possibly pointless blabbering

Off-ish

annabowling 4 Comments

Yesterday, I went to a New Year’s party. A bit later than the usual New Year’s party, yes, but these things happen in life. The dynamic was different than most years, but the company was still good, there were bacon wrapped figs (or maybe they were dates; it does not matter, as they are gone now, and they were delicious) and there were books to swap, which absolutely did happen. I not only came home with an armful of Patrick O’Brien books for Real Life Romance Hero, but a couple of big, thick, emotional historical romance novels, as well as two containers of leftovers, a lovely gift from our hostess, the lovely and talented M.P. Barker, and my brain, or perhaps my body (possibly a collaboration between the two) not entirely sure this was not an actual holiday. I was doing holiday things, after all, and went to a holiday place, where I saw holiday people and ate holiday food. Ergo, holiday.

The calendar is not giving me clear signals in either direction. The block for today says President’s Day, but it also says Monday, and I did haul my tired bones to the laundromat, where I gobbled nearly a third of a Barbara Samuel Georgian historical romance I have been wanting for literally years. We will not go into the brain fog that required me to fashion an impromptu scooping system out of the detergent box I got from the vending machine, so I could scoop the skin destroying remains of detergent a previous patron had left behind in the place where my hypoallergenic detergent goes. That brain fog, though, did give me a clear direction. I emailed N and asked if we could move tomorrow’s crit session to another day this week. N was amenable, and we picked a date.

Then, I took a nap. Hung out with Real Life Romance Hero, who also needs some downtime today. Had lunch delivered, consumed same with the two of us standing at the kitchen counter. Watched one of the food shows on the DVR. Figured I may as well mosey on into the office and get the blog post written, so I could say I did something today. Well, there was laundry, but I mean writing things. There’s a difference.

Though the honor of spending time in M.P Barker’s lovely home now means that it is a holiday, time to stuff myself with food, talk to people I don’t get to see every day, and go home with at least one book I did not possess before, there were many years when being in that house meant that it was Wednesday night, and that meant nag group, which meant I had better have pages ready. Though they weren’t always for the WIP of the moment, there were always some pages to bring, and I greatly appreciate the input I received from the others around that table.

Though I have my Tuesday mornings with N and email check ins with Critique Partner Vicki, I do not have a new version of nag group in my current location, a question I answered a few times yesterday. I will admit to some nostalgia, and I did float the idea of resurrecting some virtual form of those gatherings via modern technology, so we will see where that takes us. I had the chance to chat with some old friends, who are on different writing paths, and meet new people, two of whom asked where they could find my blog. I handed out a couple of cards, and do hope they’ll drop by. :waves hi, in case they are reading this right now:

When the sun set, Housemate and I headed for home (and The Walking Dead, because we have our priorities.) My brain drifted (no worries, I was in the passenger seat) from story ideas, to memories of writing groups past, to current WIPs and the upcoming NECRWA conference, my very first shot at co-presenting a conference workshop. By the time I got home, I had enough energy to watch The Walking Dead and pour myself into bed immediately afterward. I fully intended to push through and do all the stuff I planned on for a regular Monday, but this isn’t a regular Monday, and the week that went before is certainly anything but regular, so maybe a break from routine might not be the worst thing I could do.

Still, I’m  here, writing this, because, dangit, Monday is blog day, and I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t post something. So, this is here. Not really on, not really off, more like that comfortably aimless in between that I usually associate with the tucked-between week. Not that I’m thinking I’m going to get a whole week of that, because tomorrow is indeed a regular Tuesday, and there are chapters to write, that last Golden Heart entry to judge, pages to print, and laundry to put away, but, for today, I’ll take a moment or three, refill the well, so I have something to draw from tomorrow. Tomorrow, it’s on.

 

 

 

Past Present Future

annabowling Leave a comment

I had plans for this blog entry, took pictures of some of the tools of the trade I use every day, a clever trick I adapted from a notebook blog (which blog, though, I neglected to write down; ironic, that) and give a behind the scenes peek, as it were. What actually happened is that I somehow launched said pictures into space (okay, they are trapped in my draft folder) and it’s blog time, (also that I used the deskscape with a bunch of my paper things already, when I thought it would save the time of taking a new one) but the current desktop wallpaper is one of my very, very favorites (not quite Abbie and Ichabod level, but close) so let’s go with that for today’s theme.

Last week, after I’d finished my critique session with N, I got a text from Housemate, asking me what I was doing. Odd, that, because she should have been at work, and her work directly involves customer service, so sending “what are you doing” texts to household members during work hours is not exactly encouraged. Long story short, mental health day, and did I want to go out and do something? Since A) snow is my very, very favorite weather, and B) this is what it looked like outside at the time:

surprisesnowday310117

I took her up on her invitation. Remember the scene in Gilmore Girls, where Lorelai says snow is like catnip to her? Yeah. Same. Show me the white stuff, and I immediately have all the energy. am in a good mood and want to go do stuff. Preferably stuff that involves me going outside for at least a little while. We do not have snow today. We had some lovely gray clouds, and may get a snowstorm tomorrow, but I see sunshine outside my office window right now. I don’t like sunshine. I’ll consider this a lull between yesterday’s snow/rain and tomorrow’s snow.

