Typing With Wet Claws: Back to Business Edition

April 14, 2017annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. It is now one week after the start of NECRWA 2017, conference hangover mostly worn off, but inspiration still in full force. That is how it works with Anty and conferences. Her back is feeling better, which means that she can bend more easily, to feed and pet me, and also sit in her office chair without pain. These are all good things, because going to conferences and being with other people who love to do what she loves to do gives Anty a big burst of wanting to do writing stuff. It has not yet inspired her to get rid of the office carpet, but I think that a workshop on how to make a writer’s office pet-friendly would be an interesting topic for next year’s conference. In the meantime, I have found a way to curl up on the small sliver of hardwood so that only my fuzzy parts are on the (ugh) carpet, and my feet are on the hardwood. That is an okay way to be in Anty’s office with her, but I still want the carpet gone. We will work on that one.

Before I am allowed to talk about anything else, I need to talk about where you can read Anty’s writing on the interwebs this week, apart from here. First, as always, she was at Buried Under Romance this past Saturday, and will be there again tomorrow. Her most recent post asks readers to share what they think makes for a good series. That post can be found here, and its link on the main page looks like this:

This week, Anty actually finished reading a book. That is progress. Her review of Untie My Heart, by Judith Ivory is here, and it looks like this:

There are sheep and horses in this book, but no cats.

In case you were wondering, finishing that book means that Anty is now only nine books behind in her Goodreads challenge. Still single digits, so go, Anty. If you are interested in following her challenge, it is here, and it currently looks like this:

We will see how she does in the coming week. Since she will spend part of today planning for next week, I hope she will put some reading time in there, so that she does not get to the end of the day and then find that she is too tired. That happens far too often for her liking, but I have my treat by then, so it does not affect me very much.

Thank you to those who asked if there was a Feline Friday last week. There was, but I made a mistake. I meant to schedule the post to go up on its regular Friday time, but it is very difficult to hit the schedule button on WordPress, when one has paws (special paws, at that) instead of hands, and I posted it on Thursday, by accident. If you did not see it, that is probably why, and I am very sorry. That post is here, and my picture on that post looks like this:

Me, from last week.

Okay, I think that is everything about that. Time to move on to the meat of the post, which I hope is tuna. I really like tuna. Beef is also good, and I can appreciate turkey in gravy, but I do not get food with gravy very often. I do not think that is the kind of “meat” Anty means, which disappoints me. Did I mention that I really like tuna?

Now that Anty is back from the conference, she has some new perspective on writing and writing related things. First, she and Anty Melva need to get their material together for the two requests to see more of Chasing Prints Charming. When an editor or agent wants to see part (or all) of a manuscript at a pitch session, it is smart for the writer (or writers) to get that out as soon as possible, so that the editor or agent remembers who they are and what they liked about the book, because they will have seen many more writers and many more books between the time they heard the pitch and the time they get that material. So, Anty and Anty Melva want to get a move on with that.

The other big thing for Anty is reconnecting with Her Last First Kiss. Since she and Anty Melva spent a lot of the conference talking about Chasing Prints Charming, and getting ready for the next book, which they will call Drama King, Anty needs to get her mind back in the eighteenth century so that she can get Hero and Heroine’s story all the way through the second draft. Right now, she is still working out how she is going to manage that balancing act. I do not think it can be easy to be a writer and a half (because Anty Melva is the other half of that partnership) but I am sure that Anty will find a way. Maybe reading more historical romance will help. I think that it might. I will do my duty as a mews and sit very, very close to Anty while she does, for extra inspiration.

That is about it for this week. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

Post-Conference Recap, Part Two

April 12, 2017April 12, 2017annabowling 2 Comments

Conference hangover is a thing, and it comes in stages. Today’s stage, after an involuntary two-hour nap, is the second half of the recap, which brings us to Saturday, when things actually happened. Not breakfast, however, as we were on our own for that meal, usually my favorite of the conference, and Melva and I, despite our best attempts, found nothing around the hotel, so settled for Starbucks. There’s a picture of that, but my computer won’t let me post it, so we will move on to the big stuff, like my first conference workshop as a co-presenter.

We’re in the program!

Me and Rhonda Lane

I did not manage to get a photo of this workshop’s mastermind, Corrina Lawson, because she is a ninja, but I am sure there was a photo of the three of us taken at some time. For now, moiself and the fabulous Rhonda Lane. I think this was the most picture-filled conference yet, which I take as a challenge for next year. Speaking of which, I take you now to the room where it happened:

View from the podium

View from the back of the room

Actually, the room where two things happened, because my first and last workshops of the day both took place in the same room. Corrina, Rhonda and I had a decent turnout, alert and attentive women (no dudes in this workshop, at least not this time) who had specific questions about blogging, and made the whole experience fun for presenters and attendees alike. Fingers crossed that the pitch to NJRWA is successful, because I would love to do this again. The fifty-minute hour was over all too soon, and we capped it by giving away an analog blogging starter kit. Here’s what one lucky person took home:

If you missed out on the workshop, or are curious about what actually went down in that magical hour, we have a PDF of the PowerPoint presentation, which you can download here: BloggingIsntDeadHandout

The other thing that happened in that room was that Damon Suede presented a compressed version of his workshop on character building. This was a surprise addition, as the presenter who had been scheduled to be in that room for the last workshop, had a flight delay, and Damon graciously stepped in. Despite back pain, I made tracks the second the previous workshop, across the hall finished, because there was no way I was missing this one. No regrets. The room was packed to capacity, and well worth it. If you ever get a chance to hear Damon talk about anything writing related, grab it. We learned the difference between activity and action, and I love the idea of a defining verb for each lead character, preferably verbs in opposition to each other, because friction is what makes, ah, things, feel good.

