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Typing With Wet Claws: Uncle’s Shirts Smell Like Betrayal Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for a very wet Feline Friday. We are still on the move this week, currently staying with a friend whom I will refer to as Agent X. Uncle is still working out the wholr hunt for a new apartment thing, so this will be another very special blog entry, that does not follow the usual format.

In the time since we left our old apartment, I have become a seasoned traveler. Two motels in the last week, and now Agent X’s lair. I did have to spend more time than I wanted in the carrier yesterday, but Anty fogured out that, if she opened the carrier dooor, but kept the car door closed, there would be enough room to get her hand in there, so she could pet me or feed me spoonfuls of cat food. That part was kind of nice.

Anty is almost at the end of her page goal for Camp NaNo this session, and that is even with all of our travels. I think she is doing all right with that, and that, probably, writing the whole thing on longhand does make it go smoother than using the computer. Her desktop is currently in storage, and she misses it very much. She has Big Pink, though, and her laptop is accessible, so being away from her desktop does not mean she is not writing. She is almost done with her current morning pages book, which is always an achievement. Add that to a very likely Camp NaNo win, and those will be two good things coming out of our adventure.

On the reading front, Anty is tearing through realistic YA books at an impressive pace. This does not go very far in advancing her goal of reading more historical romance novels, but the tide will turn, especially once we are settled in a new apartment and the carrier is put away for a long, long time. Maybe I care more about the carrier patt than Anty does, but here is a fun fact: in a pinch, the top of my carrier makes a decent desk/dinner table. We did not know that before this week.

For those who wonder where the smell of Uncle’s shirts comes into play, it is here. Usually, Anty gets me into the carrier by turning it on its end, so the door is on top. Then she grabs me and stuffs me inside, closes the door, and off we go. Usually after a valiant efgort on my part.

Not this time. This time, Anty learned a new trick. That first method comes from one of Anty’s own antys. This new one, I think she read somewhere, and it is the work of an evil genius.

One might think that Uncle’s shirts (and other personal garments, but I am only going to say shirts, because maybe not everybody wants to read about Uncle’s unmentionables) smell of happiness and love, and they do, but they also snell of betrayal. I haf seen the carrier already, so I knew we were in for something, but I expect3d the old way, not this.

This time, Anty put the carriet on the floor, with the door open. Then, she put the shirt and other garment Uncle slept in, into the carrier. I, of course, investigated, because of the wonderful smell. Then, Anty shoved my backside all the way in, and bam, closed door. I did not see that coming. It worked the next time, too. It will probably work every time, to be honest (I am always honest) because Uncle is my favorite and I love him the most.

This is probably the part of my post where I bring the part about my week around to Anty’s writing. This is also, I think, the weekend of NECRWA’s conference, which is one of Anty’s favorite parts of the year. This year, she is not there, because we have our travels, and it is an adventure. She does miss all of the free books and swag, but she has stayed in two motels, rather than one hotel, so she has that going for her, and the interwebs allows her to talk with her writer friends anyway, and get conference updates wherever she is.

Most importantly, there is writing. Anty can do that anywhere, and if she can do it in the middlebof this, I do not think there is any stopping her.

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

Skye O’Malley Hart-Bowling

( the kitty, not the book)

Typing With Wet Claws: My First Motel Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for a slightly later than usual Feline Friday. The reason that this blog is late is that we have moved out of the old apartment and are currently in a motel. This is my first time staying in a motel, and I have to say I have some mixed feelings about this.

First, we kitties like things to be The Same. This is not The Same. This is one room, with two beds. It is pretty big. I have spent most of my time under Anty and Uncle’s bed. Anty has been moving my food bowl farther from the bed every time she feeds me.

This brings me to the second thing. Anty and Mama worked very, vety hard yesterday, getting our things out of the old apartment. They still have to get some things out of the basement storage, but that is not important to this part. What is important to this psrt is that going up and down all those stairs, about a million billion times, carrying things that were not always weildly, made them both very, very tired. It made them tired enough to realize that, even though my food-food is downstairs in the car, nobody is willing to go out in the cold and get it, because I have a huge bag of treat right here. That means I get treat for every meal, all today. That is my favorite thing about motel living so far.

The humans thought I would be scared during the move, but I was actually pretty chill, and happy to watch the humans take things to different places. It was only when Anty got down to the last few things that I figured out that the next thing would be me, and it was. Anty put me in the carrier and now we are here. The humans had a talk this afternoon, about what we will all be doing next. I suspect there will be more carrier in my future.

