On Getting There

July 12, 2017annabowling 2 Comments

Today is Wednesday, almost the middle of July, and so muggy that I think I saw air fish in the kitchen. Real Life Romance Hero took an umbrella with him when he left for work, as we might have rain later on in the day, but then again, maybe not. Weather forecasts are funny that way. Monday night’s marathon session did turn out a full second draft chapter of Her Last First Kiss, but also cemented the fact that marathon sessions like that are not good for body, mind, or spirit. Which means spreading the love, er drafting, in a more equitable manner, around the same seven days everybody gets in a given week.

On the one hand, this is a smart decision, and it does mean I get to hunker down with calendar and planner and pretty colored pens, to figure out a better way to get from where I am, which is in the middle of two second drafts, to where I want to be, which is two completed second drafts, and, beyond that, two more books out there in the world. On the other hand, I want to be there already. What the heck is wrong with me? Other people are there already. Friend X has a new book, Friend Y has a new book, Favorite Author A has a new book, Favorite Author B has a new series, and me? Still getting there.

Getting back there, really. Sometimes, that feels like more of a climb than starting from scratch. Either way, it’s the same thing. Butt in chair, fingers on keyboard, or pen on paper. Keep mind on the story, figure out what works and does not work, do the stuff that works, do not do the stuff that does not work, and if Hypercritical Gremlins start mouthing off (mine have been relatively silent of late) do what’s needed to shush them, and keep on going. One page a day is a book in a year. Bare minimum, do that, and this time, next year, look what happened.

Yes, there is pressure. Some from outside the writer, some from inside the writer, but, news flash, everybody has that. Do the superstars have pressure? Yes, they do. That’s not going to go away. Do they have families? Yes, most of them do. If we expand to include families-of-choice, then all of them do. All of us do, whether this is a writer’s first book, or their hundredth (or beyond) and we all get there the same way. Get up. Write stuff. Go all the way to the end. Get feedback. Make it better. Put it where other people can see it, whether that means traditional or indie publishing, or a combination of both.

If I could have picked any time to have a successful career writing historical romance, I would pick the mid-1970s, when the genre was the new kid on the block, stories were sweeping, and excitement was high. Romance authors appeared on talk shows, and there was an image involved in the whole thing. Underneath that? Same thing we have now, for the most part. Those writers had to write the books before they could promote them, before readers could devour them and name kids and/or pets after the characters. Seeing as how I spent that actual period of time in elementary school, and have not yet mastered the art of time travel (shoot, even my time travel manuscript is locked away where it can’t hurt anybody) that’s probably not going to happen.

Been a few changes in the industry since then, not to mention my own life, and yet the same desire to tell these stories and share them with readers hasn’t gone away. If it hasn’t left by this time, it’s not going, so we are going to have to find some way to live with each other, day by day. Would I like to say I’ve found the perfect way to allocate my time and connect with each story and keep the confidence meter at least over the halfway mark? Yes. Am I going to actually say I’m there right now? No, because I don’t want to lie. Some days are harder than others. Some days are easier. It’s a balance. No matter what kind of day it is, though, I can put my butt in the chair. If there’s an ice pack behind said butt, or an afghan atop…okay, not the actual butt, but you know where I’m going with this…that’s okay. The butt is not what does the actual writing.

This feels like a defensive post, and maybe it is. That’s okay. What I want to do with this blog is show the whole journey, and these days are part of it. Yesterday, at critique meeting, N and I discussed how we’re going to handle looking over each other’s manuscripts when we’re done with our respective drafts (first for her, second for me) and that brought up the question of what’s next.

When she asked me, I said I didn’t know. After Chasing Prince Charming, comes Drama King. Melva and I already have dipped toes in the water on that, and we’ll be raring to go as soon as we put this second draft to bed. Pun unintended, but it can stay. After Her Last First Kiss? I don’t know. N asked if maybe I could write another book about Ruby and her Hero, but this is a romance, so the romance would have to be the center of the book, and they’re going to be happy at the end of this one. If I were writing their story back in the 1970s, it wouldn’t be that unheard of to make them unhappy, drag them through more trials, and make them happy again at the end of that book. What I told N was, “probably something else.” Some of those stories on hold may bubble to the surface, or I might catch a spark of something new.

Right now, I’m not thinking about that. Somewhere, off in the back of my mind is the fact that, right now, linked books are where the money is, so that might be a general direction, but that’s for later. Right now, I have these two books that need me, and that’s good enough for now.

Another Monday Marathon

July 10, 2017annabowling Leave a comment

So it’s Monday again, and critique meeting is Tuesday. The weekend was a good one, filled with friends and family, but, alas, no writing time, so that means we are, once again, staring down the barrel of another Monday Marathon, in which our intrepid author crams several days’ worth of second-drafting into one day. This will usually result in crankiness on Tuesday, somewhat counteracted by the benefits of a mutually satisfactory critique meeting, which will also fill said author with even more enthusiasm for the next chapter’s work. Normally, I like to tackle these marathon days right from the early morning, but this was also a critical laundry day, so the plan looks like this:

~~Do laundry~~
write blog entry
lunch
work on actual book

I already have one item crossed off that list, and the blog entry is, as of this writing, currently underway. I can blabber for a minimum of 700 words, easy. Lunch, that’s easy, too. The kitchen is a mere few feet from where I’m currently seated. Granted, I will have to get past the extremely patient kitty (hello, Skye) waiting for me to feed her first, but after that, I can have lunch put together in a matter of minutes, and consumed in short order. Optional break to debate whether I should risk taking a break to read or view an episode of Poldark (spoiler alert: I know myself; Poldark will have to wait) and then into the trenches.