Yesterday, I had another critique session with N, and came home energized, as usual. I made notes in my big daddy precious notebook

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Paperblanks silver filigree journal, Maya Blue Grande

this time, with my nifty trick of drawing a line at top and bottom of each page -so the page isn’t blank anymore- in copper metallic marker -so it’s fancy; I love fancy- and then on to the next task on the list, bouncing the Beach Ball around, very much outside my comfort zone. I did have my doubts, and no, the scene was not perfect, but I sent it off to Melva; she’s my partner on this one, so she’s the other half of the writing of this book, and she can point out what needs spiffing. This was one of those feel the fear and do it anyway moments. I am learning to embrace those moments and steer into the skid.

Earlier this week, Rhonda Lane, one of my co-presenters for “Blogging Isn’t Dead,” and the brave volunteer to put together our Powerpoint presentation (I have never done Powerpoint, so this will be another new adventure) asked if I would like to feature one of my books in my part of the …um…intro…thingy…where…they…tell people who we are, or something like that. My first inclination was to say no, my books are too old, but then I pulled up my big girl panties and sent the cover and information for Orphans in the Storm. I love that book. I’m proud of that book. That was the best book I could write at the time, when life was in chaos, and would continue to be for several years afterward, and I still love Simon and Jonnet, and am honored to have been the one to help them along the road to their happily ever after. It also has my favorite cover of any of my books. I mean, look at this gorgeousness:

 

orphansinthestorm

Cover art by Kathleen Underwood

 

Could I write a better book now, :coughtycough: years later? I certainly hope so. I’ve had a whole world more of life experience, some good, some bad, and I’ve written more, read more, taken in more information and influence and and and and…you get the picture. Do I plan on rewriting Simon and Jonnet’s story? Right now, no. They’re fine where they are. They’re happy. They’re good. That’s the beauty of writing a standalone novel; the happily ever really is exactly that. They’re together, they’re happy, they have an estate to manage, probably a gaggle of mini-thems by now, they have friends and family, and they’re better for what they’ve been through, even if they didn’t think that’s how things would turn out at the time they were actually going through it.

Would I like to revisit the seventeenth century at some point in the future? Absolutely. Right now, though, my focus is on the century that comes after that. I’m writing Hero and Heroine’s story, and there’s a seventeenth century tie to Guy and Girl’s story (not time travel; that’s a whole other kettle of fish) and I’m slowly gathering things I might like to play with for the next phase of the journey. That’ll get me where I need to go.

And (Not Or)

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It’s happening again. Monday, that is. It really shouldn’t feel like a surprise, as Mondays happen every week. That’s how it goes: Saturday, Sunday, Monday. It’s kind of a thing. I’m writing this blog entry because that is the top thing on my task list for today, and the plan is to get the things I know I can get done, done first, so that I have the bulk of  my time to work on the stuff that’s going to need more attention. In this case, the writing of actual fiction. Today, I need to get the second draft of the scene in Her Last First Kiss, where Hero and Heroine meet for the first time, ready for my meeting with N tomorrow morning.

Over the weekend, I’d had a plan to get current on my rest (sleep has not been that great recently) and relax by reading (did some of that) playing Sims (did some of that) and organizing: making the part of my office that doesn’t show in my deskscapes look less like the wake of a tornado and more like a working office, sync all my paper calendars/planners so that they all have the same information, and leave room for tracking my writing output (I kind of did some of that. At least all my RWA chapter meetings are now listed on my office calendar.) All of those partial things were on Saturday. Sunday, however, turned into a family day. I am not complaining. I love my family; they are weird and have a lot of variables, and, at one point, we all ended up eating honey barbecue boneless wings in the living room (no, that is not correct, as Housemate was in her room, decompressing from her own weekend) and anything that ends in honey barbecue boneless wings can’t be all that bad, really. So, no, not complaining, but….

There’s always a but. The part of me that is forever an eight-year-old boy now snickers because but sounds like butt, and he is not wrong. Only one t, though (mmm, tea….) and here’s the thing: those buts can change everything. (One t, inner eight-year-old boy. One t.) Because I love to plan, and I get antsy if I don’t know what’s coming next, and because I am making progress in not one, but two novels, with a goal of being able to pitch either or both at the NECRWA conference this year, I need to know what’s going to happen after those books are done. With Beach Ball, it’s easy; Melva and I have already sketched out two more collaborative stories, and we look forward to writing those.

When it comes to straight-on historical romance, though, I am on my own. Since I’ve already talked about choosing a focus for this phase of the game, here and here, that gives me a general direction :salute: of where that “what’s next” is going to go. As my Aunt S often said, writing is a business, and, in the current market, linked books are the big sellers. Okay, then, I would like to be a big seller. I get the logic behind this, and I like a challenge. Trouble is, that my brain does not  naturally think in series format (unless we’re talking multigenerational, but that’s a whole other story, pun intended, and we will deal with that later.) Hello, my name is Anna, and I am a unicorn; that rare romance writer/reader who honestly does prefer standalone stories. That’s how my brain works, so consciously building a linked story world is a challenge.

