inspiration

Real

annabowling 3 Comments

Another week, another blog entry, and the challenge I’ve set for myseslf today is that I can’t work on Her Last First Kiss, until I post this blog entry. Absolutely no idea what to put here, but tomorrow is breakfast with N, and I want to discuss a couple of things, which means I have to write a couple of things, so I’d better get on with this one.

This morning, I sent in a piece for Heroes and Heartbreakers, about Joanna Shupe’s latest entry in the Knickerbocker Club series, Baron. When I first heard there was going to be a series of historical romances set in New York’s Gilded Age, I literally cheered, and the three stories I have read in that world so far have not let me down. I’m now working on another piece, about the Knickerbockers series as a whole, and looking forward to having that to share soon.

Ten days ago, I noticed a new feature on Sandra Schwab’s illustrator Facebook page (she is also the author of one of my all time favorite gothic romances, Castle of the Wolf. Always count the gargoyles. Always. My desk has two.) – a contest for a free heroine portrait. At first, I thought, “wow, that would be cool,” scrolled past, and then scrolled right back, because we miss one hundred percent of the shots we don’t take. I typed a description of the qualities that make Heroine special to me, and hit send before I could talk myself out of it. (I am very good at talking myself out of things like this.) Back to work, business as usual, looking forward to reading about everyone else’s heroines. I have always been a heroine-centric reader and writer, so of course I want to hear about what other writers are doing with their heroines.

Imagine my surprise, later, when my direct message box pops up, with the notification that I won. :Blink: Did I read that right? :blink: Okay, I did. :blink: Oh good gracious, now I have to talk about her. I have to say her name. Well, technically, I already did, and that gave me some nervous tingles, because it’s not like there’s some super secret character naming cabal, and Hero and Heroine’s names aren’t super weird (I hope) or super boring (I hope) but I’ve been guarding them, because they’re part of this whole book baby, and I want to do right by it. By them. I did the only logical thing. Shut the window and paid very close attention to Doing Something Else. I am also very good at Doing Something Else.

Doing Something Else, in this case, lasted only so long before the part of me that screams “Ronkonkoma,” while running down the metaphorical pier at top speed, to cannonball into the water, kicked into gear. My cannonball, in this case, was to look at the information Sandra needed for the portrait, attach a reference picture I’ve been using when I need to describe Heroine, and hit “send.” There. Done. Now Do Other Things.

Fast forward to a few days later, when my direct message box pops up again, and my breath caught at the image beneath Sandra’s “How’s this?” Oh hey, Heroine, there you are. Her face was perfect, the colors exactly right, she had her pistol, and it was her. I’d know her anywhere. Heroine. I knew exactly the point in the story this would have been, and I actually shivered. I couldn’t wait to share her with everybo….wait a minute. There’s her name. On her picture. If I put this out there, everybody will know. Doom will fall. Doooooooooooooom. Writer people, you may identify with some of this.

I took a moment to regroup. 1) since this manuscript’s ultimate destination is publication, that means that I’m going to have to put Heroine’s name out there sometime. Nobody writes “Hero” and “Heroine” throughout the entire book. People are going to know her name. 2) it’s only her first name, and it’s the name she actually uses, not the name that would be on an official document, and yes, the actually used name is indeed a period appropriate pet form of the formal name, so the history police are going to have to shush on that one. 3) this is overthinking and we are cutting down on the overthinkings.

Toward that end, Ronkonkoma:

 
That’s her. That’s Ruby. Heroine. Part of the prize is the ability to use the image as a teaser, so that’s the next thing, selecting a short passage to go along with the image. That will mean I’ll have a teaser to share here. To show writer friends and readers. To put on the Coming Soon page (which needs some serious updating anyway.) I can’t back out if it’s there. If it’s real. The Ronkonkoma part of me already has plans to commission a Hero portrait (hey, baby steps) because they’re a pair, the two of them, and Heroine has good aim. I do not want to be on her bad side.

So. The picture is there. The next draft is in progress. I know where I’m going, how I’m getting there, and what happens along the way.  This is not only back on the horse, but once around the ring, moving forward. It’s real. Of course, it always was. The fact that the stories and characters who populate them exist in our heads doesn’t mean they aren’t real. This only means that, now, other people know it’s real. Small change, but a big one all the same.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Antsy

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I’m ansty today. Part of it is that this is, technically speaking, Monday’s post on Thursday (how did it get to be Thursday?) if Wednesday’s post was indeed posted on Wednesday. If not, and it was Monday’s post, then this is yesterday’s. The fact that I am spending time on figuring this out is all part of the whole antsy thing. Do I have any idea where it came from? Not a clue. Strange hunger still doing its thing, which most likely means something is going through some sort of a change, but I did not get the memo on exactly what that something might be, so I get to try and figure it out as I go along.

That is not always a fun thing. I like knowing what’s going on, and I like having a plan to get those things done. Antsiness goes against that, in a big way. I like structure. I like road maps. All right, intuitive road maps, but my goal here is to get today’s babble done with, hit the magic seven hundred, and then reward myself with a short break. After that, I get to run away to the eighteenth century, and probably get out of the house while doing so, because A) making notes on printed pages can be done anywhere, and B) the waterfowl in Washington Park are doing this:

duckz

That’s an upside down Canada Goose in the middle of all that splashing. I like how calm his mate is, like “George? He does that all the time. No big deal. Got breadcrumbs?” I did not, in fact, have breadcrumbs (actually , frozen grapes would be better for goose and duck tummies) but I sat on that bench for a while, notebook and legal pad still inside my tote, because writing was not happening. Nope. Some days are like that. Some days, a gal has to go rogue and watch waterfowl get their weird on for an hour or so.

The gander (whom we will call George, because he seems like a George) had himself a fine time splashing about in the shallow water, and he did that for quite some time. I hadn’t expected him to go all feet-up like that, and, at first, thought that he’d hit that position by accident. I’ve never seen an upside-down goose before, and, who knows, that may be a George thing, and the other geese talk about him when they think he isn’t looking. Considering that he’s the big dude that threatens passersby, dogs, and tree limbs that look at his woman funny, maybe they don’t do it all that often, but still…feet. In. The. Air. Rolling about like I don’t even know what. I mean, what kind of goose actually goes around doing things like that? Right in front of the humans, too.

Maybe George is onto something. Maybe George was ansty, too. Maybe he’s got itchy wings and wants to head down to  Boca for the winter already, but Wilma (we will call his mate Wilma, because she looks like a Wilma) thinks the goslings aren’t ready for such a big trip yet, even though they look full grown to the humans. Then again, what do humans know? Maybe going upside down is something geese do all the freaking time, and this is only the first time this one human, personally, has seen it, so they think it’s new, but really, it’s Wednesday. Maybe the goslings have no idea what George and Wilma are going on about, because they’ve spent their entire lives in this lake. It is an awesome lake, and there is no reason to leave it. Parents, what do they know? Though the Mallards have been squawking about stopping over in Tennessee or maybe South Carolina, so the grownups could be onto something, but, dude, humans, breadcrumbs, it’s a sweet life.

Then there’s George. Maybe he was taking his regular bath, or maybe he needed to shake off some sort of goose-specific restlessness, but one thing I do know; for the hour or so I hung out around that part of the lake, earbuds in my ears, fiddling with the camera on my phone and waiting for George to do his thing again (he appears to be a champion at barrel rolls, which Wilma did not even attempt) I wasn’t antsy. It was me and it was George (and sometimes Wilma, occasionally their mallard friends) and everything else in my head sat on the back burner, where it was very much welcome to sort itself out.

As  much as I like order, some things need to simmer a while, and find their correct order on their own. Did I come away from the impromptu photo session completely refreshed and ready to take on the world? No. Did it shake off some of the antsiness? Some. Best thing that can be done at times like this is to catch the scent of what works, stay open to more of it, and follow it when I catch the next whiff. This is when I trust that the scent trail will lead to something good. Antsiness usually, for me, comes right before a growth spurt, and, with super powers returned, that’s not an entirely unsurprising concept.

Well over the magic seven hundred here, so throwing this out there, crossing it off my  list, and on to the rest of the day. My imaginary friends are calling.

Strange Hunger

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Monday’s post on Wednesday this week, which means Wednesday’s post has to happen on Thursday, or it will bump into Skye’s  post on Friday, or get shuffled into the weekend. I am not up for that, so today it will be. That pretty much fits with the rest of the day, because I woke feeling like what Skye would term “stuff.” Not coming down with a cold, as far as I know, but body wanted to stay in bed, but that warred with the fact that it was already morning, with the sun risen and everything, and that I was so much in need of bathing that my body was likely to get up and wash itself without me. So, no more bed.

Question then was, what came next? #linewed on Twitter is a given, but that didn’t have to be right away, so attention turned next to this entry. After the last time I carried a Wednesday post for what seemed like forever, I promised myself I wouldn’t do that again, because it bothers me, and this blog is not about bothering, it’s about finding my way through this writing life. Since the calendar, and Facebook memories, reminded me that this is Real Life Romance Hero’s and my falling-in-love-iversary (yes, we do know the exact day, and yes, it was the same day for both of us)  I thought I’d blog about that, but I was already ahead of myself, because I already did, last year, right here:

https://annacbowling.wordpress.com/2015/10/12/happily-ever-after-epically-speaking/

Well, okay then. I dove into an assignment for an art journaling class I’m taking, instead, and, when I looked next at the time, it was almost lunch. How the heck did that happen? Granted, I had actually tackled two assignments, which successfully jump started another part of my brain. I used supplies I hadn’t used in a long time, gessoed over a background I hated and made the page something else entirely, taking a different approach than I’d originally planned, stuck a sticky note over part of the page I wanted to keep private, even when I did share my work with the class, and that’s when it happened. New stuff, that’s what my brain wanted. That’s what’s going to plug the hole in the creative well and let me actually fill the darned thing.

I won’t be playing hooky exactly, but more going on a mission of discovery. There are a couple of tasks that can’t be put off for another day (nor do I want to) but they are also portable tasks, so, really, technically, I can do them anywhere. Regular coffee house haunt, maybe, or library, or park, or downtown coffee shop I’ve always looked at when we drive past it, but have never actually been inside the place. Other park I’ve only been to once. Our own balcony. Some other place I haven’t even thought about yet.

One of my all time favorite pieces of advice is from author K. A. Mitchell, that the best ways to combat block are to open the file (or notebook) and change your seat. Today is a seat changer. I need different stimuli. Reds, yellows and oranges on the trees instead of green everywhere. Cooler air on my skin. Different tastes in my mouth. Different voices around me while I focus on the page or screen in front of me. It’s been said, that if we want something we’ve never had, we have to do things we’ve never done. I’ve written books before, so that isn’t exactly it, but I haven’t written this book before, so I think that counts. Still getting used to dancing on a couple of phantom limbs, stretching a few creative muscles, and the outer change of seasons matches what’s going on in the inside, so I am calling all of that good.

Time, then, to pack up my stuff, take my show on the road and see where the spirit and my two feet take me. Sometimes, the journey is the whole point. Maybe I’ll find a new favorite something, or maybe all that’s going to happen is that I tick the items off my to-do list, which is exactly what would happen if I stayed within the same four walls. Today isn’t a same four walls day, though. Today is a day for filling strange hungers, so off I go.

Hey Hey It’s A Monday

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New office chair (thank you, Ursula) is in place, it is super comfortable, and my back has already sent out hand-written thank you notes to my brain, which my brain greatly appreciates. I am having a weird hair day. Not a bad one, merely a weird one, which is why there are messy buns and beak clips. I am wearing both an infinity scarf and sandals, a sure sign that it is September in New York. I have learned, only about five minutes ago, and a day after I used a wrench to open a particularly sticky bottle of seltzer, that what I thought was a mini-mousepad is actually a bottle opener grippy thing.

I  have had said grippy thing since the NECRWA conference this past spring, and it took me that long to figure it out. If I hadn’t noticed that the surface of the supposed min-mousepad, which should have been smooth (which is kind of the whole point) was textured and kind of rubbery-pebbly, but in a grid-ish sort of fashion rather than actual pebbles, I probably still wouldn’t know, and would keep toting the darned thing around, rather than tossing it in the kitchen drawer where I now know it belongs. This also means that mini-mousepad goes on my list of desired (preferably pink) computer accessories.

This was not my only d’oh-worthy discovery of the afternoon. The notebook in which I made notes that I had planned to transcribe today? Left it at home. Okay. Slightly different focus to today’s session, then. When packing my tote, my brain was too busy with the “is it time to put away the summer tote for the season” debate to notice that I had not actually brought the notebook that was the whole point of going out, but I can do what’s on the index cards for now and fill in the rest when notebook and I are in the same place. I will admit to a small voice in the back of my head, whispering that it’s a sign I should instead use the time to watch Friday Night Lights, but I am not listening to that voice during writing time. Writing time is writing time, and much as I love spending time with Coach Taylor and the gang (mostly Tim; came for Jason Street, aka Future Mr. Amber Holt, stayed for Tim Riggins, still don’t care about football, but love the passion for the game) they are not going to get this book written. That’s my job. I show up, Hero and Heroine show up, too, and we all hit the field…er, page, which is when the magic happens.

I like knowing where I’m going, how I’m going to get there, and who’s going with me. I’ve tried pantsing, but as a person who has actually sustained physical injury from putting on pants, that is not a tactic that works well for me. There is a component of flying into the mist when following the original idea -the best characters and/or stories are the ones that find me- but when I know where the journey of a particular book is going, I want to know how we’re going to get there, what the stops are along the way, and leave enough room for some fun surprises.

Learning to ask for what I need is a new thing for me, and that includes asking myself…and listening. That’s scary. What do I need right now? Do I need to touch paper? Step away from the keyboard, touch some paper. Maybe my version of black on white that I need right now is actually purple on pattern. Am I not physically comfortable right now? If I am, how so? Am I hungry, angry, lonely or tired? Do I not have what I need to know what happens in this scene? If so, I can go get it. Maybe that means popping online, to check a bit of information. Maybe it means I need to talk about it to a write friend, online or face to face. Maybe the missing bit is at the bottom of a cup of tea or at the end of a movie or TV episode that has the right feel, or that actor who does that thing in that scene. Maybe it’s in the middle of the bridge of that song I can’t get out of my head, or somewhere in the book my brain keeps going back to when I don’t yank its leash.

I’m at the end of my blog time for today, so I’m going to take some inspiration from Skye’s weekly signoff and say that’s about it for this entry. Sometimes, what I need is a good pointless babble, which, in reflection, makes it not that pointless after all. There is an inherent order into unexpected side trips, as long as they get me back on the main road, and I am going to call that good enough.

 

Book Brain

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“Your hero and heroine should be different people at the beginning and the ending of a book. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

— Rebecca Zanetti

 

Right now, half of me would like to retire to my comfy chair and split my time between binge watching Friday Night Lights and making a dent in my huge TBR mountain. The other half wants to dive back into Her Last First Kiss and rip Hero and Heroine’s lives to shreds before they get their happily ever after at last. The power balance fluctuates, but here’s a short list of things I have done because my head was in the book, rather than non-book tasks at hand:

  • smacked head into faucet because I forgot I was washing my hair when an idea hit
  • eviscerated rather than pierced three bratwurst while cooking
  • had three water bottles going at one time because I forgot where I put them
  • put one (full) water bottle in the cat food section of the pantry and left it there
  • missed my “exit” on the walk home from breakfast with N
  • sent the same EARC to my Kindle ten times, possibly more, but that’s where I stopped counting
  • asked for a login name reminder for a site I visit frequently, because I couldn’t remember what I’d used. It was my name.

Yeah, this is boring me now, and I don’t have time to start a whole new blog entry from scratch, so we’re going forward from here. Point is, I have book brain, and I like it. This book is real. It’s happening. That’s a good thing.

Yesterday, at my weekly breakfast with N, I’d brought Big Daddy Precious and a mess of index cards and sticky notes, to take her through this draft’s bones. I know I’m on the right track because the chapters sorted themselves out, and I have numbers and color codes, and getting to the page is something I look forward to, rather than dread. I don’t have to ask myself if I can do this book thing, because I am doing it, and if I show up, Hero and Heroine show up, too. Pretty sweet deal. Here’s what it looked like by the time I packed up to go home, about halfway through the whole story.

hlfknotebook200916

 

See all those sticky notes? There’s a color coding system, but that’s another story. I read the pages through to N, and she stopped me at a certain point. Heroine can’t do Thing A. Huh, wuh? My story, N. I’m the one who gets to say about what goes on in it, but no, N was right. See, Heroine would normally do Thing A, like she did all the other times, because she honestly believed there was no other option, but she’s different by this part of the story, so different that she can’t do Thing A anymore, because Thing A would be wrong now. She’s had a pretty big paradigm shift, so yes, N was right. Now that Heroine has gone through an irreversible change, she’s going to take a different tactic. She’s not going to do Thing A. She’s going to, for the first time in her life, do Thing B, which scares the crap out of her, but it’s her chance to do something right. Hence the flurry of sticky notes and pencil scribblings in the margin, a zig where there was once a zag, and darned if I don’t now love the scene I used to like. For a writer, there is no jolt of energy quite like that.

As fine a gentleman as Mr. N is,  I have to admit that my reaction to his joining us, to spirit N away at the end of our time together, was, “already?” Noooo, I want to keep going. Forbidding a friend to go adventuring with her own real life romance hero is something this romance writer cannot do, so they departed. I applied pencil to paper a while longer, and headed back home, foggy about my route, because I had Hero and Heroine on the brain. My body traversed, more or less, the distance between Panera and home, with detour through the park’s garden. Where I really wanted to be was back in the book, figuring out how much Heroine doing Thing B  instead of Thing A would butterfly effect the rest of the book, so there was some degree of wandering involved.

When I got home, I crashed into an impromptu nap, and when I woke, I was hungry for both food and story. I needed to take in story, in book form, in TV form, in music or wherever else I could find it. Writing eats that kind of stuff, and I came out of that nap in starving hyena mode. It’s a good feeling, after years of dragging myself along by my fingernails. Maybe there is some sort of formula, if I look through the stacks of notebooks I’ve filled about the whole process of getting back up on the horse. I’m still not sure when one can declare oneself officially back on, if there is such a thing? Completion of an initial draft? Final draft? Submission? Sale and/or self-pub? Certain types or numbers of reviews? Distribution through certain outlets? Something else? I’m not going to stress about that, but stay in the moment, fill those pages with sticky notes and pencil scribbles and go scene by scene. Right now is right now, and that’s where my time and attention has to go. If that means a few water bottles in the pantry, duplicate ebooks and opening multiple cans of cat food at one time, I am okay with that.

Run to the Distant Shores

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You can write about anything which has been vivid enough to cause you to comment upon it.

–Dorothea Brande

 

Yesterday morning, I got ready for my weekly breakfast with N early, for the express purpose of squeezing in the Parenthood series finale before any other humans were about. That was a wise decision.  After six years of family drama, crammed, for me, the binge watcher who came late to the party, into a couple of months, the story of the Bravermans was done. Time for viewers, as well as characters, to leave the baseball diamond and head to their respective homes. The elder Zeek has quit this mortal coil, Zeek the younger has been born. Camille finally got to see the French B&B, though on her own, dangit. Max is grown. Joel and Julia are back together, eventually parents to four kids, the same number as Zeek, Sr. and Camille had. Crosby saves the Luncheonette, with Jasmine’s support, and allows big brother Adam to leave the business they built together, to pursue his own late-found passion for teaching. Sarah and Hank successfully blend their families. Amber makes the hard decision to raise baby Zeek on her own, because ex-fiancé, Ryan, needs to get himself clean before he can be anybody’s anything, and, in the flash-forward, he does. He arrives at a family function with toddler Zeek, greets Amber and her husband with affection, and everybody seems perfectly fine. It’s that flash-forward that made me cue up the pilot episode of Friday Night Lights, even though I care precisely nothing for football, because Amber eventually marries Jason Street from that show, so it’s part of the same story, so of course I’m there.

None of those names or references are going to mean much of anything to anyone who hasn’t seen Parenthood, but that’s fine, because we’re not talking about that specific TV show here, exactly. There is going to be a certain amount of blabber, because this is my blog and that’s what I do. Because this show has firmly found a spot among my favorites, and its finale is what sparked this post, there’s going to be some direct reference, but what sticks with me most, and where I want to keep my emphasis, is on the feelings. No matter what I’m reading or viewing, it’s the way the characters and story make me feel that takes precedence, which is probably a good thing for a romance writer.

About four episodes or so into season one, I had to frantically check the internet for assurance that Crosby and Jasmine would, despite any obstacles, reach their HEA, before I could proceed any further. If they weren’t endgame, I was out of there, but, fortunately (for me and for their two more subsequent children) they were. Ditto when the first fissures formed in Joel and Julia’s marriage. They couldn’t lose everything over miscommunication. I still wasn’t over their first adoption falling through (Julia sobbing in the hospital room when the birth mother changed her mind broke me, which is exactly what a scene like that is meant to do, so props to writers and to actor Erika Christiansen for selling it the way she did.) I wanted both Peet and Ed to step on a fleet of Legos, and, when that kiss on the ice rink happened, signaling that Joel and Julia had picked love over all, yes, I did pump both fists in the air and scream. There are perks to watching Netflix when one is home alone. That is one of them. Then again, when their kids get an eyeful of that kiss, proving that Mom and Dad are back together, and everything is okay.

A show based on ripping the viewer’s heart out and putting it back together, mended with gold, as the Japanese tradition, to make a broken vessel all the more beautiful in the healing, well, that’s exactly what I’m shooting for, in romance novel form. This does of course mean there will be more in depth studying of the story arcs, paying close attention to what Jason Katims and company did, and how they did it, to effect emotions so strongly that I would have to pause and check before proceeding. Time to go on the journey again, this time knowing how everything is going to turn out, and see where the threads weave in and out of each other along the way.

I liked that it wasn’t perfect-perfect. Zeek Senior is dead, which does color everything, but it’s also the logical end to the story, so I’m fine with that. Ray Romano did an amazing job as Hank, and I do ship him and Sarah, but what if she’d been able to make things work with much younger ex-fiancé, Mark? Jason Ritter also did an amazing job, and, though we don’t see Mark’s eventual wife, or even learn her name, the actor conveys that Mark did find happiness again. Little bit of a knife twist that Mark’s wife is due to give birth to their first child a couple weeks after Sarah’s first grandchild is due, but that’s life, isn’t it?

We don’t always get it right on the first try, and bad things happen to good people. Sometimes, very bad things, and sometimes, those bad things travel in packs, but love (in all its forms) is stronger. Not all that different from the structure of the romance novel there, is it? We see plenty of romance in Parenthood, both successful and otherwise; not only the hearts and flowers, but the heartbreak, and the black moments, and all that comes after. A once up on a time friend once said that all of my stories are about moving on after a loss, and there is some truth to that. What other alternative is there? Feel the pain and the anger and the grief, let them do their jobs, and know that there will be something else on the other side.

At the end of a good story, the characters aren’t the same as they were on page one (or in the pilot, and they can’t be. They’ve been through the fire, lost some things, gained others, and, in a romance, they come through it together. I can’t think of a story I would like to tell more than that one, time and time again.

 

Head in the Curtains and Heart Like the Fourth of July

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Title cribbed from “Carry On” by Fun., (not a typo; the period is part of their name) because H has drilled it into me that, if I can’t come up with a blog title easily, the title is a line from whatever song I am listening to at the moment. No overthinkings. Writings, instead, thankyouplease. Official video here, because it is awesome:

I’ve started this blog three different times already, with three different approaches, and nearly fell asleep from boredom, so I am going to wing it. Seriously no idea where I am going with this, except maybe down for a nap, after I get the notes for the Her Last First Kiss scenes I mentioned yesterday, because they really do seem to have vanished. Either that, or I saved them somewhere I shouldn’t have, and I will find them after the book is done, possibly even published. That’s how it works sometimes.

Summer is hanging on here. Two more hot days, and then temperatures will start to go down. My brain is doing its drifty-offy thing that it does when I have had too much summer, because I really and truly have. Real Life Romance Hero suggested taking the next couple of days as flop days, let the heat pass, and then the superpowers will return in full force, and I can more than make up for the lack. Which is all well and good, except for the fact that I am me. I’m stubborn. Which is why this blabbery blog is happening today instead of getting pushed off until tomorrow. Still no topic, though, so we’ll see where our final destination lies when I hit the magic seven hundred. Until I hit that, I have to keep talking. Er, typing. :waves hand: You know what I mean.

Yesterday held an unusually good library run. Two Beatriz Williams books, two by Kerrigan Byrne, two issues of The Walking Dead, and All The Feels, by Danika Stone. In that bunch alone, we have: historical fiction (though I have shelved both Williams books I have read under historical romance; will put these two there as well, if they conclude in the same manner. Also, YMMV if early twentieth century settings count as “historical” or not. I say they do, and it’s my blog, so there.) and historical romance, graphic novel (does TWD count as horror? I class it as drama.) and YA.

None of these choices are playing it safe. The Williams books contain dual timelines, and deep period immersion; the first Byrne book I read had the hero and heroine meet as abused children in dire circumstances, re-meeting as adults when the heroine is living a the hero’s widow (spoiler alert: he’s not dead) and The Walking Dead is, well, The Walking Dead. Zombies are a fact of (and metaphor for) life in that universe; bad stuff can and does happen to good people, and the survivors have to keep on going. All The Feels has a teen heroine who enlists the aid of her male BFF, an actor for whom cosplay is life, in a plan that could change the course of her favorite fandom.

The fact that The Walking Dead is my go-to comfort read says something. Getting invested in a hero and heroine very clearly meant for each other and nobody else in 1931, then flash forward to 1938, hero is married to heroine’s former best friend, and there is now a seven year old girl hanging around? Two orphans in the middle of Victorian hell have a fake wedding because they’re the only ones who understand each other, have confusing feelings, are torn tragically apart,  then thrust back together under very non-optimal circumstances? The very real struggles of life when the dead still have a lot of get-up-and-go? Gimme. :makes grabby hands: Yes. Give me that. All of that. Let me seep it in through my skin until it sinks into every pore, breathe it like air, eat it and drink it and make it part of me, and then put it back out into work of my own.

That’s what drives me when I plunk myself down in the too-warm-in-the-heat-of-the-day recliner and pop open the laptop. That’s what makes my blood go skippity-skip when I settle into the camp chair plumped with squished-to-death pillow at the secretary desk I have drooled over since I was a toddler (before then, I probably drooled on it, but nobody wants to hear about that.) and let pen and paper take me back to the eighteenth century. That’s what makes me want to not only tell the story, but tell it right, to shut out the inner editor and cram the Hypercritical Gremlins back in their closet (thankfully, they’ve been quiet, of late) and tell the story. Once it’s all down there, then I can go back and polish things, but, first, it does need to get down there. By any means necessary. Sometimes, it’s messy. Sometimes, it’s not even within spitting distance of easy. Sometimes, it’s not at all what I had expected, but, if I keep my well filled, head down and eyes on my own paper, things tend to work out fine.

TLDR version: carry on.

 

Into The Arms of The Undiscovered

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But know everything lost will be recovered
When you drift into the arms of the undiscovered.

–Ben Gibbard, “Me and Magdalena”

 

Run for your lives, she’s gone artsy. Which means, in this case, that she found a vintage effects photo app (actually, a lot of them) for her phone, has begun referring to herself in the third person, and was curious to see if she could make the usual deskscape look slightly more interesting. Jury is still out on that one, because A) a writer’s desk is always interesting, and B) I have no plans to change my desktop wallpaper any time soon, and C) even though I am writing this blog entry on my trusty pink laptop, I don’t particularly like taking pictures from the lap desk in the living room. Too much light, and now that I have my office looking more like an office and less like the wake of a hurricane, not to mention that the weather, while not autumnal by any stretch of the imagination, is cool enough for me to actually want tea this morning, so that’s what I have. I have also gone back to using first person, so there is that, as well.

Apparently, the vintage app thinks I am always in Instagram, and automatically crops square. Not sure how on board I am with that, but, for today, since I am sticking to my schedule, and actually really excited to get back to ruining Hero and Heroine’s lives (it will be okay in the end, I promise; I write romance, so the endings are always happy) so there is no time for the overthinkings. What there is time for is this blog entry, and then popping appropriate files onto my nifty pink (I do not know how it started, but my electronics are pink now, whenever possible) flash drive, so that I can do the actual work in my office, until/unless I decide it’s coffee house time. Then, the laptop gets to be the star. Unless I decide it’s a paper day, but pink laptop makes me happy, so we will see.

This past weekend can be summed up with “summer is trying to kill me.” Too much time out in the sun, running errands, left me with zero energy, so, once I poured myself into my comfy chair, in front of the fan, and hugged the ice pack of the hour, I basically did two things: I read and I napped. Seriously, I was a reading machine, and now that I’ve found how to track progress for what I’m reading on Goodreads, I have proof. Interestingly enough, I’ve also found that the point where I am most likely to wander off from a book is right before the midpoint. That’s when I’m pedaling my metaphorical bike up the metaphorical hill, get a leg cramp, hop off and call a metaphorical cab. Push a little bit farther, though, and I’m over the hump, and can take my feet off the pedals, stick my legs straight out and yell “wheeeee!” while I coast down the hill, wind in my hair and joy in my veins. This all gets me thinking if the same holds true to some of the partial manuscripts lingering in various drives. Not talking about the miscarried stories; a writer knows what stories are dead and which ones are merely resting.

Backing up a tad to clarify that one could count me as doing three things when not running errands, because, half the time I napped,  I had my earbuds in and there was technically music playing. I can’t say that I was always listening-listening to it, but I was taking it in, because this was some serious well filling. I highly recommend serious well filling. Earworm of the moment is “Me and Magdalena,” by the Monkees, written by Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie. The mere concept of The Monkees after the passing of Davy Jones was something I didn’t want to think about, for a long time. I fell in love with The Monkees, watching reruns on TV when I was but  wee little princess, bonded with college friends over same (:waves to Heather and Carolin:) and have done more than a few virtual fistpumps when a once upon a time friend wrote about how badass the Monkees actually were, because, dang, they really could make their own music, and fought for it, and won, and, even after Davy’s passing, here they still are. Plus, there was the lyric video right there on my Facebook page when the album first came out, and, reader, I clicked on it.

Oh, my heart. Yes. That. So completely, totally that. Nothing big, and yet, and yet, bam, there was a complete, vivid, image, of that one perfect moment in the narrator’s world. I felt the wind, and the sun (without it draining me, miracle of miracles) and that long drive along the coast, when life is infinite and love rules over all. Yes. I want to do that. I want to make that. I want to be that. I want to put that in my stories and give others that moment.

I also inhaled, among other things, One Hundred Summers, by Beatriz Williams. Oh my stars. Oh my gravy.Yes. That is historical romance, people. Technically, there may be some wiggle room on the historical aspect, as the 1930s are still within living memory, and my personal definition of historical romance is loosely prior to that, but my review, so I’m going with what feels right. I won’t repeat my Goodreads gushing here, but you can read it on your own:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1741156270?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

Both of those things twined around the latest episode of Fear The Walking Dead, which I liked okay before, but am totally on board with now, because they, too, did things I didn’t expect, took me places I didn’t think I was going to go, or wanted to go, but the gasping and the jumping and the “Oh man, I cannot wait to get to HLFK in the morning,” that’s my barometer of getting into something good. Cue Herman’s Hermits.

Okay, far past the magic 700 -do I need to give myself a cap for maximum length?- so I will close with this: both of my current commercial fiction projects are taking me places I didn’t know I was going to go. Ask me a year ago, and I’d have kicked and screamed and laughed at the idea (derisively, not from amusement) AND YET, here I am, and I’m not bashing my head against a brick wall, sobbing about how much I suck, etc. Instead, yeah, make that tea, pop those files on that drive, and let’s take that leap. You with me?

Once More Into the Breach

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Today is an odd day, and not only because it’s Wednesday’s post on Thursday. I woke around seven, which is late for me, felt completely drained, so went back to bed for a few minutes. When I woke again, it was nine forty-five. Well, then, sure sign that this was time for some well-filling. In this case, tea, because A) we have gas again, thanks to Landlady’s talented Handyman and the fine folks at National Grid, and B) it was cool enough to actually savor a cup of Lapsang Souchong and its lovely, lovely caffeine along with my morning pages. I am now one week away from filling this book, which is, for those keeping count, number three, and the first one where I’ve gone to seven days a week. I’ll be keeping that practice for the new book. As with any other exercise, the more I do it, the ehhh, don’t want to say easier, exactly, because when is it, really, but it does become more natural. As my mom often said, the more I do, the more I’ll want to do. Thanks, Mom. You were right.

It’s blog entry time now, because this is the time I have for a blog entry, and keeping the discipline is part of the whole “be better at writing” thing. After I do this, I get to go play with Hero and Heroine. One thing that working on two books at one time has taught me is that Hero and Heroine get jealous of my time. They know when I’m seeing other characters, and they are not entirely pleased with it. Guy and Girl, on the other hand, seem to be fine with the arrangement, though that may have something to do with the fact that they have two writers to bother, rather than only one. I’m all Hero and Heroine have, so it’s only natural that they’re going to want more of me, in more ways than one.

There’s a difference in the feel of a Hero and  Heroine day versus a Girl and Guy day. Writing solo versus in collaboration is one part of it; very different energy when one is co-creating, and the ability to have somebody else take a certain scene certainly isn’t there when one is writing on one’s own. Writing in different time periods is part of it. I am a historical romance writer at heart, and, while Guy and Girl’s story is what I term historical romance adjacent, with Hero and Heroine, it’s full on immersion. The tones of the books are different, and yet there are similarities. They’re both romances, so there’s that, and, in both books, there is a central character who has a parent in need of special care. That’s not something I planned on putting in two different books, but then again, both of these stories found me. I didn’t go looking for them.

That’s something I’ve found, in the time between falling off the metaphorical horse and now. The best stories are going to find me. That’s how it works for this particular writer. I can look around, read a lot, watch a lot of movies and/or TV, listen to a lot of music, wander through parks and museums, play computer games (when I actually have a computer that will run them) and, at some point, it all jumbles together and sorts itself out. When asked if I’m a pantser or plotter, I now say puzzler, because that fits me best.

Back when the writing life went off the rails, I thought that my love of organization and planning was an indicator of how I should get back on track, and, to some degree, that’s true, but trying to adhere too closely to that meant completely shutting off the intuitive part of my process, which turned into obsessions over should and forms and word counts and must, must, must, must, must, etc. Which turned into miscarried manuscripts and frustration and a whole lot of banging my head against a brick wall. Which was not good for anybody, me, the wall, or my imaginary friends, some of which packed up their stuff and left, or at least went on very long vacations.

That’s the magic seven hundred right there, so I technically could stop here, but I like to get at least some sense of completion to a post, so let’s try for that. The best stories find me. That’s how I work. I turn into a magpie and throw a bunch of things onto the table, then stand back and see what sort of order they want to sort themselves into. It has to be them, not me. I can look through lists of period appropriate names, but it’s the characters who tell me what their names are, what they look like, when they lived. Hero, for example; I wanted him to be blond and play the violin. He’s a ginger, and he draws. If I’d been intent on forcing him into my perception of him, we’d still be wrangling about his hair color, and I would have a headache from trying to remember my extremely brief stint in a class on the Suzuki method. I never got past the Kleenex box (standing in for the violin) stage. Since Hero and I can connect on a love of pen and ink, that is probably a good call on his part. Speaking of which, he’s tapping his foot, so off I go.

Coldwater Morning

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This morning, I got up around three-thirty in the morning, because my hair was dirty. Reluctantly, I should add, because it was a long-awaited cool night, and Real Life Romance Hero and I had one of Housemate’s awesome afghans on the bed, a far cry (and a welcome one) from drowning in our own sweat on top of the bare sheets, but there is no fighting the moment dirty hair becomes too much. Not even if it means dunking my head under cold water, which is exactly what happened, and I knew it was coming.

Let me explain. This Friday, while I was getting the apartment in shape for our guests, (visit went awesome, but more on that later) Housemate came home and asked if I had seen the notice from National Grid on the door. I told her I had not. She gave me the basics: in preparing to turn on utilities for the new tenant downstairs (Hi, S! :waves:) they found something that needed attention, and so shut off the gas for the entire  house. Shutting off gas when there is a gas problem is a good thing, because we don’t want any explosions, and, if the gas has to be shut off, August is the time to do it. I would hate to think what would happen if this were to happen in January. No, actually, I do know, as Real Life Romance Hero and I lived through the huge Halloween blizzard of some years back, and it was, in a word, COLD. Not merely uncomfortable cold, but dangerous cold. In comparison, heat being off in August, during the year of the heat dome, eh, not that big.

It does, however, make personal hygiene, shall we say, brisk. There is an impact, as well, on the grocery shopping, because it’s either no-cook, microwave, or takeout/prepared food. Again, August, so not having to cook is a good thing, and the gas people will have to light the pilots on the stove and long-dormant oven, once the gas is back on, so this may give us our oven back. Hopefully, we will see that soon, but in the meantime, we’re doing okay as we are. Minor inconvenience, not a catastrophe, so I’ll take it.

Which brings me back to this morning. This post is up today instead of yesterday, because yesterday was a flop day. We had a wonderful time with our friends, Mary and Brian (Skye will bring everyone up to speed on that on Friday) but all the excitement and preparation left me in need of a good flop. So, I took one. I regret nothing. Sometimes, one needs to put the laptop down, look at the clock, see it’s eleven AM, and go back to bed. Or recliner, in my case, but that’s beside the point. Back to where we started.

This morning, I got up between three and four, stuck my head under cold water, and then went directly to my morning pages, because that’s what I do, first thing, whenever possible. Computer was not on yet; that will come later, so assume that at least Abbie and Ichabod were still snoozing, as was the rest of the house. Except for Skye. Skye was waiting on the other side of my office door, because she knows that, when Anty comes out, Anty will feed her. Skye is smart.

I would love to say I know where I am going with this, but I don’t. It bothers me that I took a photo of a blank computer screen, though that is exactly what the desk looked like when I sat down to write my morning pages. Today, at breakfast with N, we got each other up to speed on our current projects. She’s moving toward her goals, and I am on track to having both Her Last First Kiss and the Beach Ball in at least first draft and ready to pitch at NECRWA for 2017. Today is for transcribing my handwritten scene for the Beach Ball, and sending that on to Melva. Last week, we plotted the second half of the book and discussed possible future projects. I ran my amended outline for the rest of HLFK by N, who gave a thumbs up, and, once this blog entry is posted, am diving into Guy and Girl’s world, with a Hero and Heroine chaser. I’m good with that.

Kind of like being good with cold water for a few days. If cold water for a few days is what it’s going to take for the house not to blow up, I am fine with that. If re-learning how I tell a story is what it takes to write the best books I possibly can, I am fine with that, too. Sometimes, we have to break away from the “everybody knows” and the “shoulds” and muck around for a while in the land of try-and-fail-and-try-again to see what it actually takes to get the job done. Seems to be working pretty well for my characters, so I may be on to something here.

Ever since I started increasing my morning pages to seven times a week, I’ve noticed that I write more during the day. When I write longhand, the story comes quicker. When I write longhand, on pretty paper, even faster. When I make time for reading books that call to me while I’m doing other things, plan when I can sneak in a few minutes, a few pages, to see what the characters are up to, especially in  historical romance, I want to write that sort of book, the one that will whisper to readers (or come after them and drag them back, I’m fine with that, too.)  When I can talk writing with writer friends, and reading with reader friends, wander through a museum and let the past speak to me, that’s when writing feels the most natural. I like that place. I want to stay in that place. If it means dunking my head under cold water at four in the morning, well, okay, though I hope that’s not a requirement for staying in the groove. For now though? For now, it’s fine.