personal

Free Writing, The Chaos of Organization, and Other Stories

annabowling Leave a comment

Wednesday’s blog on Thursday should give an iindicator of how acgtual Wednesday went. I had the very odd (for me) experience of oversleeping yesterday, which gave an element of surreality to the entire day. I meant to blog. I meant to edit. I got most of my social media current and then played Sims.

Theoretically ideal wakeup time today, and since I get a feel for the things I need to do the next morning, the night before, the task list wasn’t too hard to make. Unfortunately when it came to “what do I want to blog about today?” the immediate answer was “the fluff if I know.” “Fluff,” in this case, being a family word for a word that rhymes with “duck,” and is not often said around small children.

In practice, butt in chair and fingers on keyboard allows me to move on down the list instead of beating myself up over not knowing what to write. Because I do. I do it every morning in my morning pages, aka free writing. That means whatever is in my head goes on the page. This morning, for example, I filled two entire pages out of arranging the pens in my ballpoint pen cup in rainbow order and writing down my opinions of each one. That’s all. Not earth shattering in importance or creativity, but I did it and came out of it ready to take care of this whole Thursday thing, or at least figure out my priorities.

Right now, they feel like a jumble. My main job ondraft two of Drama King is to look for missing scenes, smooth out rough ones, and get word count up to goal. For A Heart Most Errant, I need to get back to addressing the first round edits and get it back to my editor. I paid for her services. I should use them. I want to use them.

There is also prep work to be done for this upcoming Saturday, where I waill present my workshop, Play in Your Own Sandbox, Keep All the Toys. This is my most popular workshop, and I love giving it. I also need to reacquaint myself, because ehhhh, it’s been a while. I could probably learn from taking my own workshop. Going back to the well, as it were, is usually a good idea.

Photo by JESHOOTS.com on Pexels.com

Yesterday, I had to run some adult-y errands in the morning, and planned to attack my backlog of work like a valkyrie, but what did I do instead? Completely tear apart my shelves that hold notebooks, pens, paper, etc, and re-making them with the help of some distressed wooden crates, putting, as my mother would have termed it, “like with like.” I hated that term when I was younger, but Mom was on to something. This also means that my inability to find the set of A5 divider pockets I bought on that same outing extremely vexing because it’s not where it’s supposerd to be, even though the binder and papers are all ready for them to join the fray. I can only assume they are hiding because they know what I have in store. I don’t blame them. I also know me, and I know that utter chaos is the black moment that comes before things snapping into place. Aka, don’t sweat it, keep going.

Photo by Elly Fairytale on Pexels.com
there will be fairy lights

Which is basically where it leaves me right now. I have work to do, soem right the fluff now, and soem that cam be done after. Butt on chair, fingers on keyboard. Stock photos are fine when bookshelves are not ready for their closeups. The important thing is to keep making progress in the right direction.

Monday Stream of Consciousness

annabowling Leave a comment

Jumping into this post with no actual plan, because A) blog is under the “low hanging fruit” category of stuff I need to do today, and B) if I don’t do it now, it will nag me throughout doing anything else.

Usually, Sundays are my planning afternoons. Yesterday, though, had a few different influences. A) I am still getting used to new medication, so surprise slumber parties for one are a thing; B) yesterday was also a full house, with all family member hone in a smallish space, and C) I am not at all sure that my plan to coast along from April through June on mini planners and no classic planners is going to work as well as I thought.

That last one is the easiest to fix: hop on over to a craft store that carries my planner of choice, grab a currently dated one from the clearance section, hand over a pittance and jump right in, back to the usual method. That leaves mostly just today to be free floating in no classic planner land. I could technically re-date older pages, but that is far too labor intensive when what I want to do is jump in and lay out for my plan of attack.

