Monday Morning Brain Dump, With Notebooks

January 25, 2016annabowling Leave a comment

Urgh. Monday morning again. I have shown up at the keyboard, which is an achievement when I’m coming off another night of no sleep. I hate insomnia. Brain races a million miles an hour, but will it focus on something useful, like the WIP? Nope. Not a chance on that one. Late night Pinterest pinning sprees are about as close as I get on that front.

Most recently, I started my Pen and Paper board, which is here. Not enough caffeine in the world to figure out why my computer says I can’t share the screencap I took of my own Pinterest page with myself, so click on the link to see all the pretties. Pens and notebooks, that’s it.

Since I’ve become more serious about my interest in notebooks, I’ve been doing more research, and my wish list is growing. Moleskines are still my workhorse, supplemented by Picadilly and Markings -I really need to do a comparison post/video on those soon- but I have found I’m not as immune as I used to be for the other brands out there.

The newest “must try this or a part of myself will forever mourn” item is this. Leuchtturm 1917 A5 Medium hardcover notebook in berry, with lined pages. Need. I love that the pages come pre-numbered. I love the color, which goes perfectly with my laptop. I honestly can’t tell if the pages are white or ivory. I strongly prefer ivory, but if this paper takes fountain pen ink as well as I’ve heard it does, I am willing to make an exception. I also have a strong thirst for a large Moleskine Volant, a format I hated in the 3×5 size, love in the mini, and now want to revisit in my preferred size, 5×8. Gray is first choice for color, purple second, though there are new colors that look interesting, too. The books may have to go into a leather cover, because the plastic feel of the books themselves feels off to me, but perforated pages all the way through? I have to give that a try. Maybe blank pages, rather than lined, but lined might be all right also.

There are actually a lot of notebooks I haven’t tried yet, and the whole fountain pen world? Only dipping my toes into that. Which reminds me, I’ve never even held a dip pen, but the mere thought of that makes me feel closer already to the eighteenth century people currently taking up space in my head. Hero and his letterbox and his sketches, (I seriously cannot draw worth beans, and I’d originally wanted him to be a violinist – I also cannot play the violin- but nope, he went right for pen and ink, so here we are) and Heroine and her ledgers (that, I can get. Keeping track of stuff is important) and my natural affinity for longhand make this an appropriate pastime.

Certain notebooks work for certain things, I’ve found since I’ve become serious about the habit, and no, any old notebook won’t do. There was a time when I thought that was the case, and I was wasting time and money and mental energy by using pretty paper (or making plain paper pretty) but I’ve found that’s not the case. It’s a natural and needed part of my process. Using notebooks has taught me a lot about the way I write fiction. Slap something on the page, anything, and get it moving. If I don’t like what’s down there, I can change it. I can rip it out. I can tape it together. I can cover it. I do not have to be perfect on the first try, which is a misunderstanding I’d been laboring under for longer than I care to admit, even here.

It’s okay to say, “this isn’t working. I’m going to try something else.” The thoughts, feelings, images, words, stories, all of the above, that I want for project X may not come at all on lined paper, but move to dot grid and work in boxes rather than paragraphs and :angels sing: there we go. Pen and paper matter. An old Japanese proverb says that a poor workman blames his tools, and there is some truth to that, but finding the right tool can make the job all that much easier.

Typing With Wet Claws: Happy Mew Year Edition

January 1, 2016annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, all. Skye here, for the first Feline Friday of 2016. This is the day when Anty usually moves into a new planner, if she has not done so already, but this year is different. Anty does not have a new planner. I am not entirely convinced she will not end up buying one after all, but in the meantime, she is making her own, out of a notebook she has only partially used. Anty’s two words (well, really, phrases, because they each have two words in them) are: Clean Sweep and More Layers. Making her own planner could be considered a way of combining both at the same time.

Plain notebook, pre-hacking

When Anty was thinking of getting a Moleskine planner, she thought she might get a red one (and she still might; I am not sure she won’t) so she will be using this red hardcover Picadilly notebook instead. It also reminds her of the red Moleskine in Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares, which was one of her best reads of 2015. Anty likes it when things she uses every day remind her of things she loves, so this fits in there nicely. She had used about half the notebook before moving on to others, but she did not want it to go to waste. Now it will not.

Anty liked the layout of the other planner, so she used that as an inspiration, and used a vintage office supply stamp to put in the dates. It is so old that it does not have 2016 on it, so she will add that later.

