writing

Typing With Wet Claws: Sensitive Topics Edition

annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. This has not been the most comfortable week around here, on more than one level, but that is okay. Anty said I can tell you all about it, so I will.

First, the weather was not good for anybody. None of the humans like hot weather, and neither do I, because I have a full length fur coat. It is built in, so I wear it all the time. On the other paw, I do have full time bare feet (and four of them) so it balances out. Anyway, this whole week up until today was very hot and very humid, so everybody was cranky. The sun was also very bright. Yesterday, Anty tried to go for a walk to the coffee house so she could write, but it was too bright, so she had to come back home for a little while. That meant she got to spend more time with me. That made it better. Okay, it made it better for me. She fed me.

Uncle has started taking pictures of the places I flop when it is too hot. He puts some of them on Facebook so that Anty can see where I flop when she is not at home. The humans have started calling me Speedbump  when I flop in the hallway. It is not my fault. The linoleum is cool, there are no windows, and it is nice and dark there. Frankly, I do not understand why the humans do not flop there when the weather is that oppressive.

Sometimes, Anty puts ice cubes in my water bowls (I have two of them) but I do not lick them, like she says other cats do. I look at them funny and wait for them to melt. I have water bowls, not ice bowls. Anty is silly. I think the sun and heat have got to her brain. That is not good, because she needs her brain for writing.

This week, Anty had her first article published on XOJane.com. That is a website for humans to read about a lot of different things, from clothes and makeup to relationships and interesting things that happen to humans. That is where Anty came in. This next part may be hard for some readers, so it is okay if you do not want to read much further or click on the link.

Before Anty’s papa went to Rainbow Bridge, he was very sick, and he could not do everything that he wanted to do when he was healthy. That meant that other people had to help him, while he was sic and after he went to Rainbow Bridge.  Anty wrote about that in her article. It is here and it looks like this:

Not for gentle readers

Not for gentle readers

Most people who commented on the article said kind things, that they were sad Anty had to go through that, or that they were going through a similar experience. Some said that this helped them make some choices or talk to people they loved about making things easier. Those comments made Anty happy. One person, and probably other people, who did not comment, had a different opinion.

That person ( and probably others who did not comment) thought that Anty should not have written this article, and that she should not have used her real name when she did. Anty can see where that person is coming from, and she did put a lot of thought into what to write and whether she should use her name or not. Anty’s intent was to help other people going through something similar. Sensitive topics like this are not pleasant, but they are part of life.

Anty finds the whole spectrum of life very interesting, and she likes to have that in her fiction as well as her personal experiences. Uncomfortable parts of life are still part of life. Take me, for example. I was born in the wild, so I did not learn how to cuddle or play. Some bad things happened to me before the shelter people rescued me (I got hit by a car, and shelter people took me to the vet) and Mama and Anty found me and brought me home. I was very scared and did not know how to be a pet, but Mama, Anty and Uncle were gentle and patient with me. Now I am a pet. I have a happy tail. I love to play with crumpled Post-Its. I get treat in my purple bowl, and I get to take naps in sunbeams. Everything turned out pretty good, but I did not know that would be the case before I got rescued. It is still part of who I am, and I cannot change it.

It is like that with Anty’s characters. They make mistakes, and they have been through some things that are not entirely happy or nice, but they still get to find somebody who loves them and get a forever home by the end of the book. No matter how hard the road may be to a happily ever after in a romance novel (and it can get pretty hard in Anty’s) it always ends in a good place. I think that is a very good thing. If we are going through difficult times, that means we are in the middle of the story.

Speaking of the middle of the story, Anty needs the computer back because it is writing time, so that is about it for this week. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

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

Until next week...

Until next week…

How Did We Get Here?

annabowling 2 Comments

Still technically morning,as it’s ten minutes to Skye’s treat (aka noon) so, technically, I am posting on time. Besides posting on the scheduled days, I’m giving myself the added goal of posting in the morning, when my brain is the freshest. If, that is, any brain can be fresh during a streak of humid, hot weather. I was not made for summer. Whatever whichever distant biological ancestor of mine did, back in merry olde England or Ireland (my birth mother’s last name puts her ancestry at southwest England or County Cork, most likely, and that name is very common in a part of Virginia where convicts were transported, so I think drawing conclusions is not that much of a stretch) to get booted from the British Isles to American shores (and the south, no less) I hope it was worth it.  Not that they likely had any say in the matter, unless it was a choice between transportation or hanging.