I like seeing things laid out, where I can tell at a glance what jobs I need to do, to get to where I am. Making it aesthetically pleasing is a plus, and, with the new YouTube channel, I have a lot more ideas of what I want to not only talk about, but write about as well. I don’t normally do TBRs but I see those are frequent on BookTube, and look like they may indeed work toward my goal of reading more historical romance. They also look fun. I could use some more fun, and, after a very long time without it, fun is something I can do these days.

See the source image

Over the last couple of nights, I binged Picnic at Hanging Rock on Amazon Prime. Loved it. Australian Gothic is a thing, and I want more of it. Which reminded me that I very much do want to rereach On The Jelllicoe Road by Melina Marchetta. I refuse to use the shortened American title, because that’s not its name. Yes, I will die on that hill. I also want to see On the Jelicoe Road made into a movie (I don’t usually) with an all-Australian cast, on location, with 80s film effect on the 80s timeline. Failing that, I would like to hear it on audio, with two Australian narrators.

Thankfully, I can carry that over into historical romances set in Australia, by Australian authors, like Cadace Proctor and Alison Stuart. Ms. Stuart also writes Engilsh Civil War historical romance, which is one of my all time favorite settings.

In the meantime, I get to do mundane adulting things, such as putting away laundry and straightening my work area, both things that are super good for letting my creative brain do stuff on the back burner where I am not looking.

I am a little disappointed that I won’t be doing Camp Nano this round, but July is not that long away, and it’s also when I can bust out my brand new eighteen month planner, so I take that as a sign. What do you think?

Plan B and Other Stories

annabowling Leave a comment

For the last few nights, my brain has been throwing some killer slumber-less parties, with me as the guest of honor. It is not my favorite thing. Being awake at night is different from being awake during the day, and while reading is sometimes possible, especially listening to audiobooks, or letting the robo-voice in my Kindle app turn any book into an audiobook, writing, well, that’s a different story. Pun intended.

Planner fatigue?

We will start with the planner aspect, because I am definitely a planner. Normally, I like to take time on Sunday afternoon to plan out the week ahead. This week, I did plan on Sunday, but the current lined vertical layout, eh, no. Done. Over it. I ended up taking blank pages of a vertical layout from an old planner, glued them to the lined vertical pages that glared at me, and then followed a YouTube tutorial to design the layout. it’s pretty functional rather than decorative, but I am okay with it.

I also took a picture of it, but can I remember what file I saved it to? Nope. I have absolutely zero doubt that I will find it when looking for something else, so I will trust in that outcome and keep going forward.

Photo by Ono Kosuki on Pexels.com

The worst part about a week like this is that I had to postpone my weekly chat with Melva Michaelian. I like to be current on my assignments when we meet, so moving that back a couple of days and spreading the backlog over those in-between days, should make things a lot more manageable. There’s also figuring out which family members will be home when, when we want to handle some adulting things, like housecleaning, recycling, and quality time, because I actually like the people who live with me, so that is a very good thing.

When my brain gets all oogy, as Real Life Romance Hero puts it, making lists helps me a lot. Focus on one thing at a time. Why am I feeling uncomfortable about that? What could I do to make any degree of change in that matter? How would I like it to look, ideally? There are definitely medical and spiritual components, but I’m focusing on the mental parts for right now.

Taking those couple of weeks away from planning in my catchall planner were not a good idea, even though it felt okay in the minute. Planner fatigue is a real thing, but it doesn’t have to be a block in the road. I like a lot of different kinds of planners. Try a different format, et viola. Stop fretting about what isn’t working, turn to something I know does work, and see if that gets me somewhere better.

This time, it kind of did. Housemate has her staycation this week, so we are scheduling how to best manage the days when there are two adults in one apartment, and even the days when there will be three. Real Life Romance Hero has his days off as well, so there are going to be days when I will, most likely, have to put on the hot pink cat ear headphones and put on the flashing ear lights. That’s our family signal for I Am Working On Writer Stuff. Do. Not. Disturb. Or. Else. Do Not Fight Me; You Will Not Win.

Because I love writing. I really, really, really do. Even when I am tired. Even when I am super tired. Planning helps. Pretty stuff helps. Tea helps. Remembering why I do this, remembering that it’s the kind of work I have wanted to do since I was but a wee little princess, and my best shot at being the me-est me that ever there me’d, well, that goes a long, long way.

do I need a new signoff pic? Because I think I need a new signoff pic.

Cat Trees and Kneeling Chairs

annabowling Leave a comment

Last night, I promoted the kneeling chair I have been using since the 90s from office chair to cat tree. This was a difficult decision. Somewhere deep in the storage unit, I do have a more traditional office chair, a gift from a local writer friend two moves ago. We will be digging it out, but probably not until my back stops twinge-ing, I am not sure exactly what the cause of this back pain is, but the most likely culprit is the kneeling chair.

Photo by Anthony Shkraba on Pexels.com

I still love the dratted thing. I bought it decades ago, with money I earned from working retail. I probably paid more than I should have for it, but A) it was my money, B) a favorite author/writing inspiration had that same model chair and loved it, and C) it was (and is) pretty darned cool. It is, however, old enough to own property, join the military, get married without parental consent, and drink. It has probably wanted to do exactly that over the years we have been together, and it deserves its retirement as Storm support. (Unless Storm decides she no longer wants the chair now that it is not my office chair anymore. She is a cat, after all.)

Real Life Romance Hero moved one of the kitchen chairs in to take the place of the kneeling chair. I like the straight back, and I am already feeling the change in how using the computer physically feels Back support for the win. While I do believe there is a lot of truth in the proverb that a poor workman blames his tools, I am also fully aware that having good tools does’t hurt.

That’s largely where we are in a lot of things in the Annaverse. (Is that a thing? I say it’s a thing, and I rule the Annaverse, so now it’s law.) We have been in our apartment for six months now, so half as long housed as we were unhoused, and believe me, we are insanely delighted to be able to say that. It’s time to not only put down roots, but to make sure those roots are the right roots for the lives we want to live. For me, that means embracing life as a writer of romance and romance related blabber, and making sure that I have what I need to do that job most effectively.

Thankfully, for me, that means making a lot of lists. I would take a picture of the papers and binder discs that are scattered all over the stripped bed right now (housemate is off doing mega laundry; she is a superhero) but my back says that is not an advisble move with the angles I would have to put myself. Sitting in a straight backed chair is good, though, and lying on my side in a pillow fort is good, too. Fortunately, those are both writing positions of choice. So far, so good.

Research is underway to get a new laptop PC. We have become, over the last couple of years, the laptop graveyard> I am not going to give up on the vintage MacBook Pro, but the others, well, those probably are best suited to recycling. The HP laptop with no H key, and the screen that folds all the way back when it wasn’t designed to fold back at all; the hot pink laptop that I still love but which screen won’t show anything unless I I lie flat on my back and hold the screen at an angle that is best described as three-quarters closed. This is probably a severed wire, and probably an easy fix. We will see. RLRH also has his share of laptops that have gone to that great power strip in the sky. I can’t play Sims on that one, though, and that’s become essential. Hence the research. Writing and Sims. I know my priorities.

We may also be doing some research into office chairs, and/or pick up an interim chair in case the chair in storage won’t fit in the back of Housemate’s car, and will need to wait for when we rent a van and move the “real” furniture home. Furniture comes from a variety of sources. Parents’ homes, secondhand, locally sourced, brand new, and the nebulous area of me finally deciding that the best way to incorporate the hammered copper topped coffee table my grandfather made when my dad was little is to repurpose it, maybe as a dresser topper, or maybe with a new set of legs, to serve as a dining table or desk. We will see. I know I want my secretary desk, that I have been in love with since I was about four, for my longhand pursuits, and then pick everything up and take it to a separate computer desk when it’s time to transcribe.

Storm, as always, supervises it all.

As for the writing, my plans to jump right into it this morning snagged on getting the mega laundry ready to head out, with a pause for my weekly conference with Melva. We talked about the audio complications that kept our interview from going as well as we all wanted, how an offhand joke will make a great scene for our planned Christmas collection. That will probably go into the notebook I am setting up for my collaborations with Melva, most likely in index card format. Getting stuff down in the quickest away possible and filing it away works well for me to get the thought where it belongs and letting me focus on the work I need to be doign now.

I am very much into “now” right now. What can I do now? What works best for me now? What do I need right now? What is no longer serving its purpose and needs to move on along so it doesn’t become a stumbling block? What have I put away that I really need to bring back out because I miss it and want it and it’s part of the bigger picture and always has been? There’s a lot of stuff like that.

For today, getting this blog post up, even if it’s a big blob of blather, was essential. I don’t need the guilt of a missed blog post dogging me into writing time or family life, and consistency is something I want to improve. Hence this, and also trusting myself and my words, hence stopping it here and moving along to the next thing on my list for the day.



Typing With Wet Paws: Mental Health Day Edition

annabowling Leave a comment

Tails up Storm Troopers. I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. This is an unusual day as everybody’s mental health days seem to have coincided, so this will be more of a zoom-by post. I am super good at zoomies, as Aunt Anna can tell you, especially in the middle of the night. Woo!

Writing this week did not go as planned, but that’s what next week (and an especially beautiful writing assistant) is for. In the meantime, time to relax and take in and give belly rubs (to me) and all of that other good well filling stuff.

Aunt Anna and Aunt Melva’s video interview would have made a great sitcom episode, as Aunt Anna, famous for technology problems, had a lot of sound issues, and, well, basically got to sit there and look pretty.

Aunt Anna cleans up pretty good.

There was some insomnia involved, aka Aunt Anna being up to join me in Midnight Parkour for a couple of nights, and then this morning, the crash. That means she took a big nap, and now feels pretty okay, but still needs to read and watch and play stuff before she can do much braining. It also means, that since both Uncle Rheuben and Aunt Linda are also tired, that all of the humans are staying in tonight and getting pizza and then “being feral cats” as they say. I have never been a feral cat, myself, as I was born in a house (with a LOT of cats, as my first mom says) and went directly to my first mom and then to these guys. When I had my walkabout last summer, there were a couple of feral cats in the area I wandered, but we didn’t talk much. The possums were cool, though.

So anyway, what we get here is Aunt Anna helping me with this post and then she is going to flop on the bed to catch the cross breeze from two open windows (it is very very nice spring-like weather here in NY) and relax with the whole family. I, of course, am very very good at relaxing. Well, not at Midnight Parkour time, but most of the rest of the time.

Anyway, Aunt Anna plans on a bunch of reading, and since she just got some new library e-books, plus she has Kindle Unlimited, that is going to be all set. Nice mixture of historical romance and contemporary YA. I am unsure of the number of cats involved in any of those stories. There will also be some planning involved, maybe a new planner because the academic calendar ones are starting to show up on store shelves, and most exciting of all, it will be new laptop time. Aunt Anna has a history with laptops (see her incompatibility with technology above) but things like her Kindle Fire not being that great for Zoom conferences and such, it is time for a new device, with a camera and a microphone, which means she may as well give the You Tube thing another try, because there are not a lot of historical romance Book Tube channels, and none that Aunt Anna has seen by kids her own age, so that’s a hole in the market that she might like to fill. I’ll let her talk more about that later.

Checking in with Goodreads, that shows us that Aunt Anna is currently kicking tush and taking names in her reading challenge for 2021, with 26 books read out of 90, putting her 29% of the way to her goal, and a full 9 books ahead of schedule. Go, Aunt Anna, go! I am pretty sure that my cuddling with her at reading time is a big, big help with all of that. I will continue to do my part.