Here is the same layout, with a different color added for each day. With different colors, Anty can tell at a glance which day is which. If they are all the same color, her eyes see it as one big block, which is not helpful. This experiment also reminds her that it is time to get some new highlighters. She may try adding color with another medium, because highlighters are very bright, and that is not always restful for her eyes.

After Anty counted out fifty-two pages, so that each week would have its own page, she remembered that other planners also have monthly grids. She had not accounted for those, and she had already started the first weekly page, so she could not put those in the front, or she would have to re-count pages. She does not like counting things, so she put the grids in the very back of the book (or next to the back of the book. Her last page is always her ink test page.) She used rubber stamps to make the grids. This process has a learning curve, but Anty is smart. She used masking tape to cover the really messy grids and then stamped over that. She thinks she may actually like that better, so she may go back and re-stamp them all that way. This is a work in progress.

Remember when I mentioned that Anty does not like counting things? Well, this is why. She got the grids all stamped out, some on masking tape, and then counted to make sure she had everything. She did not have everything. One year has twelve months, not ten. Maybe she wanted to leave out summer, because it is her least favorite season? I do not think seasons work like that, but I cannot fault her for trying. Here is a picture of what she used to make the grids, in case you are curious. The clear block lets her see exactly where she is putting the stamp, which is very useful, as her depth perception is sometimes, ah, creative.

Starting over fresh and adding multiple layers makes Anty very happy. This year, she wants to challenge herself and take better control of her time. Having a planner that is tailored to her individual needs and tastes should take care of both of those things. She will likely change her mind several times and maybe even re-do the whole thing a time or two, but that is how she learns best, so she does not mind. She will probably share pictures of how things progress on the planner front. If this works well, then she can make another one for next year. She also has a pocket sized version of the same red notebook, but she has not done anything to that one yet, as she has developed more of an affinity for the 8×5 size over the past year. She still has a lot of pocket sized books, though, so we will see what she does with those. Hm. Maybe they are really kitty-sized books and are actually for me? I wonder what I could do with those.

Anty needs the computer because she has to get back to work, so that is about it for this week. I wish all of you a happy mew year and remain, as always, very truly yours,

Until next week…

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

Plannering 2016

December 30, 2015annabowling

Here we are, only two days away from a brand new year, and I do not have a planner yet. Neither do I have a wall calendar. I stopped using desktop calendars a few years back, because, well, I didn’t use them in the first place. I had grand ideas about using the daily pages in art, but I very seldom did, so phased those out, and don’t miss them.

Being without a planner, though, that makes me itchy. For the last two years, I’ve used pocket sized planners by Paperblanks. which are, hands down, the most gorgeous exteriors I’ve found on any planners (or notebooks, for that matter.)

Green book is last year’s planner, black and silver was for 2015, and I would be happy to get another Paperblanks for this year, though I haven’t seen any at the Barnes and Noble where I usually get them. My original plan in going for the pocket sized planner was that I could then carry it around in my purse and/or computer bag, to have it at the ready at all times. That did not happen, either year. Each time, the book lived on my side table, next to my comfy chair, with occasional sojourns to my office desk. So, I’m thinking larger planner for this year.

Before I started with Paperblanks, I liked spiral bound planners with lots of images and quotes inside them. A New York themed planner turned into one of my first art journals, and an Irish themed planner, the last spiral bound (I think) one I purchased, is still waiting for its next use. I’ve looked at a few of those this year, but haven’t found anything to my liking. The closest I’ve come is a Walking Dead planner, and even that registers meh on my planner scale.

Though I love Moleskine notebooks, and have an as yet unused hardcover (purple!) hanging around, I’ve never used a Moleskine planner, which may be something to consider. Thinking about Moleskines also got me thinking about their cousins, Markings and Picadilly, of which I have several hardcovers. Add to that the brave new world of the dot grid softcover Moleskine I like a lot more than I thought I would, and I’ve started thinking of potentially DIY-ing my own planner from one of those.

Do I have any idea how that would work? Not a clue, though if I’m going to DIY a Moleskine, I could as easily DIY a larger Paperblanks, thus getting the gorgeous cover. Problem there is that I’ve only seen lined Paperblanks, though the website says there are some unlined. With my lack of depth perception (truly, it could have its own show on the comedy network) I need some guidance if I’m going to mess around with the format of a page. The dot grid in the softcover Moleskine is perfect for that, letting me divide the page into whatever boxes I need for a particular use, while not cutting through the words and images (because I am learning to use images now.)

I’ve found I am far more visual than I had previously thought, and I really do need something going on with the page for my brain to stick with it. Much as I love the Paperblanks, if I do go with another of those, I’ll need to alter the innards in some way. Which means I get to tinker with my existing supplies and expired planners to see what might work. A light wash of color on each individual day, so my eyes can easily pick them apart should do the trick. We’ll see how that goes.