Maybe I’m reading it wrong. Maybe they worked hard, bought a ticket to a new life and were happy to make the change. Maybe it was a long haul of indentured servitude before they got freedom, a change of clothes and a mule. (Yay, colonial research, I use you yet again.) Who can tell? Since I was adopted at birth and don’t know any of my biological relatives, I’m probably not going to know, so I can fill in the blanks at my leisure. To this day, I remember the lovely white-haired Virginian gal at our church back in the old country, throwing her head back and laughing when I told her the name of the hospital on my birth certificate. “Oh, honey, that’s redneck country. You’re white trash.”  Lovely gal was part of an adoption triad of her own, and we had a long, illuminating conversation that day about what it was like to be where the other one was, searching and not searching, and coming to terms with some questions not having answers. I laughed, too, not because any group of people are intrinsically funny (except for comedians; they kind of have to be) but because that answer felt right.

It’s not a concrete answer, not a specific, but it’s close enough. I’ll take it. Going from rural Virginia to a one bedroom apartment in Manhattan at the age of three days must have given me a taste for adventure at a very early age. Moving, at the age of nine months, (okay, my parents were the ones who actually did the moving; I pretty much lay there the whole time) to a town steeped in colonial and Revolutionary history (oldest Catholic church in NY state, oldest burial ground, British burned the town to the ground but for one lone house, stone walls built by Dutch settlers and still in use, thankyouverymuch, library that was where John Jay’s kids went to school, etc) must have imprinted a love of the eighteenth century in me, so I’m not surprised that it’s turning out to be my default setting when writing fiction these days. I can live with that.

Ugh. Brain drifting, which is normal in August humidity, but I kind of need my brain for all that writing stuff. Putting a book together requires brain cells. It also requires notebooks and legal pads and Spotify and inhaling other books and period dramas, and the occasional ice cream soda (replace with hot cocoa in winter, thanks) and a mountain of gummi bears (Swedish fish also acceptable and possibly more conducive if writing a Viking story. I am not currently writing a Viking story, but that would be really cool someday.) Add in a thousand other things, as I am a magpie, and collect various bits of shiny to add to my stash until it all comes together in something that actually looks storyish.

The last couple of days, I inhaled the realm of possibility (sic) by David Levithan. and am nursing a serious book hangover. The depth of emotion, the brilliant beauty of language, the voices of twenty different students at the same school, telling one cohesive story that asks the readers to do some filling in of blanks – :happy sigh: I want to hit the snooze alarm on this one, spend five more minuteshoursdaysyearscenturiesmillenia there, and see what I can take away and put into my own work. It will be something different when put through my own filters, but that’s what it’s meant to do.

I was going to say something here about writing being a sort of alchemy, but then my brain drifted off, and my time for blogging today is done so I am going to leave it at that. My characters need me, and it’s really not in my best interests to leave them unattended on days like this.

Random Monday Blatherings – Jump in and Do It.

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In my continued determination to keep blogging on the days I have blog entries planned, I am here. Random picture of moi as your image, taken in afternoon light at my favorite seat in my favorite office away from office, Hudson River Coffee House I love that place. Love it. Cool in the summer, warm in the winter, exposed brick walls, friendly staff, excellent tea, excellent food, the owner sometimes brings his dog (can it be considered a pub dog if it’s not a pub but a coffee house?) My tablet still doesn’t want to connect with the internet there, but my phone and my laptop do, so I think I can deal. Not heading there today, because it’s approximately a thousand degrees outside and my pale, sun sensitive self has already been roasted, including my brain, which is why you are getting this ramble.

You are getting it in text instead of video because humidity has not been nice to hair or makeup today, and because I want to make sure I get at least one non-Skye text post per week. Goals, people. They work I like organization and planning. Getting a big furry mess of chaos into shape and  ranked in order of importance always makes me happy. Having a plan means less uncertainty, and gives me a road map.

So why, then, is this a post about jumping in and doing stuff? Doesn’t that go against the whole plan thing? As it turns out, nope. As I’ve said before, my favorite pieces of writing advice from K.A. Mitchell never fail.