This is normally the part of the post where I would tell you how to find Anty’s writing on the interwebs, other than here, but the only computer Anty has out right now is her phone, so I am typing one toe bean at a time. Touchscreens were not made for pwas, let’s leave it at that. Also, the pictures are on the desktop, which is in storage, so I will mention that she only now realized that she dropped the ball on this week’s Buried Under Romance post. She offers her apologies in advance.

Anty’s Goodreads challenge is also on hiatus, because we are moving, but I will say that Anty is blowing theough YA novels at an impressive speed. We will put up proper reviews and pictures later. Right now, Anty is one big ache, but a big ache who emptied a pen, writing her morning pages in Big Pink, because the real morning pages book was, you guessed it, downstairs. Anty will attempt stairs tomorrowm

Anty will also attempt writing tomorrow. Actually, she will probably attempt it tonight, because she did not write anything on her Camp NaNo story, because her arms and legs were basically noodles, and her brain had melted, so she went to bed.

Normally, she would be upset at herself for missing that, but that is part of the reason she wanted to do Camp NaNo during this month. It is not a failure to miss a day, and the story is not over. It is only one day, and she can still “win” even if there is no input for a day or two. Life happensm

I guess that means motels happen, too. Anty was concerned that the motel would have carpet. It does not. The floor is a strange kind of ribby thing that I guess is a kind of linoleum. Anty brought all the things for my, um, stuff, so I will not make a big mess. Anty is good at thinking ahead about that kind of thing.

At some point, I will come out of my carrier, in our new home, and I will start to explore. I am sure some of our familiar things will already be there by the time it is ready for me, and I will find new favorite places. There will probably be windows, so I am looking forward to that.

Maybe that is what it is like for writers, starting a new story, like Anty is doing with her Camp NaNo story. Maybe that will bring Anty some all-treat days in her near future, too.

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

 

Skye O’Malley Hart-Bowling

(The kitty, not the book)

( I do not know how to add pictures to the post, on Anty’s phone.)

 

 

 

Four Days and Counting

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Things I am never allowed to buy more of, ever again, ever:

  • Mini staplers and/or staple removers
  • staples for mini staplers and/or staple removers
  • Pencils
  • Sticky notes (except for the really big ones)
  • Paper clips (except for rose gold ones)

These restrictions come from my current packapalooza. All of the above have popped out at me from unexpected places, even, and maybe especially when I have already packed the office supplies, but wouldn’t you know it, there they are. This is where the plasticware I insisted on keeping comes in handy. Random small stuff busting out of nowhere? Pop that sucker into a container with those of its kind, slap a lid on it, label that lid (silver Sharpies are my friends) and we’re good to go.  Put smaller things in bigger things, find creative ways to lift the edge of packing tape when it falls back onto the roll, and keep on going.

Yesterday, Housemate reserved a storage unit. Today, we find out how soon we can start stuffing things into it. This move is leveling up, and, at the same time, a small village is taking shape. Not in a sit it down and plan it idea (though I do love planning) but more of a looking around and seeing who’s there approach.

I’ve always been character driven, and the stories almost always start with the characters for me. From the start, I knew A Moment Past Midnight would have a heroine, the two men she loved, and the choice she has to make. The first draft is kind of white-room-y, because I am pantsing this story a lot more than I usually do, but I am okay with that. As long as I get to hunker down in my remote village, and put my imaginary friends through their paces, I’m fine.

Today is the day for packing notebooks that I am actually using, and, effectively, putting my office (or this iteration of my office) to bed. In the next couple of days, we will be putting things in storage, and moving things to different destinations. I am firmly of the conviction that we don’t know exactly what material things we have, until we have to move them. At some point, I will be unboxing the vast majority of this stuff, and setting up a new office, then getting back to novel work.

Working on something shorter makes sense right now, and I like getting into the flow of opening a notebook, putting pen to paper, and letting the story take me where it will. I’m aiming for novella length, because the story problem is a relatively small one (my characters may disagree on the size of the problem, because it’s happening to them, and they were fine before I came along and messed with their status quo. Okay, two of them were doing fine. For the other, their current situation is somewhat of an improvement, though to what degree, is debatable.) I know where this story is going, but  how it gets there, that still has a few surprises.

I don’t have a Pinterest board for AMPM, though I do have properly sized page protectors for when/if I do print out any images of people, places, or things, but, right now, the village, and its inhabitants, live only in my head, and on the pink pages I fill every night. I’ve cleared the thirty page mark, which impresses me, because this is one wild ride on the domestic monsoon, but maybe the chaos is part of the process.

There’s a certain amount of free-floating of the story brain while doing uncreative things, like packing (though deciding what goes where, and how things can arrive at their next destination in the same amount in the same number of pieces with which they departed their last one, certainly takes  a special sort of creativity.) I wrap things, secure them, put them where they’re going to go, make labels for inside and outside the box, so we know what goes where, and what to expect when we slide the tape and lift out the items we want.