For now, I’m still in the discovery stage. Maybe this year will be a different sort of planner, a fresh start to which I can apply more layers. Maybe I will find a way to DIY an existing notebook into a planner (have any of you had experience with that? I’d love to pick your brains) and maybe I’ll find the perfect premade. While I am antsy that I’m not moved into a new planner already (a perfect tucked-away week activity if ever there was one) I’m also pleased that waiting until after the first of the year means getting exactly the same planner I could have purchased before Christmas, at a hefty discount. I have fond memories of the other Barnes and Noble we used to frequent (now closed) and the Moleskines we’d often find on clearance there. I have to admit I almost got a Peanuts Moleskine planner, on sale there, a couple of years back, but couldn’t commit to a whole year of Peanuts. If the planner is themed, it has to be something I love-love, not merely like.

As for wall calendars, I’ve learned that those often have to wait even longer. Last year, I lucked out early and found a calendar by a photographer whose work I admire (and frequently appears on Studio Oh! notebooks) but have not seen this year’s version, so no clue what I’ll eventually pick. Real Life Romance Hero has asked for an Old New York calendar for the kitchen, which Housemate and I both second (and third?) so that’s likely what we’ll be getting for family use. I’ve made some halfhearted attempts at making my own wall calendar from blank versions bought at craft stores, but have never made it past January with one of those, so not pinning my hopes on a homemade calendar this year.

Maybe this is all part of where I am creatively as a whole. I’m much more focused on keeping the camera, as it were, on the romance when I write, because that’s what makes me happiest. No matter when or where, it’s the love story that counts the most. Everything else has to serve that, from setting to tone to supporting cast. Getting to that point took me several years, and novels-that-wouldn’t, so maybe it’s the same thing with planners this year. Maybe it’s time to kiss a lot of figurative frogs before I hit upon The One this year. Maybe I’ll stumble into something I never thought about before, and find it’s a perfect fit. Kind of ironic (cue Alanis Morrisette) that I’m not able to plan my planner purchase this year, but it’s also fitting for the creative life, so I’m going to go with whatever comes and see where that takes me.

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Random Skye shot for readers (:cough: RLRH :cough:) who said they missed “the writing cat.”

Typing With Wet Claws: Art Journal Therapy Edition

December 4, 2015December 4, 2015annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Typing With Wet Claws. Anty is still battling her very bad cold, but she thinks she is getting the upper hand on it, at last. I will keep you all posted.

When Anty finds it difficult to concentrate on writing but still wants to be creative, she can spend time with her art notebooks (most people say art journals.) Even when Anty finds putting words or images on the page too much for her brain, she can still put down backgrounds, which is what she spent some time doing this week.

This spread is only gesso and watercolor, but she still finds it very interesting. The page with different colors on it is leftover paint from other backgrounds brushed on top of gesso, and the page with only gray on it is gray watercolor painted over gesso into which she scratched lines into while it was still wet. I could have helped her with that. I have claws.

These pages are also backgrounds, or the starts of backgrounds. Anty does not have to know what is going to go on the page in the final version, but only concentrates on what feels right for what she is doing in the present. Sometimes, that means putting down a mask, to keep part of the page the original color while she puts other colors on top of it.

Cropping is hard when you have paws…

mask and spray ink

beneath the mask

Anty has learned that, when an art page is not working, it is due to one of two things:

Not enough layers
Clean sweep

Either Anty has not added enough things to the page for it to look right, or she needs to start over, completely fresh, with a clear idea of what her focus should be. Maybe she wants to see what kind of mark a pen or brush can make, or what she can do with a particular color of paint. As you can see in the picture above, she has ripped out a few pages in her time. Sometimes they cannot be saved, but, usually, they can, by turning into something else.

Any really really loves a calendar she had a few years back, from PaPaYa! Art, so she wanted to use it as an altered book and add in her own art. One of the first things she thought she would do would be put a coat of gesso over the calendar pages, to make a new background. That was a good idea. What was not a good idea was to do all of them at once, and “protect” the wet pages by putting scrap paper in between them.

Well. She knows, now, that she needs to use wax paper when she does that. Back then, she did not know. To make matters worse, the pages she used were very very very bright blue. They had things printed on them, and she thought it might be interesting, once she figured out that the pages were now adhered to the calendar pages, to see if she could treat it like a gel medium resist and gently rub away the blue paper, leaving the words, and incorporate that in the art. That was not what happened.