  1. open the file
  2. change your seat

Those have not failed me yet. When I don’t know where to start, that places all options as equal (at least in a certain regard) so the first thing to do is make a decision. I am doing something. I am doing this. What the “this” is can vary from day to day. Today, it’s jump in and write a blog entry. Write a blog entry on writing. What counts as writing? Well, writing, duh. That thing I do with my brain and English and some sort of method for preserving what my brain does with the English. Right now, at my desk, I’m looking at the colored index cards I used to give my On Beyond Fanfic presentation, because I’m going to need them for Play In Your Own Sandbox, Keep All the Toys. Which may need some sort of abbreviation. PIYOSKATT? Sandbox? I’ll get there.

I also have the neon green legal pad with similarly eye-searing but different-hued sticky notes on which I am figuring out the layers of a love scene from the hero’s POV. Love scenes are hard, y’all. Up until recently, I didn’t write them. Call it a case of the “shoulds,” but then I had two characters (Angus and Summer, from ye olde time travel) who blew right past me and wouldn’t let me turn the camera away, because that was some character development going on during that intimate moment and that changed things. When I do get back to Angus and Summer’s story, I’ll be starting pretty much from scratch (have to sweep out all the pesky shoulds) but I know that scene will stay, and probably stay pretty much intact, because it feels like them.

Every couple, and every story is going to be different, because they have their own histories, backstories, insecurities, wounds, hopes, how they’re reading and misreading the other. There’s what’s going right and what’s going wrong, what else is going on around them both internally and externally, and that’s not even taking into account who has what where and when. I use a lot of sticky notes, and I prefer to concentrate more on emotions than body parts, though those certainly do come into play. Like I said, there’s a lot here to choreograph, both physically and not, and maybe the sheer amount of things going on could be one of the reasons I held back on this front at first.

Not to say that all romance novels have to have explicit sex. That’s certainly not the case. Inspirational, sweet, YA, (most) traditional Regencies, etc, prove it’s not a prerequestite. I don’t like the term “clean,” because I don’t think a book that does keep the camera rolling during intimate moments is automatically  “dirty.” I think there’s a lot more to it than that. Authorial intent goes a long way. For me, it’s a matter of staying true to the characters and their stories.

In the end that’s all we can do. Tell our stories, and tell them the way they come to us. For me, that’s usually in longhand, with bullet points, lots of crossing out and layer upon layer.  Sometimes, the first thing that comes to me for a scene is something in the middle, so I go with that. What happened before and what happens after, I can figure out. Hero has a limp now when he didn’t before? Okay, how did he get that? Heroine can read and write in a language I never planned for her? Fine, where did she learn? Instead of fretting about fitting things into somebody else’s system, I find what works best for me, at least right now, is to pick a point to jump in and then splash around. The order will present itself, as long as I show up and get my hands dirty. That, I can do.

…and we have blog entry. Looky there. See you Wednesday, Liebchens.

Typing With Wet Claws: Historical Versimilitude Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Things are taking a definite swing toward fall this week. The sidewalk part of the construction is finished in front of our house, so it is not quite as noisy and the floor does not shake as much. Anty is very happy that there is actual sidewalk now, so she can wear heels when she leaves the house if she wants to, without risking ankle death. Construction is not completely done, as they still have a giant pit in front of the house next door, and we still have new trees to be put in where the old trees used to be. New trees means birdies will come back. I love watching birdies in the morning, so I am excited about that.

Anty does have a funny story about the day they poured the cement, and she said I can tell it, because it is really about me. Uncle was home until dinnertime that day, so Anty went to write at the coffee house. When left the house, she noticed that there were big mesh things laid out in a grid pattern on the gravel in front of our door. That told her they were probably going to pour the cement soon. She did not know how soon, because, when she got home a couple of hours later, there were men in big rubber boots almost to their knees, spreading the cement around. I should mention again that I am an indoor kitty, and Uncle had already left for work.