There will probably be some brain free-floating on that end of the move, as well. Since I’ve been reading more e-books lately, there aren’t as many physical books to deal with as there were for the last move, but there’s still a good number of them to place into the little free libraries within walking distance. Donation bins are waiting for clothing items we can no longer use, and other items will be dispersed other ways. I don’t want to blog only about the move, because I would rather talk about other things, but, on the other hand, it’s kind of hard to ignore.

Right now, time for blogging is done for this session, and time to put on Spotify and stick things in boxes is back. We’ll see which imaginary friends drop by to wander around my brainpan while I pack.

 

 

Six Days and Counting

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Six days now, until move-out day, and the pressure is most assuredly upon us. We’ll be turning in our cable box, which also takes care of our internet, on Friday, so internet access may be libraries and coffee shops for a little while. I still plan to keep as closely to the regular blog schedule as possible, but if you’re following the moving saga, and don’t already follow me on Twitter, you can do that right here.

I will admit to strong feelings when it comes to taking apart my desktop and getting it ready to move to short term storage. This means the laptop will be called back to regular duty, which means tipping it back a wee bit, because the screen goes black if I hold it upright (I have no idea why this is; machine works fine, but needs to be at an angle if I want to actually see anything.) The flip side of this will be setting up my desk in its new home, and carving out my writing space once more. Until then, the world is my office.

This is one way that being a longhand-first writer comes in handy. The notebooks I use most (see picture above) will go in a special bag that will travel with me, personally, because I am not in the mood to have these notebooks go walkabout in the moving process. Entertaining as they might be to any random person who stumbles up on them and can read my handwriting, I’d rather keep them close. I can’t speak for all writers having special relationships with their tools, but, for this writer, the answer is most definitely yes.

Case in point: this weekend, I attended a leadership meeting (say what you will about an organization that allows me to lead anything) and we were all encouraged to take notes. I did not need the offered pen or paper, because I had Big Pink, and my pen case, but I did make a troubling discovery. Said discovery being the kind that trikes terror into the heart of a notebook lover. My notes filled the last pages of my Moleskine Volant, with its perforated pages. Normally, I would swap this insert for another, but (you may want to grab onto something heavy, for support) I had already packed my inserts. All. Of. Them.

Going into a move when I do not have perforated pages is not going to work, and running out to purchase another pack of inserts is not on the schedule, but packing mode has sped up the making connections part of my brain. On that same day, I also had filled the last non-perforated page in my cahier. There was an unopened hardcover Moleskine, lined, in my bookcase-made-from-milk-crates in the living room. Move cahier to Volant’s place, put hardcover where cahier used to be, all purposes fulfilled, back to alternating between calculated confidence and running around in circles, flailing arms and screaming.

More calculated competence, when it comes to packing, and, oddly enough, in writing, as I am on track with my Camp NaNo progress. If I keep up at my current rate, I may very well finish before the end of the month, with room to spare. The story problem is a smaller one (or is it?) – get heroine back with the man she loves, and send her would-have-been second husband off into the sunset, eventually to land in a companion story. We’ll see how that goes.

Novel projects are on pause (or are they?) while we’re in transition, but part of packing includes digging up bones. One of these bones comes in a navy blue binder. Said binder is not the kind with space for me to put my own cover image behind a clear film, so I had no idea what I’d find, when I opened it. What I did find yanked me firmly into novel land. In Nothing Short of Heaven, which  initial version was, itself, a NaNo project (though regular or camp version, I cannot say) is, like Her Last First Kiss, set in Georgian England, and I won’t say I forgot about Slate and Melanie (because how could I?) but seeing them again, when I didn’t expect them, well that was something else.

Slate has no sense of self, while Melanie knows exactly who she is. Her theme song is “So What,” by P!nk. Her BS meter is set to zero, which serves her well, because Slate, well, he has some baggage. This book also has probably my favorite villain I’ve written so far, who prefers the title of Master to his actual name. I’m still planning on finishing the second draft of Her Last First Kiss first, but I wouldn’t mind getting reacquainted with Slate and Melanie, at all, when I’m done with this one.

Right now, I’m doing the thing in front of me -which is, apart from my nightly Camp NaNo pages, packing- and, at the same time, keeping an eye on the end goal. New apartment. Finished draft. New release. New notebook. (Hey, small perks can have big effects.) Later today, I’ll be viewing an apartment that is not only basically across the street from our current place, but the next door neighbor would be a takeout calzone restaurant. I will count that as an amenity.