What happened was that the warm water that dissolved the blue paper also dissolved part of the page beneath it. Some pages had to be torn out altogether, but, since they were already total losses, then she could use them to experiment with other techniques. Which often turns into something else she really can use, like this:

The watercolor went over the parts of paper Anty could not rub off differently than it went over the parts of the page that were plain gesso, and even the part of the page that came off at the top could be interesting as a part of something else. Anty can use this page as part of a bigger page, or she can cut it down into smaller parts and use some or all of them as parts of several other pages or projects.

If you think this is where I remind Anty that this advice can carry over into writing as well, you are right. If a scene is not working out, either there are not enough layers, or it is time for a clean sweep. Go back to the idea at the heart of the scene and start over, with the heart of the idea in mind. Usually, one of those two things will do the trick, and she can fill the page with whatever it needs, then move on to the next.

My nursing duties call, so that is going to be about it for this week. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

Until next week…

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

Daily Pages and Rambling

December 2, 2015annabowling Leave a comment

Beautiful grey, rainy day here in upstate NY, and I am stuck inside because, yes, cold is still hanging in there. Real Life Romance Hero, aka Patient Zero, is back at work, and I am making a stab at doing the same. If I can be half as productive as my immune system, I may be able to make up for lost time, or at least babble incoherently.

The notebook in today’s picture is from Punch Studio, as is the small notepad propped against the monitor. Yellow sticky notes are plain Post-Its and get tossed as soon as I’ve dealt with whatever is scribbled on them (the note to buy Kentucky mints -the kind with jelly inside- has been there for far longer than I would care to admit. Must deal with that soon.) This notebook is for my version of morning pages; two pages, one sitting, as soon as I can in the day, all by myself, no stopping, no censor. Two pages, rather than three, because a) achievable goals, and b) the interior pages are printed with two-page spreads in four different designs. I’ve been doing this since October 26th, every weekday, and so far, so good.

One good thing about being sick is that staying home gives me a better perspective on how I use the space in my home. Going into the office, closing the door, and breaking out pen and paper feels like an indulgence, far more than flipping open my laptop and pounding keys. It may be convenient to flop in the recliner, put the lap desk on my lap and make with the clickety clack, but the alchemy happens with paper and pen. Being around my art supplies (which really need more organizing, when I am done with all the drippiness) also helps remind me that, while there is discipline needed for a productive writing career, there is also a measure of creative indulgence.

Right now, I’m making a list of historical romances that take place at least part of the time in Russia. I’ve had a passing interest in Russia since one of my dad’s ex-fiancees (yes, plural, and yes, only one at a time; my dad still had it far into his later years) and there is a lot of Russian interest/influence in ballroom dance, which I also love (strange life lesson learned; if you’re at a dance show and the Russians get up and leave before intermission, the show is bad.) but it wasn’t until the heroine of Her Last First Kiss told me she was half Russian that I knew I had to get farther into the zeitgeist of eighteenth century Russia. Not that my heroine would know much about that, as she’s never been outside of England, nor seen her Russian father since she was seven, but I need to know these things.

For some, maybe most, this would mean stocking up on biographies of real life historical figures. I do not work that way. I have tried, but it’s Sony and I’m Beta or the other way around (or whatever the distinction was; technology and I have a complicated relationship.) While I don’t advocate using movies and other works of fiction as sources of factual research, for me, those things have what I need even more. The feel of the time and place. Yes, I know that’s interpreted through writers and editors and actors and directors and set and costume and la la la I can’t hear you.

I’m not writing scholarly texts. I’m writing love stories that take place in a certain time and place, and, to the characters living this story, they don’t live in Historical Period X. They think they live in Now, because, to them, they do. They don’t know who’s going to win the war, or if the long-awaited royal baby will be male, female, stillborn, or healthy and whole. With the state of communications (as I tell RLRH, they didn’t have Twitter in the eighteenth century) unless my characters already live near Court, they aren’t going to know about the goings on until they are went-on-a-while-agos. Whole different mindset.

Annnd I’m rambling. Which is fine, because rambling is still writing. The post is still here, and I’ve stayed more or less on topic, so I am going to call this a win. I’ve gone through an entire box of tissues, have a big dent in my second bag of cherry cough drops, and am feeling up to actual food for lunch. It takes my mind longer these days to wander off, which I count as a good thing. Characters, however, are still prone to do whatever they want as soon as they hit the page, but it works better that way. Easing up on the iron grip gives them and me both room to do our thing, and if this cold from beyond hell had any hand in making that happen, then I will accept that purpose without too much complaint.

