Valentine’s Day Rambles (of the writing variety)

February 14, 2018February 14, 2018annabowling Leave a comment

So, it’s Valentine’s Day, which means built in blog topic for romance writers. Woo hoo. On hour, seven hundred words, let’s go. Okay. No big plans for the day, as such. I’m writing, which is worthy of celebration, because my brain is returning from the fog of Martian Death Cold, and it’s time to write some of the rust out of the faucet, so to speak. This also means I get to spend some extra time tucked in a comfy chair (probably my office chair, which is plenty comfy and has great back support) and snuggle under a fuzzy blanket, with a cup of tea (pink skull and crossbones mug today) and the day’s soundtrack is a mixture of my Spotify daily mix and Real Life Romance Hero doing dishes on the other side of my office door. Heck yes, romance heroes wash dishes.

Okay, maybe not medieval knights or nineteenth century English noblemen. Probably not pirates, either, but, y’know, everybody does what they have to do on a pirate ship because there are only so many people to do a lot of different jobs, so maybe pirates, after all. Who can tell? Me, next time I write a pirate book? Maybe so. We will see. The point is, romance heroes do a whole lot of things. Heroines, too. That came out wrong, but I’ll let it stand, because I am in that sort of a mood.

Romance gets a lot of jabs this time of year, often from people who aren’t fans of the genre, often because they haven’t tried any recent romance fiction, or classic romance fiction, or fiction with romantic elements (though, let’s be real, that romance stuff is everywhere, and gets into many different genres, to varying degrees, but I digress.) Think pieces of this sort (of which there often does not seem to be a whole lot of thinking going on) have become commonplace enough that I can look at them, and, meh, another one of those? Okay. Whatever. What I’d really like to see is the excited discovery of a new romance reader – hey, look at all these great stories, where the focus is on the relationship and there’s history and suspense and sex and faith and it’s funny and it rips my heart out and puts it back together, and, seriously, anything can happen to these characters, as long as they end up happy and together, and, y’know what? They do. Every single time. How amazing is that?

Pretty darned, is all I’m saying. Yesterday was my weekly meeting with N, and we talked about reconnecting with what we want for our writing careers, about reconnecting with what makes a story, be it read or written, special. For me, this means a concentrated effort in reconnecting with what I love most about historical romance. If I’m going to go back to the source, the moment I fell in love with the genre, it would be when eleven-year-old me snuck a book from my mother’s nightstand, and cracked it open, by flashlight, under the brass bed in the guest bedroom. It also takes me back to countless used bookstores, where I would crawl around on the floor, inspecting the lower shelves for stories set in the sixteenth century, scanning for keywords that would catch my attention. Any mention of larger than life, or epic, or sprawling, or…:satisfied sigh:

Yeah, that. When I think of historical romance, that’s my happy place. I’m sure there’s something to be said about the role of the floor in all of this. The floor of the guest bedroom, under the big brass bed, the floors of countless bookstores, usually ending up in a tucked away corner, books spread out around me, so I could whittle down the selection to fit within the budget for that trip. To a lesser extent, there are the countless spins I made of the spinner racks in the fiction section of the library closest to my dad’s house when I was in high school, checking for fat paperbacks that meant historical romance, and the distinctive, slim spines that meant traditional Regencies, or gothics. As long as there was history, and there was romance, I was happy.

Am happy, because, decades after that first filched paperback, which now has a place of honor on the bookshelf behind me as I write, the same bookcase which once held the picture books of my preschool days, I still get that thrill. Give me two lovers who have to be together, but can’t, and I am there. If I am the one entrusted to making sure the lovers’ stars un-cross, that’s another level of fun. Frustration, sometimes, because story people can be tricky little badgers, making choices of their own, the second they hit the page. That only means they are real and alive in the sense that it becomes a collaboration between the writer and their imaginary friends. In that way, no romance writer is ever truly alone, no matter what day it is.

Over the magic seven hundred now, and time to wrap this puppy, which can get tricky when I go on this sort of ramble. As N and I discussed, sometimes it takes a while to write the rust out of the faucet, and putting down anything is better than putting down nothing, especially when putting down anything runs smack into a wall of resistance. Even so, keep at it long enough, and the faucet runs out of rust. That’s a happy ending right there.

Typing With Wet Claws: Tough Fuzzy Love Edition

February 9, 2018annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Anty is down with what the humans call Martian Death Cold, which is pretty noisy with all the coughing, and smells a lot like cherries. Cherry cough drops and cherry gelatin are big features around here right now, and Anty just finished some cherry blossom body wash. Anty also has a lipstick called Cherry Picking, but she has not been wearing much lipstick this week. That is how we know it is Martian Death Cold. I cannot get Martian Death Cold, because I am a kitty, and it is a people thing, but the one upside that I can see is that Anty gets some extra napping time, usually next to a good book.