Shouldn’t be long now before the pizza, and I will of course be needed to supervise everything, so I am going to bounce (seriously, I have a very sproingy trot) and get down to business. Headbonks!

Typing With Wet Paws: In Like a (Calico ) Lion Edition

annabowling Leave a comment

Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws;. It has been a full year now since the Before Times, which gives people a lot of feels. I recommend kitty cuddles as remedy. One year is a whole third of my life (give or take; we don’t know my actual birthday, so we are celebrating it the same as Big Sister Skye’s, February 14th, because I was probably born thereabouts anyway.)Aunt Anna finds that kitty cuddles, journaling, and Sims are really good ways to cope. Also reading and writing romance novels.

this is me last year; am I a grownup now?

Now that it’s March, Aunt Anna is looking forward to when the new spring planners are released, because this re-dating everything every month is for the birds. (mmm, birds) She finds that dating undated stuff is a lot easier than red-dating wrong-dated stuff. I am not sure how that works out because humans are complicated. I think they could use some jingle balls. Those always work for me. Especially at 3AM. New planner things come out in June. She will either get a brand new pre-dated one, or use undated printables. There was an incident on Monday regarding the whole re-dating thing. Aunt Anna knows a lot of words.

dashboard vs vertical layout
big/letter size/vs classic/composition size

Aunt Anna obviously has time to figure things out, and she has a lot of options, so expect some flailing about and then settling on the right thing right under the wire. That’s how she works. That goes for writing as well as planning. I am used to it by now.

One of the planner things Aunt Anna has not yet settled on is her reading tracker. I mean, she has the notebook she wants, and the printables, but she hasn’t gotten around to printing or having them printed yet, so maybe something else will work better for now? Right now, she is using Goodreads, so let’s see how she is doing on her challenge. As of today, she has read 23 books out of her goal of ninety. That puts her at 26 percent of the way to her goal, and 8 books ahead of schedule. Well done, Aunt Anna.

Buried Under Romance had to take a break last week. There have been a lot of breaks, which is a good indicator that there are new and exciting things to do with that blog, coming very soon. That’s a fun way to think about it, rather than frustrating herself.

On the home front, it has been interesting. We have had super cold days, super windy days (I am glad we live inside!)some nice days, and the smoke alarm went off when Uncle Rheuben tried to reheat a lasagna. He also fixed two different sinks that did not like the cold weather. Aunt Anna says that is because this is an older building and the pipes don’t like winter. Well, winter is almost done, and it will soon be time to sit in open windows and chatter at birds. Not sure the humans are going to do the chatter at birds part, but it couldn’t hurt to try. Aunt Anna and Uncle Rheuben think it would be fun to take me out in a cat stroller, but Aunt Linda is concerned that I might go out on another solo adventure, which is a valid concern. Not that being out by myself was that great.

That should be about it for now, so I will leave you with this picture of me totally not plotting with Esme.

Esme and me, totally not planning anything

Headbonks!

Spring Thaw?

annabowling Leave a comment

This past weekend, I had a raging case of insomnia, felt-like-subzero temperatures, two clogged sinks, one smoke alarm that is lasagna-sensitive, one pair of glasses gone walkabout (and then brought back home) an opportunity to improve family communication, two power outages in the same day, and a general feeling of swamp-edness. In short, pretty much what one would expect for the end of February.

Photo by Jill Wellington on Pexels.com

All of this did tospyy-turv-i-fy my plans to kick butt and take names in the realm of double edits, and, after a talk with the magnificent Melva, sticking a toe into new writing for Queen of Hearts. :Ulp: This week also brought a-in retrospect, hilarious- DM conversation with a person inviting me to present a virtual workshop for Organization A, when I thought they were asking for Organization B, Oopsie. Thankfully, both parties were able to laugh about it, and there are now not one but two workshops in my reasonably near future, one in April, and one in one of the autumn months. More details on those as they are confirmed. Having a workshop to give in April makes up, to some degree, not being able to attend a regional RWA conference in person, like I did in the Before Times. Hopefully soon, we will be in the After Times, and I will once again be picking our conference shoes and packing an extra bag to bring home all the free swag and signed books.

