’s three books but feels like one story in three parts.

After that, it will be interesting to see. I do have bits and pieces of things that have been floating around my brain long enough to be able to drink, own property, and marry without parental consent. That sounds about par for the course. One of the journals I have going at the moment is a media tracking joufrnal, covering not only the books I am reading, but other media I am consuming; television and movies watched, games played, podcasts, music, etc. All in all, a big ol’ pot of idea soup. This includes TV shows (I am still going to call it television even though we do not have a TV at present and watch everything on streaming.) that I follow only by recaps, as I don’t subscribe to the channels where they currently are streaming.

A few of these include:

Yellowjackets
The Last of Us
Silo
From (seasson two)
Fear the Walking Dead

There are definitely more, and then there are shows and movies I have seen and want to re-explore. This very much does also include books, and i will probably blabber about them here at some point. Nothing particularly earth shattering here, but that was never my goal when writing this.

What are you up to this week?

Self-Discovery Draft

April 13, 2023annabowling Leave a comment

Right now, I am sitting at my desk, in front of an open window. The temperatures are going to hit the high eighties today. Seems a little soon for summer temperatures to me, but what do I know? I am drinking peach iced tea. The nook is progressing quite well, so expect pictures of that soon. For now, the above is my everyday carry traveler’s notebook. Skull book is lined ivory paper, and pouch with the kitty on it holds small ephemera and a Pink Pearl eraser. Pen next to the book is a brush tip Mildliner in Vermillion. Still working out what pen I want for an everyday carry, so will keep you updated on that front. Dark flowery dashboard wraps around a lined insert I am using for a random collections journal. I can move those into a proper bound book later.

Melva and I have sent Queen of Hearts to our editor at The Wild Rose Press, so now we wait. We are putting a sticky note on Drama King, so stay tuned. Since I did indeed write my back forty outline for Her Last First Kiss, I get to watch The Lords of Flatbush, which I may turn into a Saturday matinee. In the meantime, I devoured FROM and Daisy Jones and the Six on streaming. I absolutely love both of them and am excited to see FROM return for a second season on the 23rd, so that’s only ten days away. You bet your sweet bippy I am planning on reading the book version of Daisy, and very likely gobbling the rest of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s work.

On the research front, I will be dipping my toes into Imperial Rusia, which is a new area for me, but it’s part of Ruby’s background in Her Last First Kiss, as she is herself half-Russian, so there will be interesting tidbits I can share along the way. My father was once engaged to a delightful Russian cosmetologist. Alas, they did not suit and went their separate ways in the end. Had they wed, we would have traveled to Russia to meet her side of the family, She told me that I would love Russia, and Russia would love me. A once upon a time writing group member returned from a trip to Russia with some amazing photos and the insistence that I had to write something set in Imperial Russia. This might be close. 1784 England, but half-Russian heroine, so yes? Maybe I better rewatch Dr. Zhivago just to be sure. Yes, I know, different period, but the ice palace.

Reading hit another snag. Eh. It happens. I have been doing a lot of journaling lately. I like the direction that’s been taking lately. I took a bunch of detailed notes while watching the last two episodes of Daisy, which resulted in a bunch of sticky notes of topics to expand upon later. The whole interviewing present day (of the story) characters about what happened years or decades ago is catnip for me. Add protagonists in the arts and I think you can hear my “yesssssssssssss” from wherever you are. Plus the music does not suck. Yet another reason I want to have one of my journals be a place to stuff idea soup ingredients. This thing goes with that thing, which fits with that thing, but with this change, so it’s best to have one place where they all live and some sort of index that allows me to access it all when I need it, rather than shuffling through bits and pieces scattered everywhere. I call it my organized magpie stage.

If I didn’t mention, I did not end up registering for Camp NaNo, and I am okay with that. I am actually getting stuff done, which is the whole point, so still calling that a win. I will put a sticky note on the July version of Camp, especially if I am ready to tiptoe into a new discovery draft by that time.

What are you discovering this week?

Typing With Wet Nails

for the love of romance

NaNoWriMo