How do I face challenges? With organization. My plan for part of the weekend was to boot Scapple and slap down a bunch of things I love about eighteenth century romance; character types, locations, different eras within the era, names, tropes, etc, then see what connections my brain wanted to make. Not hard and fast, mind you, only something to get the wheels started turning. I have become a big proponent of “this book, now” – as in get this current draft done, and then we can think about what comes next, because I really do have to know what comes next, the same as I really do have to have pretty paper. That’s not  bad thing, to know what tools one needs to do the job, and I will still make time later in the week to get that particular ball rolling in that particular direction.

I’m grumbly that I didn’t get to do that when I wanted to do it, but that doesn’t mean I missed my chance forever :flings overly dramatic arm over brow and swoons on fainting couch: As I learned when I took the leap of playing with the Beach Ball with Melva, new things don’t mean I can’t do the other thing. Co-writing a modern day (but historical-adjacent) story doesn’t mean I can’t write historicals anymore, and planning out a linked story world doesn’t mean I have to bury my beloved standalones in the cold, cold ground and wander the moors forever mourning my one true passion. It’s and, not or. I can do more than one thing without cancelling out that original thing.

How to wrangle it all into submission (pun unintended, but I will let it stand) – that’s another matter, and I’ll figure it out along the way. For now, time to make some tea and hunker down in century eighteen for the day.

Typing With Wet Claws: Conference is Coming Edition

annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday.  This week, you get a greatest hits picture of me, because  Anty’s mail server loves the picture she took of me this morning so much that it does not want to send it to her desktop and wants to keep it all to itself. We are now in the second month of 2017, which is probably my birthday month. When Anty and Mama found me at the shelter, the vet said I was about ten months old, which means, since that was December, I must have been born in February. Maybe I am even a Valentine baby. Anty thinks that would be fitting, and, since part of her job as a writer of historical romance, is figuring out what could have happened in the past, we are going to go with that. More on that later, because, first, I have to talk about Anty’s writing and where you can find it.

First, as always, Anty has her Saturday Discussion post on Buried Under Romance. This week, she talked about books that become movies, in reality, or in readers’ minds. That post is here, and it looks like this:

 

BUR01feb17.png

maybe Anty should put the funny pictures at the top of the post?

The next two links are kind of sneaky, because they are not whole posts, but posts where Anty helped at Heroes and Heartbreakers. First, like every month, Anty got to say what her favorite book of the month is, and, this month, it was a book she already wrote about on that site, which she liked very much. That post has recommendations from other H&H bloggers, too, so it is possible, in theory, to get a whole TBR list from one post alone. That post is here, and it looks like this:

hanhbestreads

The other link is really the sneaky one, as Anty did not write the quiz, (Anty loves taking this kind of quiz) one of the potential results comes from a post she wrote, about a hero she liked very, very much. So, though Anty is not in that post, one of her favorite characters is, so she thought I might like to include it in my post anyway. She was right. That post is here, and it looks like this:

 

handhbookboyfriend

 

Now that it is February, that means April is only a little bit away, and that means it is almost time for the NECRWA conference. Anty loves going to that conference every year. Sometimes, people tell her how much they like my blog. My blog. Let us spend a moment on that, if we may. As Anty once said, when a fellow writer asked her how she comes up with new ideas for her blog every week, the key is to get a cat to write one third of the blog posts. I do not know if that will be part of her “Blogging Isn’t Dead” workshop, which she will be co-presenting with Corinna Lawson and Rhonda Lane, but I would not be surprised if the topic came up at some point.

The approach of conference time means that Anty has some work to do, not only to get together with Miss Corinna and Miss Rhonda, to talk about what they are going to say (and who is going to say what, specifically) or connect with people she definitely wants to talk to that weekend (Anty is an extrovert, so basically everybody) or what she is going to wear, but really important stuff. I know what you are thinking, and we can cross the most important item off that list right now. Uncle will feed and play with me while Anty is away. Conference weekend means Uncle and Skye weekend, so it is a holiday for me, too.

The really important thing Anty wants to focus on this year is her own books. Since she has a first draft done of Her Last First Kiss, and she and Anty Melva are working steadily toward the end of the first draft of the Beach Ball, it is time once again for Anty to look at pitch sessions, and what she is going to say to any agents or editors she might meet at any part of the conference. Anty has never gone to a conference with a book and a half in the hopper (book and two halves, if she wants to count her post-apocalyptic medieval, which really only needs half a revision to be ready for indie or traditional publishing. Probably indie, though, because it is post-apocalyptic medieval, and those aren’t exactly thick on the ground these days. Or any days. Anty still loves the story, though.)

It’s been a while since Anty has had a pitch session, and, as much as she loves them (Anty thinks eight minutes of a publishing professional’s undivided attention is right up there with amusement parks, romance-only bookstores, and bottomless cups of Lapsang Souchong tea; let’s be real, if there were an amusement park that had a romance-only bookstore in it and served bottomless cups of Lapsang Souchong tea, we might  never see Anty again.) getting ready for them is the nervous part. Anty has been in sessions where the other person has said “I love your sample, send me the whole thing” right away, and she has been in sessions where the other person has said “I don’t like stories that have Element X in them,” when Anty’s whole story is about Element X. Most sessions fall somewhere in the middle. Anty said I am not allowed to talk about the pitch session she had when she had been awake for three days straight, because that is when she gets into really punchy territory. That can be entertaining at home, not so much in a pitch session.