The original plan was to have spread the prep out over the weekend. but that’s not what happened, and so I’m facing down another marathon day. Not intimidated by that; it’s become the norm by now. Maybe not the healthiest thing, but it’s what I’ve got, and I do like the focus on Ruby and her hero and what they’re up to this time. Last week, N gave me a project folder like the one she uses to keep her current ms with notes from our sessions, with a chart where she can track what scenes she brought to what session, and on what date. Let us recap: there is an office supply that has a tracking system built into it. I am going to want to have some time with this wonder, especially because the printouts have long exceeded the slender pink folio in which I used to carry them to our meetings (prior to my finding the glittery pink folio I now use for that purpose.) That’s for tomorrow, though.

Today is for diving into that first draft, reading what I already have, and noting what needs going over, smoothing out, reimagining, moving around, all that good stuff. I love that stuff. Love it more, even, than some of the first drafting, because, this time, I actually know what I’m doing. I know where the story is going to end, and how, and who’s still standing, and where, and all I have to do now is make it look pretty/make sense/flow together, etc. Sometimes, this involves doing a quick bit of research to estimate what X would cost in 2017 US dollars, then transpose that into 1784 Russian rubles, then into British pounds for the same year. The results of said research may result, not only in a ballpark figure that will work for the purposes of the story (writing historical romance does not normally involve this much math, but there are exceptions) but a mental sticky note on what the numbers have to say about the contrast between the economies of the two countries. I am not writing a book about Anglo-Russian economic parity, but it is nice to know that the reason I had to look into the matter does bear out what my imaginary friends have to deal with on this one.

Today, my Spotify “discover” playlist (I like starting Mondays off with a chance to find new music) is overflowing with wedding songs. While it is entirely possible that Spotify has figured out I am a romance writer, I am not at that part of the book yet, so dial those songs back a while. Few more chapters to go before we can think about weddings. For today, I am focusing on the chapter in front of me, which will probably be my lunchtime reading, and then it’s on, baby. I’ll probably start out poking things with a metaphorical stick, while I circle the extant chapter, eyes narrowed. It’s probably sizing me up, as well, so I need to be alert. Never can tell when it’s going to spring some forgotten bit of dialogue at me, or that thing I was going to look up but never did (:points to above Anglo-Russian currency question:) or, trickiest of all, one of those moments where something entirely new stands up, waves its arms and whistles at me, because of course that’s what should have been there all along, and we have got some work to do to make that fit in with the rest of the chapter, the one before it, and the one that comes after.

I’m not complaining. This kind of thing comes with the territory. I would far rather do the feint and parry with a first draft, and segue into an Errol-Flynn-Robin-Hood swordfight that spans banquet tables, staircases and parapets, until we both collapse in utter exhaustion in the wee small hours. Then it’s time to print said pages, while the rest of the house sleeps, slam down some caffeine, and head off through the park to swap pages with N and put the first pair of eyes-not-the-author’s on said pages. Two hours and change of that, and it’s time to head back home, ostensibly to grab a nap before diving back into the fray once more, but there’s momentum in this kind of thing, and, at the very least, I can read through the chapter that follows this one. Once I’m in 1784 for that big a chunk of time, I kind of want to stay there.

Inside-out Week

July 5, 2017annabowling Leave a comment

Today is my marathon day. On a Wednesday. That basically never happens, but here it is, smushed together with #1linewed on Twitter, for which I have precisely one instance of the word of the week, “loyal,” from which to pull a quote. I made up for the lack of multiple quotes by whingeing. If this were not my marathon day, I would be sorely tempted to dig through files on my old laptop and ancient USB drives to see if I could find any of the notes for the Redcoat romance I noodled with some years ago, because “loyal” (and “loyalist”) would be all over that thing. Today is my marathon day, however, and that means I am going to mainline caffeine and cram a whole week’s worth of work into one day. One of these weeks, I will not have the need for marathon days, but this is not that week. I am okay with that.

First thing on these marathon days is to get everything that is not related to creating a second draft of these pages out of the way. There. Done. Off my back, unable to whisper in my ear about how I really should answer that email or do that household chore, because they are already done. Once this blog entry is posted and publicized, I get to diver headfirst back into century eighteen, and play with my imaginary friends. Planner and cookie are sure signs that this is going to be Serious Business, and, while the chances that I am going to find my bed in the wee small hours are high, I’m also excited. This is only partially due to the fact that mainlining of caffeine has already begun.

Most of it is because Ruby and her Hero really do feel like friends (though I would like to think I am nicer to my real life friends than the fictional ones) and I actually do like spending time with them. Time away from them makes me edgy. The whole tracking system I’m trying out right now is, at present, a huge belly flop, but I’m going to stay the course and see how it goes for a full three weeks. That’s what experimenting is for, after all. For today, it’s get this entry up, do some longhand freewriting, reread the first draft of this next chapter, and then jump in and make it better. As my mom used to say, the more I do, the more I’ll want to do.