Anty was very concerned about being able to get in and take care of me. There was cement everywhere, and the workers were not happy about having to find a way for her to get across. One of them asked if she could please use the back door (I do not think he said please.) Anty said that she could, but she would have to go into the back yard (it is really tiny, because we live in a city) to get to the back door and the gate to the back yard is right next to the porch, so she would have to get across the wet cement sea anyway. The workers grumbled about having to put boards across it, but then she said the magic words. She had to get inside and feed the kitty (I am that kitty.)

Well. The workers put two boards up, side by side, and let her hold their hands so she could keep her balance as she walked across them. Anty thanked them and came inside. I got my meal (it was cat food, which is my favorite) and Anty got some more writing done. I love a story with a happy ending.

So does Anty, which is why she writes romance. She started reading romance when she was still a person kitten, only eleven. That first book was The Kadin, by Bertrice Small, and she knew right away that she had found what she wanted to read and write for the rest of her life. She says so far, so good. Anty may give the humans in her books a lot of problems, but, because it is romance, she fixes them by the end. Reading romance novels written by other humans is something that Anty loves  do, but has not had a lot of time for this summer, but now it is almost fall, so she is looking at reading more romances, especially historical ones.

Anty says recommendations are welcome...

Anty says recommendations are welcome…

Some humans like their historical romances to be what they call ‘wallpaper.’ This term confused me at first, because I thought it meant that they took the pages out of their books and covered their walls with them. I guess that is one way to go, but that is not what it means. A ‘wallpaper’ historical romance means that there is very little detail given about the period in which the book is set, only enough to give some flavor. Anty does not do that.

For Anty, the best books to read, and the ones she likes to write, are the ones where the historical world and the romance are intricately intertwined and one could not be the same without the other. This does not mean that she writes about humans who actually lived in those other times, but things those humans do did affect the people around them, including the ones who live in Anty’s head. She wants to know what it is like to slip inside the world in which her story people would have lived, and see the world the way they would have seen it.

Since Anty has not, to my knowledge, mastered time travel (but Uncle says it is okay if she gets in a blue police box if it comes) this means she has to find other ways to know these things. Some humans like reading books (that are not fiction) to learn more, and Anty does that to some extent, but what she likes to do the most is get hands on experience. Living history museums and historical reenactments are her favorites, as she can pick up on details that books may miss. She likes to know for herself what a shipyard smells like, for example, or how heavy a musket is in her hands. She once talked a blacksmith into letting her come right up to the forge, which most guests do not get to do, but Anty has special writer powers. Watching period dramas is also good, because watching people move around in the clothing of a different time tells her more than looking at a still picture, even though portraits from a particular era are the most reliable source of how clothes actually looked. She also is quick to point out that, while things like white wigs and high heels on men look funny to modern people, in the times they were worn, those things were hot stuff, so her book people would probably like them. Then again, it all depends on the characters.

Anty is now making throat clearing noises, which means that has to be about it for this week. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

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

Until next week...

Until next week…

Play in Your Own Sandbox, Keep All the Toys?

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Wednesday’s post on Wednesday – I’m on fire here. Okay, maybe a little cheat-y, doing another video blog, but that’s how it goes sometimes.

Many thanks to those who have asked about my From Fan Fiction to Fantastic Fiction and On Beyond Fanfic workshops. I love running those, and am working on an updated version I call Play in Your Own Sandbox, Keep All the Toys. In today’s video blog, I’ll take you through an introduction to the live version of my workshop, and will be making the handout available in the near future.

This goes along with my longstanding interest in authorial voice, which really does have a lot of similarities. Our voice is the sum total of everything we’ve done, seen, been, heard, tasted, experienced, heard about, enjoyed, not-so-enjoyed, etc. The common types and tropes that fire our imagination can be found in media that we already love, from music to TV and movies, books, computer games, and a whole lot more.

I know that all I have to hear is that a historical romance has even one scene in Bedlam or Newgate Prison, and I am there, baby. Shut up and take my money. This probably says something about me, but the journey of hero and/or heroine, from that cell in madhouse or prison, to reclaiming their own lives and seizing that happily ever after, gets me every time, and I will never get tired of it. Will I write my own stories including such? Whee doggies, yes. I do have some prison scenes in Orphans in the Storm, where I got to play with some of my favorite aspects of the above, and my heroine’s mother in Her Last First Kiss is in a madhouse when the story begins.