Since I am running out of room here, I will cut to the chase (please do not chase me; that would be scary) : it is time to hunker down and get stuff as ready as it can be, because one never knows when the other person might want the whole book, right now. It’s a magical time of year. Editors and agents go to these conferences for the specific reason of finding new writers and new books. They want to hear about what writers have to show them (but not in the people litterbox, please) so knowing what a writer wants to say about their books in advance is usually a good idea. This involves planning, and Anty loves planning, so I think she will be okay.

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

skyebye

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Declaring My Major

annabowling 1 Comment

Later start on the blog than I had expected today,  but that’s fine. I wrote two pages of a scene for Girl and Guy, from the Beach Ball, while at the laundromat, did some recon for an upcoming feature at Heroes and Heartbreakers (oh, the odious task of looking for outstanding declarations of love) and took a picture for the original concept of this post, which was going to be about my inability to resist pretty paper. Yes, the paper on which I write does have to be pretty, thankyouverymuch, and I am particular about it. Nothing wrong with having the right tools for the job. That almost works as a transition to the thought that hit me part way through my process of winding down yesterday evening.

We’ll skip the particulars of said winding down, as it happened in a room where the furniture is made of porcelain, but there I was, thinking of something entirely unrelated, and then the thought hit me: I’m focusing on the eighteenth century now. This should not have been a surprise. I wrote about that exact thing the day before yesterday. I jabbered about it at lunch with my BFF. I may or may not have sent thought waves out into the ether, because that seems to be a step in my process (much like my need to circle a scene and smash my head against a brick wall or two until I bust through) but it wasn’t until last night that it sank in that I am declaring a major here.

Back in another life, I majored in early childhood education. The most important thing I learned by studying that discipline is that I am not suited for early childhood education. If I ever master time travel and end up as a seventeen-year-old college freshman again (though, seriously, if I ever master time travel, my own seventeenth year is not where I would be going) I would strongly counsel seventeen-year-old me to go with her gut and major in drama, like I originally wanted to do. Declaring a major means deciding where the majority of  my time and mental energy is going to be allocated. That decides what I study, how much I study it, and what things have to get moved to the side to give my main area of focus some breathing room.

For a writer, that means we are now in the realm of branding. As an advertising executive’s kid, I learned, from an early age, that how a thing is presented has an effect on how that thing is perceived. Writers need to let readers know what kind of story they can expect when they pick up one of our books. What kind of story are we going to tell them? In what kind of world is this story going to take place? For historical romance readers, in what era do these stories happen, and how much is the history going to affect the romance? All important questions, and all part of building a brand.

I am still a temporal nomad at heart (can we call this interdisciplinary studies?)  I love a lot of periods. I have a rough draft of a Golden Age of Piracy romance, which may need to be two books (because I didn’t count on falling in love with my heroine’s parents in that one, and kind of want to play with them for a while) and a post-apocalyptic medieval romance (the Black Plague counts as an apocalypse – fifty percent of Europe taken out in a twenty year span? Totally counts.) and they will get written. I still want to write more seventeenth century, and I will. That dewy-eyed twenty-three-year-old hasn’t given up on the Tudor era, either, and I want to write in the Edwardian era again, but moving forward with a career plan means figuring out what kinds of stories I want to tell for the foreseeable future, and, last night, my brain told me what that was.

This is a good thing. Picking a major means focus. It means that eighteenth century romances get precedence on my TBR shelves. Not that I can’t read books set in other eras (hello, temporal nomad here :waves:) and a good story can be set anywhere, but, right now, seeing how others who have gone before me do what I am doing now becomes extra important. It’s picking a direction in which to travel, especially now that, with two WIPs viable to term, I’m looking at what comes next. I know the time in which these new stories will be set, so that settles that issue, an important one to writers who do love a wide array of settings. Back in another life, it was common for a historical romance author to write one medieval romance, then the next book might be a western, then a pirate story, then Gilded Age New York, then an Elizabethan, then Australian, then American Civil War, then…well, who knows? I would love for that sort of thing to come around again, and I hope that it does, but, for right now, picking a major and going for it is the smart move.

 

 

Typing With Wet Claws: Anything Can Happen Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Anty and I would first like to thank everybody who asked about Uncle’s paws. They are doing much, much better, and things are getting back to normal around here. At least as normal as possible, with a writer in the house. Then again, I have always lived with a writer in the family, because I was born wild and then lived in the shelter, and this is my only family, so I do not know how it is for others. Maybe I should say normal for us. There was that one day, though, but I will tell you about that later. First, I have to tell you about where you can find Anty’s writing this week, apart from here.

