inspiration

The Long and Winding (Writing) Road

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When you force things that aren’t meant to be, you usually wind up in trouble.

–Brenda K. Stone

 

I had a plan for this entry when I opened the window. Actually, I had a couple of them. I bored myself. Which is when I go to my fallback, my collected quotes. The last couple of weeks were pretty good for quote collecting, not from actual books, but people who write them, aka other authors I know on Facebook. Brenda K. Stone is one of my NECRWA chapter sisters, super-traveler, and writer of soon to be unleashed upon the world rock and roll romances. I tried linking her Facebook page, but technology and I are having creative differences, so feel free to cut and paste the below:

https://www.facebook.com/brenda.stone.9404?ref=ts&fref=ts

Well. That, it links. I’ll take it. Brenda and I always end up chatting when we run into each other at meetings or conferences -not nearly enough- and following her globe-trotting gives me some virtual travels, as I go about the everyday. The quote above was actually written about -surprise, surprise- an unexpected twist in some travel plans, but girlfriend rolled with it, and had a fabulous time anyway. Good lesson.

Another good lesson comes from H, she of the nightly Skype chats. Pretentious song lyrics are an endless source of titles for anything; that’s one of her bits of advice, though I should mention that Her Last First Kiss got its name before we began our association. That’s not the lesson I meant, however. It was the lesson I had to blabber through to get to what I wanted to say. That’s how I do it. I’m a talker. Let me ramble long enough, and I will get there. Which, I am very happy to report, is working out pretty darned well this week. I am highly in favor of that and would like to keep going in that direction.

This, however, is not one of those posts where I skip through fields of daisies and toss out handfuls of food pellets to the woodland creatures attracted by my ebullience. Nope. This brings me back to a couple of nights ago, when H and I checked in on how we were both progressing. I told H I was stuck on scene X.

H observed that I had been stuck on scene X for a while. I agreed. She was correct. I knew what had to happen, but I couldn’t get a handle on it, which was when H gently pointed out that maybe that isn’t what happens. Maybe it was time to try something else. Save scene X in a separate file, and write something drastically different. Insert requisite kicking and screaming and grumbling and justification of why scene X had to be scene X. H went with the broken record tactic; write something drastically different. Maybe that would stink, maybe it would be great, or maybe it would remind my writerbrain what I’d intended before I wandered off. Fiiiiiiiiiiiiine. Okay, she was right. Her advice also aligns pretty darned perfectly with my favorite all time writing advice, from K.A. Mitchell:

  1. Open the file
  2. Change your seat.

Changing one’s seat can be metaphorical as well as literal. In this case, I changed POV, and began the scene before where I saw it starting. Big surprise, it clicked. Instead of smashing Character A’s head against the wall to make them do what I had all planned out, (trust me, the boldface and italics are justified in this case) I stuck a toe in the water of Character B’s head, had them literally start walking without even a firm direction, and what do you know, without me even doing anything, there comes Character A (coincidentally doing the thing I tried to make them do,  only about three feet to the left, pretty much, and this time, doing it completely on their own, thankyouverymuch) with a very basic question that puts Character B in a spot, because this is not a situation they can get out of gracefully. Which is, yes, drastically different from the scene I had originally planned, but has the same spirit, only it actually works because I am not trying to force anything, and letting the characters do their things instead of mine.

Not an easy lesson to learn at times, but an important one. Sometimes, the best thing to do is stop, take a step back, look at the big picture, and see if there’s another way into what’s causing the block. Maybe that’s really a brick wall where one has been trying to get in, and the actual door is really three feet to the left. Maybe it’s around the corner. Maybe it’s on the second floor and one needs to climb those twisty stairs first. Maybe that’s not the easiest way in, but it’s one whale of a lot easier than trying to smash my way through the wall by repeatedly banging my head against it.

Much as I would love to be the mythical creature who gets an idea, cracks knuckles, sits down at a blank screen and taps out a perfect first draft, I’m not. I’m me. I’m going to take the scenic route, make a couple of wrong turns, before I find the right one. Maybe, instead of being angry about that, I can appreciate it for the gift that it is. Appreciate each step taken along the long and winding road that leads to HEA, instead of grumbling about it. No two writers’ journeys are going to be the same. We have to find our own ways inside our stories, and around within them, but when we do? The view is incredible.

 

The Enemy of the Good

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The perfect is the enemy of the good.