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Manhattan Special, and Lessons from Sience (sic)

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Not going to lie, today is not my favorite day. We are now ten days from  moving out of this apartment, and we are still not one hundred percent firm on where we will be landing. Today’s packing focus is stuff that is, pardon the pun, extremely close to home. The TBR books go in boxes, naturally, and I actually want a bit of distance from this particular shelf, so that the anticipation can grow again. This is also the day that I pack my notebooks, and the art and writing magazines, and that is the part that’s bugging me the most.

Breaking down the stuff that I love and putting it away, to be replaced by empty space is not fun. I would rather be writing. I’m glad that I’m doing Camp NaNo this year, and I’m glad that I’m measuring my progress in handwritten pages. Coming to pen and paper at the end of the day is a happy place. It’s a place where I don’t feel the pressure of perfectionism weighing on me. All I’m doing is telling a story, and I love that.

Do I want this story to eventually see publication? Of course I do. I’m a writer. That’s what I do. I write. I have a white board in my office, and, right now, it has “do what you know” written on it. If the packing gets overwhelming, what do I know needs to be done? Is all I can do right now, put things that go together, together? Can do. Art magazines go with art magazines. Filled notebooks in one stack, blank ones in another, active notebooks in another, still. Bit by bit, it  all comes together.

That can be difficult to see, when drowning in a sea of cardboard, packing tape that is apparently self-shredding (seriously, if anyone ever invented shred-proof packing tape, they would be a millionaire.) There are times I am convinced our stuff is breeding while we sleep. This may be true of the printer paper, which is now officially serving no purpose, as we packed the printer last night.

Where I wanted to be, short term, right now, was handing in the revised manuscript of Chasing Prince Charming (to be fair, we’re almost there, and my co-writer also needs to hit pause for a couple of weeks) and forging ahead on Drama King, while bringing the second draft of Her Last First Kiss to fruition. That will still happen, only not on my schedule. I am not looking beyond each individual day’s writing for A Moment Past Midnight, though I do have to admit I am falling in love with the guy who does not get the girl, and very much look forward to finding the love of his life in another story.  I don’t normally think in linked stories, but at least one more, maybe two more stories, were part of the plan for AMPM from the outset, so we will see where this goes.

Where I wanted to be, long term, was farther along in my career. Print books. Glossy covers. Matte covers, for that matter. Actual, physical books to sign. Again, that cans still happen, and, with consistent work, it will, but, right now, it’s all cardboard and packing tape and Sharpie fumes, and the occasional emotional time bomb as I rip into the odd couple of boxes that never got unpacked from the last move.

040418oldnotebook

vintage notebook – score!

My handwriting identifies this notebook as dedicated to “sience” (sic.) It was only missing a few pages, and the rest are blank. Considering my grades in science classes over the years, this does not surprise me. Ironically, spelling was always one of my better subjects.  This is probably going in the box of unused notebooks, because I A) want to keep my box of active notebooks light, and B) the pages are regular white, with blue lines, and I don’t normally use that type of paper.

Still, there’s a connection. By the single doodle I found inside, I suspect I was ten when I took “sience.” Our family, then my dad, my mom, two dogs, one hamster, and me, moved that year, as well. I wasn’t too thrilled about that move, either, and remember an impassioned plea to be allowed to live on my best friend’s couch (spoiler alert: it did not work. Even though friend was fine with it, none of the parents were on board) the move still happened.

Today is gray and rainy, which is good writing weather. Is it good packing weather? That depends on how fond one is of the scent of damp cardboard, but I think we’ll manage. When I get into the packing groove, there’s a phase when I hit autopilot, the question of what goes where answers itself, and the people who live in my head (aka characters) get downright chatty. That part, I like. It’s not so much “writing” as it is “story,” and it builds a foundation I can build on when the dust (literal and figurative) settles.

In the meantime, these boxes aren’t going to pack themselves, and I’ve got some NaNo pages to write tonight. Totally pantsing this one, which is an adventure, but that’s for another post.

Typing With Wet Claws: I Know What Boxes Mean Edition

annabowling 1 Comment

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. This week is a little bit different than other weeks, and here is a reason why.

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I know what this means…

Anty, Uncle, Mama, and I will be moving out of this apartment and into another one. The humans are still working on which one, so I will bring updates when there is news on that front, but, until then, some things are going to be a little bit different until the dust settles. Do not worry; if any of it settles on my fur, I can lick it off. I have a spiky tongue, so it will be pretty easy.

