possibly pointless blabbering

Making a Valiant Effort

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I have no idea what I’m doing here. It’s Wednesday, so blog day, but any idea of what I was going to write here is long gone. My cold is hanging in there, and Real Life Romance Hero’s warranted a trip to our local Emergency Room. Never fear, Real Life Romance Hero regenerated, after stopping the ambulance to leap out and save a bus full of nuns, school children and rescue puppies. He is now resting comfortably at home, despite the rigors of attempting to teach me how to use video chat on our phones. He is a brave, brave man. (He also made me write the part about the bus…um, I mean because that is what really happened and not at all because he knows my passwords. He is also very, very handsome, makes a mean cup of tea and will not be doing glitter beard, but many thanks to those who have suggested he give it a try. He is also quite sure that, despite the fact that I do possess a supply of glitter, it is not nearly enough  to even make the attempt. His beard is magnificent. )

Before our adventure, I’d planned to take my tablet and retreat into a nest of blankets, and give the cold brain its head. It already has mine, so that wouldn’t be too difficult. Well. That is not what happened. (The nuns and children and puppies are thankful, though.) I am a planner. I like lists. I like schedules. The only thing better than making a list is prioritizing the list, and the only thing better than categories is subcategories. You get the drift. I am all about the color codes and the sticky notes and getting my ducks in a row. This was not one of those days.

I also love holidays. Thanksgiving is a big one. Second only to Christmas. At various points in the last few days, we have considered A) Cracker Barrel, B) Denny’s, C) finding a locally owned restaurant open on the holiday, D) skipping the holiday, E) ordering Chinese delivery (that was shot down with a withering glare, as Thanksgiving must have Thanksgiving food, or it’s only Thursday. We will revisit the delivery idea on Christmas. Unless Housemate makes her spaghetti sauce. But not with spaghetti, because spaghetti is pasta worms. Suggest rigatoni or ziti instead. Or lasagna. Lasagna would be good. Also some garlic bread. And meatballs. With sausage.) At this point, we have gone with another option, involving a last minute trip to the market and winnowing down the original traditional Thanksgiving menu to a microwavable version, because this family is two people down, and I am a diehard holiday nut. Microwaved turkey is better than no turkey.

Our family will never forget the year we, and Housemate’s mum, had to have turkey sandwiches at Denny’s, because Denny’s had, for some unfathomable reason, taken the turkey dinner off the menu that year. We have a history with Denny’s Thanksgivings, though all of those were in a state that is not New York, so it may be safe to try again here. Except for the whole Martian Death Cold thing and spreading germs and all. Which is why we are braving (when I say we, I mean either Housemate and myself, or Housemate by herself, with me on standby via phone, but not video phone, because A) it’s weird, and B) all Real Life Romance Hero got was my grumpy face and intense closeups of my fingers, without any sound. We will text. Nobody wants to see my sick grumpy face.) It all goes to show that, if we want something badly enough, we will find a way to get it.

It’s the same with writing. Not a huge day for that, not that I’d meant it to be (and I am endlessly glad I did not NaNo this year, because yesterday’s sick day and today’s chaos day would have sent me into anxious despair spiral.) but here we are, at the tail end of another blog entry. I got in there, started with what I knew for sure, and ran with it. Is it perfect? No. Is it written? Yes. Even with all the ick and chaos, I can still tick “blog entry” off the list. Now for the grocery run.

 

 

Typing With Wet Claws: Pocket Full of Candy Corn Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. It is halfway through November, almost, and that means the holidays are almost here. Well, Halloween is a holiday, and so is Anty’s birthday, so I suppose that means we are already in the holiday season. That is a good thing to keep in mind when things get hectic, because they certainly are.

First, Anty has a new post up at Heroes and Heartbreakers. She said I have to put her new posts up first, or I will run out of room when I get talkative. Her Heart to Heart on last night’s Sleepy Hollow is now live. It is here and it looks like this:

ICHABBIE

Anty is slightly grumpy that the show is going on hiatus until February, but she is glad to know that it will be back. It will be on a different night, Fridays, instead of Thursdays, when it was originally aired on Mondays. That is a lot of change. Kitties are not very big on change. Humans can handle it somewhat better, and it is good to try new things once in a while.

