extroversion

B Minus Fourteen

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B, in this case is for book, because the book in question is, of course, Chasing Prince Charming. My math may be off, because I am me, but it’s two weeks out, and stuff is getting real. The hardcopies Melva ordered have arrived (at her place; I have not seen them yet, but I am sure they are gorgeous, and I may squeal and/or cry, when I do.) We are getting ready for our first author visit, at Buried Under Romance, which will go live on release day, and, at some point, it is going to hit home that it’s really happening and the dry spell is over.

As I may have mentioned before, I have anxiety and depression, and both have been tickled by domestic tornadoes this past week, which meant that something had to give, and that something, in this case, happened to be my Camp NaNo work, and I am now kind of squidgy about visiting the site to update my count, when I do have one (after I post this blog, I am off to play with the pirates) but I am going to do that. That’s part of the trick, if there is one, to writing through anxiety and depression.

What works for me is to show up, do the work that I can do, when I can do it. When I look into the well and find it empty, then it is time to focus on filling, once more. This is where planning is a huge help. When I say planning, I don’t mean the bare bones of an agenda or schedule, but hunkering down with pen and paper, optional variety of art supplies, and putting what’s in my head on the page. For me, that helps figure out where the emptiness is, and that’s the first, and often biggest, step in figuring out how to fill it. Though I do this solo, I do think it has something to do with being an extrovert (though introverts and ambiverts can certainly do the same thing, and probably do) because I don’t see this process so much as “journaling” but more “talking on paper.”

Do that for a while, and things tend to fade into focus. That’s what happened today. This is a blog entry because my agenda does say blog entry, and, after I get my Plunder pages done, I get to mess with art supplies, and listen to an audiobook. Lisa Schmidt-Rigby at Buried Under Romance showed me how to turn any book into an audiobook, thanks to text to speech technology, so that has me excited. I’m okay with the robot voice. My brain translates into narrative and character voices anyway, so it’s not even a problem.

Fourteen days doesn’t seem like a lot, sometimes, and then, other times, it feels like forever. It will be the same amount of time, no matter what I do, so that’s one thing off my plate. The passage of time is not my responsibility. I like that. It’s a relief. If I pound keys and write my way through the ink of a dozen pens, between now and August 12th, or if I spend the time contemplating my own toenails, August 12th is the date Meg and Dominic get released on the world. The story Melva and I conceived at that NECRWA conference, that seems both yesterday and foreverago, will go forth into cyberspace and TBR shelves, and people will read that story, some of whom will never speak a word about it, but I still like to think it will be a pleasant experience.

Besides that, I am staring down the finish line for Plunder at Camp NaNo, and have notes to setup a binder for this trilogy, with sections for Abandon and Treasure, and see how these fictional kiddos grow. I am querying my other historicals that are on deck. Melva and I are following Jack and Kelly into the final acts of Drama King, and prepping the soil, sowing the seeds of what will, one day, be Queen of Hearts. All in all, I have to call that good.

Talking With Wet Nails

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New title for video blog posts today . These will now be under the heading, “Talking With Wet Nails,” because it’s catchy, and that’s my best attempt for a title today. Still need to come up with an appropriate graphic, but that’s a problem for Future Anna.

Note that I am not actually doing my nails in this post, because that would be awkward, messy and probably boring. I did, however, stumble into the captions function, so we’ll see how that goes.

I’m hoping to make this a more frequent feature here, as part of my effort to stop being as quiet as I have been lately. This also means I only have to write-write one blog per week, as Skye still has Fridays. Innovative and labor saving. I like that.

 

 

TLDW (too long, didn’t watch) :

Crabby Monday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shying at the Jump?

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Wouldn’t you know the one time I leave my phone at home, it’s the time I bust out the super cool printed legal pad? That’s why, instead of a picture of my workplace, you get a picture of what my workplace sees. Apparently, I now have a signature taking-pictures-with-the-computer pose. Could be worse.

So here it is, Wednesday, time for Wednesday’s post, which was meant to be a) a late version of the Top Ten Tuesday post, and b) a video blog, but life happened, and so you get this. I almost chickened out of today’s post for a handful of reasons. It’s stinking hot out, which makes me crabby (I will spare you an encore of crabby me picture, because you get air conditioned me, which is much less likely to cause harm to self or others.) Yay for comfy coffee house in the nice, cool, brick-walled basement of a historic building. I’m tucked away at a new-to-me table in the back, close enough to my favorite seat to still count as being in the general area, with the added benefit of not being directly in the glare of the sun. Comfort, check, can see screen, check, tasty and seasonally appropriate beverage, check. Also important is presence of people who do not share my address, but are not trying to talk to me while I am writing.