-Voltaire

 

Right now, I want a nap. Like really, really want a nap. At the same time, there is part of me entirely devoted to “we were without cable/internet for two and a half days, company is coming on Sunday, I have a Skype session with Melva tomorrow, Saturday’s workshop unlocked that part of Her Last First Kiss where I wasn’t sure what I was doing, and now I am, therefore, I cannot sleep and must do all the things. Right now. Preferably at once.”

Which, realistically, is not how things work. Our friends are not coming to see us because our apartment is a showplace (it is not) -we are going to a museum for that- and there is probably, realistically, plenty of time to get most of what I want to get done, done. For somebody as motivated by lists and planning as I am, this should be second nature, and, in some ways, it is. More on that later. Unless I forget. Because I did not outline this post. Winging it, because this is technically Monday’s post, but we did not have any internet on Monday; our service had been shut off by mistake (the subscriber the technician intended to disconnect was another house on our street; lots of moving in and out around this time of year in a college town, so understandable on their part.) Props to Tim from Time Warner Cable, for doing an A plus job, being respectful of scared-of-strangers kitty, and making sure everything worked its very  best before he left.

Okay, not entirely without internet, as one of this city’s perks is municipal internet, but we can only get one bar in our living room, so enough to get the essentials done, but not conducive to mindless web-surfing, falling down a Netflix hole, or other use that doesn’t have a specific purpose. On the plus side, it is enough to text chat on Skype while writing. I have come to know myself well enough to know when I need to blabber to another writer while I work, and when I need to be on my own, earbuds in and head fully in story world. Not a one size fits all approach to every writing session, I have found, and I like that part of the discovery process.

One of the items on my list today was to apply the lessons from K.A. Mitchell’s workshop at CRRWA, to nudge the gelatinous near-the-end part of Her Last First Kiss into shape. There is a particular joy only writers know, of getting our characters to the almost-happy place. Sure, they think they’re happy, but little do they know Everything Is About To Go Down The Crapper And It Is All Their Faults. That’s a fun part to write, even -maybe especially- in romance, because we already know things are going to work out in the end. Hero and Heroine are going to be FINE. They’re going to be better than fine. Because this is a romance, they get to live Happily Ever After (not that it means they’ll never have anything bad ever happen to them again for their entire lives, because how boring would that be? Talk about unrealistic. It means they’ll be together and happy about it, and face whatever comes, together.) so what chance does anything the author throws at them even have in the first place, right? No chance, but we writers have to make “no chance” look like “I have no idea how they’re going to get out of this one” (to the reader, that is; it looks plenty like that to the writer at this stage of the game.)

Which is what had me at my secretary desk, two notebooks open at once (notebook shown is the “official-because-I-say-it-is” notebook for this project (Abbie and Ichabod have nothing to do with this book; they’re just pretty, and they make me happy, so they can stay) and the entries in it are, hm, we shall say well-spaced, because this notebook intimidates me. It looks like this on the outside:

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It’s the big one on the bottom; I am lazy and not scrolling. Also, hello, my legs I did not crop out of the picture. Whatever..

In short, the notebook is pretty and fancy and I did not want to ruin it with my horrible straight-out-of-my-brain writing. Especially when it is of the “I have not idea what I am doing” variety and have trouble reading my own handwriting. This is slightly better when I use better pens, like fountain pens, which I use here, or rollerballs, which I used in the other notebook, to take notes in the workshop. Basically, that part of  my day consisted of me copying things from the workshop notebook (really my all purpose notebook) into the HLFK notebook and expounding upon/applying the points to Hero and Heroine’s story. At a certain stage of the story, in any genre, readers have some expectations, and if those expectations aren’t fulfilled, readers are going to be cranky. I do not want cranky readers. On the other hand, I would take cranky readers over no readers, because my standards in that department are not that high at this stage of getting back on the metaphorical horse.

Which is actually a big help to the writer. This stage of the game is where we do the thing. Okay. We can do the thing. How, exactly, do these particular characters do the thing? That’s what makes this book different from all the others out there, and there are a lot of them out there, but this one  is mine. Well, actually Hero’s and Heroine’s, but I am hoping you get the drift here. Even if you are cranky; if you are cranky, reading a good book could help. Or read one of mine. That would set you apart from the crowd. (cue saxophone version of “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg” in the background)

 

So, basically, that part of my day consisted of using the pointy part of my fountain pen to stab Hypercritical Gremlins (thankfully, they bleed ink) and rough out exactly how Hero and Heroine would most likely do this particular thing. Find the worst thing that could happen to them, and then make it happen. Well, that’s easy, and provides a healthy dose of schaudenfreud (which I probably misspelled, but refer to Voltaire quote above) -the only way it’s okay to be happy that other people are miserable. I need to run this by N, but I think I am on to something, and the formerly gelatinous part is getting to a nice degree of firmness and providing forward momentum. I am going to call that good.

