Typing With Wet Claws: Care and Feeding Edition

October 16, 2015annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. I would have had this posted earlier, but Anty had to help Mama with a very important errand. They did not have to buy my regular food while my tummy was wonky, but it is better now, and I had eaten through what they had of my regular food, so they had to go to the store.

Well. I know it is time for humans to have fun with scary things, but the regular food store not having my regular food is very scary. I am a creature of habit, which means I like for things to be The Same. One time, the store did not have my scent of Febreze, so my humans brought home a different scent. They said it smelled good, but I did not think that at all. I moved my pee spot, so that they would know my opinion of that new scent. They never bought that new scent again, but I still use the new pee spot, because I am used to that now. We will see what happens with this new food they are trying me on this week. I ate some of it before, when my tummy was getting better, so it is not entirely strange. That is a good thing.

this is a good grocery haul

An even better thing is that I have eaten through almost all of my dry food treat, and my humans had to buy a new bag. Last winter, the humans could not find my regular size bag of treat, and got me the big bag instead. It weighed more than I did. That was a wonderful day. Today will be a wonderful day, too, because Anty and Uncle will probably give me a little extra treat if that will finish off the old bag. Anty likes the pantry shelves to be tidy, and if she can get rid of the old bag, she will be able to put the new bag there in its place.

kitty’s got a brand new bag

I had not tried any new foods for a very long time, because I was used to my regular ones (and my vet said I should stay away from gravy foods. I will not have any more of those for a while, and that is okay. I have plenty of other things I can eat, that do not have gravy.) I did not want to eat for a few days while I was sick, but then the medicine Mama and Anty gave me did its job and I got hungry. I did not want to go to my bowl, so Anty came down on the floor and offered me different foods until I took some. Then, I ate a lot. Now, I am back to normal. I run toward my bowls when it is time for my meals, with my tail up high, because I know that what is in my bowl is going to taste good and help me be a healthy kitty. I need to be a healthy kitty if I am going to follow my people everywhere and fulfill my duties as being a mews.

It is like that with inspiration, sometimes. Sometimes, a human might lose the taste for something that normally makes them happy. This does not mean that they have sick tummies. Well, not all the time. Sometimes, it might, and in those cases, seeing a people vet is probably the best idea. I am not talking about that right now.

What I am talking about is when a writer human does not find the same pleasure as they usually do in reading their regular books or watching regular TV shows and movies and such. That does not mean that those things are bad, but it may mean that it is time for the writer to try taking in something else for a while. That happened to Anty a few months ago. It was hard for her to get into reading a lot of romance novels, and romance novels are something she really loves. That was very frustrating, for her and for me, because I take my cues from my humans.

Thankfully, the library, which is a big house full of books (Anty says it is a wonderful place) has many different kinds of books and movies, so she had other things to investigate for a while. That was how she discovered there are some very good romances in realistic Young Adult novels, and those books can teach her things she can use in writing historical romance, even though they are not historical (well, most of them are not, at least as far as she can tell.) and the romances do not always end with happily ever after. Anty says her old high school biology teacher would call this sort of thing hybrid vitality. The way I see it, if what you are eating does not taste good, it is a good idea to ask for some different food. I do not think any other humans, even librarians (they are the humans who work in libraries, and know a lot about books; they are very smart) would rub a book in anybody’s face to get them to read some of it, but one never knows.

Anty says it is important for creative humans to take in different things that inspire them, so that they will have more tools with which to work. I think she is probably right, because she is reading a lot more now, both older books and newer ones, and all of that is fueling her writing. She has a new Sleepy Hollow recap up at Heroes and Heartbreakers. It is here and looks like this:

look at how they look at each other

This show has some things that are familiar to Anty: it is set in Sleepy Hollow, a town near where Anty lived when she was a people kitten; she is familiar with the story by Washington Irving that loosely inspired this idea; it has history and romance and some spooky things, too. It also has some things that are different from what she usually likes; the Ichabod in this TV series is very different from the Ichabod in the story, but she does not mind that, because it is entertaining. The history and theology do not always make sense, and there is a lot of hand-waving going on regarding those. Usually, those things bother Anty, but here, she takes it in stride, because she is here for the things that she does like. Anty says inspiration is like a buffet: take what you like, and leave the rest. Come to think of it, that pretty much sums up being a cat, as well.

random me picture because Anty likes it

I have talked for a long time, so Anty says I need to wrap it up. She has to work on her novella now, so that is about it for this week. Until next week, I remain, very truly yours,

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

Until next week…

Typing With Wet Claws: Vet Vet Edition

October 2, 2015October 2, 2015annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. This week is mostly about me, because this week, I had the adventure. Normally, I am a very healthy girl. I only eat my food that my humans give me, in my dish, in my room, so I do not know how my tummy got upset, but, this week, it did.