For a long time, Anty could not remember if she liked candy corn or not. Most years, she did not care about that. As long as she has gummi bears, she is pretty much content on that front, but this year, she had to know. Uncle thought she did not. Mama could not remember, either, but she does not like candy corn, so maybe Anty did not, either. Anty wanted to find out for herself, so she tried some.

2015-11-09 11.27.26

the great experiment

Mama and Anty got some candy corn that was on clearance, from a maker whose other products they have liked, and brought it home. The box said it was made with real honey. Anty was surprised to see that as an ingredient, as she never thought honey had anything to do with candy corn, but maybe that was a point in its favor. She gave Mama a piece and then tried some for herself. Then she remembered. She did like candy corn, but it has to be from a good maker, and there is a right way to eat it. That would be by color, from the top down, in case you were curious. Anty did not rush out and buy three pound bags of the stuff (three pound bags of cat treat, yes, but candy corn? That would be a little much.) but it is good to know there is something fall-themed on which she can nibble while she works in her office. They also fit nicely in her sweatshirt pocket for cold days when she needs to wear that while she works.

Anty’s office is undergoing a lot of change, the same as her writing and reading. I think it is all related, but do not quote me on that. The bulletin board is down now, as is the string of fairy lights (some people call them Christmas lights, but Anty likes to have them up all year) she used to drape around the frame of the bulletin board. She still wants to have the lights up, but now needs to find a new place for them to live. Even Anty cannot drape fairy lights around a poster that does not have a frame (basically, a piece of paper) so she must think of other ideas. She could put them around the closet doorway (it does not actually have a door; it was like that when we moved in, so do not blame Anty. Or me.) or maybe get some  hooks to go around the poster and try to display them that way. She could also get the poster framed, which she probably will do eventually, but for right now, she likes the airier feel of having more visual room in her workspace. She will take a picture and share it later, once she gets things the way she wants them.

Having a work environment that reflects the work Anty does is important to her and it does help her stay focused. The one big Union Jack does more for her than a board with small bits of ephemera scattered around it, so it is going to stay. She has some Georgian-era reproduction prints that her papa had in his house. Those are in heavy frames, so she needs to find the right sort of supports to hang them, that will not damage the walls. Maybe they will end up leaning on a shelf, if the frames are too heavy, but she has always wanted them in her special space, and now they are there. All she has to do is find out how they can best be displayed.

That is a theme with Anty these days. Take what she loves and find the best way to use it. That will generally provide the best result. For right now, the best result will be for her to feed me, so that is about it for this week. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

Until next week...

Until next week…

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

Writershead Revisited

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“I should like to bury something precious in every place where I’ve been happy and then, when I’m old and ugly and miserable, I could come back and dig it up and remember.”
― Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

My favorite movie of all time is the original 1980 Brideshead Revisited. Okay, technically speaking, it’s a miniseries, as it ran on PBS and clocks in at a whopping twelve hours, but to me, it’s a movie, and so I am counting it as such.

If you’re a purist and insist on theatrical releases, my preferences are thus:

  • Comedy: Love Actually
  • Drama: Remains of the Day
  • Other: Saturday Night Fever
  • Obscure: Lords of Flatbush

People who know me in the really real world, am I forgetting anything? I have not seen the Emma Thompson theatrical version of Brideshead Revisited, nor do I plan to,  because I do not mess with perfection. Sorry, Emma, not even for you. I’ve read the novel by Evelyn Waugh (Hevelyn, for those in doubt about which Evelyn wrote this one) and will correct any who try to call the building known by non-devotees as “Castle Howard.” They are wrong. It’s Brideshead. I know. I’ve lived there, with Charles and Sebastian and Julia, and I have deep emotional scars from the first time I saw the graffiti on Charles’s mural and the empty :sorry, I need a minute: fountain :sniffle: with barbed :I can’t, I seriously can’t: wire. Sebastian drove that car around the bend of the road on that first school break, and BAM, I, as well as Charles fell deeply, irrevocably in love.

It’s the same feeling I had when I stole the then-new copy of The Kadin by Bertrice Small from my mother’s night table and read it under the bed in the guest bedroom during a power outage. I knew then and there that I’d found what I wanted to read and write for the rest of my life. The same way a lot of my SF/F reading/writing friends fell hard for Star Trek, Ray Bradbury and others, that’s how I fell for historical romance, and that’s what’s been, increasingly strongly, calling me back home.