This holds true even when life doesn’t want to keep to a schedule. This week, we had a weekend, with lots to do, Housemate out of town, a Monday that wasn’t really a Monday, but not really a holiday, either, and an actual holiday. Toss in there a holiday for another country, which is a special day for certain friends, and has a connection to Her Last First Kiss, and it’s no wonder I spent a good deal of that time getting the day of the week wrong. For a marathon day to happen on a Wednesday, when there’s already a blog entry and #1linewednesday, and plans for the evening, makes part of me want to ask Skye to shove over from her hunker spot under the bed (Skye did not like last night’s fireworks, especially since our neighbors were astonishingly well stocked for the holiday. To their credit, they did have a lovely display, but could have stopped a few hours before they actually did call it a night…which was actually early morning.)

Pressure to crank out a bunch of pages in one day is kind of scary, but the scariest part is the anticipation. Once I get in there, I’ll fall into my characters’ heads, and the minutes and hours of 2017 fall away, replaced by the world of 1784, which is “now” for Ruby and her Hero. They don’t know they’re in a historical. They think they’re in a contemporary. The sights, sounds, smells, tastes, etc, of 1784 are different from what we have in the modern day, but it’s their modern day. This is their world, and their reality. This is their day-to-day, and they couldn’t care less about what some random person hundreds of years in the future is doing in that tiny green room all day.

Well, Hero would, because I have new art pens, and he would want them. His affinity for my pens is what got us into this mess in the first place, so I may take said pens out for a spin on one of my breaks. The breaks, I have found, are essential. Get some of the work done, get up, move around, get some water, do something to refill the well, and then back to it.

The farther I get into this second draft, the better I know Ruby and her Hero, and the better I know their story. I want to get it right, for them. It’s not always pretty. It’s the stripping away of images they try to present, the defenses they’ve erected around themselves, and letting the other in, to see the real them. That’s scary, because showing their true selves has garnered only rejection in the past, or put them in situations where there are no good choices. Even so, there’s that pull that tells them things might be different this time, that there is someone who actually does understand, that they aren’t the only person who’s ever felt the way they feel. It’s not the story I set out to tell when I went looking for a new story to tell, but it’s the one that found me, and, when I have a marathon day, I’m not running it alone. The characters and the story run with me, all of us, even when a Wednesday is actually Monday. I’m calling that good company.

Monday Off the Map

June 26, 2017annabowling 2 Comments

Today is the first Monday in a while that is not going to be my now-traditional marathon of getting a revised Her Last First Kiss chapter ready for a Tuesday morning meeting with N. Not that I’m not going to be spending time with Ruby and her Hero, because I definitely am. Those guys are my happy place, and I’ll be logging some time on revisions for Chasing Prince Charming (and remembering it’s Prince now, and not Prints.) as well. Domestic tornadoes swept through for both N and me this week, hence the break from routine. I like my routine.

Blogging three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (okay, Friday is Skye day, but it’s still a post) here, with Monday and Wednesday always a shot of my desk for the day, is a part of that. Usually, that means I’m working on my desktop, but not always. I do sometimes miss the pink laptop photos, though I may want to figure out why I have to keep the screen at a funky angle if I want to actually see what I’m writing. If I open the laptop at the normal ninety degree angle, the screen goes blank. I have to nudge it forward a bit, and do some adjusting with my lap desk. That’s why my laptop’s travels have been curtailed as of late. Good thing writing can happen anywhere.

:brief interlude of scrolling mindlessly through Facebook, then trying to remember what I was talking about here, because Mondays are always marathon days and not having one is weird.:

So. Routine. Let’s get back to that. I like routine. I like planning. I like my morning pages, daily tasks, and having a set concept for my blog post pictures means I have to make a new cup of tea, because the old one is empty. More tea is almost always a good thing. Today, one of my variations from the norm will be to dig through the archives for Chasing Prince Charming, back when Melva and I had tagged the then-unnamed WIP with the name of one of the characters, because that’s how we naturally referred to it. Which was probably the story’s cue to take a couple of turs, but that all worked out.

Right now, I am in second draft mode on two different projects, which is a heck of a lot farther along than I was last year, and I am more than okay with that. At the same time, I want to be on to the next phase already. I want to have these drafts done (and probably one more pass after) and making the rounds, no, scrap that, out in the world. That’s where I want them to be. That’s where I want to be. I want to be out there on social media, splashing the “hey, look at my awesome new books” posts with cover reveals and all that other good stuff, all over social media, and that will happen. It won’t, however, happen today, because I am in the middle of that particular journey, not at the end. I’m impatient that way.

As much as I would like for there to be a fast forward button on the whole writing/editing process, there isn’t one. What it takes is butt in chair, fingers on keyboard, pen on paper, day after day after day after day after day, until, uh, wow, okay, looks like we got us a draft there. A first draft, a second draft, a third one, a hey, look, somebody wants to see the whole thing, and, after that, hey, they liked it. They really liked it. Can they please publish it and give us money? Okay. Or, because we are living in the age of indie publishing, there’s the moment of y’know what, I can do this thing myself. Then the moment where we do, learning about formatting and platforms and covers and blog tours and all that other good stuff.