Normally, this time of day on a Wednesday, I’d be having a regular chat with Critique Partner Vicki, but, apparently, she has a life or something, so I am on my own. Were I home, I would be singing the Song of the Lonely Extrovert. Real Life Romance Hero is pretty sure that whatever the words are, it would be backed by Kenny G. He’s probably right. Thanks to the internet, though, there really isn’t such a thing as alone, and since there are now over 400 of you who occasionally pop in here (had to count the zeroes there) it does give me the impetus to get something up here, even if all I do is babble. Since babble generally ends up going somewhere at some point, I am okay with that. I wasn’t always.

They don’t call it a writing process for nothing. Critique Partner Vicki and I started having these talks to help pull ourselves and each other out of the slough of despond and get real about why writing got so hard that we were avoiding the very thing we love to do the most, and figure out what we can do about fixing that. One thing I’ve noticed is that things can be going fine, and then, seemingly out of nowhere, I become amazingly skilled at avoiding working on a certain project. The usual modus operandi in the past was to continue avoiding, scamper off to something new and leave a trail of broken stories in my wake. That’s kind of not conducive to a writing career, oddly enough. That means I need to face what I’ve been avoiding. Face that sucker head on, see what it wants from me, and figure out if we can come to some sort of agreement.

This week, it was Her Last First Kiss. Oh, I was good at this. Work on other projects, do housework (a sure sign of avoidance, but it’s needed and I like doing housework; it counts as organization, and things are nice and clean and in order and…yeah, yeah, back to the book. I get it.) pay assiduous attention to social media and the like. We’ve all been there. If you haven’t, wait. We’ll save you a seat. I’d ripped out the first scene, made notes on how to fix it, which means the whole first section, aka everything I have written, had to be ripped out and redone. I did not want to do that. Needed, but didn’t want to.

Okay. Fine. Since I now accept that I do have to write in layers, it’s less scary to look at a page and know that something is missing. That’s fine. Time to make the literary baklava. What else does this scene need? In this particular scene, my heroine is super-focused on this hurricane of a man (not that she’d know what a hurricane was, but that’s okay, this version of stuff goes down exactly the way it comes in my head, modern idioms, comparisons the characters wouldn’t know, etc. I can fix all that later.) tear through her nice, orderly world without even noticing she’s there at first. She hates that. Still, there’s that even more disturbing fact that she does not mind the view, not one bit. Which is bad for this chick, oh so very bad.

Mmhm. Methinks she’d prefer I not know that, not only does she notice this person she’s never met before can barge into her sanctum and start spreading wet papers all over everything, even moving her stuff -and nobody moves her stuff- but that he’s pretty darned nice to look at, even soaking wet and tracking water and mud on her floors? Okay, we’re going there. This is going to involve more than skating on the surface. This is going to involve putting on the metaphorical scuba gear and diving down deep. What, specifically, does she notice about him? The fluidity of movement? the fit of his clothes? That it’s really none of her business what color his hair is when it’s dry, but she still wants to know? That’s good for a start. I can feel her sweats and fidgets now, which is a sign I’m headed in the right direction.

Every writer is going to have their own ways to deal with these things, but as with horses (and my entire experience with same is limited to always picking the black horse on carousels, a few toys and a seriously strong crush on Black Beauty dating back to preschool) sometimes, we shy at the jumps. When that happens, we have two options. Go back to the barn and figure jumping isn’t for us, or take another look and devise another approach. Get some more momentum. Come back and try it again. For me, that’s babbling, either to another writer, or on paper. Earlier today, I went through my legal pad stash, to see which one felt the most like this project. Sure, I have notebooks, three of them, and still use those, but a legal pad feels more open to the free form rambling that lets me get to the place I need to be to get the details. Maybe it’s visual. :shrug: Anyway, that’s where I am now. Climbing inside my heroine’s skin, and seeing what she sees, rather than sitting back and telling her what to do. Like she’d listen. Characters are funny that way.

It works for reading, too. In my morning pages, I started listing things I’d been avoiding. Apart from books for review, I’ve been avoiding historical romance in general, and avoiding the Bertrice Small reread I’ve wanted to do since February. One guess what I’m doing with my TBR and keeper shelves later tonight. Get back in there, Missy. There’s no crying in Romance. (Well, except in mine. There is crying in my books. Also a lot of my favorites. I am an angstbunny from way back, and as long as there is that guaranteed Romance HEA, may as well have some fun along the way.)

Allrighty, Liebchens, back to Century Eighteen I go. Talk to you soon.