Today, I took the bulletin board off my office wall. If I haven’t been utilizing it in the three years and change I’ve had this office, that’s not where it belongs. Later, I’ll take the items off it, find them new homes, and figure out the board’s new purpose. There will be one, because I crazy love vintage office supplies. In its place, I put the Union Jack poster above, purchased at a local art store about two years ago. it’s been rolled in brown paper, waiting for “the right time.” Which would be when, exactly? When we could spring for a fancy frame? The right fancy frame? When life calms down? When (fill in the blank?) If there’s one thing loving historical romance and historical fiction has taught me, it’s to seize the moment. So, up it went, with blue tacky stuff holding it to the place where whoever painted the room a lovely moss green had obviously painted around the mirror that Real Life Romance Hero took down for me the day we moved in. Much as I like to work on my selfie game, I don’t want to stare at myself the whole time I’m writing.

Taken in a different room, but it would be pretty much this.

Taken in a different room, but it would be pretty much this.

I also unearthed a pub sign that I honestly don’t remember when I acquired it, and had been waiting for, you guessed it, the right time and perfect place to put it up. Maybe the right kind of hook, whatever, whatever. Baloney. I still has blue sticky stuff, so I slapped some on the back and then affixed the sign to the door. My office may technically now be the King’s Head Pub, and I am fine with that. We even have a pub cat instead of a pub dog, and I am fine with that, too. The two Georgian era prints I kept from my dad’s house and had wanted since I was a wee little princess, do need to wait for command hooks to come home before they can go on the office wall, but when they do, up they go. The right time is now.

This means I'm allowed to have pub food at home, right?

This means I’m allowed to have pub food at home, right?

Doing things like this gets me excited, makes me want to dive headlong into the story world, climb inside the characters’ skins and see through their eyes. Writing longhand with a fountain pen, at least initial notes, is another way I find I can connect. Today, I also added another notebook to my shelf of the usual suspects on top of my desk’s hutch. It’s one of those story ideas I’ve been on and off with for years, and, as the flip side of the bulletin when story ideas and characters and settings and such have been in my head for long enough that they are old enough to vote, drink, marry or join the military without parental approval, they probably aren’t leaving, period. Better for me to get their rooms ready. That feels right.

Today, I met my Ravenwood editing goal a lot earlier in the day (for the day, not the whole project) because I wasn’t focused on word count or verb tense, but telling the story and living in that story’s world. This afternoon, I jump to Georgian England and Her Last First Kiss, and I’m excited about that, too. I don’t consider myself old, ugly or miserable, but dusting off things I love and displaying them proudly in the now, that’s a piece of the puzzle sliding into place. The road to The End, on both of these current projects, and others, has never seemed clearer.

Course Corrections

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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.

Now it’s November…

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I’d meant to get this up yesterday, but life intervened, turning the day to family things, but that fits with what I meant to write anyway, so I am going to consider that a point of illustration. Anyway, it’s November now, and I am not Na-No-ing. Old news, and for those wishing I’d shut up about that already, I will, in a bit. Which is to say, probably December, because there’s no denying NaNo is everywhere. I’ve done it, I’ve won it, I’ve lost it, I’ve gone a few rounds with it, lost a few books to it, and have some interesting scars to show for the battle, but, in the end, there is one thing that NaNo gave me that I will always treasure. It gave me the knowledge that I am enough; the way I work is enough. I don’t need to conform to somebody else’s process or beat myself up for not doing so. As a writer, this is what I do every day (the writing, not the beating up, though that, too, some days. A lot of days. Working on that.) so a special month dedicated to it? Good for some, but I’m working on some things over here, so not for me at present.

This week, I’m looking at three things. First is Her Last First Kiss, which is hopping around between bullet points and research topics as the puzzle pieces come together. This is what I do, dive headfirst into the primordial ooze of a story and splash around until order forms, and then have a blast organizing the whole deal. It’s going to be rough, it’s going to give me fits, but, in the end, I can do what I do, and there will be a rough draft. Then I get to smooth is out and make it pretty. I can do this. I have done this. I am doing this now and will do this again with the next book and the next book and the next, repeat until dead.

Second is the novella with Collaborator Melva. This is our beach ball that we are passing back and forth, no pressure, just fun. We each get to play to our own strengths in this one, draw from each other’s, and stretch enough to make it a reachable challenge.