I puked. A lot. Also had something come out of me that was liquid, but should have been solid. Anty watched me closely and was very concerned. When Mama and Uncle came home, I did not feel very well at all, and had not wanted any of my food (if it came out of you the way it came out of me, you would not want to put any more in, either.) This is very concerning for kitties. My humans got the carrier out (I know what that means, so I made my displeasure known. I usually go along with what the humans want, but this was a carrier.) Mama got me in fairly quickly, and then we went outside (it was cold) and then in the car. Anty had her fingers through the grate on the door so I could smell her and she could feel the warmth from my body. Mama drove through the dark while Uncle used his phone to check in with my Anty Kiara, who had recommended the emergency vet.

Vets are humans who help kitties (and dogs; there were a lot of dogs in the waiting room. That was scary, because some of them were big.) and they helped me right away. The vet tech gave me a bath, even though I did not say that she could (Mama said she could, though, so that is why.) because I had a poopy butt. They poked me with needles and took some blood, which I also did not like, but that is how humans help kitties who are sick. Some of the needles gave me liquids, because I was dehydrated, and some of the needles gave me medicine. The vet gave my humans other medicine to give me, and then my humans took me home. I ran out of the carrier right away and hid under Anty and Uncle’s bed. The humans offered me food, but I was not yet interested in it.

Anty says I am very pretty after my bath.

This is the best part next. I am starting to feel better, and food is looking interesting again. The vet said I could have people baby food if I would eat it (I will not. I feel sorry for people babies that have to eat that stuff. No, thank you.) My Anty Kara, who has kitties of her own, and helps kitties who do not yet have humans, said that I could have tuna juice. A human Anty went to school with when she was an almost grownup said the same thing, so Anty went to the food store and got me people baby food, people tuna and a different kind of cat food with gravy in it. My regular food does not have gravy in it, because my vet where we used to live said that can make kitties like me fat. (I do not know if she understands I am a Maine Coon and I am supposed to be bigger than non-Coons.)

Anty put all the food she had bought on the floor in front of me, to see if I was interested in anything. I looked straight at the can of tuna. It was sealed and she had to get the can opener, but I let her know that was what I wanted. She tried the baby food first, because its cap screwed off. Meh. Tuna, Anty. It was hard to get the can open, because our can opener is older than me, but she did it, and put the juice in my dish. I loved it. I ate a little bit of tuna and asked for more. Then I ate some of my treat that was still in my dish. Then I had more food. Then I puked it all up, and Anty cleaned it. Anty knows a lot of bad words, but she was not angry at me; nobody likes cleaning throwup.

I still throw up a little when I eat, but most of it stays down, and Anty says I am acting more like myself. I am up to writing this blog entry, so that is something. Anty gets to cuddle me when she holds me so Mama can squirt medicine in my mouth. Then they tell me I am a good girl, but I already knew that, because they tell me all the time. I am feeling a lot better and can once again function as Anty’s mews. That is a good thing, because she has writing to do.

Last night, she recapped the season premiere of Sleepy Hollow, for Heroes and Heartbreakers. It is here and looks like this:

That is about it for this week, as it is time for my nap, and Anty needs the computer. She also is looking forward to picking up her new phone this weekend, so that she can take pictures of me on Instagram again. She was very concerned about me this week, but now that I am getting better, it is time to pay attention to writing again.

Until next week, I remain very truly yours,

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

Until next week…

Typing With Wet Claws: Autumnal Equinox Edition

September 25, 2015annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. This has been a big week. Anty is okay, even after the bulletin board fell on her head. That is not the reason they did not want her at jury duty, but she did get a blog entry out of it, so that is one good thing. She still has not put it back up yet. She will need Uncle’s help and input first, and she will probably take everything off and start all over, anyway. She was not working on specific things (apart from the time travel, which was already a mess by then) when she put the board up, and she is working on different projects now.

Since the Autumnal Equinox has arrived, it is now officially fall. That is Anty’s favorite season (but when winter comes, that will be her favorite, too) and the time of year when she gets her super powers back. Her super powers mainly (or Maine Coon-ly, because I am a Maine Coon and also her mews) involve telling stories. I think those are very good super powers. Life would be very boring without stories. Now that fall is here, the leaves are starting to turn colors, the air is crisper, the weather is cooler, and the sun sets earlier. Anty sometimes phrases this as “the darkness returns” and follows that with a creepy laugh. She also likes that skull themed things are much more easily available and stocks up now for her year round needs.