As always, Anty has her Saturday Discussion topic at Buried Under Romance. This week, she talks about what anchors us to a certain kind of story. Anty will admit she was tired and loopy when she wrote this one, so it might be worth reading for the entertainment value alone. Uncle says Anty gets very entertaining when she is extra tired. That post is here, and it looks like this:

bur270117

Anty also had a post at Heroes and Heartbreakers, where she talks about how great Mogul, by Joanna Shupe is. Anty always liked the Gilded Age (a long time ago, in NYC. Anty lived in NYC when she was a very tiny people kitten, right after she was adopted, but it was not as long ago as when Miss Joanna’s books are set.) so she is always happy to see historical romances that use that setting. She thinks there are not nearly enough of them. Maybe Anty should write one of her own someday (but not now, because she is already writing two other books, and she knows her limits.) That post is here, and it looks like this:

handhmogul

 

Now that my obligations are fulfilled, we can move on to the rest of this entry, specifically the part about me. When I have a sick human at home, I work as a nurse as well as a mews. That means I need to sit very very close to the human who does not feel well and shoot love beams at them. If I could jump or climb, I would get up on the bed with them, but I have special paws, so I stay on the floor and send my love from there. Sometimes, when Uncle needs to rest, and other humans are moving around,  he closes the bedroom door. That makes me sad, because I want to be with him, but I understand where he is coming from on this one. Sometimes, I like my door closed, too.

We had one of those days this week. Uncle had asked Anty if she could please be home to let in Landlady and another human, who might like to buy the building. Anty said she would, and she was, but what she did not know what that it would be a whole bunch of humans. Some of them wanted to take pictures of the rooms (including where Uncle was resting, but they said they were sorry to disturb him.) Some of them wanted to turn faucets and light switches on and off. Some of them wanted to open and close all of the windows and doors (not at the same time.)  Some of them wanted to do other things, and none of this fit in with Anty’s plan of a quiet afternoon, spent transcribing her notes.

Because the front and back doors had to be open a lot, Anty put me in Mama’s room (that is where my food dishes and water bowls -I have two of them- are kept, so I would not be hungry or thirsty)  and closed the door, so that I would not go where I am not supposed to go. Most of the time, I am a very good kitty, but, sometimes, the landing outside the front door gets too interesting, and I want to see what is out there. The problem is, I am not allowed to go out there, because past the landing, there are stairs, and past the stairs, there is another door, and past the other door, there is outside. I do not particularly want to go outside. I lived outside before I was rescued, and it was not that great. I also have never experienced stairs, so the humans want to make sure I do not get any surprises in that department. With all those strange humans (and I only knew Landlady; the rest were all new to me) milling about, Anty thought it was best if I stayed in one place.

Anty also thought it was best if she stayed in one place, too. I am glad she did, because her place was outside the door of Mama’s room, so I could smell her. I like it best when at least one of my humans is very close to me. I am their near girl. All the while I was in Mama’s room, I heard Anty’s pencil scratching on the pages of her notebook. Anty loves writing in her notebooks, and, this time, she shut out all the chaos going on around her and worked out what she needed to change for a scene she had written. While she does not want the apartment swarmed by strange, noisy humans, every day, it did remind her that, if she connects well enough with the story, she can write through pretty much anything. That is a good thing to know, because, in this family, anything can happen.

Anything, including Anty wanting to get back to her story worlds, so that is about it for now. Until next time, I remain, very truly yours,

 

 

skyebye

Until next week…

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

 

 

As If

annabowling Leave a comment

Sometimes, it’s good to be a little uncomfortable. Right now, I’m sitting in my office, in front of the desktop, open notebooks at hand, with pencilled notes. There’s a nearly-empty travel mug in front of me. I have my ears pricked for the on and off (mostly off now, I think) rain outside my window. The numbers at the bottom of my screen tell me it won’t be long until Housemate and Real Life Romance Hero return home, so my time for uninterrupted (at least by others) is ticking down to its limit for the day. What I would like to do is take a nap.
One of the best things about working from home is that one can go to work in pajamas. One of the worst things about working from home is that one can go to work in pajamas. Today, I hit the  intersection of too tired and too comfy, so I got out of the chair, swapped leggings for jeans (aka leg prison) put on makeup and everyday jewelry (one skeleton hand ring, one skull ring, earrings are also skull themed today. I love skulls.) In a few minutes, I will give in to the urge to make tea. I don’t want tea right now, but I will in a while, so acting in anticipation is probably in my best interest at the moment.
I have two notebooks, one Molieskine Volant (sage green) and one Moleskine Cahier (black,) both bearing aforementioned pencilled notes. Said notes are for transcription, and that’s my plan for the day. My body says “nap.” My brain says “write.” Since the brain controls the body, I think (pun unintended, but we’ll go with it) and there is no “handwritten novels in note form” section at either Barnes and Noble or on Amazon, it is in my very best interests to push through the afternoon slump and Get Stuff Done. Hence the actual clothing and ritual of what my mother would have called putting on my face.
Last night, my brain too pooped to do anything productive, I spent some time browsing beauty sites and researching cosmetic items I might like to add to my stash.  On one such baord, I found a thread on colorful eye makeup. Several of the posts spoke of using colors that came in pallettes, but don’t get much use. Since it was late and I was tired, I thought, hey, that might be fun. I have green eyes. I don’t usually use green shadow, because, well, green eyes.  I have green shadows, though; they came in a pallette I recieved as a Christmas gift, but I don’t normally use them. Since I’d put on actual pants precisely for the discomfort factor, why the heck not? So I did. I have green eyelids, a different shade of green on my browbone, a bit of green on the lower lid/lashline as well. The world did not end.
What did end was the mindset of still being in my pajamas and not actually being at work. Dressed and made up and with a spritz of some vintage Chanel #19 (a long-ago gift from a favorite aunt no longer with us) that’s not lounging arround the house wear. I’m sure my imaginary friends appreciate the effort; we’ll see about that, because I’m dropping by to see them as soon as I’m finished with this entry. It says so right in my daily task list, so that’s what’s going to happen.
This post is turning out to be exactly what I didn’t want it to be; I feel like I’ve done a thousand versions of the whole left foot, right foot thing. That’s not bad, exactly. There’s a place for that, but what it gets swirling around my mind is that there’s another ingredient to the whole creativity thing, and that’s the love. Not only because I write romance (though that certainly helps with matters; I’ve been crazy in love with romance novels since I was eleven, and with love stories long before then) but the love of the work.