Typing With Wet Claws: Too Darned Hot Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Even though I am the one with the built-in fur coat, Anty  is the one most affected by the heat. Uncle had a rough day, too, yesterday, and even Mama has been feeling sluggish, and she is usually the hardiest in this weather. Before I am allowed to talk about anything else, I have to talk about Anty’s writing first, so we will do that now.

Anty’s most recent Buried Under Romance post is here, and it looks like this:

BUR

Do you like to go fast or slow?

Summertime has never been Anty’s favorite time of year, because it is very hot and bright, and she is sensitive to both of those things. That means that, for most of the summertime, staying inside, in front of the box fan, during the day is the smart thing to do. Thankfully, since Anty is a writer, this actually works in her favor. Well, apart from the whole lack of energy thing. Do not worry, though; when autumn comes, Anty will get her superpowers back. She is not willing to wait for a couple more months to get to the top of her game, and so she has to make a couple of adjustments here.

Since Anty is a morning person, getting up super early helps. It is still cool in the morning, and  her brain is all fresh from sleep. The house is quiet, too, so it is the perfect time for her to write her morning pages. She is excited to start a new morning pages book, and has settled on the Papaya! Art spiral bound book for her next round of morning pages. If you have missed that post, (it is here) that book looks like this:

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She still does not know what pens she will use for that, but that is okay. She will know what to use when the time comes, and admits that she will probably have to do an ink test, even though she doesn’t want to make any mistakes on a book this special. Come to think of it, she feels the same way about the books she is writing, but there, too, she is learning to make adjustments.

Miss H, one of Anty’s writer friends, reminds Anty that nobody ever has to see a scene if Anty really thinks it is, um…stuff, (Miss H did not say “stuff.” I am using it as a euphemism for what she really said.) but Anty does have to write it. Anty is very tempted to say bad words to Miss H when Miss H says this, but she settles for saying the same thing right back to Miss H when it is Miss H’s turn. That is the important thing. It is okay to write the scene while scared of writing that scene. Getting even the roughest version out of the brain and onto the page or screen is what is important here. There will be time to make it pretty later, but nothing can be done if there is nothing on the page. Anty finds that it can be difficult to get over perfectionism, but it is also necessary. Sometimes, that is the biggest part of the battle, and once there is something, anything, on the page, then the rest comes easily.

This week, Anty has been working on both Her Last First Kiss, and the Beach Ball, although not as quickly as she might like. As I mentioned above, it has been very hot, and there has been a lot of humidity. I usually find a doorway with good air flow (the bathroom hallway is the best, because there are no windows, the floor is linoleum (or would that be lion-oleum, because it is comfy for kitties?) and, if I am in the right spot, I can catch breezes from the living room fan, Anty and Uncle’s bedroom fan, and stay in direct line of sight of the pantry door, which is where the humans keep my food and treats.

Even though Anty is most dominant, she is too big to flop in a doorway, and so she has to take other measures. Her comfy chair is in front of the living room fan, and the master bedroom door can close, keeping all the cool air inside. Her office even  has a ceiling fan, so that gives her another place she can work comfortably, even when it is not a good idea for her to go outside even the short distance to the coffee house. Even so, there are some days when it is flat out (and I am flat, even though I am inside) too disgusting to brain.

Anty is learning that, when it is difficult to put out, then it is time to take in. Because her body loses water, salt and potassium when the weather is hot, then she needs to put those things back into it by what she eats and drinks. The same way, since she puts out story when she writes, she needs to take story in between writing sessions. Reading is the best way, in her genre and out of it, to both stay grounded in why she loves what she loves and to inject some new energy into what she’s already doing.

 

Sometimes, the shift happens when Anty is not even looking for it. Today, while doing laundry (she went very early, so she could be there and back before it got too hot) Anty read a chunk of one of the books she got from the library earlier this week, and, when it came time to read the next chapter, she took out her mini notebook from her pen pouch to make a couple of quick notes. Yeah, Anty, those pages are more than a couple of notes, but that is exactly the point. Keeping one’s well filled means there will be enough to draw from when the time comes.