The packing however, according to Anty, is not. Putting books in boxes is probably the easiest, and the hardest, part of packing. On the one paw, books and boxes are very close to the same shape, so they are probably the easiest thing to pack. On the other paw, books are one of Anty’s favorite things, so it is not fun putting them away, and not having them out there. On the other other paw (I am allowed four, because I have four) it is a necessary part of the moving process. The other alternative is to walk away and throw a match over one shoulder. That is called arson, and it is wrong. Do not do arson. On the other other other paw, sorting the books before putting them in boxes is kind of fun, and the ones Anty will not take with her, can go to little free libraries, which are boxes where humans can take or leave books, at no cost. That is nice.

Moving is not nice. Especially not for kitties. We do not like moving. We like to stay in one place, and have things be The Same. I was born wild, then I got hurt and rescued at the same time. Then I moved to the vet (okay, the rescue people moved me) and then to the shelter (rescue people again) and then Mama and Anty found me and I moved to Mama’s old apartment. Then we all moved to this apartment, and all started living together. That is how I fell in love with Uncle. He Is my favorite, and I love him the most.

Anty is okay, too, though. I am sending love beams and supervising while she packs everything from her office, except for the carpet. Anty is not bringing the carpet. That stays here. That means I win.  Anty is starting at the back of the house and moving forward. Uncle and Mama are on their own for their special areas. I was kind of worried about what that means for my areas, because I do not have thumbs, and am too fuzzy to use packing tape safely. It is okay, though. The humans will take care of my area.

In exchange, I have to keep readers apprised of a few things, including where to find Anty’s writing on the intrwebs, except for here, which is where you already are.. First, as always, she was at Buried Under Romance on Saturday, with part three of her series on heroines in romance fiction. What happens when heroines band together? Read the post, find out, and leave your own comment. That post is here, and it looks like this:

BURwallflowersandwildwomen

Normally, this would be the part of the post where I tell you about Anty’s Goodreads challenge, but, for the next couple of weeks, that is going on hiatus, as is Anty’s Skye-athalon (the books, not the kitty; she is not packing me, although I will have to go in the carrier on the day we move.) She will pick those up again when we are settled and the books are out of their boxes. Until then, she has her Kindle, so she will not lack for books to read. That is a good thing. Once we are settled, she is going to crash for a week, and she can read more then.

Camp NaNo is still a go, surprisingly enough, because Anty does need an outlet in all this craziness, and writing a couple of pages of first draft is something she can do in little bits of time, pretty much anywhere. While she is packing notebooks, she will pick the notebook for her Camp NaNo story. Then, starting on Sunday, she will write in it. Right now, Anty intends to keep up with the blog posts, but if things get erratic for a while, it is because we are moving, and will settle down again, once we are in place.

When that happens, Anty will be ready to get back to the big work of getting her novels already in progress to their next phases. I, of course, will be providing support and encouragement throughout the entire process, and I will get a new sign-off picture once we are in the new place. Walking down the same hall, to my current room, once the new people are in this apartment would probably not go over well, although I am cute and fuzzy, so who knows? I am an indoor kitty, though, so I will stay in our new place, hence the required new picture. I hope it will be taken on a good tail day.

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

skyebyenew

 

 

Typing With Wet Claws: Mostly Through March Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Anty and I would like to say hello to our new readers. If you are new, you may not know that I, Skye, who am a kitty, blog for my Anty on Fridays. This is partly to help her out and partly because I take my duties as a mews very seriously. That means that I have to make sure she is doing what she needs to be doing, to get books written, so that she can share them with readers.

First of all, before I am allowed to talk about anything else (though let’s be real, it is mostly Anty’s writing  that I talk about, anyway) I have to tell readers where to find Anty’s writing on the interwebs this week, other than here. If you are reading this, you are already here, and do not need directions. As always, she was at Buried Under Romance on Saturday (that is the day after I blog, if you need a temporal landmark.) This week, she talked about experienced heroines. That post is here, and it looks like this:

BURissheexperienced

There is no frame around that picture, because I forgot. Also, I have special paws, and it is not always easy to hit the right keys. Pretend the frame is there, and that is almost the same thing.

Next comes the part where I bring readers up to date on Anty’s Goodreads challenge. Anty’s goal is to read ninety books by the end of the year, and have at least half of those be historical romance. Historical fiction with strong romantic elements also counts. As of this morning, Anty has read nineteen out of ninety books, which puts her at twenty-one percent of the way to her goal, and one book behind schedule. It is the weekend, though, so there is time to get back on track. I will also point out that, out of the top row of Anty’s read books, four out of the five are historical romance, so good job on that.

The book Anty read and reviewed this week, is this one:

 

Anty liked this book very much, and will start on its companion book, Lady ni White, very soon. Probably later tonight, actually. Once Anty is done with her Skye-athalon (he books, not the kitty) she will then embark on a Denise Domning binge. I think I will call that “Domning-nation,” because I like coming up with names for things. It is part of my job as a mews. Unless that is already the name of Miss Denise’s fan club. Then, I would have to think of something else.

