writing

Typing With Wet Paws: Mental Health Day Edition

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

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

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

Aunt Anna cleans up pretty good.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Esme and me, totally not planning anything

Headbonks!

Spring Thaw?

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

Photo by Jill Wellington on Pexels.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anna

How Double Revisions Are Going

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Three days into the (first) week of double revisions/edits, and, so far, things are going…okay. I think this will actually work itself out without too much fuss, and I am more than ready for that kind of deal. I am doing some adjusting of what I can most efficiently do when, but, overall, it’s feeling like fun rather than a chore. I think that’s the whole goal, so calling things good for now.

this is a vertical weekly planner, with minimal decoration and editing goals written in pen on each day
this is my command center

Having the amount of pages I intend to edit/revise does break things down into manageable chunks, and writing down where I left off at the end of a session means I don’t have to lose valuable time in figuring out what I did yesterday and where to pick up today. I like organization and keeping records, so this is kind of a no brainer. It’s also fun to see the different forms my record keeping/planning takes, visually appealing, it’s much more likely I am going to want to reference that page. Not going to lie, playing with pretty papers and my pen collection is a reward in itself.

But the actual writing. It’s always interesting to see something I’ve/we’ve written with a newish set of eyes. I remember the feeling I got when, in the very, very, very before times, when I would put physical pages from the printer or even typewriter, into a manila envelope, send them off across the country and wait for them to arrive at the other writer person’s home, for them to rad, comment, and mail back. Email is one heck of a lot faster, and saves on paper and ink, but I still have very fond memories of physically chasing pages along the highway (ish) because those pages held the comments from my most trusted reader, on the first appearance fo a new character, and if those pages were gone, they would be gone forever.

Thankfully, Housemate was with me, and we recovered all the pages. I devoured the comments while we waited for our restaurant meal to arrive, breathless for every comment. There may or may not have been a few happy tears because yes, this person got what I had intended for this character. Since this was for a shared project, I knew they would do wonderful things with this character, too, and all was rigth with the world.

Let’s bring it back to now. I get a lot of that same feeling when I look at Melva’s preliminary edits on Drama King, or when I read my editor’s comments and suggestions for A Heart Most Errant. Somebody else gets what I’m doing, and even though only Drama King is a true collaboration, a good editor (and I have one) can take a good story and make it even better. It’s like going to work, knowing your favorite co-worker is scheduled with you, which is not at all a bad way to think of this sort of thing.

At least that’s how it’s going so far. Will keep you updated on future progress. How’s your week going?

Anna

Lap (Desk) Dancing

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At some point in this week, I am going to ask myself why I thought having two books, in two different subgenres, in the editing/revising stage at the same time. A Heart Most Errant is my first stab at medieval romance, (and post-apocalyptic medieval romance, at that) and my first foray into the world of indie publishing. Drama King is my and Melva Michaelian’s second collaborative contemporary romance, this time where the Polyanna of Publishing falls for a grumpy British actor. This is also the week where Melva and I are swapping character profiles, because it’s time to lay the foundation for Queen of Hearts, book number three in our Love By The Book series.

But Anna, I hear some of you asking – what about the title of this post? Ah, that one. Taking another step back into re-Anna-fication, I now have a lap desk once again. My prior one did not survive our vagabond year, and I can’t get rid of it, because Storm has upcycled it to a cat bed. This means that, along with my Alphasmart and carefully curated notebooks, I am now mobile again. With the current weather, that means within our apartment. Comfy chairs are not yet installed, but I can use the office chair in Housemate’s room when Housemate is at work, unless Storm gets to it first. Storm loves that chair. Bed is good, too, or a blanket pile on the floor, with my back against the wall. I got a taste for that a while back, and it still works.

This is a vertical weekly discbound planner. The discs are lavender metal, and the only semi decorative stickers say "write," "edit" or "revise."
Catchall planner for this week

Normally, my Sundays have a special time set aside for setting up my planner spreads for the week ahead. This time, oh boy did I need it. Normally, I do a degree of decorative planning, but this week, it’s mostly functional, with what I’m writing, editing, or revising that day. Blank spaces are where I needed to check with family members about their schedules before I could assign my own time, but they will fill soon.