In My Blanket Fort, Coloring Furiously

November 30, 2015annabowling 2 Comments

Well, it’s Monday. Time for Monday’s post. Not sure what I’m going to write here, because even I am sick of reading me write about being sick. Not sure what else there is to say on that front, except that the cold seems to like it here, and I am impressed with the sheer volume of mucus my body can produce. I do not want to know where it is all coming from, but at least that’s progress?

Cherry and licorice cough drops have become a food group for me, and my favorite foods at the moment are those that do not have corners. On the plus side, I sound almost human after I’ve had ice cream, and I am staying well hydrated. Ice skulls are lifesavers (I do have a roll of actual Lifesavers, but have not yet opened them.) By which I mean small novelty ice cubes in skull shaped molds I brought home around Halloween. Perfect size to pop in my mouth and cool things down without being unwieldly. Plus, they’re skulls. That has to count for something.

The way things are going, I’ll take that. It’s easy to get discouraged. Last week was going to be the week I made up for the week before’s loss of writing time, and then look what happened. Look at it. Not only did I not get things done, but it feels like things I did get done, got un-done. I would like to retreat to my blanket fort and color furiously. Yes, I used an adverb. Want to make something of it?

Right now, I’m grumpy. I’m tired of being sick, tired of being tired, tired of not Getting Things Done. Tired of not having brain enough to get a lot of reading , much less writing, done, but one thing I’ve been able to keep focus on for the last couple of days is art. In my office, on the floor, with paper and pencils and paint and assorted ephemera, it’s a different brain space than trying to make English work in a brain that only wants to take a nap (but knows that it can’t, because getting horizontal seems to be my body’s version of putting in a request for a long coughing fit that leaves me even more exhausted.)

This spread took me a couple of days to create, no plan in mind but to use stuff I could get without having to look for it. So, liquid acrylic paints, gesso, an almost-dried-out paint dabber, fortune cookie fortunes, and gel medium.

The page with the blue background was the page I gave some form of thought to, mainly to finally use the fortunes I’d been saving. Get those down on the page, arrange in pleasing manner, then paint around them with the blue paint. The arrangement of the fortunes suggested boxes, and primary colors seemed to fit, so yellow boxes came next, then the dark red boxes, and I may do some doodling with silver Sharpie or white gel pen, but I’d need to pick up a new one of those, as the old one now pines for the fjords, despite my best efforts.

I’d always planned on using the fortunes “someday.” These particular paints are free samples of some of the good stuff, from the art store, again, saved for “someday.” The day I’m good enough. The day I somehow intuitively know how to paint like Elaine Duillo by sheer osmosis. The day life calms down. The day, well, there’s always something, isn’t there? That day (don’t ask me when, they all blend) I decided, enough. It’s that day. Put the fortunes on the page. Paint around them. What’s next? What’s after that? Well, that, apparently. Who knew?

The facing page was somewhat of a cheat; random smushing and/or swiping of stuff, mainly to clean my brushes, and, in the case of the black dots, to see if the paint dabber was still worth saving. It kind of is. Not what it used to be, but not too far gone, either. I can deal with that. I have no idea how my phone camera got rotated, but as I took the picture in the middle of a coughing fit, that may have something to do with how that turned out. I’m going to call it good enough, and/or a new perspective.

Are either of these pages done? Maybe, maybe not. Time will tell. What I do know is that playing with arty things like this calms me down and lets the story part of my brain free-float and work things out, away from the hypercritical gremlins that like to look over my shoulder when I’m pounding keys. (Gremlins aren’t quite as vigilant when writing longhand, thankfully, but they come back when it’s time to transcribe.) Sometimes, I have music on in the background, or a movie or TV episode on the DVD player. Sometimes, it’s quiet, with only the voices in my head.

Sometimes, I have a plan for these pages, and sometimes, I don’t. Sometimes, the best pages come from when I think I’m only cleaning my brush or playing “what marks does this make?” or “what color is this, really?” Some mindless noodling with color and line and shape, and before I know it…art. It can be the same with writing. Was once, before I let the rules drill in too deeply, and it’s a place I am learning to find again. There are going to be some messy pages along the way, some that get torn out and we will never mention again. Others, though, others come together in such a way that it feels more like discovery than creation. I’ll take that, too.