In between our workshop and Damon’s , there was a lot of learning -from neurophysics to the art of the novella, to the ins and outs of writing with a partner…which I had to leave early (still salty about that, too) because it was pitch time. The newly-named Chasing Prints Charming had three pitch sessions, one from me, and two from co-author, Melva Michaelian. Swing and a miss from me (hint: when pitching your romance novel, do not choke and make the hero a footnote) but two hits from Melva; both of her pitches resulted in requests to see more.

While I did have the obligatory “what’s wrong with meeeeeeeeee?” whinge, the answer is: nothing. Though this pitch got a pass, the person to whom I’d pitched said they’d totally read it for pleasure (I have heard this before, on another pitch, but that’s another story, both literally and figuratively) and the no was based on that particular person placing that particular book. Discussion of how my pitch session went had to wait until after lunch, as the person who had passed on the pitch ended up sitting directly behing me for that meal. Not every work fits with every editor or agent, but two others nibbled, so Melva and I are still calling it good. Time to get the requested material in shape and send it on its way.

As for that lunch, Zoe York, our luncheon speaker, put the text of her speech on her website, so those who want to relive the magic, or those who weren’t able to attend, can get a small taste. Zoe talked about some of the cold, hard facts of the publishing business, and the importance of writing the books we want to read, and how this is not a business for the faint of heart. Like, you know, people who had their pitches turned down and then sat in front of the person who did the turning down. By now, I’m more amused by this particular turn, and, who knows, Melva and I might put it in a future book. As Chasing Prints Charming was born at a prior incarnation of this conference, we also began our pre-writing on Drama King, our next collaboration.

The big event, for me, besides our workshop, and Damon Suede’s workshop, was being in the same room with Joanna Bourne. Not only being in the same room, but hearing her keynote dinner speech, which would cap off the whole experience. Though there were still some breakout sessions after dinner, Melva and I had miles to go before we slept, so this was our grand finale. For those who haven’t had the pleasure, Joanna Bourne writes amazing historical romance, set in the French Revolution, with all the deep emotion and dark places of the heart, and all that other stuff I absolutely love to find in a historical romance. Did she talk about writing outside of the drawing room? Finding the emotional center? How she encapsulated the entire French Revolution, from both sides, with two people surveying a trashed greenhouse? Nope. Squashed hamster, a vet’s waiting room full of falcons (no worries, hamster was fine) and the difference between greatest adventure and “being well traveled in Concord.” For those, like me, who still wanted to hunt down some words on writing from one of the grand mistresses, there is this tidbit, found on her website’s blog.

After dinner, it was pictures and hugs and cheek kisses and promises to email, gathering tote bags and turning in neck wallets, and stepping back into the ordinary world. As much as conference hangover is a real thing, so is the inspiration that travels home with us and spurs us on as we sit back at our desks, open a notebook and boot the computer. This week, it’s back to work on Charming Prints Charming, back to work on Her Last First Kiss, back to whittling down my Goodreads challenge debt, and all the rest that comes with the time in between conferences. I had a great weekend with my tribe; now time to do the work once again.

Post-Conference Recap, Part One

April 10, 2017annabowling Leave a comment

NECRWA 2017 is but a memory now, and I am already pumped for next year’s adventure. Melva and I arrived late on Friday, so we can’t speak to the hors d’oeuvre hour, but the author signing was tremendous fun, and I did get to speak to Alyssa Cole, buy a copy of An Extraordinary Union, as well as discuss diverse historical romance for a few minutes. Still salty I wasn’t able to make her workshop, but not to worry, she and co-presenter, Amara Royce, whose books are also going on my TBR list, will have the PDF available on their websites. I will be watching those like a waiting room full of hunting falcons watched the squashed hamster Joanna Bourne brought to the vet (don’t worry, hamster was okay, but that’s another story.) There’s so much more history besides only the Regency, that when I find kindred spirits on this, I latch on like a barnacle. Hopefully a productive barnacle, because this conference got me inspired to fill some pages and empty some pens/wear down some leads.

Even though arriving after the foodstuffs meant I didn’t get to attend any of the Friday workshops (though I did get a second shot at hearing Damon Suede on Saturday, and yes, he really is that amazing a presenter) I still got a thrill as soon as I checked in. See that nifty ribbon beneath my nametag? It is official, I have really and truly presented at a regional RWA conference, and there I am in the author directory. That went a long way to make up for not being able to hang out in either the readers’ salon, Hamilton sing-a-long, or even the lobby to gab with conference people. My back insisted on going upstairs to rest after the basket raffle.