Today, when I wrote my morning pages, I wrote about acting as if; as if I had complete assurance these books were going to find good homes. Acting as if the market were a sure thing. Acting as if there were a whole bunch of readers waiting for these particular stories, eager to meet Hero and Heroine, Girl and Guy, in the flesh…er, page. There’s a little bit of pressure in that, but also a whole lot of purpose. If I’m only telling stories for my own amusement, well, I know how they’re going to turn out, as they’re in my own head. Why decipher the stuff I wrote in mechanical pencil, at however many mph along the highway, or, also in mechanical pencil, wedged into the tiny haven of space between the tall dresser in the dining room (old house, have to be creative with furniture placement) and Housemate’s bedroom door, while pretty much everybody involved in the transfer of power, as it were, from current landlady to incoming landlord-and-lady?

Writing romance is my happy place. When the whole apartment is swarming with people with clipboards and cameras and turning on faucets and light switches and checking I-don’t-know-what, there’s the pencil and the page, and whoosh. I’m not wedged between door and dresser at all, but surveying the common room of an eighteenth century inn, getting a bead on the crowd and figuring out how hard it’s going to be for Hero to get a room for the night (or at least bed space) by dint of his charm alone. Even in Century Eighteen, leaving the house without one’s wallet (or period appropriate equivalent) has the same consequences it has now. Thankfully, Hero is a resourceful gent. He’ll be fine…eventually. first, I have to walk him straight into the last person he wants to see right now, shake up his worldview, and make him do the thing he cannot do. That’s how it works in these stories.

That’s how it works with writing, too. If I leave these notes as notes, they’re fine the way they are…but they can’t go out in public. There’s only one copy of them, it’s all in pencil, and it’s on paper. It’s in my handwriting, which is not always readable to all. There have been times Real Life Romance Hero has asked me to print notes to him, instead of writing them in cursive, and if he can’t read my handwriting, I am not going to inflict that on others. So, the transcription. The whipping of the story into shape from bullet points to prose, from present to past tense, the ordering of things that have arrows and parentheses and odd boxes with curlicues at the corners. Only then are they ready for other eyes. This process, too, has its tricks, its own colors that came with the usual suspects, that are waiting for a chance to show what they can do if I think outside the box. Looking at it that way, it’s a lot less scary, and a lot more fun.

 

 

Pilgrimage

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Yesterday, my Beach Ball collaborator, Melva, and I made our meant-to-be-monthly pilgrimage to the NECRWA chapter meeting. The topic this month, appropriately enough for January, was beginnings. I did not take  any notes during the presentation, because I spent the entire time working on notes for the Beach Ball, in the detachable pages of my all purpose Moleskine, with my newest favorite and now indispensable tool, a mechanical pencil. Melva and I talked out a couple of scenes we didn’t fully have a handle on, on our own, but when we put our heads together, boom, there they were. So, I wrote stuff.

Melva and I agreed that we both do our best work on the Beach Ball on these drives, two hours there and two hours back. We both talk fast, ideas pinging off each other like the silver ball in a pinball machines, flashing lights and bells going off all around us. She drives. I write notes on what we create, together, transcribe them when I get home, and I send the neat, orderly pages her way.

The pages I write in the passenger seat are not neat or orderly. they are a swath of bullet points, scrawled in mechanical pencil, with smudges from erasures and the odd eraser crumb wherever it falls. I have only recently discovered the joy of mechanical pencil. When I use pencil, I can erase instead of cross out, which means I don’t have to lose any space when something better comes along. Yesterday, I ran out of lead before we ran out of road. I could go on with some other writing implement, but I couldn’t reach my tote with my seatbelt still in place.

Melva said there might be some pencils in her purse. My left hand curled nervously around the red Bic Cristal I keep in my raincoat pocket for dire emergencies such as this one. I hadn’t wanted to use ballpoint in this particular Moleskine, my first ever 8×5 Volant, moss colored cover, perforated pages, so that I could write on any project on the go, take out those pages, and transcribe/file them where they actually go, but we were on a roll, and I didn’t want to break the flow.