Sickos and RIP, Varsity Blue

November 23, 2015annabowling 2 Comments

Real Life Romance Hero and I are both down with the same cold. A friend suspects we might actually have the flu. Neither one of us has the presence of mind to figure out which one it actually is. RLRH thinks he may be on his way out of this mess, while I am only beginning the adventure. At present, we are both lumps of energy in the living room, paying varying amounts of attention to the TV. We have blankets and sweatshirts with hoods pulled up. He has NPR on his phone, and I have my list of minimum daily tasks to still feel accomplished, even though my brain is wont to wander off after a few minutes of concentration. Short breaks of reading, lots of liquids, and a strong temptation to nap have been the order of the day.

Skye Kitty has been playing nurse to both of us, sticking close and sending out love beams. She is not fond of the coughing duets RLRH and I sometimes engage in, and trying to follow us both at the same time when we happen to be in different ends of the apartment presents a challenge. I think she’s holding up fairly well, despite the added duties.

This morning, I woke with that feeling, that telltale “yep, I’m sick,” malaise. I dragged myself to my office so I could figure out what I could realistically do. The temptation to forget everything and crawl into my comfy chair with a blankey is strong and probably advisable, but I’m miserable if I don’t have a clear plan. If I’m sick, I’m going to be productively sick (no, readers in the medical profession, not that way. Okay, that way, but nobody wants to read about that.) Morning pages at the very least, and get those ideas for the next chapter down before my brain wanders off.

My morning pages, both general and story-specific, are done in longhand. For Her Last First Kiss, the Paperblanks book above, is the book where I keep notes, ideas, etc for easy reference. This morning, in the middle of the last sentence of the first of two pages, my ink ran out. :sob: I use a Pilot Varsity disposable fountain pen in this book, blue ink to match the blue book cover. I still had another page to write. With no ink. This is a problem.

First, I tried an R2 Rollerball, but that was too wide, and the color too different. Then I remembered I’d moved my Microns to a particular purse, to go with a particular notebook that lives in that purse. One of those Microns is blue-black, close to the ink of the Varsity, and about the same width of stroke when it hits the page. I adore Microns and don’t use them enough. Got that out, tried it on a couple of words, and there I was, back in the groove. Still want to get a new Varsity, and I am, at some point, going to have to bite the bullet and get a refillable fountain pen (and learn to refill it) but I think I can make do with the Micron for now.

Even when my brain is prone to wandering off, I can fill two facing pages. The glide of fountain pen or Micron on super smooth paper helps, and it always feels like unlocking a treasure when I open the two metal clasps on my large Paperblanks. I’ve written on envelopes and napkins and scraps of whatever (there are lengths of kraft paper in my office closet, ready for some free form idea mapping) but using a special pen on special paper, that’s enough of an incentive to sit down and fill a couple of pages. Doesn’t have to be perfect, only has to be written.

Same with today’s blog entry. Rambly, but written. One more thing to check off the list, and then I have earned some Sims time.

Paris Papers and Random Writerly Ramblings

November 16, 2015November 16, 2015annabowling 2 Comments

The image above is not all of my Paris-themed stationery, but it was what I could readily reach, fueled by only part of my first cup of tea for the day and the knowledge that getting this post written was one thing I knew I could get off my to-do list. When I put them away after the picture, I realized I had a lot more than I thought I did. This may be about half, which makes me want to rearrange my unused notebook storage to make Paris-themed books its own category. This may be about half.

That surprises me. I haven’t written anything set in Paris, apart from maybe some long-ago fanfiction (and here I will get language nerdy; no, I do not write about location X or Y. I write historical romance that may be set in location X or Y, but I’ll leave the writing about the location to others, because nobody wants to read what I would turn out on that front.) so I’m not sure why I gravitate toward this theme so much in stationery matters, but as, we can see above, I do. As one of the aspects of my From Fan Fiction to Fantastic Fiction (new version, Play in Your Own Sandbox, Keep All The Toys) workshop is to examine why we like what we like, this may be something for me to try here.

Basically, stick the Eiffel Tower or Arc de Triomphe on a piece of stationery, and I want it. Fleur de lis also work, maps, French text (I don’t speak or read French, but I can figure some out if I’m not hurried) the streets of the city, the Seine, the general vibe of the place. Do not ask me to describe that (see above) because it’s something I’m not sure how to put into words. Interesting challenge for a writer, but there it is. I’m not as much about the facts and political histories of a setting, but the zeitgeist instead, the spirit of the times.

My best-best method of research is being there. Barring time travel, living history museums or reenactments are the closest I can get. I will never forget the reenactment of a pre-Revolutionary War British army regiment, held on the grounds of the John Jay house, some years back. Growing up in Westchester County, NY, the American Revolution was all around me (okay, the French were on the side of the rebels, so maybe I got some exposure to the French through that?) especially in the year of the Bicentennial, and it never left. So, when the date of a reenactment, at a venue that had been one of my big treats as a child, coincided with my birthday (or very close to, IIRC) Housemate decided that would be the perfect gift.