Anty says that time has come now  (also for my lunch, so there’s that) so that is about it for this week. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

i1035 FW1.1

Until next week…

Skye O’Malley Hart-Bowling

 

 

 

 

Morning Pages, the Heir Presumptive, and the Young Pretender

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With one week left in my current, much-beloved morning pages book, the time has come to decide on which book will be its successor, and I’d like to say I’m closer, but a young pretender has entered the fray.  Going by only what I currently possess, the heir presumptive is this lovely bird and flower themed Punch Studio book:

Endpapers
Lined pages

 

That’s the endpapers in the first picture, internal pages in the second. Same images on all spreads, where I do prefer that they rotate. Banastre Lobster has no opinion on that.

Normally, the issue would be settled, but we have a young pretender to the throne, this spiral-bound Papaya! Art (the exclamation point is part of the name) gorgeousness, which would continue the Paris theme:

20160706_103611

Banastre must, of course, investigate.

My heart did a skippity-skip when I first saw this on the shelves at Barnes and Noble, and I don’t remember when the precious actually came home, but I knew I wanted to save it for something special. Since I still have absolutely zero ideas for any Parisian historical romances, morning pages would fit the bill. Inside pages are not lined, but are lovely.

First, we have this inside cover and first page, which presents a challenge when the discipline is one two-page spread for each day:

 

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Name and address on inside cover, obv, but facing page?

 

After that, we have these:

one
two
three
four

 

None of the pages are lined, but those backgrounds…guh. Gorgeous. I want to put things on them. On the one hand, I think Hero would heartily approve of my appreciation of a pre-prepared background, because he used to do that kind of thing, but then again, his experience in Paris (hey, there is a connection!) was not exactly his favorite part of life. He wouldn’t know about the Eiffel Tower, though, as it was a century after his time. The clouds, though, and the design elements, those he knows, and the floral motifs fit nicely for a Georgian gentleman (and his lady.)

The question for me  here is, would the lack of lines be a problem? Also, what sort of pens do I want to use on these pages? They’re thicker than regular paper-paper, but not thick enough that I’d feel comfortable using Sharpies, at least not without an ink test, but I don’t want to sacrifice a page for that. Even so, the rotating designs excite me, and since I plan to increase to seven entries per week instead of six, that’s almost two rotations every week, but not exactly, so monotony would not be an issue. If the pages are visually inspiring, I am going to come to them with a better outlook, and, if stuck for what to put on the page, the images have suggestions right there. If I really need lines, I can draw them on with pencil and ruler. Fountain pens or rollerballs are my best educated guess on the pen issue. I’ve tried another book by this same maker, a different design in this line, with ballpoint, and I was so unhappy with that, that I set the book aside. Will need to resurrect that one, with a better selection of pen.

As I am writing this, I am listening to the Hamilton soundtrack. A writer friend will be traveling from Canada to NYC to see the show live this coming week. Right after the original cast departs, which does bring a pang, but, then again, there will be the energy of of the new cast making their debuts, and there will be the PBS documentary in October, and the original cast has been filmed, (I would totally go see this in theaters, if it were to be distributed that way) so it’s possible to get the best of both worlds there. I’ve been listening to the soundtrack, first as an Independence Day celebration (I know, Banastre, I know. Mama still loves you.) and then as part of my “immerse myself in the zeitgeist” plan of working through this draft.

Her Last First Kiss is set in England, in 1784, and Hero is not a soldier; he’s an artist, and he’s spent the pertinent years on the Continent (see Paris experience, above) so he’s pretty far removed from that business in the Colonies, but he does exchange letters with a cousin, relocated to Canada from New York, because expulsion of British and all that. Heroine is the product of a Russian father and English mother, was raised in England and identifies as British. These two have latched onto me in a way I’d been afraid I wouldn’t experience again after the time travel stalled, and I want to give them the very best story I can, which means I need to let their world seep into my writerblood.

The thing with writing historical romance novels is that the characters don’t know they’re in a historical. They think they’re in a contemporary. For Hero and Heroine, 1784 is their now. They aren’t wearing costumes; those are their clothes. People are people, no matter what century in which they do their people-ing, and that’s what I want to bring to live the most. If Hero were a 21st century person, he’d probably be glued to his phone, but he’s an 18th century person, so he carries around a portable lap desk so he can write letters and sketch/doodle. That was actually the first thing he showed me about himself, that desk. Writers, you understand how that works. Once he saw I was going to treat the desk right, then he came a little bit closer, like a stray cat when their benefactor moves the food dish an inch closer to the porch every day, until both cat and human are astonished that they are cuddling in the porch swing together.