Melva dubbed the walk from the elevator to our room “The Blue Mile.” Door at the end of the hallway was not our room, but the stairs. With my back, stairs were not an option. Our room was around the corner from that. Real Life Romance Hero had suggested I ask the front desk to bring up a banquet chair, in case the desk chair was too soft (it was) so I had a nice, firm chair to park myself for the obligatory swag shot. No, the postcard front and center is not Sleepy Hollow fan art, but goes along with my signed copy of A Extraordinary Union. Still super pretty, and I can’t wait to dig into the story.

Swag for days…

One of my favorite parts of any conference is getting to connect with other romance writer friends, especially those, like my Last Call Girls (more on them later) whom I only get to see at the annual conference. It’s big, it’s loud, there is a good deal of shouting across tables, and, even when there aren’t any workshops going on, hanging around the hallways or lobby, in small knots, getting current on who’s writing what (Melva and I do indeed have a draft of the Beach Ball, now known as Chasing Prints Charming (sic)) meet new friends and meld social circles by introducing new friends with those we’ve known for basically forever.

I’d like to say I got a good night’s sleep, but a combination of back pain, end-of-book endorphins, and excitement over the day ahead meant I lay in a very lovely bed, my brain whirling with books and stories and writers and workshops and pitch sessions (I had one scheduled, Melva had two) and what on earth we were going to do for breakfast, since we were on our own for that this year. There was a certain amount of little-kid-on-Christmas-Eve feeling, because I was only one sleep (or in my case, lack of sleep) away from my first time co-presenting on a topic I love, with awesome co-presenters whom I also love. One lack of sleep away from my first pitch in the last few years, for the first complete book I’ve ever co-written. One lack of sleep away from brainstorming the next book with that same co-writer, because that was the most natural step after writing “The End” on the first one. Slight twinges of guilt from Hero and Heroine, but an assurance I’d be back to them, after shaking conference hangover, quieted those in due time.

There’s a lot to be said for the work our brains do when we have nights where we don’t sleep, and when that brain belongs to a writer who has arrived at a conference, there is a lot of that sort of work. Have I done the right writerly things this past year? I’ve written The End on two manuscripts. I am now seven chapters into the second draft of Her Last First Kiss. Chasing Prints Charming has a complete first draft, and already two requests for partials. There’s a presenter ribbon on my name tag, and, somewhere in that same hotel, there were people who had already decided they were going to choose that workshop over all the others offered at the same time. There’s some responsibility with that, because those other workshops were good ones (and yes, I did make a quick peek in the room where a certain other workshop would be presented, on my way to the bathroom immediately prior to showtime.

Not a lot of conference talk in this entry, I know, but it’s all part of the conference experience. Actual workshop and pitch stuff in our next entry. See you Wednesday.

Typing With Wet Claws: Conference 2017 Edition

April 6, 2017April 6, 2017annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. This week there is some degree of time travel going on with this blog. Because today is the first day of the conference, and Anty will be leaving the apartment very early so that she can meet Anty Melva in MA and then go to the conference together, and Anty has several writing things that need attention before then (also packing, because she, as of this writing, had not done that yet) this post is actually coming to you from…get ready for this…yesterday. Whoa. I know. I am not sure how Anty managed that, but anybody who can get a cat to blog for her, and manipulate time, has to be pretty smart.

First, as usual, Anty was at Buried Under Romance this week, and not as usual, she invited readers to play a game with her, instead of a regular post. Because there were some issues with the interwebs, not everybody got to see it or have a chance to play, but because Miss Ezrah is a warrior queen webmistress, now you can. It is here, and the link on the main page looks like this:

Since this is conference week, I am going to give Anty some grace and not mention that she is now even behinder in the Goodreads reading challenge. Okay, not how much behinder, but still. Anty. Read books. Between ouchy back and post-conference exhaustion, I think she may have some time to read when she gets back from the conference. I would give her partial credit for bingeing on the whole season of Thirteen Reasons Why, but that was the TV show, not the book, so it does not count. Anty, I love you, but you need to step up the reading game. Big time.

Sometimes, when Anty is watching TV, she is actually working. That happened this week, when she got to write a timeline of the Rick and Michonne romance in The Walking Dead. I like Rick and Michonne. She likes cat statues, so I think she would like real kitties, too. Rick got her a new cat statue when she did not have her old one anymore. Maybe he would also like real kitties. That post is here, and it looks like this:

Anty likes writing this kind of timeline post, and that is a good thing, because, when she comes back from the conference, she gets to write another one, about humans on a different show. That is pretty exciting. She also has the okay to write another post, about the books of an author she likes very, very much, and needs to finish reading one more book, so that she will have read all the books that author wrote under that name. :clears throat: Anty, do the right thing.

Well, writing has to come first, because Anty cannot sell or publish books that she has not written. That is kind of important. She has been up late at the computer the last few nights, and her back has some things to say about that, but the Beach Ball is bouncing its way to the finish line, which makes both Anty and Anty Melva very happy. Hopefully, it will make some lucky editor and/or agent very happy, as well.