Rambly Ramblings on Writing, Reading and Feeling Like a Unicorn

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“Trying to write about love is ultimately like trying to have a dictionary represent life. No matter how many words there are, there will never be enough.”
― David Levithan, The Lover’s Dictionary

Not sure what I want to talk about today, so you’re going to get a freeform ramble, and I am going to trust that I am going to make some sort of sense by the time I’m done. This has been not exactly a domestic tornado day, but it has been a day with a full house, interrupted by Real Life Romance Hero and Housemate heading out a deux on a grocery run. Insert Rant of the Lonely Extrovert here, because even though grocery shopping with the whole household (minus Skye, who stays home because she is smart and also a kitty) can make me crabby at best and anxious at worst, it’s still out of the house and being around people. Alas, being sun-sensitive won out, because it is blindingly bright out there for those of us (aka me) who are pale and not suited to summer, so I am rambling from my favorite seat at the coffee house down the block from our own abode. It’s nice and dark here, within the exposed brick walls, I have an iced smoky chai in front of me, am functioning remarkably well for someone who has been Mentos-free for over a week and it’s time to take a look at the week ahead and what I am going to do with it, writing wise.

At the moment, I’m at the “staring at the twenty-foot high blank white wall” stage, which is not at all uncommon for a Monday, and I know that it does, indeed pass, so not going to stress about that. Note to self: writing about things that do not bother me all that much does not make for sinctillating interesting reading. If I am making myself yawn reading it, then it’s probably going to elicit the same response from readers. Which is not at all what a writer of commercial fiction wants, by any stretch of the imagination.

Had a train of thought there, but lost it. I hate when that happens. I am going to blame the upset to routine. My ideal method of attack is to make a list over breakfast, prioritize, then do all the things, crossing them off as I go. That did not happen today, and I am feeling the lack. I am also feeling vaguely unsettled that three passes through the main library’s romance section did not yield anything I had to take home with me right that second, but I was able to cull an armful of fresh voices and intriguing situations from the YA shelves in a matter of minutes. Under one, actually. I wasn’t counting. After devouring the realm of possibility and, earlier, How They Met, and Other Stories, both by David Levithan, which were a master course in romance (even if some of those romances don’t end well) and emotion, I had decided I’m going to have to devour everything he’s ever written and see what I can mine from it. If this guy can tell a love story entirely through dictionary entries, that definitely counts as innovation.

That innovation was what I found myself hungry for when I scoured the romance shelves. Historical romance is still my genre. It’s still what I love to read most, and what I love to write, and, at the moment, it has me somewhat itchy. Not sure what this is, but acknowledging this itchiness is important. Today, looking at the shelves, I saw, with the exception of older titles, almost exclusively series. I get the popularity there, I really do. There’s a built in following for many writers that way and many readers like the comfort of returning to a known community with familiar characters and such. I do follow some series, but not because they are series. There has to be something else. When I write, I naturally think in standalones, which can make me feel, at times, like a unicorn.

I see a lot of Regency settings. I’ve tried to write Regency. It did not end well, for anybody involved. My critique partner, Vicki, summed it up best. “You hate writing Regency.” She’s pretty smart that way. I do. Perfectly fine historical era, but where other writers get excited about Almack’s and, um, Empire waists, I get nothing. Dial things back a couple of decades to the Georgian era (yes, yes, I know, the Georgian era technically goes up to the coronation of Queen Victoria, but my blog, my rules) and we’re talking a whole different story. Wigs, high heels, embroidered satin, painted fans, makeup that would make Kat VonD jealous, and then there’s the women.

The historical fiction shelves (and boy howdy, do I love that our library system has a special sticker for book spines to designate historical fiction) get my interest from time to time, but my problem there, and I do love historical settings best of all -plop me down anywhere from the end of the Wars of the Roses to the end of the American Revolution and I am one happy camper- is that fictionalized biographies are a very hard sell for me. (Unless the topic is Anne Bonny, in which case, give, and back away slowly, mama’s reading) I’d rather read about original characters living in that world than the actual figures, though the actual figures can serve in supporting roles. I saw a few titles that looked mildly interesting, and I do know that some older historical romances of a few decades past have had second lives repackaged as historical fiction, as have some of the authors of such, but…

…that’s where things get unicorny. I want something new, within my favorite genre. Give me one hero and one heroine, in a fully realized historical world, make them people of their time, take me on an adventure and deliver on that big happy ending. Along the way? Carte blanche. (Yes, yes, I know, technically Regency term. Refer above; my blog, my rules.) The best way to make that happen, I know, is to write it myself, and I’m working on it, but there are days when I wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to stab things with my sparkly horn for a while.