My love of TV shows such as Highlander, New Amsterdam, Moonlight, Forever, and Sleepy Hollow,  all featuring extremely long-lived gentlemen struggling to find their place in the modern world, inspired me to try my first time travel. All I’ll say on that front is that I am still looking for the right angle on that one, but when I find it, watch out. I know Angus and Summer aren’t going to let me leave them idle for too long. Maybe I need to do some more research, hm? Hard task, I know.

What tropes, archetypes or situations will get your interest every time?

Monday’s Blog on Monday and Video Blabber

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Hi, all. Monday again, and, this week, I am determined to stick to my ideal blogging schedule of Monday, Wendesday and Friday. Hopefully more, but at least those three. It does get easier when one can outsource one day of blogging to one’s pet. Definitely worth the extra treats that added service will cost, at least that’s been my experience.

Since today is a lot of stuff in a little time on my to do list, I’m going to leave the bulk of today’s post as a video blog. If there’s something you’d like to see in video, drop me a line in the comments or at annacbowling@gmail.com.

Today, I’m focusing on starting as I mean to go on for the week, which means I need to put in some solid work on Her Last First Kiss (you’ll get a tidbit on that book’s hero in the video) and read over the latest chapter from my critique partner, who is making some awesome progress on her current ms.

I will probably give myself a break to go talk to some ducks in the park later, but work comes first.

Thanks to those who asked about From Fan Fiction to Fantastic Fiction recently. Things are in the works there, so stay tuned. I really appreciate the interest, and if you can write fan fiction, you can totally write original fiction, though it is more than merely filing off serial numbers. You know you’re up for it, though, right? I believe in you.

Okay, I am in full on babble mode now, so will turn you over to the video portion of our show.

See you Wednesday, Liebchens.

Feline Friday: New Developments Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another installment of Typing With Wet Claws. It is still very loud and noisy outside our house, because the city humans are putting in a new sidewalk. I am not sure what a sidewalk is, because I am an indoor kitty, but the humans tell me they need it so that they can walk. In that case, getting a new one is probably a good idea.

Anty has been busy this week. She had a new post on Heroes and Heartbreakers, about her favorite YA book boyfriends (these boyfriends only live in books; Uncle has nothing to worry about.) It is here and it looks like this:

YABookBoyfriends

I notice there are no boy cats on this list.

See, I have been learning things, too. Now I know where pictures go on the new laptop. Anty said I should mention that it got infected again, but she fixed it like a boss without even getting a little upset. I am very proud of her for that. Computer things make her nervous most of the time, but this time, she did not even have to ask Uncle for help. She did it all herself and went right back to writing.

Speaking of writing, Anty has some writing news. This week, she sold her first article to XOJane.com. Her article is not about romance fiction, but she had a good time writing it anyway, and is happy that other people will be able to read it. There will be pictures, too. She said I can tell people when it goes live. It is not there yet, so you will have to wait a little while to see it, but Anty hopes you will read it when it is time. She likes this website very much and hopes to write more things for them in the future. She did not say if any of those things would be about cats. More information will be on the Coming Soon page, which will be coming soon.

Anty has also added a special hashtag on Instagram, so that people can follow me. All of my pictures will now have the hashtag #SkyeOMalleyCat, so that is where you should look if you want to see me on your feed every day. Anty already feeds me every day, so I do not know what the internet has to do with it, but anything that involves feeding and me has to be good.

Now that it is August, the days are getting cooler and shorter and there are notebooks and pens on sale everywhere. This makes Anty very happy. For one thing, she can write in her office again. That does not make me as happy as it makes her, because I do not go inside her office. I am not sure about the carpet in there. Anty thinks if she leaves the door open, I might get brave and try coming inside. That is a good idea, because I am her mews and need to be close by, but she does not take into account that whole carpet thing. It is different from the carpet in her and Uncle’s bedroom. I sit outside the door, even when it is open, and look pitiful. That usually makes her come out and feed me, to make up for the trauma of separation.

Another thing that makes Anty very happy is learning things that make her work easier. Knowing how to fix the computer last week made her work a lot easier (and mine as well, because otherwise, I would have had to follow her while she paced the whole apartment until Uncle could fix the computer for her, and my paws would get tired.) Learning to use Scrivener has made her work easier, because she does not always write in order and can move scenes around so that everything makes sense. Having to get an old camera memory card out of the old printer was not very easy, but it did allow her to get the photographs she needed (of her father’s old house) for the article, so that is what she did.