With all the writing Anty has been doing, and Uncle learning, the hard way, that he was wrong about the expiration date on those sausages (he will be okay, do not worry.) things have been a little crazy around here. Landlord came by a couple of days ago, and replaced lightbulbs in almost all of the overhead fixtures. Guess which bulbs did not get replaced. If you guessed Anty’s office, you were right. Uncle and Mama both claim they did not know Anty needed new lightbulbs, but here is a clue: at nighttime, it is dark. This is okay for me, because I am a kitty, and I have built-in night vision goggles (they are pretty cool) but Anty has a bedside lamp on the desk of her hutch, which is okay for only the computer screen and desk surface, but those are not the only things Anty uses in her office. Landlord or Handyman will take care of that fixture when one of them comes over to put in the new kitchen light. I suspect Anty may want to clean things once those lights get installed. Maybe she will finally see how ugly the carpet is and want to get rid of it. A cat can dream.

Because it is conference week, Anty has something special for everybody who comes to her workshop, or is interested in blogging, but attending a different workshop (like Miss Alyssa’s) or cannot attend the conference. Miss Rhonda has made a PDF of the Power Point presentation they and Miss Corrina will use. Click on the link below, and it can be yours. You can even read it at home in your pajamas, if you are into that kind of thing.

BloggingIsntDeadHandout

That is about it for this week. If you are going to the conference, feel free to say hi to Anty when you see her. If you are reading this blog, then it is no big surprise that Anty loves to talk about writing and romance novels. Also notebooks and pens and tea and gummi bears and TV shows and makeup and um, yeah. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

If Not Now, When?

April 5, 2017annabowling Leave a comment

In two more days, I will be at the Let Your Imagination Take Flight conference. Between now and then is laundry, packing, about elebenty bajillion emails, and some furious keyboard pounding, as the Beach Ball reaches endgame. This year, I’m pitching again, after a couple years’ break, and I am co-presenting for the first time ever. There’s no time to be nervous. There’s only time for doing what has to be done, and figuring out the time in which I can do it. This entry is getting pounded out in one go, because I have pages to fill, and there is the aforementioned laundry to be done, with the help of Housemate, because I have, according to Housemate and Real Life Romance Hero alike, sustained the most Anna-y injury ever. I hiccupped too hard, and now my back thinks it’s digging-Housemate’s-car-out-of-the-snowbank all over again. Good thing my work involves sitting in a comfy chair.

Every three months, a new issue of Art Journaling magazine comes out, and I pounce on it as soon as I possibly can. Every time, I scan it quickly, then take a longer look later, with beverage of choice, possibly a nibble or two, and drink in all the inspiration. I wish I could make pages like that. I wish I could layer colors and make backgrounds and figure out where to put stamps, and knew the best kind of white pen to write on paint or magazine images, and not look like a third grader on the first day of art class (even though pretty much every artist ever has been a third grader on the first day of art class, at some point in their creative journey.) I look through, and I want to make those pages, and I make some pages, and some of them are kind of okay, but nothing more than that. At some point, I throw my hands in the air and wander off, leaving scraps of waxed paper and blobs of gesso in my wake.

This past weekend, while doing my regular grocery shopping, I made my ritual pass through the notebook aisle and found something I’d never seen before. Cahier style notebooks, with multicolored bright pages, plain black cardstock covers, but -BAM- color explosion inside. I am pretty sure that the package of three notebooks jumped into my cart of its own accord. This is not a bad thing. I hate blank white pages. Hate them. They’re…blank. They’re…white. They’re…:gestures vaguely: there. Daunting. Where the heck does a person start on a plain, blank page? This is exactly why my morning pages have to be done in a pretty book, or one I make pretty with my own embellishments. I knew as soon as I saw these, I had to take a crack at using them to make those pages.

Yesterday, I needed to get out of the house, so I threw a few long-neglected supplies into a bag, grabbed my new toy and headed for the coffee house I hadn’t seen in over two weeks. No overthinkings, only making marks on the page. I’d started at home, with an ink test on the last page of one of the books, and then…I printed. I doodled. I squiggled. I made notes on things I had bought but never tried, or tried once and wandered off because it didn’t work perfectly the first time. I put in my earbuds, put on some Netflix, and I put stuff on the hot pink page.

Here’s a better look at the supplies I used:

I didn’t use the glue stick, because I didn’t bring anything I could glue onto the page, but it’s in the bag, so it’s there when I need it. When it was time to go home, I had a couple other techniques I wanted to try. I slapped some gesso on the next spread of pages (okay, first, I slapped some matte gel medium on the inside cover first, because I didn’t read the label before I opened the jar) and then, when that dried, thought I’d have a go at another thing I’d always wanted to try, and always looks foolproof. It is not foolproof. I am referring to the green blobs in the corners. Those green blobs were meant to be gentle washes of different shades of green. Maybe next time.

Even so, I think I did okay. This is only two layers on one substrate. I still have stamps I’ve been too nervous to try, because they are special stamps, from a favorite creator, and I don’t know, or have forgotten what I did once know, about inking those images and getting them to do what I want. Still, the way I see it, I have two options here. I can leave the special stamps safe in their packaging, or I can rip off the cellophane, slap some ink on those suckers and see what they can do.

In that respect, it’s not all that different from writing. When I sat down with the contents of my travel pouch, and a pristine, hot pink page, with its subtle contrast of lines, I wasn’t going for perfect. Nobody ever had to see this. Nobody would ever judge this (that only applies when one does not slap it on the interwebs, btw) and my only goal was to explore and have fun doing it. I knew I would create imperfect pages, and that took all the pressure away. What did this tool do? What kind of mark does this pen make? Let’s find out. Let the movie play and slap things down on the page and drink tea, censors off.