Before I am allowed to talk about anything else (which is usually Anty’s writing anyway, let’s be real) I first have to tell you where you can find Anty’s writing on the interwebs. Besides here, that is, because, if you ate reading this, you are already here. As usual, Anty was at Buried Under Romance on Saturday. This week, she talked about the think pieces humans wo do not read romance often write about romance, this time of year. Writing about books a human does not read does not make sense to me, but then again, I am a kitty. Maybe you should read Anty’s post, instead. It is here, and it looks like this:

Anty would like to thank Sabrina Jeffries for recommending Anty’s post to her (Miss Sabrina’s) readers, on Facebook. Anty considers this high praise, as Miss Sabrina is a well established romance writer, who knows whereof she speaks.

Now is the part of the post where I bring you up to date on Anty’s Goodreads challenge. As of today, Anty has read ten out of ninety books for the year. This puts her at eleven percent of the way toward her goal, and one book ahead of schedule. Well done, Anty. Keep reading. Sick time is very good for reading time, and it is perfectly okay to nap in between chapters, especially when there is a fuzzy Maine Coon kitty nearby.

The books that Anty read and reviewed this week are:

Forever, by Judy Blume

Recovery Road, by Blake Nelson

The Last Forever, by Deb Caletti

As you can tell, all three of those books are YA, which brings us to the meat of today’s post. (I like meat. Tuna is the best, but beef is also good, as are most kinds of birdie.) One of the most important duties of a mews is to keep their writer human on the right track. Last night, it was time for some tough, fuzzy love. Right now, Anty has one hundred YA novels logged on her current Goodreads account, and ninety-one historical romances. This does not count historical fiction with romantic elements, so the two may not be that far apart when we include the second cat-egory (sorry, I could not resist) but it is enough that I could not let it pass without addressing the issue.

While it is purr-fectly (sorry, again. That is the last one, I promise. For now.) fine for readers’ preferences to change, and that does happen, including switching genres, I did not think that was what was happening here. I have seen the way Anty looks at her TBR shelves, so we had a discussion. That discussion was about historical romance, and the point of the discussion about historical romance was that Anty needs to read more of it.

Part of the discussion was asking Anty why she has been avoiding her favorite genre lately. We kitties, especially those of us with big green kitten eyes (I am really good at big green kitten eyes. By that I mean that the eyes are green, not the kittens. Kittens should never be green. If your kitten is green, please go to the vet, or at least the groomer.) can say a lot with the right look, and we are very good listeners. I can understand Anty’s reasons, but, because it is my duty as a mews to keep Anty moving in the right direction, I could not leave it at that. Those reasons are hers to tell, and I made her write them down in a notebook, so she can refer to that the next time something like this happens.

Earlier this week, Miss N gave Anty the assignment to reconnect with historical romance. Well, Anty’s own, specifically, but reading more historical romance and remembering what it is about that genre that Anty loves enough to write her own, well, that’s important, too. Anty agreed with me (and with Miss N) but I could still tell she was a little scared and/or confused about where to jump back into the whole pool. That is where having a mews comes in handy. At times like this, the only thing that can be done is to head straight toward the loved and scary thing and jump right into it.

For Anty, this meant taking one of those books off her TBR shelf and actually reading it. For this venture, we picked Captive of the Border Lord, by Blythe Gifford. Anty has read many of Miss Blythe’s books, and liked them a lot, so it is a very good bet that she will like this one, too. It is the second book in the Brunson Clan trilogy, and Anty has already read the first one. We tried to find a standalone book, but those are kind of rare these days, so second out of three is kind of close to that. It is also a Harlequin Historical, which means that it is not a very thick book, and Anty should be able to read it fairly quickly, without feeling intimidated by a big, thick book, with a lot of pages. For bonus points, this book is set in the sixteenth century, which is one of Anty’s very, very favorite eras for historical romance.

This goes along with the philosophy of not saving the good stuff for “someday.” Read the good stuff now. Write the good stuff now. If not now, then when? The practice begets the product. We kitties would not lie about this sort of thin.

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

White Space

February 7, 2018annabowling 2 Comments

This is the view from our balcony this morning:

I don’t know what it is about this season that snow days and sick days tend to fall on the same day, but, as the sugarless cherry cough drops on my desk indicate, that’s what we’ve got. Domestic tornadoes are not gone, but are slowing, and coming farther apart, which does leave more wiggle room, and time, for that writing thing I have heard I do.

On Monday’s Skype session with Melva, we went over our plan to revise and resubmit Chasing Prince Charming. If things go according to plan, which they should, we should be done by the end of March. That seems both very soon and very far away. We also decided that we were having too much fun with Drama King to truly put it aside while we work on the revisions, so we will continue, albeit at a more relaxed pace, until the revisions are done.

At my Tuesday breakfast with N, we both set goals for getting our current (solo) projects in gear. For her, it’s mapping out exactly what’s needed to tie up all loose ends in her contemporary romance, and, for me, it’s getting back to serious work on Her Last First Kiss. We talked, a lot, about what it takes to bring a story from okay to special. It’s not only words on a page, though that is obviously important, but the life in the characters, so that readers care about their story, what happens to them, if they’ll get what they want. Even though we’re both writing romance, which means that yes, our lovers will absolutely end up together at the end, and be happy about it, the very best books have that moment of “oh crap, maybe they can’t.” Getting them from that point to “heck, yes, they did,” that’s the best part. That’s the goal.

With all of the above, March is going to be full, with not only a lot of writing, but my online workshop with Charter Oak Romance Writers, Play In Your Own Sandbox, Keep All the Toys, but Eryka Peskin’s free workshop, 31 Days and 32 Ways to Jump-start Your Life. Li’l blurb on that one, in Eryka’s own words, here:

Find out how transforming your relationship with your health, money, activism, spirituality, love, mindset and more can jumpstart your LIFE and change the world. For more info and to sign up, go to http://eepurl.com/bAQ0jf

It starts March 1st, so make sure you sign up right away!

I’m not sure yet, if the NECRWA conference is going to be possible this year, but I am (mostly) okay with that, because there’s no way to sell a book that isn’t written, and very few first drafts are ready to make the cut. This may require figuring out other ways to see my conference people, which is not a bad thing.

That’s all the future, though, and, since the snowstorm and cold have teamed up to nix plans for the afternoon and evening, what I have for the present is a large supply of tea, warm, fuzzy blankets, and a fully stocked Kindle, along with a TBR shelf that mocks me, from its space behind my office chair. Since I know me, there will also be a notebook or legal pad, and a handful of pens. The only big question I have today, is “what?”

Sick snow days are perfect fro TV/Netflix bingeing, but my search for something braimless I could background watch, and possibly nap through, led me to Les Revenants, a French drama that is, you guessed it, in French. Also, not dubbed. I do not speak French. I can pick out a few words, but that’s it. Thankfully, there are English subtitles, but that means actually looking at the screen.

Okay, there’s reading, then, and I do not lack for books, nor, specifically, historical romance books, but I want a particular sort, and I don’t feel like sifting through the TBR shelf or doing internet research. This may mean that a chunk of the day is spent curled under one of aforementioned fuzzy blankets, with aforementioned cup of tea, pen and paper within reach, and staring at Skye, the living room in general, or the insides of my eyelids. I call this white space.

Sometimes, the best thing we can do is nothing. Not exactly nothing, obviously, because blanket and tea and kitty who loves playing computer games, but the hitting pause on the plan to get from here to there, and letting the brain settle. Letting it sift through all the stuff that is rolling around in there, pushed out of the way by things like trash day and rescheduling doctor appointments and crunching numbers, and what and how much to make for dinner, depending on who’s going to be home and/or awake.

White space is quiet. It’s still. It’s snow falling outside, and the voices in my head (aka characters, aka story people, aka imaginary friends, aka fill in your own term here) wandering about at will. Sometimes this focuses on the current project, but usually not. It’s touching the past and the future at once, and it may result in a few notes, or a few pages, or a few dozen pages, but that’s not a requirement. white space usually comes to a natural end, stuff sorted out, and ready (perhaps after a nap, or reading a few chapters, or watching an episode or two of subtitled TV) to take on the next adventure. Not a bad journey to take from the depths of a comfy chair.

Typing With Wet Claws: Gamer Kitty Edition

January 12, 2018annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Today, the weather is warm and rainy, here in New York’s Capitol Region. That is very different rom the deep freeze we have been having lately, but I will stick close to the heater anyway. One never knows.

Because the deal is that I am not allowed to talk about whatever I want to talk about (which is usually Anty’s writing, anyway, go figure) I have to talk about where readers can find Anty’s writing on the interwebs (other than here, because you are already here, if you are reading this, and I do not have to tell you how to get here, where we already are. There would be no point.)

First, as always, Anty was at Buried Under Romance on Saturday. Last week, she talked about the magic of new beginnings. Those do not only happen to characters, but readers, and writers, as well. Anty loves to talk anything related to romance reading, so feel free to drop by and chat with her. That post is here, and it looks like this:

Now that it is a whole new year, it is a whole new reading challenge for Anty at Goodreads. If you want to follow her reading progress this year, you can do that here.

This year, Anty wants to keep the same goal as last year, ninety books. So far, she has read two books, and is right on track. Those books are:

Beauty Like the Night, by Joanna Bourne

Here’s Negan, by Robert Kirkman, et al

That is quite a combination, but it fits Anty. The reading year is off to a good start. Right now, Anty is reading one historical romance, one time travel romance, and one YA novel. I do not know how I want to count time travel when it comes to historicals. I may have to do some research and set a standard.

This morning, Anty and Anty Melva had their first Skype (which still does not have anything to do with Skye Pee, to my eternal displeasure) session of the new year, and they set their goals of writing one scene each during this coming week. Drama King is back on, and Chasing Prince Charming is still making the rounds. Anty and Anty Melva are also considering going indie with their jointly written books, so keep an eye on this page for new developments.

Now for the important part of this post, the part about me. As of this week, I am a gamer kitty. My favorite game so far is called Mouse Hunt, and you can see it on YouTube, here. I like other games, too, where I can chase a laser or some buggies, or a squirrel, but the mice are my favorite, because they are mice. I have done some real mouse hunting, in our old house. There are no real life mice in this house, but that is okay. I like the game.

Anty and Uncle try to play with me, by throwing pieces of crumpled paper at me. That is really super fun, until the crumpled papers stop moving. Then I am no longer interested. Nobody wants to hunt things that are already dead. Especially not me. These games, though, those are a different story. The mice in the game keep moving. Sometimes, they tease me from the corners of the screen, and then they zip across it. That is very exciting. When I see the game mousies, I am riveted to the screen. I bap them with my paws, and try to bite them (the biting part has not worked so far, but I will keep trying.) A couple of times, I have even grabbed Anty or Uncle’s phones (they both play with me like this) and dragged them toward me, so I can get the mousies even better.

That is usually when Anty or Uncle takes the phone away from me and says that it is time for a break. I am not so sure about that, but they are the ones with opposable thumbs. That is also about the time when they give me food, so that I am not too irritated about game time being over. Come to think about it, that generally works on Anty, too, if she has to leave a writing session, especially when it takes her time to get into one. There had better be food (or at least tea) if she has to be interrupted.

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

Typing With Wet Claws: Uncle Smells Like Vet Edition

January 5, 2018annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for the first Feline Friday of 2018. It is very cold here, in New York’s capitol region. Yesterday, we got a lot of snow, so much that Anty and the writer friend she was supposed to meet for lunch had to move that meeting for next week, because the humans had to stay home and stay safe. Tomorrow will be very, very cold, so Anty and Mama plan on staying put (Uncle will probably have to go to work) with blankets and hot drinks, and, hopefully, some books, but that is not the most important thing I want to talk about this week.

Normally, I have to talk about Anty’s writing first, but this week is an exception. This week, Uncle got very sick, and Anty had to call special humans to come and help him get to the Right Now People Vet. Anty put me in Mama’s room, with two bowls of water, before they came, so that I would not get in anybody’s way, or get too scared. I could still hear things, though, and Uncle smelled very sick. It took seven humans and a special chair to get Uncle into the carrier, and then to the Right Now People Vet. They kept Uncle there for two nights, to make sure that he was really okay. They did a good job, because, yesterday, Uncle came home. He did not smell sick anymore, but he did smell like vet.

I do not like the smell of vet, and that includes people vet, but I do like the smell of Uncle. He came home yesterday morning, in the middle of all the snow. I had been curled up in front of Heater, and then I heard a human at the door. Then the door opened, and it was Uncle. I ran to him, at top speed. He is my favorite, and I love him the most. I was not happy while he was gone. Today, I went to Anty and cried, when Uncle stepped outside for a minute. Then he came back and fed me, and I was happy again. I let him know I do not like closed doors, because I need to be sure that he is okay and that he is still here. I even let Anty know that I do not like her and Uncle being at different ends of the apartment, because I want to see both of them at the same time. I will calm down pretty soon, but, right now, I want to keep making sure.

It is kind of like that with Anty and writing. I am going to save the real start of the year post for next week, because Anty’s attentions have been mostly elsewhere this week. She did post at Buried Under Romance on Saturday, taking a look back and a look forward, at the same time. That post is here, and it looks like this:

Normally, this is the place where I bring you up to date on Anty’s Goodreads reading challenge, but this has been a special week, so I will stat off the 2018 reports next week. Anty only got a little bit of reading time this week, and she ended up DNF-ing two different books. DNF, in the reading world, means did not finish. Anty does not like to do this to book, but, this week, that was the right thing to do. Anty does not want to say which books they were, but both of them were anthologies. One was historical romance, and the other was YA. Maybe Anty will try them again, later. Right now, she is reading the new version of a favorite classic historical romance, and that will probably be her first review of the new year.

All told, Anty read ninety-nine books in 2017. Because of all the commotion this week, I did not get an exact percentage of historical romances in Anty’s reading this year, but if Anty did not make her goal of fifty percent, she came close. If I count the historical fiction with strong romantic elements, I think she probably did, but it was close. Part of that is because Anty found a lot of new authors in YA fiction this year.

For this coming year, she will still be reading a lot of YA, but she also wants to tighten her focus on historical romance, and, specifically, the kinds of historical romance that remind her why she is in this writing business in the first place. Because Anty’s second love, after writing, is planning and organizing, she came up with the perfect tool:

The TBRR stands for To Be Re-Read, and that means reading books that she has already read, that made a special impact on Anty, with an eye to taking note of what, exactly, made that impression, and how it did that. The TFR should probably be TBFR, which stands for To Be Finally Read (or To Finally Read, either way.) Those are books Anty has always meant to read, but never got around to reading before now. There are twelve in each list, one for each month in the new year. The plan is that, when Anty hits a lull, or she does not k now what she wants to read, she can pick one book from these lists, and, by the end of the year, have them all completed. Since that would be twenty-four books, that would also make a nice dent in her goal of ninety books (she is keeping the same goal for this coming year) in 2018.

Happy Holidays, from Mr. and Mrs. Gothy Claus.

Now, back to writing, because that is the bigger focus. When Anty and Mama came home from the people vet, where Uncle had to stay, Anty immediately put on some special gloves and took a trash bag and collected things that the Right Now People Vet Helpers had left behind. There were wrappers from things they had to unwrap, to help Uncle, and some other things that do not make good kitty toys. Getting those things out of the way was part of getting everything back to normal, so that we could all do what we needed. It is kind of the same thing with writing. Once a crisis is past, it is time to pick up the debris, and get back to business. I think that is a good way to start the new year.

That is about it for this week, but there is a whole year of Feline Fridays ahead. Let’s make it a good one. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

see you next week

Seven

January 3, 2018annabowling 3 Comments

If, for any reason, anybody needs to know how many paramedics can fit into the hallway and one very small room of our apartment, the answer is seven. One guess as to how I know. Thanks to aforementioned first responders and the hospital staff, Real Life Romance Hero will be fine, but that was not the way anybody wanted to start off the new year. Though I am posting this entry on Wednesday, it is technically Monday’s post. I will figure out where the Wednesday post goes, later.

Right now, there is laundry to do, and a long-awaited e-book on my Kindle, to read while said laundry is doing its thing. After that, it is time to check on RLRH at the hospital, and, most likely, convey him home. As Housemate often says, at least we are not bored. She is right: we most certainly are not even remotely close to bored. Tired, yes, but not bored.

This may not, objectively, seem like the best time in the world to participate in a month-long writing challenge, but, almost predictably, that is exactly what I am doing. I highly suspect I may be a unicorn in this particular group, as other participants seem to have a wide array of writing goals that do not involve commercial fiction (or fiction at all) but that’s fine. This isn’t that kind of challenge, at least not at this point. We will see how things go, but, so far, two assignments given out, two completed, so I will consider myself off to a decent start. Begin as one means to go on, and all that stuff.

Usually, for me, the big winter holiday is Christmas, and that’s still my favorite. I have every plan of having a more traditional celebration next year. This year, though, it’s the new year that has me excited. A friend and I stayed up, over Skype, on New Year’s Eve, to watch 2017 die. It’s been that kind of year. With a new year come new possibilities. Foremost among those is reclaiming my writer identity.

It’s easy for the writing self to get lost along the way, especially when domestic tornado chains rip through one’s family and debris takes its time in settling. Don’t ask me what it is about this particular year that makes it different, but this year, there was a firm, quiet, “no,” when it came to that getting lost thing, and that is probably why I clicked the button to join this challenge. Okay, that and the fact that I know the woman who’s running it, personally, and I may or may not have started writing one of my novels in her kitchen, once upon a time. Spoiler alert: I totally did.

Today’s lesson was on morning pages, which I’ve been doing for a couple of years now. If I dug into my archive of completed notebooks, I could tell you the exact day. Since there is rather a lot of laundry that needs immediate attention, I am not going to do that (at least not today) but I am going to take a moment to highly recommend the practice of morning pages, and the related practice of a brain dump, which can be done at any time. I will be bringing my traveler’s notebook/bullet journal/should probably give it its own name so that I don’t have to figure out how to refer to this thing with me, so there probably will be a brain dump at the laundromat as well.

There is also an equal chance I will flick my Kindle on as soon as I have deposited the last quarter in the washing machine, and spend the entire time with my attention fully focused on Pirate In My Arms, by Danelle Harmon. There are a few reasons for this. I stayed up until midnight on January first, so that I could make sure, as the calendar flipped to January second, the date the e-book version of this historical romance, first published in 1992, would be available. I didn’t know that, only a few hours later, I would be reading it while crammed into a corner of a tiny room in the Emergency Department, while RLRH let the medication do its work. When Housemate came to join us, she looked at my Kindle, and asked, “Pirate In My Arms?” I told her she knew me well, and then went back to eighteenth century Cape Cod, to watch a proper colonial maiden and a fabled English pirate find that their ragged edges fit together into one unbreakable whole.

I did gobble this book when it first came out, in what seems like another lifetime, so it’s both an old favorite and a new adventure at the same time. That’s what writing fiction feels like, as I look at 2018. I’ve been here before, but it’s still new. Not sure exactly what to take from that, but to keep going straight on through it, eyes fixed on the ultimate goal. By the end of 2018, I want to have at least one new book out there, in the hands of readers, or at least on its way. It’s been said the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and there’s truth to that. It’s a thousand single steps, one after the other, aimed toward the ultimate destination.

Ninety

December 6, 2017annabowling Leave a comment

My primary reading goal for 2017 was to ready ninety books by the end of the year. Yesterday evening, while waiting for my doctor appointment, I finished reading book number ninety. Bonus points for book number ninety being a historical romance, as my secondary goal was to have at least half of my reading this year classified as historical romance. I will probably come close to that, and then carry that goal over to next year.

I am a firm believer in story in, story out, and I like a good challenge. Last year, I had set my goal at eighty books. Do not ask me how I came up with that number. I blew past it, by a wide margin, which led to me raising the reading bar for 2017. Hitting that mark, three weeks ahead of schedule, does give reading bragging rights, and I will admit that, when I took my Kindle out of my purse, I had a sense that picking the right book to be number ninety would be important. I wanted to finish the challenge on a historical romance, which I did, and I wanted to get started on reading Christmas romance, which I also did. Handy, that, when they both come in the same package.

I also wanted to read more in historical periods that especially appeal to me. A Secret Christmas, by Lauren Royal, fit that bill, because it’s set during the English Commonwealth/Lord Protectorate, aka the time when England had no king because Oliver Cromwell had other ideas (which did not turn out all that great, spoiler alert.) Said other ideas included stomping out frivolous things like sports, music, theater, and Christmas. Definitely not a setting one sees for a Christmas story all that often, and it works quite well in this novella. This is listed as number eight in Lauren Royal’s Chase family series, but is actually the prequel, the story of the parents of the “first” generation, so I’m counting it as the start. For readers who prefer the bedroom (or in this case, other room) door closed, a sweet/clean/kisses only version is available under the title, The Cavalier’s Christmas Bride, written with co-author Devon Royal.

Which is another thing. I’ve wanted to find more historical romance that is not a subsequent book in a long line of related stories, and, if I can’t find a true standalone (of which I think there are not nearly enough, but that’s another story, pun intended) the a first book, or prequel, will do quite nicely. The mother-daughter team is now working on an even earlier branch of the fictional family tree, that will take place during the Renaissance era, and that has me excited.

When I first began reading historical romance, which is also when I first knew I would be writing it as well, or, more appropriately, when I knew that “historical romance” was the name that fit the kind of story I’d always loved, the field was wide open as to exactly when the happily-ever-after would take place. Authors would pour details of daily life in their chosen period onto the page, the everyday things as well as the big things like wars and coronations and oh, hey, look, there’s another whole continent over there. I loved that stuff, and I still do.

Last night, as I read, the story framed by an introduction, and an author’s note about the real history behind the customs, that spark flickered. What I wanted to do was go home and flip through the new issue of RT Book Reviews, which will always be Romantic Times to me, but the paper version of the magazine doesn’t exist anymore. There are still back issues, though, and the website has lots of resources, and maybe I can bring some of what I loved about the magazine here. We’ll see.

This year, I read ninety books, and I have no intention of not-reading for the rest of the year, so we have some time to watch that number grow. Reading books fills the creative well, essential for those of us who are, ourselves, writing. I am still experimenting with what writing trackers work best to keep me motivated, but one of the best motivations is that, in writing my own books, I get to “read” the story as I go. There is , of course, the re-reading of what’s already written, but it’s more than that. It’s having the characters meander around inside my head when I’m doing other things. Normal, everyday, not necessarily related to writing, or fiction in any way sorts of things, and bam. There they are, my imaginary friends, ready to let me follow them around for a while, and take notes as we go.

I haven’t written ninety books…yet. There’s a new year ahead, and anything is possible.

Taking The Long Way Home

December 4, 2017annabowling Leave a comment

According to Goodreads, I am ninety-eight percent of the way to my goal of reading ninety books in 2017. Since it is the fourth of December, with a bunch more days left in the month, and only two more books needed to reach my goal, I think it’s safe to say I am probably going to make it.

What interests me about tracking my reading this year is that I have been reading a lot more YA than I had expected. The last historical romance novel I read was To Love Again, by Bertrice Small, a reread, and it most certainly did hold up from my first reading. I’ve read seven books since then, all YA, Between that reread and the last historical romance prior, Tyburn, by Jessica Cale, I read nine books, again all YA. This past weekend, though I have two historical romances in my currently reading shelf, and am eager to read two more historicals, written by a writer friend, and had happily scooped four historical romances (three novels, one Christmas anthology) from the shelves on my last library run, Friday saw me without any YA reads, which meant another trip to the library for another armload. I’ve read two of those books since then.

This definitely bears some examination, especially since my secondary reading goal for this calendar year was to have at least fifty percent of my reading consist of historical romance novels. Am I going to make that one? Maybe. If not, I’ll be close. Does almost count in reading goals, like it does in horseshoes and hand grenades? We’ll find out at the end of the year, I imagine.

The first question that springs to mind is whether I still want to read historical romance, period. The answer to that is easy, and immediate. Yes. Absolutely yes. Oh so very much, yes. The fire that lit in my gut, oh so many years ago, under the brass bed in the guest bedroom, with a paperback pilfered from my mom’s nightstand is an eternal flame. Historical romance is what I love to write the most, and it’s what I love to read the most, so why this big shift in reading this year?

When I look at the assortment of books that I have read over the course of the year, what stands out to me are the common themes. Let’s take genre out of the picture. Several of the YA novels I’ve read and loved have romance in them, even if it’s not the central issue, and/or does not have an optimistic and emotionally satisfying ending. That doesn’t mean they haven’t had the right ending for their individual stories. Some of the stories that resonated the most with me have been unambiguous tragedies. What is common, across the board, though, is what I am going to call grit.

Life in these books isn’t always pretty. In fact, it’s pretty darned rough. The body count is high; siblings, parents, first loves, and yet, our heroes and/or heroines keep going. I like that about a viewpoint character. They’re Weebles. They wobble, but they don’t fall down. If they do, they get back up again and keep going.

To Love Again is set in the age of Roman Britain, and our heroine does some traveling. Not only that, but she has to make the difficult choice between the life she once led, and the new normal, and there are convincing reasons for both choices. Even though I’d read the book before, I didn’t remember what her choice actually was, and I kept turning pages to find out what path she would actually choose. In Tyburn, set in Restoration England, our heroine is a sex worker. Not the fake kind. The hero moonlights as a highwayman, because he’s not getting paid in his regular job as a tutor, which he took when funding fell through for his continued medical education. There’s one scene, early on, where both are doing their jobs on opposite sides of a shared wall, before they’ve met each other, and knowing who they were, knowing that they were that close gave me physical chills.

That’s what I want in my historical romances,. I want those chills. I want the chance to visit multiple times and places, where life isn’t always fair and relationships are, if not everything, a pretty darned big slice of the pie. I want the chance to read one story, complete in itself, focused on the protagonists of this particular story. All of those things can happen in historical romance. This may be a signal that I want to look back to the times when I could find those things, in historical romance, on a regular basis. I’m a big believer of story in, story out. Taking in the kind of story I want to put out is usually a good idea.

Does this mean I want to write YA as well as historical romance? I don’t know. Maybe, if the right characters and story make themselves known, it could be fun. Half the time I read YA, my brain starts a side trail about how the story would play out if it were in a historical romance, what could be translated, what could carry over. I can’t turn this stuff off, and I don’t want to, if that were a possibility. I won’t lie; sometimes, it does make me feel a little unicorn-y. When the market says one thing, and my brain pulls, strongly, in a different direction, there can be some frustration there.

The best thing I find, when that frustration hits, is to focus on the love. Not only the romantic relationships in stories of any genre, but the reasons I love historical romance as much as I do. Forget anybody and anything else. Remember the magic that happened when history and romance collided. In the end, it’s all about the love.

Typing With Wet Claws: Anty Smells Like Vet Edition

November 10, 2017annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. It is cold here, in New York’s Capitol Region, but that is okay. One, because I am fuzzy, and two, because I get to stay inside, where the heaters are. I also sometimes curl into a ball in the exact middle of the hallway floor, because that is directly under the ceiling light, and exactly halfway between the heat from Uncle and Anty’s bedroom, and the heat from the bathroom. The heat from the kitchen and dining room reach me there, too. I am a very smart (and warm) kitty, The humans are not as impressed with my choice of resting spot. Not my fault I got there first.

It is also not my fault Anty started out the week smelling like vet. People vet, that is, not vet-vet. I did not have to go anywhere. Anty, however, had to get a shot, but on the bright side, she did not have to wear the cone of shame, and she did get to spend some time in the waiting room, reading. She also got to read for a while in the pharmacy, and she got home early enough that my treat schedule was not at all interrupted. She does not smell like vet now, which is also a plus. Now, she smells like laundromat. I do not go to the laundromat, either, unless you want to count shed fur on pretty much all of the clothing Anty washes.

Before I am allowed to talk about anything else, I have to talk about where people can read Anty’s writing on the interwebs. Besides here, that is. First, as always, Anty was at Buried Under Romance on Saturday. This time, she talked about road romances, which are not actually about roads. They are about humans who travel together. This is also the entry where Anty accidentally wrote two introductory paragraphs and did not notice until today. Oops. That post is here, and it looks like this:

Now is the part of the post where I bring you up to date on Anty’s Goodreads challenge. Anty is currently kicking um, behind, and taking names on this one, because, as of today, she is four books ahead of schedule, with eighty-one books read out of ninety, which puts her at ninety percent done, and it is not yet the middle of November. I am impressed.

This week’s reading balances last week, when Anty read a lot of YA books. This week, she reviewed one historical romance novel, but it was by Bertrice Small, the author who got Anty into historical romance (both reading and writing) in the first place, and it is a standalone book, and set in Roman Britain. Those are all things that make Anty want to pay close attention and take her time reading. That review is here, and it looks like this:

Amty will probably re-read more books by Lady Small, as many of her readers call her, especially those that did not get as much publicity as some of her better-known works, and Anty has read only once before. Anty likes to study this kind of thing, and see what she can glean from it, to bring into her own work. Anty actually does that with a lot of things, but when it comes to historical romance novels, she takes that to a higher level.

Many things about writing, and the historical romance genre, have changed since Lady Small was a new author, and some things have stayed the same. Anty says publishing is always in flux (that means changing) and so it pays to keep an eye out for what is going on in the current market. That is true, and wise advice. Anty also likes to keep in touch with things that remind her why she started writing, and started writing historical romance, also. She likes to keep a balance between the past and present, so she will have the best resources, going forward.

Now that days are shorter and colder, that means Anty can have more reading time (especially since the site that lets her play computer games is giving her guff) and also more writing itme. Anty is very glad both of those things can be done in a comfy chair, with a blanket in her lap and a cup of tea at hand. She forgot to mention a kitty at her feet, so I will put that part in, for her. I help by slow blinking at her and sending her love beams. I am also close by, in case she wants to take a break from reading and writing and feed a cat instead. Lucky for her, I am one. I am also there to remind her that she needs to step up her historical romance reading game, because the end of the year is approaching, and she would like that total to be at least fifty percent.

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

see you next week

Christmas Story Questions

November 8, 2017November 8, 2017annabowling 2 Comments

When I was about four or five, I sat in the dining room of our two story Colonial house in Bedford, NY, with my parents and grandfather (Dad’s dad.) I was across from my grandfather, my mother at one end of the table, and my father at the other. I don’t remember the exact subject of adult conversation, but what I do remember is the knowledge hitting me that Christmas came every year, and I could count years from Christmas to Christmas. I don’t remember the exact time of year, though I want to say it was fall, which would fit. Christmas would not have been that far off, so my parents would have wanted to make plans. My grandfather would have returned to his home in Puebla, Mexico, long before then, so maybe they wanted to let him know what would be going on, even if he couldn’t be there.

Christmas Is still my favorite holiday. I will happily read Christmas romances at any time of year. I have been known to watch Christmas episodes of TV shows I do not otherwise watch, because Christmas. If there is a marathon of Christmas episodes, especially those from the 1970s, I am there. When I worked in a bookstore (for a brief span of time, two of them at once) I kept a special shelf for the Christmas anthologies that came out every year, so that customers could find the seasonal reads quickly, and took advantage of my employee discount to bring a good number of them home.

Now that we have the interweb, and e-books, I get alerts to new Christmas romances from favorite authors and new authors, often linked to ongoing story worlds. It’s not possible for me to be intimately familiar with all of those worlds, but put the word, “Christmas,” in the title or blurb, and I am at least going to take a look. For me, Christmas novellas are an important part of the holiday season. Double points if I can read said stories by the lights of the Christmas tree, cup of seasonally appropriate beverage (tea, cocoa, eggnog, cider) at hand. Triple points if there can be Christmas cookies or gingerbread involved.

I have never written a Christmas story. I don’t know why. Scratch that. I have never written a Christmas story for commercial fiction. I have written holiday themed fanworks, under other names, and I loved those. The chance to combine my favorite holidays, and favorite characters makes writing, which is already pretty good, even more fun, and it brings its own set of challenges as well.

The first thing that comes to mind is that several of the Christmas novellas I see these days are tied into established story worlds, complete with a handful of previous heroes and heroines, to show up for the holiday gathering, usually with adorable progeny in tow. Right now, I don’t have a continuing story world, apart from the eighteenth century as a whole, so An X Family Christmas is not happening until there is an X family. Same with Y Club Christmas, League of Z Chrismtas, and so on, which does not rule out the prospect of a Christmas story altogether, by any means.

Many of the stories in the countless anthologies I’ve gobbled are true standalones, two lovers, one ending, no sequels, prequels, or spinoffs, complete unto themselves. The historical era doesn’t matter much. Christmas is the great equalizer. Give me the customs of the time, toss in two people with emotional baggage, and crank said baggage up to eleven, because Christmas is also the great magnifier. All the tensions, hopes, regrets, possibilities for reconciliation, strangers who become friends, and possibly more; I love all that stuff.

Writing a Christmas-themed historical romance makes sense. I love Christmas. I love historical romance. I love writing. So why have I not written one of my own? No idea. Seriously, none. Maybe it’s time to fix that. Not for this year, because we’re nearly a third of the way through November, but that only means plenty of time to think about what sort of Christmas story I want to tell. Being a temporal nomad, without an established story world, the field is wide open. Medieval? Tudor? Restoration? Eighteenth century, on either side of the pond? Maybe skip ahead to the turn of the twentieth century once again? In Never Too Late, Amelia receives the journal in which she begins her tale as a Christmas present, and starts writing in it on New Year’s Day, so that’s kind of close.

This is the part of the post where I hear my dad’s voice saying that close only counts in something I can’t remember and horseshoes. In short, not technically a Christmas story, so I have some thinking to do. Good news is that I have plenty of time in which to do it, if I want to have my story ready for next year. Right now, I know nothing about it. I kind of like that. It’s a voyage of discovery, a reason to re-read some classic Christmas romances and look into some new ones, pick what I love best from Christmas stories that have gone before and see what I want to bring to the table.

Part of that process is picking the brains of others who love what I love. What kinds of Christmas romances do you like best? Any particular time period or trope or character type that will immediately get at least a second look? Have a favorite Christmas romance you’ve read, or perhaps written? Bring it on.

Typing With Wet Nails

for the love of romance

Historical Romance