None of that can happen, though, until there is actually a marketable draft, so it’s left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, day after day. Not glamorous, not exciting, but there is a part of me that actually likes the marathon. I like the dedication, the sweeping clean of everything else besides the work at hand, the staying at the keyboard until the Job Is Done, even if that happens in the wee small hours, and I might possibly be mistaken for a Walking Dead extra on my way to meet with N. That’s not going to happen this week, and part of me misses it. Not sure what that says, but, right now, that’s where that section of my brain is camped.

I do have a plan for the day, and a good portion of the out-of-sorts-ness can be calmed by that. Look at the list. Do the thing. Do the next thing. Repeat until done. Not that different after all. What sorts of writing routines are musts for the rest of you?

Reverse Engineered Writing Goals

June 21, 2017annabowling Leave a comment

So, it’s summer. I’m sitting here at my desk, ice water at hand, and absolutely no idea of what to write for today’s entry. These are my least favorite entries. I like to be prepared. I like to know, in advance, what I’m going to write, how I’m going to write it, and even about how long it’s going to take. That last one can be fuzzy, from “get it done in time for lunch” to “okay, it’s Monday, let’s cram a week’s worth of writing into one marathon session that ends at 3AM and involves me snapping at family members who get too near my lair,” but I like structure. I like goals. Okay, theme there. I can go with that.

This Monday, I was fully prepared for one of my marathon sessions (which I do not exactly like, as a rule, but, sometimes, a writer does what a writer does, and my thirst for an unbroken record of always having pages to bring to critique session knows no bounds) but that’s not exactly what happened. I have no idea how this whole thing worked, but, by the time 3AM rolled around, I was sound asleep, because A) I had finished at midnight, and B) not only had I gone over my targeted page count, but eh, I’d finished “early,” so why not poke at the next chapter? Which was when I told myself that was a good time to save, print, pack it in and get some sleep.

Critique session went great, and I headed back home, even more pumped to get this second draft done and introduce Ruby and her Hero to the world at large. I also had another goal in mind: how can I do that again, next week? Hence, the reverse engineering. Instead of looking at the goal (in this case, chapter twelve revised/expanded, and me getting a good night’s sleep) and figuring out how to get there (which, from a certain point of view -which would be crabby, often, when one is still figuring out this whole getting back on the horse thing) maybe try a different tactic. Take a look at a goal already met, and figure out how that happened.

First thing I looked at was, what did I do differently this Monday, that I did not do on all those collapse like a zombie at 3AM Mondays? This wasn’t plopping myself in the chair the second I got up and consistently pounding keys until my brain refused to go any farther. I took a lunch break, as in away from the desk, read for pleasure (another goal that might benefit from reverse engineering) and even took an (extremely brief) nap.

Hm. Breaks, you say? Interesting. When it was time to Skype with an online friend, who does know Mondays are my marathon days, I didn’t try to work while she wanted to share about her current playthrough of her favorite computer game, but the enthusiasm (and seriously pretty screenshots) was a boost that allowed me to go back to the work afterward, with an extra spring in my metaphorical step.

Granted, this is a second draft, but there were still scenes to expand and revise, and I am not going to put a time stamp on how long it took me to research guild signs, or figure out how much Hero could see, hanging out of a carriage window, with a tricorne hat pulled low over his eyes (spoiler: it is hard for a tall ginger dude in a bespoke suit to remain inconspicuous in public, especially when he’s trying to be sneaky) and the scene is one I especially like, because it’s when Hero’s world shifts, which forces him to make a leap, even if he doesn’t realize he’s making that leap until he’s already airborne. Metaphorically airborne, that is.

The chapter that comes next, I’m even more looking forward to, maybe because it means that I am now officially into the middle of the second draft. This past chapter was where Hero hit his point of no return. He can’t squiggle around in midair like a cat and land on his feet, back in his comfortable world, like it’s no big deal, and pick up life where it was before he made the choice he can’t take back. Maybe he and I have something in common on that one. Time will tell.

In the best of all possible worlds, I won’t have to have Monday marathons at all, but domestic tornadoes come through, and the book still needs to get done. Today, my focus is on Chasing Prints Charming, and I know that Ruby and her Hero are going to be doing their thing on the back burner, so they’ll be ready for our next round.

So, what have I learned for that next round?

stay hydrated
sprints, not marathons
take breaks that are actually breaks
know what I’m going to write before I write it, or what the goal of that particular revision will be (i.e. always take a road map)

That’s the hypothesis, anyway. We’ll test that theory next week, and I’ll let you know how it goes. Writer friends, what have you learned about the way you work, by reverse engineering a successful session/chapter/insert own goal here?