Third is my postapocalyptic medieval, Ravenwood, which may get retitled (and probably billed as medieval, never mind that the Plague does count as an apocalypse, but probably more on that later.) A call for submission has come up, and I do have a completed ms sitting right there in my flash drive, so a good once-over and off it shall go. I won’t be devastated if John and Aline come riding back my way, but if they do find a new home, I will be thrilled.

For the first time in a long time, I feel on firm ground where writing is concerned. This has come as the result of a LOT of writing. Some good things, some bad things, more free writing notebooks than I would care to count, filled with whinges about how hard writing is and things I wish I’d done and things I wish I hadn’t done. It comes from a ton of reading: the year I devoured every Barbara Samuel (and psuedonyms) I could find; my big fat YA summer-that-stretches-into-autumn (David Levithan, may I have your book babies, please and thank you?) and my current foray into 90s historicals and  one dead laptop (well, really two, counting the one RLRH inherited) and one new one and recapping TV shows. It’s working on the next incarnation of From Fan Fiction to Fantastic Fiction (coming in 2016, because this fall got crazy) and, by dint of that, taking a closer look at why I love what I love and how I can use those elements in my own work, and picking others’ brains and trusting myself and diving into piles of stationery and notebooks and picking up old habits that worked in the past but I gave up somewhere along the way because of “supposed to’s” and “should” and and and and and…well.

Fall has always been the time of year when I get my super powers back. I feel more energized with the shorter days, when the world gets tucked in for the night, nice and early. When hot chocolate and cider flow, and Thanksgiving is soon to be upon us, and there are sweaters and boot socks and colorful leaves, and a crisp snap to the air. It’s time for curling up with a good book (or ten) under an afghan, with cup of tea at hand, and, since I am me, a notebook (or ten) on the other hand, because I have to multitask even when reading. It’s November. I’m back. I got this.

Typing With Wet Claws: Almost Anty’s Birthday Edition

annabowling 4 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. This is a special week, so I wanted to have a special picture today. Tomorrow is Anty’s birthday. In case you are wondering how much Anty likes her birthday, it is very close to this:

Because I was born wild, with no humans around to record these sorts of things, we do not know my birthday. The shelter people said I was about ten months old when Mama and Anty brought me home, so we count ten months back from the day I was adopted and use that when a vet needs to know these things. Anty is also adopted (I do not know how people shelters work when getting human kittens to their parents) but she does know her birthday and even the time she was born. That was eight in the morning. Anty was a morning person right from the start. Her mama and papa got a phone call very soon after that, to tell them Anty was born and it was time to come get her.

The way the story is told, Anty’s mama had to go on a plane by herself because Anty came sooner than they thought she would come and Anty’s papa still had to be at work. One would think humans could be more understanding about things like that. They probably would be, now, but this was a different time. Family lore says that Anty’s mama got very worried on the plane ride back, because she fell asleep on the plane and when she woke up, she could not find Anty. At least not her face, which should have been sticking out of the blanket in which she was wrapped. Anty was all right (as you may have guessed, because she is here now) and had squiggled herself down to the very bottom of the blanket. I do not blame her. When I was first brought home, I huddled in the back of my carrier, too, and I was a big girl of ten months. Anty was only three days old and had no idea what was going on.

She likes to think she has learned a few things since then. Like how to write good stories. She did teach a cat how to blog, so that is something. Anty really likes birthdays in general. They do not always have to be hers, which is good, because birthdays are one to a human every year. She gets  equally excited about Uncle’s or Mama’s birthdays, and she even likes my adoption day (that is in December, and she says that allows her to tick “Christmas kitten” off her bucket list. I am glad I could help her with that one.) This one is hers, though, and she is glad that it happens in her favorite time of year, October. The days get shorter, nights get longer, leaves turn pretty colors and pumpkin flavored things are everywhere. It also means Halloween and Thanksgiving are coming up, and then Christmas, which is her favorite day of the whole year, even more than  her own birthday. It counts as a birthday, though, and an important one for people who believe the way our family does.

This birthday is Anty’s, however, and, for her, it is the start of a whole new year. She likes to mark the start of a new year with new notebooks. Here are two.

Future story receptacles?

Future story receptacles?