It absolutely was. I made a tour of the merchants’ booths, talked to re-enactors (best-best for me is when neither one of us breaks character) and wanted to show Housemate some of the grounds. There we were, meandering the dirt path, a sea of white tents to our left, a field filled with re-enactors and modern folk alike on our right, and the ground behind us trembled. A deep male voice bellowed for us to make way for the King’s men, so we jumped to the side of the path, and a river of redcoats marched past us, footbeats and hoofbeats vibrating into my very being.

That, for me, is what I want in a historical romance, whether writing or reading. I want the full immersion, not only who was on the throne or in office, but what my people would see, smell, hear, taste and feel in their daily lives. What people of however many centuries ago wanted are, at the heart, the same things we want today. My stories start, always, with the characters. Once I know who they are, then it’s time to figure out where and when they might have lived. It’s more a matter of following them around and climbing into their skins. Where do they go when they go home? If they’re late, who misses them? What does their voice sound like when they speak? These aren’t, most often, things I can dictate, but things I have to discover.

Which may, in the end, be what’s up with my collection of Paris stationery. The voices will come when they come, at the right time, and when they do, it will be the most natural thing in the world.

Course Corrections

November 9, 2015November 9, 2015annabowling Leave a comment

This is one of those posts I started several times, erased, started over, thought about, thought about skipping, realized I was out of writing quotes I had not used yet, muttered bad words, etc. I ingested candy corn, which I have recently discovered I do not hate, learned the hard way that the maker of said candy corn does matter (live and learn, right?) checked on under-the-weather-family member, almost tripped over Skye, almost tripped over Skye, almost tripped over Skye (cat people, you know how that goes) and finally came to the conclusion that this is One of Those Days.

We all have them. In my case, day could have gone on Schedule A or Schedule B, but life happened, and we ended up going on Schedule C, which meant no schedule, because nobody had counted on Schedule C, and I Hate Days With No Schedule. Hate, hate, double hate. Seriously bothers me to the point of irritability. Can I get a ballpark figure on when anybody wants lunch at least? Desired menu items? Give me something, people? No, nothing? Oookay. This is why I have an office (which does not, contrary to popular belief translate to “storage area.” We’re working on that.)

I work on a daily to-do list, which makes time a lot easier to manage. Days like this require course correction. Grousing about how things are not going the way I wanted them to go only takes me so far. It does not get the current ms written or the completed one edited, nor does it write blog entries. If there is one writing related thing on my list that I can control today, it is getting this blog entry written and posted. Sometimes, life is going to get chaotic, and the only sane thing to do is to call a time out. For me, that means getting away from the chaos and retreating behind office door. One of these days, I am going to have to make a new Writing Cave sign. Even on days when I’m not able to get to the keyboard, I can write in my longhand notebooks, both all purpose and for each project. Staying in touch with the stories that way and the discipline of putting pen to paper helps a lot on days like this.

Creativity starts, for me, with showing up. Butt in chair, pen on paper, and, as a former writing group facilitator often said, the process begets the product. In short, get the pen on the paper, keep it moving, and content will come. I’ve found that almost always works. Sometimes, trusting ourselves as writers is scary business, hypercritical gremlins picking at our clothes and whispering in our ears how we’re not good enough, they’ll all know we’re only faking it, don’t quit the day job, other writers do it better, and, in fact, so well that there’s no need for us. They’re wrong, of course, but we still hear them, and it’s still a big nuisance.

The notebooks in today’s picture were all purchased or received with love, and begun with good intentions, whether attached to a particular project or as an all-purpose book. Each one of them has some to several pages, but not more than 25% (math is not my strong suit, so probably an even lower number than that) filled with…something. Either I realized I was going in the wrong direction, that book wasn’t as good a fit for its intended content as I thought it was at first glance, or I flat out wasn’t feeling it anymore. In any event, there they sat, stuffed out of the way so I wouldn’t be reminded of Yet Another Failure.

Until today. There I was, at my desk, casting about for something to photograph, and there was the tiny pink Moleskine, my attempt to satisfy my longing for its full size version (and to be a handy dandy reference for one of those back burner historicals.) This led to the spiral pink notebook (similar reason) and the red-violet with the silver heart (too cool on the inside, with blank and lined pages both) and the blue deconstructed Studio Oh! book that I started using as a catchall book for Her Last First Kiss, then set aside when I found the right one. The Papaya! Art “Fearless” (hah) book that I’d forced myself to write anything in, then abandoned because that felt forced and plain and downright disheartening…you see the pattern here. I did, too, and stared down this sampling of notebooks that didn’t (not the only ones, by any chance) and had a revelation. They weren’t ruined forever.