Another part of being a mews is to make sure Anty lays the proper groundwork for upcoming projects. As she will be participating in this year’s April Camp NaNo session, she has about a week to get things ready for that. In case anybody was wondering what Anty’s brainstorms about creating a whole village look like, they look pretty much like this:

Typepadscribbleoneversion

Note: work in progress

 

Anty has added a few other things to the page since this picture was taken, including shading in the letters in the word, “village,” because shading letters is a very good way for Anty to procrastinate and still say that she is actually working. We will see how that goes. So far, she has figured out there is a road to the village (always helpful, for trade and expanding the gene pool, among other things) and some houses (I am highly in favor of living inside) and some natural things, like trees and water and maybe some mountains. She is not sure about the mountains yet.

That is okay, because this is not a story about mountains. Anty has not said, yet, if there are any cats in this book, but it does take place in a village where a lot of people work in grain fields, which means grain gets stored somewhere, which means mice and rats want to eat the grain, which means the humans do not want the mice and rats to eat the grain, so that means cats. If Anty needs a mice-catching consultant, I am ready to fill that role. I think that she might, because a new mousie game was on the glowy box today, and I tried it, and I did So Good that I got head scritches. I know whereof I speak.

In other news, I think one of the reasons Anty only finished one book this week (besides that it is a big book, over five hundred pages, but Anty considers that a good thing) is that Anty discovered a storytelling game on her phone, called Choices: Stories You Play, and she has been playing that kind of a lot. It is a fun game, and many of the stories are romances, or have romances (or chances for romance) in the, but they do not count toward her reading challenge.

That is kind of unfortunate, because Anty likes them a lot, but they also do another thing. They help her with plotting this new story, because, at several points in the game stories, there is a choice that the point of view character must make, and that will change certain things about the story. Sometimes, it is big, like which human the character would like to have as their mate, or it is sometimes something seemingly small, like what clothes to wear, but or where to sit, but they do turn out to be important later. in fight scenes, there are choices to dodge, or attack, or hide (I would probably always pick hide, because I am super good at hiding. Lie super, super good, as long as I remember to tuck in my tail.) These choices remind Anty that, when she is not sure what a character should do next, think of three possible things they could do, and then pick one. Maybe she will change it later, but, for a rough draft, what is important is to keep moving forward. In that, it is like when I lead her to my dish. Keep moving toward the goal, and good things await at the end.

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

skyebyenew

see you next week

A Moment Past Midnight (probably)

annabowling 2 Comments

Yesterday, I had my weekly breakfast with N, at our local Panera. Coffee for her, tea for me, each with our breakfast item of choice. Asiago cheese bagel, with butter, for me, this week, and I have learned that holding the foil cover of the butter packets against the side of the paper cup that holds my tea melts the near-frozen butter much better than tromping over to the microwave beneath the coffee urns. This is not a post about Panera, I promise. (Unless they’d like to make me a spokesperson, in which case I am listening, and being paid in bagels is a viable option.)

The first part of our time together is always for getting current on the other’s life over the past week; domestic tornado management, how real life romance heroes and feline companions are doing, etc. There’s a transition period of geeking out over pens and notebooks, especially if one or both of us have acquired a new toy since we saw each other last. There is the obligatory petting of notebooks, trying out of any new pens, highlighters, or other mark-making implements, and then the talk turns to writing.

Though we both write in different genres -contemporary romance and paranormal YA, as well as general fiction for her; historical and contemporary romance for me- we’re both juggling multiple projects, and both want to increase our productivity this year. We know how to write books. What we need to do is write more books, closer together. This is one of the reasons I’m doing Camp NaNo this April. The other reason is that I accidentally signed myself up for this. The other-other reason is that I need a win, and, since I can set my own goal, I should have a fighting chance.

Yesterday, I gave N the bare bones of my idea for my Camp NaNo project, which I am calling A Moment Past Midnight. I did debate calling it Untitled Hogmanay Story, but that is probably one of the least romantic working titles for a historical romance, ever, at least that I, personally, have almost used. Nobody has any names yet; I am still in the phase of calling them Hero, Heroine, Heroine’s Parent, That Guy, etc. I’ve done some cursory looking around at various name resources, but no names have stuck yet. I fully expect that at least the principal players will tell me what their names are, before I start actually writing. Since this will start on April first, they get one day to tell me they’re joking, and provide actual names, or I’m picking for them. Nobody has faces yet, either, but that’s not important at this stage of the game. I have other projects that need my attention, so I can’t spend too long on one thing. When I do that, I get too far into my own head, and there comes a point when the weeds choke the flowers out of the garden, so to speak. I’m done with that.