As the first draft of the Beach Ball bounces its way to the finish line, I’m keeping that in mind, and that’s also the plan for draft two of Her Last First Kiss. Create imperfect pages, on purpose. Let the movie play.

Priming The Pump

April 3, 2017annabowling Leave a comment

So, it’s Monday. The weekend was full of family and friends, lots of errands, sometimes employing not only plan B for the day, but plans C, D, and E. Par for the course around here, which all makes it not that surprising that this is the third or fourth time I’ve started writing this blog entry, because my brain is tired and I have no idea what I wanted to put here. Even my trusty “in this moment” prompt (thanks, Barbara Samuel) which I usually interpret as “right now” has failed me, and there is a part of me that would like nothing better than give a hearty “forget it” to the whole idea of writing today, and retreat to my recliner, with beverage of choice, afghan, and laptop, and binge on Elementary while I eat three flavor popcorn straight from the tin.

That’s not what I’m going to do. What I’m going to do is babble here and prime the pump, until something decent comes out, then get back in there and bounce the Beach Ball around, because forward motion gets one to one’s destination. Which means that, since my fingers are on the keys, I need to keep them going until I meet the magic seven hundred. The previous attempts had all been too hard, too forced, too think-y. When I get think-y, I know I’m off the path I need to take. Not that thinking is bad, exactly, but over-thinking, which is all too easy for me to fall into (and pretty darned difficult to get out of) that’s the stuff that can kill writing.

There is not enough caffeine in this house (even though we bought tea this weekend) to remind me where I put that Lin-Manuel Miranda quote about writing the rust out of the pup until one hits clear water, then writing down the clear water. I do remember the bit about writing without inspiration, though: throw stuff down on the page without inspiration, and then sift for nuggets. I can sift for nuggets. Hey, look at that; I’m already over halfway to the magic seven hundred words I need for this entry. The plan is, get this entry posted, flog it around the interwebs, and then I can put on my big girl pants and get cracking on some of that commercial fiction all the cool kids are doing these days. I will also put on old clothes, because I will soon have a head full of Manic Panic. That’s the hair color, not a psychological state of being.

With five days, today inclusive, until this year’s conference, this is crunch time. I’m going to need to prewrite and schedule blog entries, knuckle down and keep moving forward on both fiction projects, and do that whole packing thing. Not to mention agree on breakfast plans, because I am not going into my first time giving a workshop on an empty stomach, and definitely not without caffeine. I may pack my own Lapsang Souchong, for the benefit of the public at large.

Before I do any of that, though, I need to get this written. Maybe it sounds like a whole lot of blabbering in no particular direction, and maybe I do a lot of that, but it’s my blog and I’ll blab when I want to. The very fact that I have to do this tells me a few things:

Sleep is a need, not an option. That’s in-the-bed, under-the-covers, head-on-the-pillow sleep. If it’s one of those nights when sleep flat out isn’t happening, I need to be kinder to myself the next day. Take a nap, or head to bed early that next night.
Well-filling is also a need. I do not want to count the number of books I have scattered about the apartment, in various stages of being-read-ed-ness. I will, though; including electronic reading material, it’s five. Too many. Pick one, read to the end, pick another one, repeat. The reader guilt is crushing, and not good for the creative mind.
Clutter has to go. Mental clutter and physical clutter. All the “I’ll get to it laters” pig pile on top of each other and crowd out the fun, playing with imaginary friends stuff, which is what I would much rather have. Since I like organizing and planning, this is actually the easiest of the three to dive in and conquer.

Allrighty, then, I think we got us some water coming out of this here pump, so I am going to leave you all here and head off with my imaginary friends. Toodles.

Fair Day, and Another Blog Begun

March 27, 2017March 27, 2017annabowling Leave a comment

Right now, I have a deep, burning, urgent need to read Fair Day and Another Step Begun, and I Would Go Barefoot All Summer For You, two long-out-of-print YA novels by Katie Letcher Lyle. This is not want. This is need, like these books are a part of my writer self that I did not know were missing, until something, likely falling down a YA rabbit hole on Goodreads, jogged my memory. I’d read Fair Day when I was in junior high, and fell wildly in love with the exquisite use of language, how a story set in then-contemporary 1970s America could have the feel of a time and place long ago and faraway. I did not read Barefoot, and I think I may, at the time, have scoffed at the title, but that only means I was not ready for that book then. I am, now.

Both books have their roots in medieval ballads, Fair Day a direct contemporary (for 1970s) retelling of the centuries-old ballad, Child Waters. I don’t know how these books came back to my attention, but, right now, it hurts that I don’t have them, which is a clear signal that there is something in them that I need. Neither book is in the library system, though two nonfiction books on plants by the same author are. Not quite the same, so the search continues. Ebay or Amazon it is, unless I strike gold at the local UBS, which is probably a longshot, but still going to try.