I’m actually excited about this. Getting to this point in two books at once, about to dive into another, coming back to a beloved genre (and a new to me time frame) and a new avenue of publishing is a place where I wanted to be for a very long time, and now that I’m here, it feels like I should sew a new patch onto my sash. If I were still in Girl Scouts, that is. Maybe there are Romance Writer Scouts? Does RWA count for that? Maybe take myself to the Panera that is basically down the street from us (with or without lap desk) and celebrate with a hot drink and freshly toasted bagel.

Anxiety levels are surprisingly low regarding all of this. Call it the Bird By Bird effect. The best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time, and while “fix all the books”: is scary, but “edit/revise X pages per day” and the like makes it a lot more manageable. There will, in time, probably be a more dedicated writing planner or tracker that naturally emerges from all of this, but for right now, I know what I am doing on each given day, and when that is done, time to do something that is fun and fills the creative well, aka read, play Sims, etc.

Some of this seems like very normal stuff that goes without saying, but getting to actually put this into practice is an absolute delight. Remind me of that when I am banging my head on the monitor because one of the fixes I need to take care of is trickier than I expected. There’s no planning for those. They are all part of the process.

It feels good to be at this stage, and the ability to flit among different methods and locations — computer, Aplhasmart, notebook, desk, bed, floor, etc– goes a long way toward taking individual elephant bites one at a time. In short, cover me; I’m going in.

Typing With Wet Paws: Double The Edits, Double the Fun (?) Edition

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Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. This week, Aunt Anna has a lot of work in front of her, because she has two books that need a second look at the same time. You read that right. This coming week, she is in double edit mode, and she kind of doesn’t hate it.

photo: Rheuben Bowling

Aunt Anna is pretty darned happy to have not only unearthed her Alphasmart, but charged her and has her ready to go. I may or may not have had something to do with the “test” document that was about a million lines of “33333333333333” over and over and over again. Nobody can prove anything. It’s all conjecture. Not my fault if the Alphasmart is super super super interesting. Aunt Anna thinks that too. She can stare at that thing for ages, and do the clickety clack thing with her fingers on the keyboard at a respectable pace. Can you blame me for wanting to give it a try?

Anyway, that’s going to come in super useful because Aunt Anna does her best writing writing in longhand, meaning it will need to be transcribed, and if she can do that from the comfort of the soft office, with hot beverage, weighted blanket and super cute calico companion, that much the better. Also, she can’t be distracted by The Sims of chats with online friends. That is a real peril for the extroverted writer, and Aunt Anna certainly is that. That’s where a mews like me has to rein her back into line.

This coming week, she has the first fifty pages of Drama King to edit (well, look at Aunt Melva’s edits, say yes or no or yes and/yes or/etc and bat it back Aunt Melva’s way) and she has the whole first pass of edits on A Heart Most Errant, and then send it back to the editor for the second pass and formatting and all of that fun stuff. If she does 25 pages of that a day, she can get the first pass dealt with in one work week, unless she hits a snag, which she can’t promise she won’t. Either way, this is a stage that she likes a whole bunch, because it’s like doing surgery on the story at hand. Most of the time, this ill also give her fuel to put new writing stuff to start its own process on the back burner, and she’ll alway6s want something ready to catch those ideas to hold them safe until it’s there turn.

Photo by Sam Lion on Pexels.com

All of that work is going to require some well filling, and that’s where her Goodreads Reading Challenge comes into play. Aunt Anna is doing pretty well this week, at eighteen books read out of ninety, which puts her at twenty percent of the way to her goal, and six books ahead of schedule. She is salty that the library does not have the third book in Eloisa James’ Desperate Duchesses series but she did suggest that the library fix that, so we will see how that goes. It’s not like she doesn’t have other books, or can’t get it elsewhere. Audiobooks make great journaling buddies, which she expects to keep on doing in the coming week.