Title Goes Here

June 19, 2017annabowling Leave a comment

You must do the thing you cannot do.
– Eleanor Roosevelt

Rain started to fall as soon as I opened the document to start writing this blog entry. I will take that as a sign. It’s been oppressively humid here in New York’s Capitol Region, which is not that great for the creative brain, especially when that brain is going on roughly two hours of sleep. Nevertheless, it is Monday, which usually means a marathon writing session on Her Last First Kiss. Right now, I am dripping in sweat, and having wild fantasies about throwing the workday to the nonexistent wind and collapsing in front of the box fan with a tall glass of ice water and making some headway in rereading Shanna. I am also rethinking my decision to have hot tea with my breakfast, but my new pink skull and crossbones mug was too perfect not to take out on its maiden voyage this morning. I will always love my dearly departed Union Jack mug, but I think it would want me to find love again, and not mourn it forever, drinking out of mugs that are only okay, but don’t stir my heart. There’s a better look at the new baby on my Instagram, here: https://www.instagram.com/p/BVhS7arBVCj/

Absolutely no way I could leave that baby to languish in the cupboard without at least one cup of tea under its belt. I have no regrets. even if I do have an ice pack at the base of my spine. I was not built for summer. I’m fair skinned and light eyed, sun and heat sensitive. This would be perfectly suited for the British Isles, from which my biological ancestors most likely hailed, but somebody did something, and they got a trip across the Atlantic Ocean, voluntarily or otherwise. A couple of centuries later, here I am, but my imaginary friends, by and large, generally lean toward those British Isles, though Ruby, the heroine (aka Heroine) of Her Last First Kiss, is half Russian. Not that she’s ever actually been to Russia, but that’s where one of her parents was born, and where they went back to, after life took a turn they didn’t like.

I didn’t plan for Ruby to be half Russian, but that showed up all on its own, and, as these things are wont to do, did so in the very first line. Well, okay, then. Those kinds of things tell me that the story is real and alive, and has a mind of its own, which generally tells me we are going to work well together. Same thing when Ruby turned up her nose at the harpsichord I tried to give her in the initial draft, and informed me she liked pistols instead. Same thing with Hero refusing to accept my wishes that he be blond and play the violin. He was a ginger, thankyouverymuch (still is, and now I can’t imagine him any other way) and didn’t even want to look at the violin, but took a very keen interest in my pen collection. I let him (metaphorically) play with them, and he took to those pens like a duck to water. To write letters, yes, but mostly to draw with, because he would very happily spend his entire life drawing with pen and ink, but his painting skills were not up to the same standard, which led to his, ah, secondary career. That all spilled out of him while he doodled on scrap paper. I didn’t want to disturb him, so I let him ramble.

I also took notes. A lot of notes. This is the reason I have a lot of notebooks. Also because “notebook” may be my favorite genre, because I can put literally anything in them, but that’s another story for another day. Why was it that Hero never felt more himself than when he had pen and in in hand, but felt so lost with paint and brush that he lost all faith in himself? Of course that meant that, to get to his Happily Ever After, to be the man Ruby needs, the man worthy of her, he has to face that fear and actually paint a portrait. Actually, two, because painting two portraits is the only thing that terrifies him more than painting one. Sure, he can probably paint the one, because it’ s a debt of honor, but then to do it again? There’s the real test.

Since Ruby and her Hero live in the eighteenth century, they’d have no idea who Eleanor Roosevelt is, but, by the end of the book, they get the drift of her message. Ruby and her Hero, and their entire story, came to me, almost all of a piece, when I was busy bashing my head against a brick wall, trying to come up with another sort of story entirely. Actually, a few of them, all of which now languish in folders in my old laptop, the one with the external keyboard and fuzzy internet connection. These characters, and this story, they found me. This wasn’t the sort of book I was looking to write, but it’s the right one for the writer I am right now, and there isn’t so much a question of “how do I handle X?” but “well, X works like this in this book.”

All of that makes these marathon days, when they come, not something to dread, but to treat as maybe a marathon of a favorite TV show; get comfy, stay hydrated, keep snacks on hand, and settle in for the long haul. That, I can most definitely do.

Typing With Wet Claws: Some Weeks Are Like That Edition

June 16, 2017annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. It is cool and rainy today, so I am hunkered down for the duration. Rain will not find me here in my hallway, outside Anty and Uncle’s room. The weather is also gray, like me, which may be why Anty finds this kind of weather very beautiful. Technically, the vet says I am a brown tabby, but all cats are gray in the dark. Anty says the old-timey people in her stories knew that phrase, but it was not talking about actual cats. She says the old-timey meaning was only for grownups, and not very nice ones, at that. Anyway, since I am a kitty, I see very well in the dark, so I win.

Where Anty wins (aside from winning Uncle) is that I have to talk about where to find her writing on the interwebs (apart from here, that is) before I can talk about anything else (which is mostly about her writing, most of the time, anyway, so I do not see what the big problem is, but whatever. Anty is the human, and if she understands, that is good enough for me. ) As always, she was at Buried Under Romance, like she is every week. This week, she talked about what makes a summer read. That post is here, and its link on the main page looks like this:

For Anty’s Goodreads challenge, she is now two books behind again, and she is not very happy about that, but I am willing to cut her some slack. Uncle did not feel well for a large part of this week, and there were two days when Anty did not feel that great, herself. Also there were domestic tornadoes. Anty is making progress on her reading, however, and all of her current reads are historical romance, so I am going to call that good, considering extenuating circumstances. Keep on keeping on, Anty. You can still turn this around. Finish reading two books this weekend, and you are back on track.
I will use the same graphic as last week, since she has only read the same books.

only one more book, and it’s forty!

Even though Anty did not write a lot on the interwebs this week, she has been busy writing. This week, she finished chapter ten of her second draft of Her Last First Kiss. Both Critique Partner Vicki and Miss N had some very nice things to say about this version of the chapter, which gets Anty all excited to head into the next one.