Today, I woke to this:

Snowscape140318

Don’t ask me how long I stood there, head under the blinds, staring out at All That Whtie, but that is a lot of snow. The snow on the actual power lines did give me some pause, but where my eye went, naturally, was all the fluffy white stuff on the bare tree branches, the railing of the balcony on the house next door, the roof of the building across the street. There is every possibility that there will be shoveling today, but this looks like the soft, floofy kind of snow, so it should be possible to move it without back injury, and, besides, this stuff is flat out gorgeous.

I can’t look at a snowfall like this without thinking of that snowy night Real Life Romance Hero and I bailed on our plans, and I navigated unfamiliar, hilly territory in stiletto heels, while a whole world put itself together inside my head. I don’t know if  this new story will have any snow in it, because I’ll have to dig around and see what the weather actually was like in the general area where I put my fictional village, in the year when the story takes place (once I figure out what year that is) before I deal with any weather related ramifications, but that will come, in time.

The world of Her Last First Kiss is sliding into early spring at present, and I’ve skipped ahead a bit to when spring is in full flower. That’s a bit different inside my head than what’s outside my window, but I’m not complaining. My mind compartmentalizes that kind of thing fairly easily. For these people, it’s spring, and Ruby’s hero does blow into her life on a cold March wind, so rather timely on that one.

The calendar says really real world spring is right around the corner, so I’m going to bask in this snow while I can. Maybe, if I meet my writing goals for the day, I can byndle myself in knitted layers and waterproof boots and go out to tromp through the white stuff. The park near our house is beyond gorgeous with this kind of snowfall, so it may happen. Even if it doesn’t, I want to harness the feeling of that night with stilettoes in the snow, that feeling that anything is possible, and the rules of how things “ought” to be are, for the time being, suspended. That’s where some of the best stuff comes from, after all.

Twenty-Seven

annabowling 4 Comments

Today is the first day of my online workshop, Play In Your Own Sandbox, Keep All The Toys. I’m excited (Yay, workshop! Yay, new people! Yay, I get to blabber about stuff I love, to a captive audience, and ask them nosy questions! Yay, they will give me money for the privilege of allowing me to blabber and ask nosey questions and look at their work!)) and nervous (who the heck am I to be teaching a workshop? I haven’t done this in a while. What if I forgot how to do this, or I stink, or they hate me? :runs around in circles, screaming:) This is standard operating procedure for the first day of an online workshop for me, but, if I know myself (and I should say that I do) I will soon be riding high on the energy of the other participants, and the whole darned thing will click.

The sticky notes below the monitor are a throwback to my college days, when I didn’t know any better, and blithely pounded out several pages at a time, said notes (probably a often note paper with thumbtacks as sticky notes, back then,) and used said notes as mile markers, or the writer’s equivalent of Burma Shave signs. I have never seen a Burma Shave sign in the wild, but, as the child of mature parents, I became culturally literate in a few things from a prior generation. This is one of them. Signposts may be a better term, or mile markers. Each note has a goal to write toward. When I reach that goal, the note comes down. When all the notes are down, I am done (yay!) and get to play with my new watercolors. I am extremely bribable with art or bujo supplies.

I am also easily bribable with reading time, now that I am back on the scent of historical romance. My current read, The Queen’s Lady, by Barbara Kyle, is set during the time when Henry VIII was dead set on divorcing his first wife, but the Catholic church was not on the same page as Henry. After that, I start my O’Malley-a-thon, all of Bertrice Small’s O’Malley/Skye’s Legacy books (as a fan; I claim no insider knowledge of these books, or how they came to be written) which largely take place in Elizabethan times, and the days, and decades that follow. Have I ever mentioned how generational sagas are my very, very, very favorite sort of historical romance series? I finished my most recent Kindle read, Letter of Love, by Virginia Henley, also Elizabethan, and went looking for my next Kindle selection. I looked at my To Finally Read list, and saw Winter’s Fury, by Denise Domning, which is medieval, searched my library by author, and…waaaaait a minute. My attention fell (okay,  was drawn like an industrial strength magnet) to Lady in Waiting, the first book in her Lady duology, which has a -you guessed it- Elizabethan setting. Well, okay, then. Can’t fight that. Lady books now, Season books after. That is my next seven Kindle reads.