Right now, I am looking at doing my start of week planning (writing related) in the middle of the week, which feels…weird. Chalk it up to the change of seasons. Before Times Me would be inclined to say “eh, this far into the week, write it off (no pun intended) and slack until Monday, then come out of the gate swinging.” Not going to lie, that option is still appealing. Especially so, since Real Life Romance Hero has the windows open, for some gorgeous fresh air, which we definitely couldn’t do back when the temperatures were in the single degrees. Welcome to March in New York.

March in New York means that leaving the house requires a few special considerations. Bring along your parka, bikini, umbrella, sunblock, hair ties (if your hair is long, because wind is brutal) plus sunglasses, a sweater or three, rain boots, and a travel mug that can handle hot and cold beverages, because there will be times during the day when you will want both. Possibly both at the same time, but we can’t have everything. Before I know it, there will be baby ducks i n the lake in the park that is a few minutes’ walk down the street. No Tulip Festival this year, because Covid, but I am expecting the flowers to be there anyway. Things are coming back, and I am happy to see them come as they will.

One thing that came back, unexpectedly, was watching TV. I binged the third season of Disenchantment. The end of that season came far too soon, so I am now in the position of finding another show to do the same thing, but this is why I set up my catchall journal/commonplace book with lists of shows and movies I want to see on the streaming services we have. Actually, there are a couple of titles I need to add. Maybe reading historical romance will be next. I did, however, finish Maya Rodale’s Dangerous Books For Girls , which is nonfiction about the stigma against romance novels, and where it came from, as well as how to handle it. Working on a review of that, but I do want to look through my reference books in storage and find some of my older books about the romance genre. Some things are wildly different than they were in the 80s and 90s, and some things never change. I have thoughts about all of it.

Spring is also time to check out all of the new pastel and floral stationery things that are coming out, beause pretty stationery makes me want to use all of it, which works out well when I am writing and editing a lot of things. Which is what I am doing, come to think of it. April is Camp NaNo, after all, and I think I want to participate this year. We’ll see how it goes. Sometimes preparing a project notebook is like getting a garden ready for planting season. At least that’s what I remember from what my mom used to do in the spring.

Spring is not my favorite season, but I do like the aspect of coming back to life, which is very much in line with a lot of my, well, life, these days. I don’t hate that. Also, I have hot pink kitty ear headphone with lights, so those alone are a fun reason to gt back to the keyboard. Pictures forthcoming.

Anna

Sea Legs, Inside Out

annabowling Leave a comment

Happy Wednesday, Liebchens. This post is not about pirates (well, there may be pirates, tangentally) or the Pixar movie (haven’t seen it.) Wednesday is kind of my Monday this week, and I am okay with that. We had a full house at home for the first two days of the week, so those became family days. A trip to the storage unit yielded the box that is now in the kitchen, holding my AlphaSmart. I have missed that baby, muchly, in the year plus we were apart. Having it back now feels right, and that it came at the right time. I have t he first round of edits on A Heart Most Errant on my desk, Melva and I are currently second-drafting Drama King, and laying the groundwork for Queen of Hearts. For this week, my part is to write the character profile of our heroine, Heather (Chasing Prince Charming readers already met her in that book.) I am not using any kind of template, but may or may not be developing one as I go. We’ll see. I am circling Her Last First Kiss and figuring out the best way to get back on the horse, and taking a more planned approach to my blogging, not only here but on Buried Under Romance, and MelvandAnna.com.

the once and future setup

Phew. That feels like a lot, but it’s a good lot. I could use some normal about now. Finding a big box of normal in storage felt super duper good. I honestly do feel like I am getting my sea legs back after too long on land, writing wise, . There’s even the outline of a pirate trilogy in the works (see? Pirates.) and learning the best way to have what I want to do and the best way to do that work together in the most amicable fashion. The whole sleep cycle thing remains a work in progress. The weighted blanket is amazing, thought the whole sleep schedule thing, and valiantly pushing through fatigue to Get Stuff Done is usually not the most effective way to reach the goals I want to reach.