On the Buried Under Romance front, Aunt Anna posits some questions for new romance readers (and others) in honor of last week’s Valentine’s Day. I think they are interesting questions for any time of the year. If you feel like answering any of them, or have any of your own, consider dropping your answers/questions in the comment sections on that site or this one. Aunt Anna is nosy.

So am I. Big surprise, I know. Comes with the whole being a cat territory thing. What are you reading this weekend? Have you ever used an Alphasmart? Would you like Aunt Anna to show you what an Alphasmart does? What do you think of my new signoff photo?

Headbonks!

A calico cat sis with front legs folded on the keyboard of an Alphasmart. She looks like she is reading her work.
Calico got to go!
—Storm

Sea Legs, Inside Out

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

the once and future setup

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

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

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

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

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

Typing With Wet Paws: Special Wednesday Edition

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

Photo by Ono Kosuki on Pexels.com

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

Photo by Lina Kivaka on Pexels.com

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

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

greatest hits picture of me, for kitty tax

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

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

Headbonks!

Typing With Wet Paws: Now It’s February Edition

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Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. We are now into the second month of 2021. Right now, Aunt Anna is getting ready for the workshop she and Aunt Melva will be giving for Charter Oak Readers and Writers in a Zoom chat tomorrow. That’s going to be a thing. They will be talking about writing through real life plot twists, which pretty much sums up 2020. That’s all in the rearview mirror now, and the month of love has begun.

Photo by Sam Lion on Pexels.com
aka Not Aunt Anna

We’ll start with the reading update. So far, Aunt Anna is seven books ahead of schedule in her Goodreads Reading Challenge, with fifteen books read out of her goal of ninety. That means she is thirteen percent of the way to her goal already. Most of that is YA at present, but never fear, there’s historical romance in there, too, and a lot more ahead. A lot of this reading is actually listening to audiobooks, which is a really good way to get through nights when her brain throws slumberless parties. I don’t mind them at all, because that is prime time for her to play with me and my favorite toy, OG Mousie. Mouse on a string, basically, and super fun to chase and pounce on and play with allll night long.

Photo by Ono Kosuki on Pexels.com
aka Not Aunt Anna

For this week’s writing focus, I picked a notebook picture, because that’s where Aunt Anna is going to be doing most of her work. As she and Aunt Melva get ready to start writing Queen of Hearts, they have some groundwork to lay first. Part of that is making sure they are both working from the same information. So far, the way they work is that one of them writes all the hero scenes, and one of them writes all the heroine scenes, and they work out the plot together.

This time, Aunt Anna will be writing the heroine, and Aunt Melva, the hero. That is different from what they did the last two times, so it is kind of new territory. Not that they mind, because that kind of thing is actually fun, but there is a point where they are both stepping into the unknown. Not entirely unknown, because the heroine, Heather was in Chasing Prince Charming, and her hero, Rob, was there, as well. Only a phone call for him, but it still counts. This time, they are taking center stage, so the Aunts have to know more information about them now than they did when they were supporting players. There will be much writing and crossing out and Pinterest-ing and then they can start fumbling their way into an outline. This will involve many video chats, which I will probably join. I am nosy that way.

coming sooon….

For historical romance related stuff, this baby is coming back Aunt Anna’s way pretty darned soon, after editing and formatting and cover design, which means it’s that much closer to being an actual book that is ready to go out into the wide, wild world, and make room for her to start making plans for the next one. Well, the next medieval, because she is still doing the Her Last First Kiss thing, though it needs some structural work. More on that later. She’s trying to keep her focus on one thing at a time, at least in each genre. The key word is trying.

Aunt Anna’s plans always include me

Plannerwise, she still has a few things to finalize, which is pretty much par for the course for February, or so I am told. This is only my second February with these guys, and the first one where things have been predictable enough to do any real planning, especially on the scale Aunt Anna would like. It’s looking good, though, because she has a coherent color theme going, and it’s one that shows off my best attributes (aka that I am gorgeous)

Thinking pink

There is a gold cover, too, but Aunt Anna was using that notebook while I was writing this, so it’s not in the picture, but still agrees with the whole aesthetic. She’s still working out what goes in the stripey pink cover, and the black paper notebook (the one on the end) but that will work itself out. Those things usually do. The blush pink cover in the middle is for her reading tracker, and she is waiting for some special filler paper to arrive before she puts it together for reals. Of course, I will need to give my Storm stamp of approval on any paper that comes my way, usually by sitting on it, and most often exactly when Aunt Anna needs it.