Humans who do not write sometimes think that writing is easy. All the writer has to do is make up stories in their heads and there they go. That is not the truth. Well, it sort of is, but that is not the only thing the job entails. The stories have to be finished, and they have to make sense. Every writer works differently. Anty has a critique partner who needs to work on only one thing at a time. Anty needs to work on more than one thing at a time, or she will not get anything done. That is not good for anybody. Some writers like to track their progress by how many words they have written. That makes Anty freeze, so she does not do that. She works on scenes.

Right now, she is trying something new and not counting chapters, either. She is telling the story and then will divide into chapters later. That is making her feel more confident and makes writing more fun. She is also thinking of new ideas for articles about things she has experienced, and about human grooming. Anty really likes things like clothes, makeup, hair, nails and jewelry and is learning how to write about those things as well. The more things Anty has to do, the more things she will get done. If she has only one thing, she will get bored. That does not apply to kitties. I am her only  kitty right now, and she is not bored with me, as you can tell by the pictures she puts on Instagram. In case you need to remember, all my pictures will have #SkyeOMalleyCat on them, so you do not have to miss any.

That is about it for now. Anty says she needs the computer back so that she can work on Her Last First Kiss and her Buried Under Romance post for tomorrow. Until next week, I remain very truly yours,

Until next week...

Until next week…

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

PS: (#SkyeOMalleyCat)

Video Blog: What I’m Reading and Other Blather

annabowling 4 Comments

Hi, all. Super busy week this week, which means I’m only getting to Monday’s post on Thursday. Could be worse. Still learning the new electronics, we’ve had a full house, and the city is redoing the sidewalks in front of our house as I write this. I found out that they were doing major things (HIMYM fans may salute with me here) which meant no leaving the house when I’d planned to hop down the block to the coffee house. Instead, I hopped into my office, and recorded this:

Still pretty basic with the video blogs, as I’m only learning the whole process, but it’s fun to blather on from time to time. We’ll see how that goes. What do you think of video blogs, dear readers? Love them? Hate them? Never watch them? Real Life Romance Hero is the one who convinced me to give it a go, so if I’m totally belly flopping here, blame him.

This week, I sold my first article to XOJane.com, which has me excited. Not romance related (though adult situations are referenced, ahem) but still an interesting experience, and one I hope to repeat. The submission package required a new author photo, with specific background requirements and bio (have I mentioned how much I hate bios?) I think the photo turned out okay. I vacillate between describing it as “thoughtful writer on a good hair day” and “Appalachian folk singer reminisces over her whiskey-soaked youth.” This whole picture thing takes practice. Videos, too.

Now that summer, my least favorite season, is winding down, and we are about to enter my beloved autumn, when the leaves put on a Technicolor show every day, the air smells amazing, everything is pumpkin flavored, and the days get cooler and darker, I’m looking forward to these changes. When my regular coffee house order slips from iced tea to hot, I’ll know we’ve turned the corner.

Her Last First Kiss continues to show me new things, some of which require the ripping out of previous things, but I think it’s going to be worth it. Sometimes, we think progress should be a straight line, like the monorail at an amusement park, where it’s more like a giant roller coaster with loop de loops and ups and downs and maybe a tunnel or water slide or two. Does this mean the book is going to be perfect? Nope, but it will be worth the journey.

It’s easy for a writer to get down on themselves after a laughably low royalty check or bad review, or realizing exactly how long it’s been since the last (or first) release, but dwelling on those things doesn’t help. Acknowledge the fact, do something different and move forward. Yes, you will fall on your face. Probably more than once. The thing is to get back up and keep going. Even if that means banging out some babble for a blog post when you don’t have the slightest idea what to write.

Hey, showing readers random stuff near my desk is still content, and it’s more than I would have had if I never opened the file. One step at a time, liebchens, that’s what it’s all about.