My memories of Fair Day are hazy, but I remember, while reading that book in the second floor study hall (if I remember physically where I was at the time I read something, it’s a sure sign it has become part of my idea soup) how it felt both modern and ancient at the same time, in a sort of world set apart. I love that kind of thing. Give me a pop singer backed by a symphony orchestra, or modern music played as though it were from centuries before, and I am going to play it until somebody’s ears bleed. This is one reason why my family knows that it is a good idea to keep me well supplied with backup earbuds at all times. There is no such thing as playing a song on repeat too many times if it has something to say to my storybrain.

It’s the same with books. If there is something about a book that gives me that “Yes. That.” feeling, then I have to have it, hold it, touch it, smell it, stare at the covers, flip through the pages, until it becomes a part of me. Once it’s in, it doesn’t come out. Well, it does, as something from it will find its way into a story or character or idea, and it will be reproduced, but the original inspiration stays put, ready for me to draw from it again, as needed, in near or far future.

Why this/these book(s) now? I don’t know, but I have learned not to question it. Sure, the cover does have a vague sort of historical romancey feel, if one looks in the right light. I don’t remember if Ellen and her child’s father end up together, and I don’t want to know until I (re)read, so I don’t know if this a romance. I don’t want to know. The heroine in the foreground, the man on horseback in the distance, the dirt road between them, her long, loose hair, her oversized coat, the bare trees reaching to the cloudy sky, the lyrical title, the memory of how the school library was often my sanctuary when life got rough. I remember the bite of cold air on my skin. I remember falling down and getting up and going onward, onward, onward, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot.

I did not read Barefoot, but, when I read “Toby Bright is coming,” said Aunt Rose, my storybrain quickened. Yes. That. Shut up and take my money. I need this book. Don’t need to know another thing about it, and, in fact, don’t want to know. Given that the heroine is thirteen, I don’t think this is a romance. I think it’s what those old-timey people in centuries past would call “calf love,” and I am fine with that.

Maybe I’m entering the magpie stage for whatever comes next, acquiring bricks for a house I have yet to design, much less build. As of this week, I am six chapters and change into the second draft of Her Last First Kiss, and there’s a new Melva chapter from the Beach Ball sitting in my in-box, which means I need to send her one back. There needs to be a What Next putting itself together on the back burner, because I am going to come to The End on both of these projects, and I do not want to blink into the abyss.

So, yes, medieval ballads. Check. Soak in the exquisite marriage of language and emotion until I am drunk on it. Check. Emotional afterglow that is still with me I’m not going to say how many decades later. Yes. This. This is what I want to take in. This is what I want to put out. Titles that feel like music. Lyrical prose. Characters who let me feel each beat of their heart as though it were my own. I want to read that. I want to write that.

For now, I can stare at the covers and pick apart the design elements, maybe mess around with paint and ink on paper of my own, to see what comes about, either to come up with something similar, or figure out how the original artist did it. Note what music feels the rightest while I do, and see what imaginary friends poke through the fog in the process. The journey of a thousand miles, they say, begins with a single step. Maybe this is one of those. Only one way to find out.

Typing With Wet Nails: Conference Countdown Edition

March 24, 2017annabowling 4 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. There is a lot to talk about this week, so we’ll get Anty’s writing stuff out of the way. (Strictly speaking, it is all Anty’s writing stuff, but I mean the places you can read her or about her on the interweb this week.)

First, as always, Anty was at Buried Under Romance last week, talking about cabin and road romances. You can find that post here, and the link on the main page looks like this:

Anty’s Goodreads challenge is here, and, this week, it looks like this.:

As you can see, Anty has read fifteen out of ninety books, putting her five books behind schedule. Anty does not like being behind schedule, so she is working on that. It is not always easy, when she has things she needs to finish writing by certain times, and there is the conference coming in a little over two weeks. Today is the twenty-fourth of March, next week is the thirty-first, and the week after that, it is conference time. (That high pitched panicked sound you hear is Anty screaming and running in circles. Do not worry, though; she will get better.) Even so, she finished reading The Viscount Needs a Wife, by Jo Beverley. Her review of that is here, and it looks like this:

There is one more thing regarding Anty on Goodreads this week, and that is very exciting. Anty SueAnn read one of Anty’s books, and she liked it very much, enough to give it a five star review. Five star reviews make writers very, very, very happy. That goes for all writers, not only Anty, so please leave reviews when you can, for any writer. Anty may or may not be considering recruiting Anty SueAnn to write blurbs for her in the future.That review is here, and it looks like this:

Okay, I think that is it on where you can read Anty or about Anty this week. She has had some interesting comments, from other writers, including those on Anty’s keeper shelves, to her Ramblings of a Temporal Vagabond posts, which are here and here. Anty is probably (okay, definitely) not done talking about different eras in historical romance, and why broadening that playing field is a good thing, especially because the conference is coming, and she will have more to say after talking to other writers. She hopes that includes Alyssa Cole, who will be co-presenting the workshop Anty cannot attend because she will be co-presenting “Blogging Isn’t Dead” at exactly the same time, but in a different room. If you go to Anty’s workshop, and she says she needs to use the people litterbox, she is really trying to sneak into Miss Alyssa’s workshop, and you should block the doorway so she cannot leave. Until the workshop is over. After that, it is illegal to restrict her movements, so please do not try once the workshop is concluded. Distracting her with stationery or gummi bears would probably work, too.