Speaking of which, that open notebook isn’t going to sit on itself.

Headbonks!

Typing With Wet Paws: End of January Edition

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Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. It’s zero degrees here in New York, and zero is exactly the number of us who want to go outside today. Aunt Linda and Uncle Rheuben both have to go outside to go to their jobs, but Aunt Anna and I get to work from home, so that is pretty cool, that we can stay warm. See what I did there? I got a million of them.

Speaking of warm, I have become very interested in Aunt Anna’s weighted blanket. Of course I love sleeping on it (Aunt Anna prefers under it, but eh, you do you, Auntie) but also I am super super super interested in what’s inside the blanket. Aunt Anna says that it’s glass beads and I should not be digging at it, even though it is fun fun fun (and a little frustrating.) The humans have been talking about getting a cover for the blanket, so I can’t make a hole in it and let the glass beads out. Aunt Anna says they would get everywhere. I will probably like the cover, too, and it may even distract me from the blanket itself, but I must lodge my protest anyway. The blanket does help Aunt Anna sleep, and that gives me a lot more cuddle time, so that’s good.

Aunt tested, kitty approved

For those who wanted to know what blanket she got, it is the Tranquility blanket from Wal-Mart, the twelve pound version. She thinks it is the twin size, even though her and Uncle Rheuben’s bed is either double or queen (they aren’t sure.) Uncle Rheuben doesn’t need the weighted blanket, so it goes on Aunt Anna’s (and my) side only.

Photo by Lina Kivaka on Pexels.com
aka not Aunt Anna

Now we come to the reading part of our blog Aunt Anna has reluctantly noped out of even a deferred version of last week’s historical romance readathon, because it was one of those weeks. She is pumped to get some more historical romance standalones under her belt, either rereads or finally reads, and has a bunch of historical romance audiobooks lined up, along with some contemporary YA, tending toward the darker ones. As usual, the “hm, how would this work in a historical romance?” thing happens a lot. She likes audiobooks right before bed, which coincides with kitty cuddle time, so I am all for that.

As far as the Goodreads challenge is concerned, Aunt Anna is currently one book ahead of sche3dule, with eight books read out of ninety. That puts her at nine percent of the way to her goal, which is not bad at all. She did manage to read two historical romances:

No Rest For the Wicked, by Lauren Smith (Pirates of Brittania connected world)

and

Duke of Desire, by Elizabeth Hoyt (Maiden Lane #12)

On the writing front, things are moving right along, or should I say, write along? Heh. She and Aunt Melva are fifty pages into the first edits of Drama King’s first draft. It’s going pretty well, although we had something that may be called the Empanada Incident, because a whole scene scarpered off from the working copy of the full manuscript, and Aunt Anna only found it because it was the only scene in the book that contained the word, “empanada.” Phew. They also did some plotting on Queen of Hearts, which was super fun.

Next weekend, they will be teaching their workshop on how to write through the tough times, for Charter Oak Readers and Writers. While Aunt Anna and I are in New York, and Aunt Melva is in Massachusetts, there is still no travel involved, even though CORW is in Connecticut. As with many things these days, they will be conducting the workshop virtually. They will be sure to give all the highlights on their own website, MelvaAndAnna.com, which is newly updated, with more stuff to come.

As for the historical romance side of things, that’s progressing as well. Aunt Anna is now eyeing the calendar for when her A Heart Most Errant manuscript comes home to roost, and then she can take the next step in the indie process. To get in the medieval mood, she’s planning to dive not some old favorite medievals, and some from the brave new wave of modern medieval writers. Do you have a favorite medieval? Let her know in the comments.

Okay, that’s all I have on the agenda (well, the part i haven’t shredded yet) so I am going to go take another crack at that weighted blanket. Maybe it’s filled with kibble!

Headbonks!