Like today, for example. Not only is Wednesday my Monday this week, but 1PM became my 9AM, as sleep sometimes happens in two or more shifts. Before, I would have thought of that as some sort of failure, and lugged the failure weight along with me as I stabbed things with a stick (metaphorically.) I’m over that. If my Sunday afternoon planning session ends up happening on Wednesday evening instead, that’s not a failure, it’s an adjustment. Still feeling all of this stuff out, and making note, while I do, on what works. If you know me, you know me and notes. Good thing.

For today, even with the “late” start, which is an on time start, because it began when I woke from a decent amount of sleep, the plan is: blog, plan, and work on character profile. I like doing all of those things. While I would like for the profile work to happen at the same time I am watching a movie, or streaming some sort of TV show, but I am not there yet. There, in this case, means watching streaming stuff. I want to be there, and it will come in time, but for now, my background noise is usually YouTube. Maybe an audiobook. Maybe I will listen to somebody I don’t know play computer games. I do that sometimes.

I am also looking forward to a super fun workshop that starts of February 22nd, Revive Your Resilience, with abundance coach Eryka Peskin. This post is not sponsored, (though I am totally open to such endeavors) but Eryka did mention that she would not be heartbroken if I shared the word. I have taken several of Eryka’s workshops, and even wrote a thing or two for prior events, and I highly, highly recommend checking out her stuff, which you can do with the link above. Five days, five exercises to help you figure out How To Bounce Back, and a super supportive community, including me, because I will be there. It’s also totally free, and there will be giveaways.

In short, it makes a lot of sense to have all of this going on at the cusp of the change from winter to spring. We live even closer to the park now than we did in our first Albany apartment, and soon there will be baby ducks. I will take pictures of them and visit them on a regular basis. Maybe I will bring the AlphaSmart.

Typing With Wet Paws: Planner Rehab Edition

annabowling Leave a comment

Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is our regularly scheduled Typing With Wet Nails. Aunt Anna had some notes for a regular sort of post for me to write today, but it turned out to be a domestic tornado day, with maybe somebody coming by to take care of some plumbing issues. We don’t know if they are going to come or not, or when, so Aunt Anna doesn’t want to get too deeply involved in writerly things (also, she is sharing the office-y space with Uncle Rheuben, so alternative stuff to do is the ordedr of the day. As it often does, this turns to planner stuff.

One thing that Aunt Anna has learned is that the best planner or notebook is the one that she actually uses. She has also understood that there will be more paper. Sometimes, the best way to find out what sort of notebook a cover wants to be is to set it up and then see what transpires. Since Aunt Anna still needs to print out her reading tracker stuff, and she has other covers that are that size, and she just got the color and pattern of filler paper from Yellow Paper House that she has been drooling over for literally years (since Skye was the kitty here; that’s longer than I have been alive) this provides some useful direction. She took everything out and put in only the new paper, then started adding other things, like this.

let’s try this again

Aunt Anna still needs to figure out the divider situation, and probably add some page lifters to the front and back, so that pages don’t slip underneath the ring mechanism. She will probably use this for thinking on paper, maybe for writing snail mail letters. She’ll figure it out. This assortment of colors for the pages is called Cool Seaglass, which reminds her of oceans and shorelines and the way they used to have regional RWA conferences in the Before Times. Probably t6here will be some later on, but, for now, Aunt Anna will capture as much of that in a notebook as she can.

Next, we have a setup that is for sure only temporary (unless she falls in love with it, but don’t hold your breath.) Aunt Anna loves her micro Happy Notes inspired notebook that she made from scratch, but it needs a cover to protect it, and keep a pen and other accessories together. Also it is slightly larger and less likely to get buried in the bottom of her purse.