Anty also had a Skype conference (I still think they should spell that Skye Pee, but whatever) with Anty Melva, her co-writer on Chasing Prints Charming, and they are ready to embark on editing their completed first draft. Anty Melva has written with another writer before, but Anty has only had solo books published so far. There may be some adventures ahead, as they learn what method of editing works best for them. So far, they are going to take the beginning-beginning, each edit it, with special attention on the parts written by the other person. They have one week to get this done, so we will see how that goes.

Now that Anty’s current projects are moving along, it is also time for her to make some noise about the books she has already written. So far, she has made two teasers. One is for one of her books, Queen of the Ocean. It looks like this:

Note the lack of cats, but there is a bright spot. There is a ship in the story (actually more than one) and old-timey ships always had cats on board, to keep the rodent population under control. They are the true heroes of the sea. You’re welcome.

The other teaser is for Orphans in the Storm, her English Civil War historical romance. That one looks like this:

There would be cats on that ship, too.

Anty is still working on teasers for her other books, Never Too Late, and My Outcast Heart. After that, well, she’d better write some more books, or her bookshelf page (that is coming soon) will be very short. She has plans to make teasers for Her Last First Kiss, and Chasing Prints Charming, as well as her postapocalyptic medieval romance, Ravenwood (at least the title has birds in it; that is promising. I like birds. They are delicious.) which may get a different name, but we will see.

Making teasers is fun for Anty, because she is a visual thinker anyway. Thinking is something Anty has been doing rather a lot of lately, most of it about writing and publishing. Also about putting more cats in her books. I am happy to announce that Drama King, the next contemporary she will write with Anty Melva, does have a cat in it. He is an orange tabby, and he’s seen some things. I have high hopes for him.

For now, though, it is a rainy day, and Anty has laundry to do, which means a solid hour of reading time, while the clothes get clean and dry. She also promised Mama to read her some of chapter ten, because Mama is looking forward to chapter ten. Mama has not read the whole book yet, but she knows the general idea, and wants a little taste. Maybe Anty will consider giving her other readers a little taste in a while, too. She is looking forward to making a proper introduction of Hero and Heroine to her readers, so readers will be used to Hero and Heroine’s scents when Her Last First Kiss becomes a real book.

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

Until next week…

The Art of Being a Tease(r)

June 14, 2017June 14, 2017annabowling 4 Comments

This past Saturday, author Marianne Rice was our guest speaker at our monthly CR-RWA meeting. The topic? Book teasers. What I knew about them? Zero. Okay, not really zero, but close enough. I knew they were pretty, that I liked seeing them, and the Greek chorus in my head, this time comprised of my dad, a lifelong artist, retired commercial art director; and cover art queen, Elaine Duillo, would not remain quiet. Here’s what they said:

Dad: Advertising is the art of telling people what they want.

Elaine Duillo: A cover’s job is to get the reader to cross the store to pick up that book (paraphrased, from a phone interview that I still fangirl over, coughety-cough years after the fact.)

It’s not possible to think of those two bits of wisdom, without also thinking of the anecdote that prompted the Duillo quote/paraprahse. I’d been perusing the new releases in the romance section of the Waldenbooks (see, I told you this was ancient history) down the street from where I lived at the time. Two little girls arrived about the same time I did, far too young to be romance readers themselves, as in write their ages in single digits young. Girl A pointed excitedly to one cover. “Ooh, I’ll be her,” she squealed. Girl B pointed to another cover. “I want to be her.” Over and over again, through the selection, picking out their favorites, until their big person summoned them, or they ran off on their own; I don’t remember which. I wanted to pick out my next reads, so their ultimate destination wasn’t my concern, though I suspect they may well have become romance readers, and I hope that they are.

What I do know is that I was those girls when I was their age, and my Aunt Lucy’s visits always included a big brown paper grocery bag full of historical romance novels, as a gift for my mother. My job was to take the bag to the laundry room and de-bag the books, for Mom to look through later. I was forbidden to read them, as I was too young, but those covers were fair game. I spent a lot longer than I strictly needed on that job, crafting stories in my head, based on the cover images and back blurbs, even if I didn’t know what all of the words about the more, ah, intimate, sides of the story, meant. Fast forward coughty-cough years, and I am not only a romance reader, but a romance writer and blogger. I write romance, and about romance, and, though it’s been a while since my last release, I do still have a backlist and several projects in the works, so this workshop on teasers was more than relevant to my interests.

Because I learn best by doing, I was angry at myself for not having brought my laptop to the workshop, as Marianne Rice gave us the opportunity to create a book teaser on the spot, and I love that kind of thing. Both the nifty playing with graphics, and the chance to make something at the drop of a hat, and showing off one of my book babies wouldn’t hurt, either. I tried. Canva is not compatible with my Android phone, so I seethed, then took out a Post-It and sketched a layout. As soon as I got home, I put the new knowledge to the test, and made my first ever teaser:

Now I want to read this again.

Not bad for a first time at bat, if I do say so myself, and there was a very similar feeling when I hit “save” as the first time I saw the first version of the cover. It’s real, or, in this case, it’s still real. My baby is still pretty, and I still want to pump a fist in the air when I think of Mateo and Frances sailing off into the sunset, for real. Okay, the sun was already down, but give me this one.