Thankfully, Melva was right. She did have pencils. The first, I snapped the lead three or four times, as I put pencil to paper, but then I changed to the other. Cue choir of angels. Melva informed me that said pencil was school issue (she is a college professor) and not sold to civilians. Figures. I will purchase others.

We covered a lot of ground on this trip, both literally and figuratively. We joked that we should rent an RV, drive to California, from NY, where I live, or MA, where she lives, and by the time we reach the other coast, we’ll have a first draft done. Then we’d turn around and revise on the way back. Either that, or we drive around in big circles until we have a book. What matters is that we filled  a bunch of pages on this trip. Today, those pages rest.

Today, I write on Her Last First Kiss, a scene that was not in the original draft, but makes narrative sense. Maybe more importantly than that, it will be fun. I hope it will be fun. It’s got Hero, it takes place in a sort of setting I always find fun to write, and I know N is expecting that puppy, so I had better get it written today, but that doesn’t mean there has to be pressure.

What it does mean is that I unplug, settle in with open notebook and take pencil or pen and word-doodle. No, that’s not right. Story-doodle. I’m doodling story, even though I use words to do it (using interpretive dance would require rearranging the furniture and possibly obtaining proper footwear.) I need to make a few wrong turns, double back, get the lay of the land, before I can finalize my map and then follow it to my destination. There may be a few side trips and loop-de-loops while I get my bearings, make sure this scene feels/sounds like Hero, not some random placeholder character. I definitely don’t want him sounding like Guy, who made himself very much at home in my head for most of yesterday. I think that makes my brain their time share, but I am fine with that.

 

 

 

Wrong Turn, Right Path

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I am a planner. I like to have at least some idea of where I’m going, or I’m going to feel edgy (and not in the good way) until I have some sort of boundary clearly marked. Once I know, okay, good. That’s settled. Now I can go nuts within those boundaries, if desired. This is one of the reasons that I have added planning to my morning routine, after morning pages. Two pages of whatever is in my brain, with the right pen for the right page spread (this is an important part of the process, trust me on this one)  then open my planning notebook.

The notebook I use for this purpose, a magenta leatherette Markings notebook, with grid pages, has been through a few wrong turns itself, before it found its true use. I’d originally purchased it to be my all purpose notebook, the one that would go with me everywhere, catch the brain droppings as the came to me, and I had every expectation that it would. After all, I’d used three other notebooks with the same format, from the same maker, same sort of pages, one after the other. Burgundy leatherette was first, then black, then turquoise, and I was most excited to try the pink one. The cover felt all buttery soft in my hands, I loved the grid pages, soft grey on a soothing ivory, and I’d used those three notebooks prior without a hiccup, so this one had to be the best of them all, right?

Wrong. El wrong-o. Nicht, nein, nope, no way, nuh-uh, sorry, Charlie, not going to happen. To this day, I have no idea why. I did everything “right.” Hacked it to a fare-thee-well, with color coordinated end papers, the proper sizes and colors of sticky notes, even put pertinent information on the front and back pages, so it would be right there when I needed it, but, within days, my enthusiasm stopped dead in its tracks. As in pining for the fjords, the whole deal. This was not how things were supposed to go.

I tried drawing black and white top and bottom borders on the pages, hoping that would give me the structure I needed. Still boring. No connection. I tried drawing zentangle-ish dangles from the top border, adding a dash of color. Who was I kidding? Not me. I tried steering into the skid…er, grid. Break up those pages into boxes, I said. That would fix everything, I said. More boundaries, I said. It would be fun, I said. Once again, nope. Le sigh. Though I hated to do it, I put the book aside. It wasn’t happening. No reason. It wasn’t, and that’s all I needed to know. I can’t tell you what book took that book’s place, but one did, and another, and another, and, in time, I moved it to the special area for notebooks I wasn’t feeling anymore.

The books that were still blank, I culled. Moved them on to new homes, where they could be loved and written in, or at least used for grocery lists and doctors’ appointments. Anything would be better than sitting there, mouldering in resentment. Having cleaned out my dad’s house after he passed, I don’t want to hoard. I want to use. I want to love. The notebooks that already have writing in them, well, they aren’t as easily passed along. Those, I taped together the already-written-in pages, and set them aside. The magenta Markings book was among those, until last week. That was when I wanted a place where I could keep my daily tasks, check them off, and move along, while, at the same time, keeping a record of what actually got done, what got modified, what got carried over to another day.

At first, I looked at the shelf I have of pristine new notebooks. All right, case. All right, cases. I really, really, really love notebooks. Yes, I do plan on using all of them. Yes, I do still need more. Nothing felt right. Then I looked through the stash of notebooks-at-rest. Grid paper? Check. (Pun unintended, but I’ll take it.) Buttery soft cover I have loved and missed, with added benefit of a crack along the spine (notebook wabi-sabi; it’s a thing) and…yes. I took a black fountain pen and wrote the day’s date at the top of one page, which had a two-colored border I’d already drawn, back in that long-ago phase of thinking maybe I could salvage the book for its original purpose. I couldn’t, back then, but this time? Yes. I wrote the date. I drew my swirly-cornered box around the date, set down my headings and bullet points, and yes. Yes. This is what it was supposed to be, maybe all along. Now it’s an essential part of my daily routine.