Typing With Wet Claws: Neccessary Electronic Evils Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, coming to you in the evening of this Feline Friday. It has been an interesting week here. Not only is the construction still going on (Anty says there is a Hellmouth outside our house. Uncle says it is only gravel, which is not scary, but will not allow Anty to walk in heels, which is kind of scary. She trips more in flats than heels, which I do not understand, but then again, I have never worn shoes of any kind.) and it was hot all week long (if you think dealing with heat is hard as a human, try going through it with a built in full length fur coat. Do not worry, though, Anty and Uncle make sure  my water bowls -I have  more than one- are always full of cool water. Sometimes, Anty puts an ice cube in my bowl.) but there are New Developments.

Anty, Uncle and Mama went to a glowy box store to learn more about glowy boxes, and they came home with a bunch of them. Anty says the robot invasion has begun. I do not know about that. She says the robots have been rising up for some time now, so maybe she meant continued. Whatever the robots are doing, there are now new phones for everybody, which means everybody wants to take more pictures of me. I do not blame them for that, but it does mean that I now know the sound that comes with the cameras hidden in those phones. Anty tells me when people on Instagram say I am a pretty girl. They do that a lot. It is good for the ego. Maybe Anty should put her book covers on Instagram. I think they are pretty, even if they are from a time before me (and do not have any cats on them. What’s with that?)

IMG_20150731_085225

who could resist this face?

Some of you may know that Anty really really really does not like phones. That is from a time, before me, when she had to keep the old ringy kind of phone with her all the time. Even in the litterbox. She may not want me saying that last part, so keep it between us if that is okay. Thank you. Anyway, that was a time when she had to talk to people vets about her papa, her own anty, and about Uncle. None of them had the same people vets because they were all sick in different ways, and so the phone rang. A lot. This was not only before me, when Olivia was Anty’s mews, but when I first came into the family, too, and I was really really scared of everything. If you knew where I came from, you would understand why, but I prefer not to talk about that. I was taking my cues from her, and if she got scared, I got scared, so when the phone rang, usually with an emergency, often one emergency interrupting another emergency, we both got scared. Sometimes, I got so scared that I would lick the fur off my tail. I do not do that anymore, because I am not scared anymore.

Anty was scared to be in a phone store (the glowy box store was really a phone store) because she does not like phones, but Mama and Uncle were there for her. She knew that she had to be there because she needs to be able to communicate with the rest of the family even when she is not at her laptop. That is a very big step. Apart from one time on Sunday (that she has asked me not to talk about) where she decided she had too many electronics (whoops, looks like I did. Sorry, Anty.) she has been pretty much okay. She likes to organize things, and organizing her electronics falls under that umbrella. That is a turn of phrase. She is not keeping her electronics under an umbrella. She mostly keeps them on a tray that is next to her comfy chair in the living room. It is not an ideal setup, but she is still researching the way that will work the best for her. For one thing, apart from her minicamp (what Mama calls the phone instead of calling it a phone; Anty likes that term, so she uses it, too) all of her electronics are pink. She did not plan it that way, but that is how it is. The minicamp is black, but it may get a pink case. She does not know about that yet.

I do not think that the new phones have anything to do with it, but Anty’s laptop got sick twice this week. Maybe more than that. I have lost count. Uncle fixed it some of the time, and then Anty fixed it herself and it has been fine since then. We did not have to go to the computer vet, which is a good thing. Anty has had to reinstall Scrivener three times already, but she did not mind, because it is something she has to do to get these books written. She still does most of her initial writing in longhand, in notebooks and on differently colored legal pads, but if she wants the books to be published (and she does; that is how she helps pay for my cat food) then she has to put them on the computer. She was so scared of Scrivener at first that she shut it down during the tutorial because it was too overwhelming. I can relate. The day I came home from the shelter, I did not know I was home and did not come out of the carrier for four hours. I came out of the carrier right away when we moved here, though, because I knew I was still with my family.

my sunbeam

my sunbeam

That is how it is with writing as well. Anty can get scared sometimes, whether it is using a new kind of glowy box or trying something new with a story, but as long as she is where she needs to be, it is worth being a little scared, so it all works out. Sometimes, something that looks scary can  be the best thing in the world after spending some time with it.

Speaking of time, Anty says I have had enough time on the glowy box, so that is going to have to be it for this week. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

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

Until next week...

Until next week…

This Rambling Is Going Somewhere, I Promise

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We were trapped in the limbo between where we were and where we wanted to be.