Queen of the Ocean gave me the chance to play with one of my favorite tropes, reunited lovers, which works super well for novellas, and dip my toes into the waters of one of my favorite eras, the sixteenth century. No Court intrigues in this one, but I still get a delicious shiver when I think of the opening scene, of Frances at the water’s edge, staring down the only way she saw to escape the grim reality of life among a family of wreckers. She clings to the memories of Mateo, her childhood best friend and first love, spirited away by his seafaring father, out of her life forever…until the same sea that took him from her dumps him at her feet when his ship runs afoul of her family’s plans.

All of that came rushing back when I browsed through images free for commercial and personal use. Add a small blurb, the title, pop the cover in there, and there we have it. My name was the last thing I added, because it hadn’t crossed my mind to do so before, but it’s mine. I wrote it. I’m proud of this story, and if doing something I’d do for fun anyway (playing with pretty graphics) could get Frances and Mateo into the hands of new readers, well, that’s a win for both counts, from where I’m sitting.

For today, my trip back in time takes me not to sixteenth century Cornwall, with Frances and Mateo, but eighteenth century London, with Hero and Heroine, and Her Last First Kiss, because critique meeting is tomorrow, and if I want N’s feedback, I have to have pages to show her. Even so, making the Queen of the Ocean teaser reminded me that I have this lovely graphic, by the amazing Sandra Schwab (who also wrote my favorite gothic, Castle of the Wolf) still waiting for the right text:

Image by Sandra Schwab

The first time I opened the email with this image in it, my first thought was, “there she is,” and there I was, in the scene where she takes out her pistol and aims it at…well, that would be telling. It would also be writing, or in this case, re-writing, because we’re on draft two of this now, Ruby and her hero and I, and every day’s work brings us one step closer to getting that story in the hands of readers, too. Seeing a visual representation of that journey, even while it’s still in progress, can provide a much needed creative boost. If it whets some reader appetites along the way, well, we’ll take that, too.

What do you like to see in a book teaser?

Do What You Love

June 7, 2017annabowling 1 Comment

I’m going to thankblame Rose Grey for this one. I first met Rose a few years back, when we ended up at the same table for one of the meals at NECRWA’s annual conference. The entire table clicked, and we became the Last Call Girls, after the time we shut down the dining room at another meal, because we’d been so involved in our conversation that we did not notice that A) the meal was over, and B) we were literally the only people in the room not employed by the hotel. The staff hadn’t wanted to disturb us because they thought we were having an important business meeting, which we totally were. I’m not going to say what kind of business, but that’s the story we’re sticking to on this one.

Anyway, Rose is delightful in person, and I jump on her new blog entries like a starving hyena would chow down on an unattended plate of Kobe beef. Besides blogging and providing fascinating dinner conversation, Rose writes contemporary romance, and she does it at a desk that sounds a lot like mine. Before I read Rose’s blog entry on writing rituals, I hadn’t thought much about not having my secretary desk all the way open, all the time. That way, I could always be ready, wouldn’t have to set up anything, but then there were those words about adding a sense of ritual to the writing process, and hmm.

If I closed my desk at the end of a session, I’d be free to do other things. Leave the office, go home, as it were even though my office is already in my home. If the desk were closed, then I could open it at the start of the day. This wasn’t possible with the monitor in front of the cubbyholes,. and I do love my cubbyholes. Combine that with my other friend, H, getting used to her contacts and our resulting discussion on being nice to eyes and how it is a good thing for writers, and double hmm.

Because this desk predates my time on this earth, it has developed a few idiosyncracies over the years. One of which is that the chains which had always held the work surface open finally gave their all, about the time we moved back to New York, and, if I wanted to have a work surface, period, I had to find some other way of supporting it. The answer was close at hand; the drawers beneath it. Open one. Boom, support. You’re welcome. I am not proud that it took me until Monday (as in the Monday that is two days ago) to figure out that, if I opened the left drawer instead of the right one, I would have somewhere to put my legs. Hopefully, I will be quicker on the uptake next time.

Having somewhere to put my legs makes both computer work and handwriting a lot easier, which makes the whole process of writing my morning pages that much easier. Since I’m still early pages into my current morning pages book, I boost the writing surface on the facing page with another notebook, so it’s at the same level as the pages with hundreds of others to support them. This morning, as I put said notebooks away, I noticed I had a theme going on, that I had not intended:

Do we see a theme here?

Okay, okay, I get it. Message received. This does not surprise me. Since today is #1lineWed on Twitter (I love #1lineWed) I had that on my daily task list, and figured that was as good a time as any to pop the pages from my Monday marathon session into the master document, and then search for my lines that fit this week’s theme. Figured as well, that it was probably a good time to make sure the font is uniform (writers are excellent at finding plausible reasons to procrastinate) and so did a select all so that I could do exactly that. Normally, I don’t count words at this stage of the game, because that is a guarantee that my focus will shift to playing a numbers game, sweating over every keystroke, and, if left unchecked, end up in creative paralysis, which totally sucks, and I do not recommend it. This time, however, the count was there, and…well, the actual word I said was, shall we say, colorful, so I won’t use it here, but the result did surprise me. I’m further along than I thought. A lot farther.