This may have been one of them, but that’s where the discipline of routine comes in. Monday’s post goes up on Monday. So, here it is. It’s okay if I ramble, because rambling will take me somewhere that stewing will not (and also, I hate cooked carrots, which stews often contain.) I don’t think I’m done yet, but I do have a date with my plotting board and some sticky notes, so wrapping things for now. See you Wednesday,

All Dressed Up and No Place to Go, aka Not at Nationals

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It’s that time of year again. RWA Nationals, this year in New York, which made me insanely happy when I first heard of the choice of venue. I’d promised myself as soon as my critique partner told me where this year’s Nationals would be, that I would be in New York for that one. I am, after a fashion. I live in New York, but not in New York City. I’m about two hours away, and I love where I live, but the fact remains that I am not attending Nationals, and I am grouchy about that.

Not that I’m not thankful to have what I have, and be where I am, because I am. I have a new laptop that works beautifully, I’m working on multiple projects that feel right for me, and get a few extra days at home with Real Life Romance Hero thanks to the recommendations of a people vet, to use Skye’s term. Plus I get to hang out with a gorgeous Maine Coon all day. These are not bad things.

Still, for the extroverted romance writer, RWA Nationals is like extroverted romance writer Christmas. A whole hotel, crammed full of people who do what I do and love what I love? Free books and swag everywhere? A chance to see old friends and meet new ones, and literally be surrounded by the romance industry? What’s not to love? I know big conferences can be hard for more introverted types, with all those people and so little quiet space and time, but for me, it’s like putting a duck in water. Paddlepaddlepaddle, I got this. What do you write? And you? And you? And you? What are you reading? Who’s watching Poldark? Here, have a business card. :tries to find business card port on laptop, gives up:

I love getting dressed up; for me, that’s what feels natural and comfortable, so I’m not missing out on that one at all. I’m wearing a long navy eyelet dress today, matching sandals, beachy hair, makeup done, because I am going out somewhere, even if it’s only down the block to my favorite coffee house (it’s hot out, and I do not do heat, humidity, or sun well.) There comes a point in every day when the need to be around people who do not share my address and/or last name becomes as important as food and air. The definition of extroversion I use is that an extrovert gains energy from being around other people and spends it alone. Go be with people to fill my tank, then jump into story world to spend all that energy by myself, writing. That seems to work pretty well for me. Your mileage may vary.

I’ve been attending the New England RWA conference for several years, and love that. My favorite part is Saturday breakfast, because that is extroverted morning person Christmas. Hotel full of people who love to talk about romance writing (and reading) and there’s breakfast food? Only problem there is that 7AM feels late for me (uber-morning person here; I trace this back to a particular late fall morning when I was a preschooler, and my morning person mother showed me why predawn is the best time for those like us to get up. Mist wrapping around the bare-limbed trees as the night faded into dawn burned itself into my memory, and I still remember that switch flipping on as we looked out the kitchen window together. There may have been pancakes.) Add copious amounts of tea to the mix, and I become supercaffieneated extroverted morning person. Scary at times, but also, for me, super super super fun.

Then there’s workshops, which I drink in like a thirsty camel slurps water. Last year, I took a stab at moderating a couple of workshops, which I loved and will probably do again in the future. Volunteering at a conference brings on a whole other level of experience. I’ve helped with breakfast setup (morning people think this is fun, not work, so best to take full advantage when possible) once, which had the added benefit of being able to pick my seat in advance of the meal, by criteria of what book would be on my seat. I have not yet been able to train Real Life Romance Hero to put a newly released historical romance on my seat at every meal, but maybe if I give him a stack, he could try, just for this week? It’s not asking that much.

At this past year’s NECRWA conference, I skipped a workshop to huddle in a corner of the lobby and write an entire scene on my tablet. Considering that I had not yet mastered the touchscreen and was doing this without a stylus (we shall call this time the dark ages) this is an accomplishment. I also had not discovered how to toggle between letters and numbers and thus believed that the office program had no quotation marks (I know, I know, please consider that endearing) but that didn’t matter. What mattered was the atmosphere, all the inspiration in the air, and that it had reached critical mass. That a friendly face could take one look at what was going on, say something akin to “oh, you’re writing. Catch you later,” and that would still count as contact.

I haven’t been to Nationals yet, and it’s not going to be this year. I’m disappointed in that, but I do know that I will be, at the right time, with a new book to shill…er, promote. I meant promote. In the meantime, if you haven’t had enough of my blabber, here’s my first shot at video blogging with the new laptop: