Tails up, Storm Troopers, and Happy Mew Year! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. We are all doing well here, and happy to have 2020 in the rearview mirror. I have as of yet made no moves toward the Christmas tree, though that may be because it is on the kitchen table, and I am not allowed on the kitchen table. Still salty about that, buy next year, maybe they’ll have the tree on a coffee table. Then, I’ll have news.

We had a really nice Christmas and New Year. Now we are getting back to the business of regular life. Well, with one exception. Since my humans love me very much, of course I got presents. The wrapping paper was super fun. I played with it all morning. I even got gushy food. There was one present, however. It came from Aunt Mary, Uncle Brian, and cousins Andrew, (Leah, who will get married to Andrew in a little while) and Aiden, who is a fur cousin. He is a dog, but I am okay with that. I really have no words for it, so here:

Please note the absence of nose arrow. That is how you can tell us apart, although our blacks and oranges are on opposite sides of our face. So that’s another way. Also, she doesn’t talk much. Like at all. Aunt Anna says that’s because Esme (her tag says she’s called Esmerelda, but we are calling her Esme, because she is smol) is stuffed. Hmpf. Honestly, I have never seen her eat a thing. I would also like to be stuffed. Which I have been, as Uncle Rheuben got some people tuna, specifically to share with me, and I think that speaks highly of him.

Anyway, Esme lives in Aunt Linda’s room, since I usually want to be around Aunt Anna. There were plans on the agenda to get a photo of “the twins” (which we are not) but calico said cali-NO. I don’t hate Esme, but she’s going to have to put into this relationship, know what I mean? Yeah. This was as close as Aunt Anna could get.

Hm, this does prove that I am now not the only one who can leave black, white, and orange fur sheds at the scene of an…um…incident. Like maybe with a hypothetical Christmas tree on a hypothetical coffee table next year. Okay, she may have her uses. She can stay.

In the getting back to day to day business, things are also going pretty well. Aunt Anna and Aunt Melva will be finishing Drama King oh so soon, and then begins the first round of edits.; And the second round of edits. Then submission, because their editor at The Wild Rose Press already said they could send it. Then if they want it, there will be more edits. Aunt Anna actually likes that part, Aunt Melva not so much, but it all gets the book to you, so it’s all good. If the publisher doesn’t feel the book will be a good fit, then they have other options, which would also be good, and they have a nice slate of stuff to see them happily writing through the new year.

They will also be reviving melvaandanna.com, because there is new stuff coming. Not only the very soon writing of THE END to Drama King, but their first video workshop of the year in February, and being the authors of the month in a book club in March. Then they will start on Queen of Hearts.

Aunt Anna is also, as I have said before, super excited about getting back to historical romance. She’s throwing around a lot of terms like “pirates” and “medieval” (but not medieval pirates. At least not at this point.) and picking out what projects would be fun to drag out from the mothballs (I don’t know what mothballs are, but I like balls. They’re fun.) There are notebooks and papers and ideas, and I am on point for assisting her every step of the way. By assisting, I usually mean sitting on whatever notebook or planner she has opened most recently.

One of those planners is her reading journal, which is what you see above. She’s still working on the setup, so it’s a work in progress. The printables are from Jesenia Printables (she got the Reading Set and loves it very much) and she plans to get them printed professionally rather than letting her printer and visual impairment duke it out over home printing.; Plus this will allow her to print extra book pages and record everything she wants to record. She also wants to make a different paint chip bookmark in colors that more closely agree with the pink/black/white color palette, and this time skip the stickers. Probably also round the corners, because she is fancy like that.

Along with recording how many books Aunt Anna reads this week, she is going to keep track of the genres/subgenres that she reads. She would like for historical romance to be the biggest category, but then also keep track of how many of what sort of historical romances she reads the most. Of course that is centered on what books she has access to, because one of the sucky things that happened in 2020 was being permanently parted from her classic romance collection, except for two boxes of favorite favorites.

So far, she has read three books out of a projected ninety, putting her two books ahead of schedule, though we are in the earliest of days. These three are all YA, two of which have strong romances, and two are scary. There is some overlap. She is currently reading a historical, with more on the way, so things will balance out very soon, Also, she has made a couple hours in the evening set aside for reading, and I am definitely here to do my part and sit on her to ensure feline paralysis, which goes really, really well with reading.

I t hink that’s about it for this week, and my sunbeam is here, so catch you next week.

Headbonks!