So, how did I get there? It wasn’t that long ago that the bulk of my novel-related writing was me filling an endless stream of Moleskine Cahiers with some variation of “I can’t do this, why can’t I do this?” My writing soundtrack was my Hypercritical Gremlins singing me the song of their people. While I’m not saying the Hypercritical Gremlins will never find their way back to my office closet, they have been quiet in recent days.

The difference, I think, is in forgetting the shoulds, and doing what I love. If that means reading decades-old books rather than the new, hot thing, okay. If that means futzing around with my desk, if that means taking the time to pick out pretty paper and the right pens to write with on it, while my imaginary friends perform their own rituals so they’re ready to meet me when I open desk and notebook, I am fine with that. I can close the desk at the end of the day, tuck my imaginary friends into bed (often with each other, because, hey, romance writer here) and know we’ll both be in the right place when it’s time to open for business once again.

In the meantime, the ducks in the park probably have babies by now. I could maybe go look for them, once today’s work is done.

Typing With Wet Claws: Hello Summer Edition

June 2, 2017annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. It is not technically summer yet, because the calendar says the official start date is a little while from now, but Anty says that it is close enough, because it is now June, we are past Memorial Day, and, well, it feels like summer. Hopefully without the heat sickness this year, because Anty has Stuff To Do this summer. There is petting me, feeding me, paying attention to me, and also that writing thing. Purr-sonally (even though I do not actually purr) I think she would have a much better time of that writing thing if she got rid of her office carpet so that her mews could be closer at all times. When I say writing times, I mean snack time, feeding time, petting time, okay, and story time, too.

Since the deal is that I can talk about whatever I want after I tell readers where they can find Anty’s writing on the interwebs (besides here) this week, I had better get to that. First, as always, Anty was at Buried Under Romance this week. This time, she talked about the different ways book lovers can organize their treasure troves (by which I mean books.) That post is here, and its link on the main page looks like this:

Anty also had a post on Heroes and Heartbreakers this week, and this time, it was about tracking the relationship of New Girl‘s Nick and Jess, one of her favorite sitcom couples. That post is here, and it looks like this:

She also participated in the H&H Bloggers’ best reads of May. If you would like to know what Anty’s favorite read of the month was (and have not already guessed from reading her blog, or Goodreads) or are curious about what the other H&H bloggers liked best, you can read about that here.

Now, speaking of reading, and because it is the first Friday of the month, we get to check in on not one, but two reading challenges Anty is doing. First, let’s look at the regular Goodreads challenge. Right now, Anty’s challenge looks like this:

Anty remains on track this week, which makes me very proud of her. Keep it up, Anty. I believe in you. Now we will check in on the historical romance reading challenge.

Anty read one historical romance novel this week, A Lady’s Code of Misconduct, by Meredith Duran. Her review of that book is here. If that seems a little light for her goal of reading more historical romances, we need to look at the big picture. Since the beginning of the year, Anty has read thirty-seven books. Nineteen of those are historical romances, which puts her over the fifty percent mark, so I am going to give her a passing grade on this, but she can still make more of an effort to read more historicals. Keep going, Anty. You are getting there.

Now it is time to talk about the writing that Anty is currently doing. Anty took this picture by accident one day, while taking her deskscape image, and kind of liked it, so she made it into a banner, but did not know what to use it for, so I will use it to mark where I talk about her everyday writing. I am not sure if it needs words on it or not, but I think it is a decent banner, anyway.

Cat-ption coming soon…maybe.

This week sees Anty entering the double-digit numbered chapters of her second draft for Her Last First Kiss. She is still learning new things about this book as she goes, mostly how to get more inside the characters’ heads, because that is where the interesting stuff happens. Some of that interesting stuff has involved old-timey underwear, because that is going to come into play in that chapter.

Not only does this mean that Anty has to look for pictures and descriptions of old-timey underwear, but explain it to both Miss N and Critique Partner Vicki, who are not familiar with the underwear of this era, how said old-timey underwear works. This resulted in some interesting discussions, usually including a reminder that people in 1783 would think the underwear people wear in 2017 is as weird as 2017 people find the underwear of 1783. My underwear is built-in fluff, because I am a Maine Coon, and that means I have a double coat. It is a little different for Anty’s imaginary friends.

The chapter Anty is working on right now is one where Hero and Heroine cross one of the points of no return, where they cannot go back to the way things were before, and that is going to make things awkward, because they still have to live under the same roof. I know what you are thinking because of the underwear mention, and you are wrong. It is not that. It is also the point where Anty said some very interesting words when scenes move themselves around. She can’t keep a scene with Hero and Character X in this chapter, because A) it already happened in a previous chapter and B) Character X left in the previous chapter, so now it’s Hero and Heroine thrust alone together when they would really like to go in opposite directions, but then there would be no story.

Some of Anty’s critique partners have said that Anty likes the rewriting that happens in a second draft more than she likes the initial writing in a first draft, and they may not be wrong on this one. By the second draft, Anty knows the characters better, and, sometimes, they have a few things to tell her, that she did not know the first time. That happened with Anty’s writing on Her Last First Kiss this week, and she kind of likes that. She says it means that the story is real and alive. I think being a live is pretty good, so go, Anty. Keep moving in that direction. Also the direction of my food bowl.