Anty, Miss Rhonda,. and Miss Corinna have been talking a lot on email, so that they will be ready to give the best workshop they possibly can. I am very happy to confirm that one of the slides does, in fact, include me. I also saw the word, “pets,” on another slide, so I think they have their priorities straight. That will still not make me happy about Anty and my Mama going away overnight (Uncle will stay home with me, although he has to go out and hunt -humans call it “work”- for part of the evening, but he will come home smelling like cheese, so I can look forward to that) but at least I know that the importance of cats in the blogosphere will be represented.

Anty has several things to do to get ready for the conference. She has to get her pitch together for her pitch appointment, for one thing. For the last couple of years, she has not had a pitch session, but this year, she does. She feels a little rusty, but she is also excited because she loves pitching. It is the writer version of auditioning, which was one of her favorite parts of her theater experiences in college. She will have eight minutes with a publishing human, who is paying attention only to her, and already loves the kinds of books Anty loves to write, and wants to buy new ones. Well. Anty may be able to help her out on that one. We will see.

There are other things Anty needs to do before she can head off to the conference, and they are also important. Since the conference is not providing breakfast, Anty’s favorite meal, she needs to find where she is going to find that, and find out who is going to have it with her. If you are reading this and you are going, you are invited.

Anty also has to figure out what she is going to wear to the conference. Most likely, it will be black, because that is her favorite color, and she has a lot of black things already. I am not too concerned with the color. I am a tabby cat, which means my fur is stripey, and, with my creamy undercoat, I can shed on pretty much anything and have my fur show to best advantage. It is a gift. My humans never have to worry about other humans (or pets) knowing they have me, because my fur will be right there.

Because it is this close to conference time, and Anty has more than one thing that has to be written by a certain time, it is also the time of year when Anty loses track of what day it is in the really real world, despite her calendars (yes, plural.) Earlier this week, she had to ask a friend if she was at a place on the right day, because she had forgotten there would be food there, and there was food there, so maybe it was the wrong day? Her friend has people kittens, so she understands losing track of things like this when one’s brain is taken by other matters. As it turns out, Anty was there on the right day, but things like this are going to happen until things are all the way written and the conference is done.

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

Rumblings of a Temporal Vagabond, part one

March 20, 2017annabowling 5 Comments

Okay. Deep breath. This is one of those days where I stare down the packed to-do list and charge. This past weekend, I came across a post by Isobel Carr, on Risky Regencies, called “Some Possibly Unpopular Thoughts.” My ears immediately pricked. Might this post be referencing the other post, on Smart Bitches, Trashy books? Oh, yes, it did. Oh, good. After a week stuck in the house with my beloved family, a stomach bug, and back pain, I needed something to latch all my frayed nerves onto, and this has been a bee in my bonnet for some time, so here we go.

I don’t get why, with historical romance, if we’re defining it as “anything before living memory,” which, for the sake of argument, let’s say predates WWII, it can seem a Herculean effort to sell a book set outside of one particular era, in one particular locale: Regency England. Strictly technically speaking, we’re talking 1811-1820, when King George III was unfit to rule, and his son, who would eventually be known as King George IV, ruled in his stead, as Prince Regent. Regency = during the rule of a regent. Easy enough. More broadly, the term, “Regency Era,” can apply to 1795-1837, ending with the ascencion of Queen Victoria, for more of a zeitgeist approach. For the smaller definition, we are talking a span of nine years. For the larger, forty-two years. Bit more breathing room there, even room for a generation or two to pass. All well and good there, but for those of us who write (and read) stories set outside of this era, it can be rough going at times, and yeah, my dander is up on this one right now.

There’s art and there’s commerce. There’s the book of the heart and there’s the book that sells. Right now, Regency is what’s selling. Especially Regency with Dukes. I get the desire for some fantasy in historical romance (not the elves and faeries sort) but there are also the times when my blood carbonates with the need to poke at whether it is that specific historical period and that specific rank of the peerage that seems to have a stranglehold on the market at the moment (and for more than a few preceding moments.) All the why, why, whys mosh around my brainpan, because that’s what I don’t get.

Before my life took a hard turn into caregiving, and a huge shift in the family structure, I had four historical romances published. My Outcast Heart was set in 1720 New York, with a subsistence farmer heroine and a hermit hero. Never Too Late was set in 1900 England and Italy, the heroine fifty years old when she set out to reclaim the love of a lifetime. Queen of the Ocean, set in sixteenth century Cornwall, and had a Spanish hero. Orphans in the Storm was my English Civil War novel, set on the Isle of Man, and the English Court in Exile, in the Netherlands. (Hey, I had royalty in that one. Impoverished, exiled royalty, but royalty. It’s okay. The monarchy got better.) Those were all settings I loved, that came organically with the stories that I wanted to tell, the ones that were real and alive in my head. I still love them all to this day, and those years when writing was all but (and sometimes outright) impossible didn’t change my love for a variety of historical settings . Call me a temporal vagabond.

When the writing came back, and maybe even before, that had not changed. I had to set aside a time travel I dearly loved, and needed to start something new, something smaller in scope, something I knew I could get from point A to point B. Aha. Road story. I could do one of those. Then I read the then-newest issue of the dearly departed RT Book Reviews, which had two articles, one on medieval romances, and one on post-apocalyptic romances, and my writerbrain perked. Aha! Post-apocalyptic medieval! Yes! I can do that! What would seem like an apocalypse for the medieval world? Black Plague? That, I could do, so that’s what I did.