Though the book itself is passport size, the cover, by Webster’s Pages, is pocket sized, which is bigger. Aunt Anna is basically trying this to make sure she likes having a cover on the micro, or if she would rather have a pocket sized traveler’s notebook, like this used to be. We’ll see what happens. It will probably be one of the two. She’s still in transition when it comes to figuring out teh whole notebook thing, but she has come to accept that this is part of her process.

Purr-sonally, I don’t mind at all, because every new thing she tries means that I get to lay on and play with a lot of different stuff. That is all very good as far as I am concerned. Sometimes, dealing with all of this paper and pen stuff is what allows her brain to settle on all of the writing stuff that is on the back burner when she is stationery-ing.

Since I promised (or vaguely alluded) last time, I do need to update you on Aunt Anna’s Goodreads reading challenge. Right now, she is doing pretty well, at nineteen percent of the way to her goal. That means she has seventeen books read out of her goal of ninety, putting her seven whole books ahead of schedule. One thing that helps a lot is audio books, and another is turning in a little early and reading while cuddling me. Cats and books are natural companions on cold winter’s nights.

Okay, I think that is going to be it for now, since Aunt Anna has to go do other stuff and I am not allowed to use the computer unsupervised. (Last time there may or may not have been a surprise delivery from an unnamed provider of catnip items.)

Headbonks!

Typing With Wet Paws: Special Wednesday Edition

annabowling Leave a comment

Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is a special Wednesday edition of Typing With Wet Paws. Part of my job as Aunt Anna’s mews is to fill in for her when her other obligations keep her from the blogsphere, and this is one of those times. No worries; everything is awesome over here, and once Aunt Anna figures out how to kick the tush of this current strain of insomnia, she will be back in full force.

Photo by Ono Kosuki on Pexels.com

The first round of edits on A Heart Most Errant has come home to rest. Aunt Anna is excited to get to work on that. One step closer to getting this book out to all of you, woot! She and Aunt Melva are also working on laying the groundwork for starting Queen of Hearts. This will of course require here to dedicate specific stationery items to those things, and I am sure she will tell you all about it here, and maybe on her Instagram. I had better do cute things so she will take more pictures of me, because her IG game is lagging, big time.

Photo by Lina Kivaka on Pexels.com

One good thing about insomnia is that Aunt Anna is actually doing more reading. I’m not giving any stats until Friday, but suffice it to say that she is happily delving into the Desperate Duchesses series by Eloisa James. She hasn’t really read much of Eloisa James before, but she adores the Georgian period, so this is going to scratch that itch. I will be scratching other things, like my scratchy thing, especially when the humans replace it, because I have pretty much scratched that one to cardboard shreds.

One of the things Aunt Anna thinks might help is getting a new office chair. This is kind of complicated because A) she really loves her kneeling chair, but it is pretty old. She got it when she worked retail, and Olivia was the family cat. Olivia was the cat before Skye, who was the cat before me. That’s three cats ago. I think maybe it is time for that to become a cat bed. B) she also has an office chair with a high back, which is in the storage unit, so the humans will need to move that one when they move some other furniture, or they might get another chair for the meanwhile. If they go with that option, that means a new box for me. I am very fond of boxes. I scratch the um, poo, out of them when I want Aunt Anna’s attention.

greatest hits picture of me, for kitty tax

Aunt Anna is actually making lists of household things because it is time for us to put down our roots and make this apartment our HOME. One of those things is going to be adding a lot of pillows to Aunt Anna and Uncle Rheuben’s bed, which may also be one of the things that will help her sleep during the approved human sleeping time. I like to help by sleeping on top of her, in case the weighted blanket could use a little help.

That’s going to be about it for right now, so I am going to supervise Aunt Anna, and see you guys again on Friday.

Headbonks!