Nope. What are we talking here, a few pages? I love all these books. They’re pretty. Why do they have to be abandoned because I made a mistake or two in the early pages? News flash: they don’t. It’s okay to rip or cut pages out, glue them shut, staple, tape or paper clip them together if I think I might want to refer to them in the future, and start all over, fresh and brand new. I’d be thrilled if I were to receive brand new copies of these as gifts, so why not give them to myself? I can start fresh and fill them with the sort of art and writing I do now. I like that idea.

If that can be true about the physical notebooks themselves, it can also be true of the stories that go inside them. Okay, my first try at Book X didn’t turn out the way I wanted. I walked away, or it did. Maybe we decided on a mutual break, but there are still some parts, a character, an idea, a relationship, a setting, whatever, that hasn’t gone away, no matter how deeply I tried to bury it. Why not take that bit and make it into something new? What would I be losing? Nothing. What do I have to gain? Books, my friends. Big, sprawling tales of love long ago, and happily ever afters for all.

Sometimes, course corrections can take us to where we were always meant to be.

Typing With Wet Nails: Fountain Pen Day Edition

November 6, 2015November 6, 2015annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Anty has not been sleeping a lot this week, and she is not sure why. I do not see the problem here, because that means she is up during the night and has more time to focus on me, but she does tend to get crabby, so that probably is a problem after all. It has been an eventful week. Today is a good day, though, because it is Fountain Pen Day. Anty only found out about this holiday today, but she is still very happy about it. Anty loves fountain pens.

Right now, she has three of them, all by Pilot. They are disposable, which means that, when they are empty, they are all done. Anty is not very happy about that aspect, so she is looking into refillable fountain pens. She has one, also by Pilot, that is clear purple plastic, but she misplaced it, and would need to look up what refills it takes, anyway. In the meantime, she has these.

Black, blue and purple are good for a start.

This kind of pen also comes in turquoise and red. Anty does not remember if it comes in any other colors, but if it does, she wants them, too. She likes writing with fountain pens very much, especially in her special notebooks by Paperblanks. They are fancy, and Anty likes fancy. Take a lok at this one. This is her longhand book for Her Last First Kiss. It gets blue ink because the cover is blue.

Anty calls this one “Big Daddy Precious.”

Here is a look inside her longhand notebook for Ravenwood:

These notes will probably not be in the final book. Probably.

The cover for this one is black, and it has a dragon on it. There are not any dragons in this book. That is okay by me, because dragons are scary. I think. I have not met any dragons, not that I know of, anyway. There is a stuffed dragon in Anty’s office, but I know the difference between stuffed and alive, so I do not count him on this one. Anty likes this book a lot because the pages are gray, with a darker gray border. She says that puts her in the right mood to write about this particular story. It takes place after a very big sickness called the Plague. The people vets who lived back then did not know how to stop it, so this was a very scary time. Anty got the idea for this story when she read a magazine that had an article about writing medieval romance and one about writing postapocalyptic romance in the same issue. Anty likes both of those things and wanted to see if she could mush them together. Since she finished the book, I think she did. Now it is time for her to make sure it is as good as it can be at this time and send it to publishers and see if they will like it.

Anty has been in her office more often this week, and not only during the daytime. when she cannot sleep, she sometimes goes into her office. One time this week, I got very curious. I waited until Anty had all of her attention on the things on her desk, and I crept over the threshold. I am a ninja kitty a lot of the time. I like to get veryveryveryclose to my humans without them noticing. Then it is a big surprise when they move, and there I am. Sometimes I get scared and run away, but I come right back. That is how it works on regular floors. The floor in Anty’s office does not have a regular floor. It has a carpet that is different from the one in her and Uncle’s bedroom. I do not like the office carpet much, especially since my claws caught in it.

I got my claws un-caught, but it was noisy, and Anty looked, and she saw me and I saw her seeing me, and I ran. I came right back, because I love Anty, and figured she might feed me for being a brave girl. She did. She went back to sleep after that. I like to think I helped her with that, because it is part of my job as a mews. It is also my job to help her recap some TV shows, like last night’s Sleepy Hollow. That recap is not posted yet, but she will share it with you when it is. Maybe she will even let me update this entry, but I think I will wait to ask her until after she has a nap. I can help her with that, too, so that is about it for this week. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

Until next week…

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

PS: Happy Fountain Pen Day.