I wrote the story of a disillusioned knight errant and a woman who refused to believe the end of the world was, well, the end of the world, who offered him the one thing he couldn’t refuse (apple seeds; it works in context.) They meet early on, they’re together the whole darned time, and I literally cried when I had to say goodbye to them at the end. Then I tried to sell it. The last agent I pitched to said she loved my voice, quoted some of my own passages back to me, and said she would totally read this story for pleasure, but was not going to ask for the full, because she could not sell a medieval. Cue sad trombone slide.

This agent advised me that my options were to trunk the story for now and hold onto it until the market changes, and medieval come back into fashion, or self/indie publish. She asked what else I had, and I mentioned I was writing a Regency. Great. Send her that when it was finished. Seriously. No question about plot or characters; just send it. I wish I could say that buoyed my spirits, I ran home, finished it, sent it in, and here’s the cover reveal, but that’s not what happened.

What happened was that characters and a story I loved turned into torture, frustration, sobbing to Critique Partner Vicki, who finally smacked me upside the head with a bat’leth of four words: “you hate writing Regency.” But it had to be Regency! That’s what sells! She didn’t budge. I didn’t have Regency in me. Set the story aside, along with the time travel, until the bad juju burns off, set it in another era, and try again.

Her Last First Kiss came complete with its setting, and, when Melva and I needed a historical period for the book within a book for the Beach Ball, I suggested Georgian, because hey, I was there already, and I knew I’d be doing a lot of the historical heavy lifting on this one. Both times, the setting was organic, not even a question. I/we didn’t pick; they picked us.

Done with blog time for today, not done with the topic, so calling this part one. See you Wednesday; let’s chat in the comments. :jaunty wave:

Morning Pages Have Broken

March 15, 2017annabowling Leave a comment

Okay, not actually broken. More like adjusted, but we’ll get to that. Lots of pictures for this entry. You have been warned.

This morning, I headed outside at six in the morning, to shovel the sidewalk in front of our house. This is what I saw:

Good Morning, Albany.

This morning, I filled the last two page spread in my most recent morning pages book. Normally, I like to plan ahead, and have the next book all ready to go, so I don’t lose any momentum. This time, that was not the case. I love the Paris-themed book by Punch Studio, that I’ve been using; so much so that this is the second copy of that book I’ve bought. I did some online searching, and Ebay shows me that there are three other designs in that line: a different Paris-themed book, one themed around Italy, and another around New York City. Insert sound of angels singing here. Perfect. Only problem is, that I wouldn’t be able to get any of them shipped in time to start the new book.

I didn’t want to have any gaps. The longer away from any creative project, the harder it is to come back, and morning pages have been such a big help that I had to do something. All of the books I’ve had so far have rotating designs, so spread A is different from spread B, different from spread C, and so on, repeating after a short sequence. My visual brain likes that, so it’s a must when I look for a new morning pages book. This time, I couldn’t find any in stores, so I had to get creative. I had a deconstructed Studio Oh book that I’d originally intended for Her Last First Kiss notes, but book and notes were not a good fit, so I put it aside. Plain lined pages, but a lovely, slightly mottled ivory color. Add selections from my collection of design tape, et voila:

front cover

altered pages

It’s not Punch Studio or PaPaYa Art, but it will do for now. What’s important is that it feels like the right place for me to start my day (as opposed to, say, shoveling knee-high snow. That is not a fun way to start a morning.) I’ve found that priming the pump with whatever my brain dumps out in the morning is usually effective, and from there, I go to planning. Here’s the current planner setup:

The small book is my eighteen month planner. Technically an academic planner, but I grabbed it because it is gorgeous and it feels like me. That’s where the day to day calendar things go; appointments, deadlines, RWA chapter meetings, etc. The larger book is a gridded page leatherette Markings book. I struggled to find a use for that one for about two years, lots of false starts and different formats, until I tried the design tape trick. Voila. Now it’s my daily tasks book, in bullet point form on one page per day. In two months, I’ve used more pages than I did in the two years previously. Think I’ve found something that works here, so sticking with it.

Which brings me to Big Daddy Precious, the Papberblanks book that holds my HLFK notes. Few false starts there, as well, but, once I figured out the single line of copper marker at top and bottom of each page, the notebook clicked with me. I started out writing in ballpoint in this book, because fancy book needs fancy pen, but it wasn’t until I switched to mechanical pencil (I do a lot of erasing) that it really clicked-clicked. The ability to erase is incredibly therapeutic, and makes it a lot easier to climb into my characters’ skins and look through their eyes. Will definitely be carrying this practice over into other projects.

Front cover

Inside pages

The fancy twinkle lights are not on the actual page, but are an accurate representation of how it feels to be writing Hero and Heroine’s story. Which is an extremely good way for a writer to feel about the current WIP. I don’t know what it is about the visual connection that does it for me. Maybe it has something to do with being an artist’s kid, and making art, myself. When things in the really real world look similar to what’s in my head, that makes the connection stronger. Not going to complain about that.