This is the part where I bring my ramble back around to writing. There are ideas, stories, characters, places, all the flotsam and jetsam of a writer’s brain, things I had hoped at one time would work out, but never did, still floating around, and, now that I’m at a place in both WIPs that I’m comfortable and ready to ask “what’s next?” those floating bits may be arranging themselves into some semblance or order.

I kind of like that, and I kind of don’t. I like it because I like knowing what’s going to happen before it happens, and knowing that there is some sort of writerly primordial ooze in my head is actually an encouraging thought. I don’t like it, because it’s not in my control. That’s not how it works. If that was how it worked, I would not be writing the story of a practical-minded mistress, who is half Russian, and a second son turned not terribly successful portrait painter. If that was how it worked, I would not be co-writing my first category romance, and I would not know that historical-adjacent is a thing (partly because I am making it a thing, but more on that later.)

Time to wrap this, because I’ve gone on long enough already, and the rest of the day will soon be demanding my attention, but there it is. Blog entry written, albeit slightly behind schedule. I can now check it off the list and move on to what’s next. That part, I absolutely do like.

Cold Day and Another Week Begun

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Second week of 2017 underway over here. Well, underway everywhere, but I can only talk about my own experience. This was a full weekend, with volunteer training, domestic warrior queen duties, one of which reminded me why I do not do laundry on Sunday evenings. The alternative to Sunday evening laundry, in this case, was naked family. Since we live in New York, and it is January, outdoor nudity is not an option, so Sunday night laundry it was. I had my phone and my Kindle, and a couple of hours, more or less, to let my brain get things somewhat in order for the week ahead.

On Saturday, I had my (first) fierce cheerleading session with Eryka Peskin, which I would highly recommend. It’s kind of weird to have an appointment where the entire purpose is to have someone tell one how awesome one is and point out what one is doing right, and it’s kind of weird that it’s kind of weird. Yes, I did take notes, and yes, I did post them on the back of my office door, where I can see them any time I need a reminder. If I write something down longhand, it’s much  more likely to stay in my noggin than if I try to remember without, or if I go directly to keyboard. I’ve been learning a lot more, lately, about how my brain works, and how going with that, rather than fighting it, is going to work better for me in the long (and short) term.

This morning, I got up at six, which is about right for me, still wiped from the weekend -I’d intended to use it to rest, but that is not what happened- and determined to get the most out of my day. There’s a ticking clock on one important task, that of my Her Last First Kiss second draft, the scene where Hero and his brother…well, we’ll save that for later. What matters is that I need to show these pages to N at 8AM tomorrow. I know myself well enough that I have to pump the handle a few times before thing start flowing, and I know that I’m going to have to get this draft done by about 3PM, because that’s when I can bribe Housemate to ferry me to the library to get things printed. I still haven’t figured out where the heck the printer is jammed, so printing on the road is how it is until we get that sorted.

One of the first things I did was jot down a list of tasks for the day, on a piece of grocery list paper, but that didn’t look right. It had all of the information, but the visuals? Meh. I can do better. I rescued a magenta softcover Markings notebook, with grid pages, from limbo, and laid out what has to get done today. Is this bullet journaling? Am I doing it already? I’ve tried reading explanations/instructions, but my eyes glaze over and/or I get confused. I’ve been doing whatever this is for a while now, and if a thing is on the list, the thing is going to get done.

isthisbujopage

Mini legal pad is not part of the notebook, but it’s pretty.

I keep the office door propped open if it’s okay to talk to me. This was my view for a good chunk of the early morning:

We start on the linoleum…
…and onto the hardwood

 

Skye hates my office carpet. Hates it. I’m pretty sure she wants me to get rid of it, so she can come all the way into the room and sit next to my feet. There is one sliver of hardwood available for kitty bottom, when the door is open, and she has found a way to wedge herself into it. Normally, she’ll sit in the kitchen, on the linoleum, and stare at me until I get the message (that I should pay attention to her, not the glowy box or my papers) but, this morning, she crossed the line. Over the threshold and onto the hardwood. Not a single toe on the carpet. She has her standards.

The clock is ticking down now, and time approaches when it’s going to be me, Hero, and Hero’s Bro. There’s a small  hand squeezing around  my heart, with pointy fingernails, a whisper in my ear that this is scary stuff, but there’s also a list on my door of things that I am doing right, to remind me I’ve been here before, and I did it okay. More than okay. Awesome. No, I do not want to go out in sixteen degree weather to print pages, but N needs pages for tomorrow, and, more importantly, Hero needs this scene to get to second draft, so that’s what’s going to happen. I mean, I can’t leave him there in first draft land. Besides, when I get on the other side of this, I get to talk about what I’ve written, get feedback, and move on to the next scene. But, first, this. Clear the decks of the other tasks so there’s nothing cluttering my mind when it’s time to dive into century eighteen, and turn the metaphorical thumbscrews on Hero. He’s not going to like that, not one bit, but it has to be enough to send him out of everything he’s ever known, and on the path to his future. Kind of like the writing of same. At least I’m in good company.