Because Barbara Kyle follows The Queen’s Lady with six more books in her Thornleigh saga, also a generational tale, those are on my list, after I finish with my Small binge. I am chain-bingeing historical romance novels now, which is a big change from whining about how I can’t seem to get into anything. I will take that change, even though doing the numbers is a wee bit on the scary side. Smushing the O’Malleys and their legacy, the Thornleighs, the Ladies and the Seasons into one place, that’s about twenty-seven books I have promised myself I am going to read in the near future. Twenty-seven. Twenty. Seven. When the sam hill am I going to read twenty seven books, when I have a workshop to give (I am actually posting my intro after I post this) and am working on three books, and Camp NaNo is breathing down my neck (why did I ever think that was a good idea?) Not to mention all the YA reads I want to get in there, along with various stuff, like finally getting around to reading Dragonwyck, by Anya Seton, and spring cleaning and domestic tornadoes and and and and and…..

I’m not going to say “breathe” here, because when people tell me to breathe, I want to punch them in the throat. Instead, I’m going to head in the general direction of a sign-off for this post and mention something about how doing what comes naturally works a lot better than trying to cram myself into somebody else’s box (which I am apt to do, far more often than I would like.) U didn’t mean to go on a nearly-thirty-book Tudor binge, but that was the first era a ever truly loved in historical romance, and it never hurts to go back to the source, and revisit a first love every now and again. Sometimes, poking a few embers is all that’s needed to get a fire going.

TheWriterIsOut

Typing With Wet Claws: Hello, March Edition

annabowling 4 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another (very snowy) Feline Friday. This is the first blog entry for the month of March, which means that Anty’s online workshop, Play in Your Own Sandbox, Keep All The Toys, will be starting in only a few days. It is on the other side of the weekend, as a matter of fact. If you want to learn how to use the media you already love, to create new, original fiction of your own, then this workshop might be right up your alley. If you would like to know more, or sign up  for the workshop, you can do that at the workshops page for Charter Oak Romance Writers. If you are in the northeast US, and you are interested in writing, you may want to bookmark that page, for future details about Anty presenting there in person, later this year. If you do cannot make a bookmark, do not worry. I will tell you when the date and topic are confirmed.

Since I already talked about Anty’s work above, I think I am allowed a minute to talk about the weather. If you are new to this blog, we live in New York’s capitol region. Earlier this week, we had windows open, and humans went outside without elebenty billion layers of outside clothes. Then, today, Anty (and Uncle, and Mama) woke to this:

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It is snowing right now, as I write this, but the snow should turn to rain later on in the day. Probably about the time one of the humans opens my second pouch of food. (I get two, spread over the course of the day, because that was how they socialized me when I was first adopted, and I figured that is the way things go. They have tried putting me on two meals a day. It did not go well.)

Back to business. This week, as always, Anty was at Buried Under Romance on Saturday. She closed out the month of February, talking about multicultural romance, which can mean a lot more than some humans might think it does. It is fun to read, but not fun to play hide and seek when it comes to finding in some bookstores. That post is here, and it looks like this:

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Now, we come to the part of the post where I tell you about Anty’s progress on her Goodreads challenge. I am very proud of Anty this week. Anty has read fifteen out of ninety books, which puts her at seventeen percent of the way to her goal. Out of those fifteen books, four are historical romance, so Anty still has a way to go in that department, but I cannot blame her. There are some excellent YA books out there, and a lot of them are romances, or have love stories in them. This week, the books Anty has read and reviewed are:

 

 

There is not really a hole in that last picture, or in Anty’s review. There was an ad there, and I was not sure if I should have a picture of an ad, so I covered it.  I was going to put a picture of me there, but I am not in Miss Danelle’s book, and that would be misleading. I would not want anyone to be disappointed. Come to think of it, Anty has not put me in any of her books, either. I think that she should. I am soft and furry, I am very good at catching mousies (even electronic ones) and I am a constant source of moral support, as well as making sure Anty always knows when it is treat time.

There is no update, as of yet, on Anty’s project for Camp NaNoWriMo (April edition) as of yet, but Anty is trying something that will make it slightly less scary. Anty now has a book where she writes down how much she wrote, over the course of the day, or any writing related things that she did. I suspect that part of the reason this seems to be working is that Anty gets to keep track of things in a special planner (though, because she is writing down what she already did, maybe that makes it a planned-er) and she gets to pick what colors go in the pictures on the facing pages. (She is not done with this picture yet.)

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Anty says that having a list of things that she already did is more encouraging than striving for a number that seems far away, and it is easier to think about the story. She will probably find some way to turn this into a tracker for her bullet journal, as she saved some pages for a writing tracker when she figures out what format works best.  Right now, though, this seems to be working, to let the numbers be in their place, and let Anty focus on the stories she is telling. It would not hurt if she put more cats in them, either. Especially very fluffy stripey ones, who are very good at catching mousies.

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

skyebye2018