Both of these notebooks are blank right now, but they will not be that way for long. The solid blueish notebook is a Moleskine, and has a soft cover and dotted pages. That will be a new thing for Anty to try. Well, she did try dotted pages once, but the pages were a funny whitish color and hurt her eyes, so she had to give that notebook a new home. She is interested in trying the dotted pages on Moleskine paper, which is a nice, soothing ivory.

The other notebook is by Punch Studio, which makes very very pretty stationery. Anty has been accumulating a lot of Paris-themed stationery, but here is the funny thing; she does not have any Paris-set ideas right now, so she is not sure why. She knows why she collects peacock-themed stationery (they are very pretty birds and probably taste good, because they are related to turkeys. I have recently started eating turkey, in case you are wondering, but Anty collects peacock things because they are important for a future book.) but the Paris thing remains a mystery.

There are some other things in this picture, taken on the desk that Anty had wanted fro her own since she was a very young human kitten. Now it is hers, so that is another life goal reached. The stuffed bunny in the corner is Happy Bunny. He says “let’s talk about me” when Anty squeezes him. She says he is good for focus. The big square thing is a stress cube. It is good for squishing when Anty needs something to do with her hands. Sometimes that is a lot, during the part of writing when she stares at things that are not there and has to think really hard. The fact that there are sticky notes and papers around these books are proof that they are going to be written in very very soon. The solid notebook will become her all purpose computer bag book once the current one is filled. As for the pretty Paris book, she does not know. It has pretty page inside, three different designs repeating. Anty thinks this might be a good book for morning pages, as it is easier to write on pretty pages than completely blank ones. She is not sure yet, though.

What she is sure of is that it is time to read Critique Partner Vicki’s chapter, so that is about it for this week. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

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

Until next week...

Until next week…

Crabby Monday

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This blog entry exists because I want to cross something off my to do list. It’s one of those days where writing related things are getting done, but the actual writing has been scarce. Not anybody’s fault, as domestic tornadoes happen when domestic tornadoes happen. This is one of those days when inspiration takes a back seat to discipline. Which means, in short, butt in chair and fingers on keyboard and/or pen to paper.

I’m sitting in my favorite coffee house right now, a cup of cold tea in front of me. It was hot when I ordered it, but it, like me, today, is pretty much kind of there and that’s it. Blah. Not what I was going for, for either of us. I will credit the barista with leaving the infuser in the cup and giving me a generous splash of skim milk in the cardboard cup so that I could let the tea, a delicious chai I get almost every time I come here, brew to perfection and then add the right amount of milk. That’s not exactly what happened, my apologies to the tea.

This is one of those parts of writing that is not exactly glamorous. Meh. Cold tea, blank brain, tired body. Still, the idea of totally blowing off the day bothers me. It rankles. Doesn’t fit. I mean, I could. That’s within my grasp, and, some would argue, within my rights. Part of me would actually like to do that, but then it runs straight into the part that rolls its eyes. OMG, are you whining about how hard writing is again? No wonder it’s been a while since your last book release. Sit down and do it. It’s easy. What, you can’t? Must not be a writer, then. There, there, you tried. Failed, but tried. Now go  home and put away the laundry and…mmm nope, that’s about all I’ve got, but I will flip through this list of anxiety triggers while you wrangle the laundry and then we’ll see which one we’re going to go with for the rest of the day. How does that sound?

Actually, not very good. Not very good at all. True, not every day can be a perfect one, and the slower days do get balanced out with the days when everything seems to want to come out of my head at once. There are times to produce and times to take in so that I can produce later. Even on those days when story brain says “nope,” there are still things I can do. Crit a critique partner’s chapter, discuss the next steps for the novella (partner and I there agree we are wrapping the end of the beginning and are pumped to get to the beginning of the middle) and write a blog entry. Not too shabby there, even if I am spending most of the entry blabbering.

Let’s see, what else? Conversing with some writer friends via email and discussing the use of angst in romance (a favorite topic) and trading songs that make our hearts hurt but also create plot bunnies. My favorite contribution for that discussion would be “Accidental Babies,” by Damien Rice:

Somewhat related to Her Last First Kiss, as there is a love triangle of sorts in that one, though my heroine wouldn’t say she’s in love with the other gent, but there is some fondness there. The mood fits, though, and it makes my heart ache the way my heart needs to ache for my hero’s situation at a crucial point in the book, so been listening to this one quite a bit, but haven’t actually moved it onto the book’s playlist, but that will probably happen soon.

So. Getting around time to wrap this sucker up and call the entry done. Likely also time to stick my nose in a good book and refill the well. Mondays are going to happen; that’s a fact of life. Okay. They happen. The adventure comes with what I choose to do with them. If putting out is an issue, then it’s usually time to take in. Even spending time in favorite places can count toward this. The brick walls of the coffee house, the street-level windows, eclectic tables and seating, the ever-changing flow of other guests; these are all good things. I am looking forward to the month progressing into Daylight Savings in the not too distant future, when I get to look up from keyboard or notebook and watch the day fade into night. Those evenings when I can go to the coffee house in daylight at walk home at night, still on my regular twoish hour stint, that’s the good stuff. I can pin my sights on that and keep moving toward it.

In the meantime, this entry is here. I did it. Novella progress is moving forward and partner and I agree on where the next step goes. Chapter critted for critique partner, and I can shoot her a note saying I’m brain-free today, but would love to brainstorm tomorrow. Then…maybe reading, maybe adult coloring book, maybe movie. We’ll see. What’s important is that this entry is here.

Thursday Rambles

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“Be willing to expose yourself to your readers. Plumb the depths of your own experiences and emotions in order to make your stories authentic. Don’t hold back.”

— Madeline Hunter

Wednesday’s post was going to be a special midweek update from Skye, but a domestic tornado chain touched down, here it is, Thursday, and Skye will be able to make her regular Feline Friday post tomorrow, so this one is all on me. Which would be lovely if I had any idea what I had planned to write here in the first place. Keeping the discipline of thrice-weekly blogging is one of my goals, so here I am, and my complete lack of focus means that I am going to babble and trust that some sense will come out of all of it at some point.

I will admit that, in a not that long ago romance writer’s conference, I had the great good fortune to be seated at the same table as Madeline Hunter at one of the meals, but did not get to talk to her. Despite my best attempts to peek at her name badge, I couldn’t get a good view, and the noise level was high, so shouting across a big round table wasn’t the most practical thing to do. Point is, I was at the same table with Madeline Hunter for an entire meal, and did not get to talk to her. This will haunt me to my grave. Either that or until my next opportunity, because these things do roll around again.

Granted, due to the lack of a clear name tag sighting, I didn’t know who the new arrival to our table was, and her only answer to a tablemate’s question of “what do you write?” (universal writer to writer icebreaker there) was “historical.” If I had known, I would have loved to talk with her. I still remember, long, long ago, when Madeline Hunter first came on the scene with well-received medieval romances, and feeling betrayed when she switched to Regency. I’m all for writers writing in different eras, and, in fact, I encourage that. I’d like to see more of it. What hit me hard at the time was the loss of a writer who used the medieval setting in all its grit and glory, leaving for more populated Regency assemblies.

There are multiple reasons a writer might switch time periods. Medievals have been declared dead multiple times since I started reading romance novels, let alone writing them. I don’t recall if it was that same conference, though it may well have been, where I pitched my own medieval, with a working title of Ravenwood, to a very interested agent, who said she loved my voice, quoted my own lines back to me, and assured me she would totally read this book for her own pleasure…but she couldn’t sell a medieval in the current market. Did I have a Regency?

I was working on one at the time, and told the agent that. She said great, send it when it was done, but don’t rush. She wanted the same level of polish as she could see in the medieval. Well, dear readers, I can say that I tried. I love the characters in that once upon a time Regency, love the conflict, love the resolution, but, as Critique Partner Vicki pointed out, I hate writing Regency. Georgian seems to be my natural default these days, so, when I do go back to that manuscript, everything will get bumped back a few decades, to fit within my natural reach. It’s going to take a while to get to that point, as I have the current novel and novella that need my attention, and I’ve blabbered on this subject before, so I won’t belabor the point.

Does this post even have a point? Does it need one? It’s written, that’s what, or mostly so, and I’ve had a few discussions, at various places on the interweb, about writing historical and how and why and all that. Defining what makes a particular period appeal to a particular reader or writer is far above my pay grade, so I’m not going to try (today) but here’s what I do know: I need to feel the era. To us, it’s history. To the characters, it’s life. Barring time travel (and I have a time travel waiting to burn off its own bad juju – this may be payback for all the jujubes I inhaled as a kid) the characters don’t know how the war is going to turn out. They don’t know they’re inching up on another ice age, or that the thingamahoozie is going to be invented two months hence, thus changing the world forever. They don’t know any of that.

What they do know is that they want the same things we do; home, health, shelter, food, companionship, purpose, love. All that good stuff. The way they get it, though, that’s where we find the differences, and what historical characters can and cannot do are influenced by any number of things. I find that endlessly fascinating. It’s easier for me to climb into a character’s skin and move around in their world if that world strikes a chord in me and plucks me like a stringed instrument so we can make beautiful music together. No doubt that can happen in any number of settings, and there are probably some I haven’t ever thought I’d employ that, someday, I will. For now, it’s Georgian, and, for today, that’s one blog entry down.

Mandatory Midweek Post

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I want to know that there’s something just beyond MY ability, that I can eek (sic) out one day that can move people like I’ve been moved.

–Ben Folds

I’m grumpy today. Kitty with tummy trouble will do that to a gal, and coming on the tails of a Monday and a half, especially with a gorgeously cool and rainy day that I would love to spend reading, especially (yes, two especiallies in one sentence; it’s that kind of day, and it’s my blog, so hush) now that we have a comfy cushion on our windowseat, the temptation to give this day a certain digit and slack off is strong.

Here’s why I’m not. In a word, discipline. I am the first one to turn into a whimpering ball of jelly when I look at the publication date on my most recent book. I am also the one in charge of the publication date for my next one. I have a novella scene due to my collaborator tomorrow, so I need to get that down today, at least the bare bones. I can do the bare bones, even when I’m grumpy and have one eye on kitty doings. Not consciously drawing on Anne Lamott’s one inch picture frame, but it’s similar.

Organizing and making lists works incredibly well for me. I don’t have to write the entire book today. Shoot, I’m only writing part of the book, because Collaborator Melva kicks writing butt and we are so much on the same page (pun intended) that it’s scary. It doesn’t have to be perfect. If I’m off, she’ll tell me, and we’ll fix it, together. What it has to be is written. That’s it. Bullet points are fine. Present tense is fine. I can fix bad, but I can’t fix blank. (Thank you, Nora Roberts, for that one.)

“Do what you can do, when you can do it,” is  a phrase I learned while caregiving, and it applies to writing as well. Life is going to happen. Cats are going to throw up, phones are going to go to the great charging station in the sky, and grumpy days are going to happen. These are the times I like to focus on what I can do, rather than what I can’t, or haven’t, or didn’t. One of the items on my bare bones to do list was write today’s blog entry. I had nothing when I started, unless fretting pet-aunt mode was an option  (on a writing blog, it usually isn’t) and Skye is currently hanging out in her regular rainy day spot under the bed in the master bedroom. She has a bowl of water, and I’ll keep an eye on her. The other eye has to be on the writing.

This isn’t my favorite entry. I’m blabbering, but it’s honest. It’s where I am. That’s something I’m working on strengthening, in both fiction and nonfiction. I have Ben Folds’ new album playing, a mix of his usual music and a symphonic orchestra (my love for pop/rock combined with an orchestra knows no bounds, really it doesn’t) because his work is always good for jump-starting my own. Getting to those deep emotions and the insecurities characters like to hide from the world, because those are things that will prove them weak, get them rejected, make them vulnerable. Those are my jams. I love that stuff. In romance, I can throw basically anything at my characters, as long as they end up happy and together at the end. Since I write historical, that means I can use wars and natural disasters and political upheaval, and all of that ready made good stuff to cause bumps in the road to Happily Ever After.

Being a character focused writer means that I can play with the voices in my head when I don’t know what we’re going to be doing today. That’s a good jumpstart again. If I don’t know how they’d react to X, then that means I don’t know them well enough, most likely, and we are going to need to have some tea and a good long talk, them and me. We’ll get through it. Bullet point by bullet point. There will be another day when I blaze through multiple scenes without breaking a sweat. Taking this day for what it is, doing what I can, and then refilling the well is the best way to get to that new release, the next article, and hey, look right there. I wrote a blog entry. Cross that puppy off the list and let’s get back to that novella scene.

Monday Junior

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Focus on writing the story you want to tell. Don’t worry about how many words, what genre, and especially about people who tell you that you will never make it. They’re not important. Finish the thing and try to do your story justice.

–Ilona Andrews

 

Today  is Tuesday, but I am calling it Monday Junior this week. To best explain this, here is a short rundown of my Monday evening:

  • hit same place on head on corner of shelf and corner of dresser, in two separate incidents.
  • found a bug in my crushed pineapple, and remembered, hours later, that this serving had been broken down from a bigger container earlier, so I did at one point eat half a can of pineapple that had a bug in it.
  • decided to make tea to counteract the buggy pineapple, only to have tea infuser open (this may be because the kitchen light was out, we have prewar ceilings and no ladder) and float my last bit of Earl Grey throughout the water. Tea dumped, because now not drinkable.
  • Real Life Romance Hero  washed my mug (into which I had flung aforementioned bug) which I used to make that cup of tea, which had to be dumped out, but I only found out there was still soap in it after I started drinking said tea.

It wasn’t a total waste, as today’s picture evidences. Real Life Romance Hero had received a gift card to a swanky restaurant near our apartment for his birthday a month and a half ago. Yesterday, we finally got a chance to put it into use. Got dressed in real Grownup People Who Eat in Swanky Restaurant Clothes and everything. Food was amazing, atmosphere was perfect, and we had the place to ourselves, so that made for a special afternoon. I went for a walk in the park to ponder over some current writing projects while Real Life Romance Hero watched the news, and came home, expecting a lovely evening of writing.

Insert maniacal laughter here. Normally, a pina colada sundae is the perfect cap to any day. I love pineapple. I love coconut. I love ice cream. Mush them all together, and we should have something special. Add a dead bug (though I suppose dead bug is better than live bug, but not by much) and we have the exact opposite effect. Bleh.Try and follow that up with a soothing cup of tea that fails, not once but twice. Surely, Tuesday has to be better.

i1035 FW1.1

Did I do that?

Well. I will start off by mentioning that Skye kitty puked at my feet while I was making my list of Monday horrors. It was not her first time today. She’s fine; it’s hairball season. This happened at the same time Housemate arrived several hours earlier than we expected her (always good to see her, and it is her house, too, but surprise factor was high) and RLRH, who had been sleeping in, rose at that exact moment, doubling the surprise factor for me, plus cat puke. I am about to give this day a jaunty salute and retreat into Sims 3 and adult coloring books.

Before the cat puke and flinging open of multiple doors at once, my Tuesday so far includes:

  • the two pens I normally keep in my computer bag, for specific purposes, are not in my computer bag, nor are they in my computer sleeve, and I have run out of logical places they could be, which leaves “lost” as the most likely suspect. Not earth-shattering, as they are easily obtained at Dollar Tree, and I am subbing Pilot Varsity fountain pens (there is something about subbing a fountain pen for a dollar store pen, but I am too Mondayed to examine that at present) but still enough to jangle in my current state.
  • Aforementioned festival of doors flinging open, with my opinion asked on a conversation whose topic completely eluded me.
  • New (additional, that is; Critique Partner Vicki is not going anywhere; I love and need  her and she can’t afford the blackmail, so she has to stick around) critique partner not only pinpointed specific issues with project she’s looking at with laser accuracy and helpful suggestions with which I totally agree can make this story So Much Better but also nailed the overall goal I’m going for in my writing, which I had not mentioned to her yet; reclaiming my melodrama, which I love and dearly miss, buried under should and expectations and nonwriting concerns.

This last one is where I’m going to focus, because it’s a good place and an uncomfortable place. It’s good because this is what I want, this getting back in touch with my natural voice and working those writing muscles until they give me some resistance, which is the signal that they are getting stronger. Uncomfortable, because, well, change is uncomfortable. Resistance is uncomfortable. Looking at what we could do better and where we’ve fallen short is uncomfortable. It’s also a necessary step in the journey, and, sometimes, we need to tread that particular path more than once.

So, on a day when I’d hoped to make up for the day before, (though I did get some work done before RLRH and I had our adventure) instead, I’m digging up bones, fleshing out, refining, reexamining, restoring, tearing down and building up until what’s on the page is what’s in my head. My characters deserve that. My readers deserve that. I deserve that. In that perspective, all the crud is worth what it takes to go through, to make the best possible story and the best possible me. Remind me of that when I grumble, okay?