–David Levithan

My brain is mush today.  I don’t do well in high heat, and we are in one of those over ninety degrees for several days heat waves. There is a giant hole in the ground outside our house (city doing things to stuff under where the sidewalk used to be.) I have an ice pack at the base of my spine, to stay cool, and ingesting enough water to fill a small swimming pool. I would like to be in a swimming pool, actually, preferably an indoor one, but that would require leaving the house, so I refer to temperature and giant hole above.

There originally was a topic for this post, when I’d planned to post it, on Monday. That ship has sailed, and it is not coming back, so I am going to ramble. I have no idea whether the post I’d planned had anything to do with the quote above, which I love dearly, or if I have any chance of staying on topic, but I have a goal of blogging  three times a week, dagnabit, and I am going to stick to that. I had a writing teacher once (she would correct me that she was a group facilitator, not a teacher, but I learned stuff, Julia, so it counts. I will probably have a heroine named Julia someday, and That Julia will never know, because she doesn’t read romance. Ah, but you did, Julia. You read -okay, listened to- my stuff in group, so that counts, too.) who said that the practice of writing would bring the product of writing. In short, put pen on paper when she said “go” and then keep it moving until she called time.

It’s kind of like that with blogging. If I start blabbering on the paper, or screen, in this case, I’ll wind up talking about something, so there really are no wasted entries. It’s all going somewhere, even if that somewhere is priming the pump for other writing. I usually do need to prime. This morning, I’ve been filling the pages of a neon green legal pad with swoopy handwritten notes for one project, and, all things being equal, that’s where I’d like to stay. Commitment, though. If I don’t post today, then I’ll let it slide until tomorrow, which is my day away from the house (but not from computers, but more on that later) so that would run into Skye’s posting, and weekend posting would not be the most convenient thing, so it had to be today.

Today’s quote, taken from one of the stories in How They Met And Other Stories, fits the way I’m feeling. Real Life Romance Hero, greatly improved from  his own challenges, suggested I take today to rest, but how can I when I am literally years behind where I wanted to be? Years. Oh, and I suppose I’m going to fix that all in one day? Um, no. That’s not realistic or even possible, butbutbutbutbutbutbut….yeah. That’s the thing, that limbo of being between where we are and where we want to be.

Where I am now is not where I would have thought I’d be  years ago, before I got the phone call from my dad’s neighbor, before that first time Real Life Romance Hero and I waited on the front porch of where we used to  live for the ambulance to arrive after that first asthma attack. A book a year, that was the plan, maybe two if I really got into my groove, but it’s been long enough since a release that I could count as a new author under certain criteria. That’s neither good nor bad, merely is, and I need to be okay with that. it’s a fact. Life happens. I can’t control that.

What I can control is what I do with it. I can write the best story I can, and put everything I have into it. That neon green legal pad and I were up past midnight and up again before six, because my hero and heroine needed me. Bless their poor broken hearts, and my poor scrambled brain. I can’t do everything. I can’t write x years worth of books in one day, but I can write this scene. I can get the first of three blog entries posted. Julia was right. The practice brings forth the product.

I wrote some crap in those sessions, but I also wrote the opening of My Outcast Heart, a good deal of Orphans in the Storm, and a good deal, if not all, of “Never Too Late” in those sessions, too. So there is some precedent. Here I am, a good deal (yes, I did just use that phrase in the line above, but it’s my blog and I’ll repeat if I want to) farther down the page than I’d intended, so that’s good. I’d thought about doing a video blog for today, but my one rule about video blogging (so far) is that I only make videos when my makeup does not melt off my face while I am applying it. Kind of important, that one. I’m sure there will be others, but for today, that’s enough.

So that’s it for today. It’s hot. I’m cranky. I don’t like summer, and I don’t like being denied my coffee house time or the accompanying iced tea. All the more reason to go back into story world until it’s time to meet Housemate for soft serve in the evening, DJ-ing the soundtrack for the drive on the new smartphone RLRH and Housemate (and the very persuasive Shawn D at the phone store) talked me into. We’re all a little disoriented on that one, but I am utterly delighted that there is an office program on the actual phone, so new writing toy. Rather makes that trip to where I want to be shorter, and with a better soundtrack.