This is also the time of year that new TV shows come back, and sometimes, Anty writes about them for Heroes and Heartbreakers. This week, The Big Bang Theory came back, and Anty recapped it. The post is here and it looks like this:

Dr. and Mrs. Hofstadter request the honor of your presence…

Anty is also looking forward to writing about Sleepy Hollow when it comes back, and also writing about books and other articles, but what she loves writing the most in fall (or any other sesason) is historical romance (and historical adjacent romance, but that is another topic.) With jury duty and some other things this week, Anty had a rough couple of writing days, but, yesterday, she packed up her computer and some legal pads and went to the Panera across the street from the hospital and settled in for the long haul. That means a few hours, in Anty time. She got a cookie, which meant she was there to get down to some serious business.

This is Anty’s serious writing business face.

If you see Anty with this expression (pen in mouth is a good giveaway) it is best to put down the gummi bears and back away slowly. If you do not have gummi bears, go get some, then put them down and back away slowly. This expression means she is facing down that point in the story where a perfectly good scene has stopped and won’t get moving again. She hates those scenes, and, yesterday, she was faced with two of them, at the same time.

Anty likes to work on more than one project at a time, because switching between them keeps her energized. If one is not working, she can work on the other, and then, by the time she is ready to go back to the first one, it usually has solved its own problem. If not, she can try something else. I think petting me is a good something else. Sometimes, she does, too, but sometimes that means going for a walk or working on a different project.

For Anty, the best way to work out a story problem is to talk about it. Yesterday, she talked with Critique Partner Vicki in email about one sticky point, and found out she still does not know enough to write that scene. That irritated her, because she wants to write this book, and write it fast, but she also wants to write it well, so that means making sure that all the foundations are laid before she dives in and forges ahead. She has had too many books fizzle out because she doesn’t know what she is doing. This is one point where the gummi bears are useful. She cannot grumble if she has gummi bears in her mouth. Tea is also good for this, plus she can have hot tea again because it is fall, and look at the different colored leaves out the window. Soon, she will be able to swaddle herself in sweaters and hand mitts, which enhance her super powers.

At the same time Anty was online with Critique partner Vicki, she had one of her legal pads at hand, to free write about what was bothering her about the other scene. For Anty, free writing is like talking to herself on paper, and often helps her figure out what she is thinking when her mind is jumbled. In this case, she’d had a scene she wanted to write, but it would get to a certain point and stop. This frustrates her, but it is not a lost cause. What she has found works best is to go back to the last point the scene worked and make a different choice for what comes immediately after that. In this case, it meant taking out a character’s reaction that she liked a lot. It ought to work, and, in theory, it would, but when she got it on the page, everything ground to a halt. So, she deleted it. Maybe that deleted bit will end up elsewhere, but taking it out got things moving once again.

Anty feels better about moving forward with both projects today, and would like to get to that, so that is about it for me this week. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

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

Until next week…

Random Thoughts From a Tired Mind (with pictures of ducks)

July 2, 2015annabowling 2 Comments

Hopping on the Thursday Thirteen bandwagon today, because a dose of normal in the current sea of chaos is welcome today, and having a bit of structure helps immensely. So.

Random duck pictures will be a lot easier now that I have a camera cord again, though the ones in this post are from a few weeks back.
I am happy to be a caregiver, and at the same time, really want a nap. Also some reliable way of remembering what day it is. Internet and calendars, yes, those are helpful.
If the library could get our family another copy of Game of Thrones, season one, with season two following close behind, that would be great. I am in withdrawal.
Reading historical romance, my favorite genre, is really hard right now, and I am not at all certain why. I am fairly sure this will pass, but I want to read romance, though it’s hard to get into and that bugs me like heat rash.
Realistic YA reading (and listening) binge continues. I have not developed a desire to write in this genre, but reading it works quite well. I could gorge on the raw emotion I’m finding there and want to carry it over to romance.
I wonder if I left my favorite historical romance books and my favorite realistic YA books in a candlelit room with Barry White music playing, if they would kindly breed.
I suspect their method of reproduction may be through my brain and fingers.
Technology is not my friend, and I suspect may actually be writing nasty things about me on the walls of whatever it is computers use as bathrooms. I do not want to know what computers use as bathrooms.
Notebooks are love. It is not possible to have too many notebooks. Starting a separate notebook blog crosses my mind more frequently than I would like to admit.
When I am not writing romance, I miss it like a homesick orphan. :dims lights, cues spotlight, sings even more mournful version of “Memory” from Cats.:
Computer issues will be solved, at some point, one way or another, and finding workarounds in the meantime is a good way to stretch creativity, but I am looking forward to finding the solution even more.
I am impatient for the Paper Towns movie, and to see the two episodes of Poldark waiting on my DVR. I also would like to mush them together and see if they breed, but then remind myself to see #7 above.
One earbud from the set that came with my tablet has just given up the ghost. See #8 above. This requires more ducks:

duck, duck…

…goose

Typing With Wet Claws: Direcat Edition

June 26, 2015annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, all. Skye here, for a slightly later than usual Feline Friday. Anty has been busy this week, as we get things with Uncle and people vets sorted out. I am happy to report that he still does not have to wear the cone of shame and does not have to take as many pills after we saw the most recent people vet. I imagine Anty is relieved, but mostly, right now, she is tired.

I am writing this post on Mama’s laptop, because Anty’s has decided it does not like the internet anymore, or maybe it thinks that now the tablet can do all that internet stuff. Either way, this means that Mama’s laptop is now everybody’s laptop, and the humans have to work out a schedule to share it so that everybody gets their fair shot at things. I am glad the tablet is kitty sized, though touch screens can be tricky if you have paws instead of fingers. Anty is looking at other laptops that might be better to use than trying to navigate among several computers that can each do part of the job. We will keep you updated on that search. It is going to take a lot of hunting, but things will calm down when that is settled.

One good thing that has happened in all of this is that Anty has discovered Game of Thrones. That is the TV series, not the books, at least not yet. She and Mama have started calling me their direcat. I do not know exactly what that entails, (hah, see what I did there? Entails? Because I have a tail.) but I did find this sigil generator, and I made my own sigil:

If you want to make your own sigil, too, the generator I used is here. If you do make your own sigil, for yourself, or your pet, or maybe your characters, if you write, please feel free to share a link to what they look like in the comments. Anty would love to see them.

My favorite episode so far is “The Pointy End,” because that is the episode where a kitty got away from a young human who was chasing him. I am very proud of that kitty. That was some good running. I should note that this is not a show for gentle viewers who do not like to see Bad Things happen, or Very Private Things, either. Anty is not phased. She knows it is pretend, and she likes stories with very high stakes. She says she knows this show is in the fantasy genre, but it feels more like historical fiction to her. I can see where she gets that. She did not like what happened to Lady, and she would really like to see more romance (and not between siblings, thank you) but it is still a very good story so far, and makes her want to see more of an epic feel in historical romances, because she would very much like to write something like that in historical romance.

First, though, she would like to take a nap. That will probably not happen for a while, since she has a lot of writing to do. That is not always easy when the machines on which she writes are giving her guff, as Uncle calls it. Anty says that having notebooks helps her a lot in this regard, because they only crash if they fall off the table. The worst that can happen then is that she will lose her place, but that is usually easy to fix, because that is usually where the writing stops. Unless she was transcribing, and then it might get trickier, but she does like to change ink colors for every session, so if she knows she was on pages written in red ink, that narrows things down when she needs to find her place again. That is very useful when she has to stop to tend to domestic tornadoes or feed me or other important stuff like that.

One good thing about technology is that the camera cord came in the mail today. That means that there will be new pictures of me, and probably also of ducks (Anty says that the ducklings are teenagers now; the girls have blue stripes under their wings and the boys have green heads. There are more girls than boys, if you are counting.) and probably notebooks, too. Anty has a stack of Picadilly notebooks she would like to hack, but she needs to do some more writing first. When a writer has been dealing with other things, even if they are very important,then the writer will miss writing, and they may get grumpy and short tempered. In those cases, it is best to tread carefully and let them do what they need to do. Giving kitties treats also helps, I have found. At least it helps me. People snacks probably will help the writer, too.

Sharing one laptop among three humans and one kitty means that we only get a certain amount of time to use it, and that is about it for my time right now. Until next week, I remain very truly yours,

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

Until next week…

Typing With Wet Nails

for the love of romance

tv

Typing With Wet Claws: Care and Feeding Edition

Typing With Wet Claws: Vet Vet Edition

Typing With Wet Claws: Autumnal Equinox Edition

Random Thoughts From a Tired Mind (with pictures of ducks)

Typing With Wet Claws: Direcat Edition