If I were going to let Hero pick the new daily pages book, he’d pick the spiral bound. Which is, obviously, a lot thinner than the heir presumptive. Which may lead me to the same dilemma sooner, rather than later. I am not complaining.

 

Still In Favor of Tire Swings

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Fourth of July, exactly one week left in my morning pages book, and I still haven’t chosen another. This bothers me. I certainly have enough notebooks from which to choose, and, when the day comes, I will be at my secretary desk, pen in hand and putting something on the very first page. That’s not the issue. It is, however, in line with the whole changey nature of life in general, so I’m going to let it be what it is.

The Fourth of July celebrations I remember best are the ones from my childhood. We’d head over to Aunt S2’s house (I had two Aunt S’s as a kiddo, both the close-friend-of-a-parent sort, and to further complicate matters, both were married to Uncle G’s. For clarity’s sake, Aunt S is the one who wrote books, and Aunt S2 threw Fourth of July celebrations that set the bar for the summer holiday, as far as I’m concerned. Kind of the summer version of Aunt S’s Christmases. Their respective spouses are Uncle G and Uncle G2.) around noonish or slightly thereafter, and not return home until close to midnight.

Aunt S2, I should mention, was actually originally British. She met Uncle G2, an American, in the UK, love bloomed, she crossed the pond, and I am not sure how it was she became the hostess of the Independence Day festivities (including the Bicentennial,) but she did. I never gave that much thought while growing up, nor did I ever find out if she ever became a US citizen. Mysteries for the ages, those, but what isn’t mysterious is how vividly I remember those celebrations. Watching each new arrival, to see what foodstuffs they brought to the communal table was a big deal for us kiddos, as was climbing all over the swing set in the back yard, and getting permission to play “in the field.” The field was not an actual field, but a sizeable patch of grass flanking Aunt S2’s house and the apartment complex adjacent. There was a fenced-in enclosure in the middle of it, the setting for many improvised imaginative play sessions that somehow remotely involved gardening.

The year Uncle G2 put a kiddo-sized plastic tire swing in the tree near the entrance gate, that became the hot ticket ride for the younger set. Our most forbidden pastime was putting leaves on the grill, to watch them change. Adults usually put an end to this as soon as humanly possible. There would be a whole watermelon brought out at some point, received with all the enthusiasm of a birthday cake, and, once night had fallen, we’d all pack into various vehicles, laden with lawn chairs, and head to the high school track to watch the fireworks. I don’t think any fireworks are going to match the impact of those in my memory, though the current year is welcome to try, with a caveat that fireworks aren’t always a happy thing for everyone. Pretty, sure, but scary for pets, combat veterans, and others, so I don’t think fireworks as an adult can be the same as they were for me as a kid.

After the fireworks, the 2s and their kiddos would follow us to our home, where the younger set would mostly giggle about being up that late, while the adults …well, I’m not entirely sure what the adults were doing. I do remember special desserts my mom had made, waiting for this private afterparty, and there may have been adult beverages for those old enough to partake. At some point, the 2s took their sleepy kiddos home, and my parents somehow convinced me to go to bed, even though I was not tired and had plenty more holiday left in me, or so I claimed between yawns.

Fast forward to now. Lovely apartment in a beautiful city, but no back yard, though we can watch the fireworks display from our balcony, which is an experience in itself. I’m looking forward to that. Since both Real Life Romance Hero and Housemate are spending their days helping others enjoy their holiday, as they work, respectively in the restaurant industry and retail, that leaves me with some time on my hands.

Today’s desk picture is my robot lock screen and Paris mug, because it doesn’t feel like the Fourth to me. Not sure what’s up with that. I got excited for Canada Day, and I’m not even Canadian. I am going to call writerbrain on this one. Having a day to take in creative fodder helps to put it out the rest of the week, and that’s a good thing. As an extrovert, trying to replicate a celebration that, to me, should involve lots of people, with only a few is draining, so those childhood Fourths remain as they were, the soft golden glow of nostalgia cranking them up a notch or two from what they actually were. I’m still finding out what a proper Fourth would mean to me, in the now.

Maybe it’s time to marathon favorite episodes of Sleepy Hollow, or revisit some of the American Revolution romances that were all the rage when I first became aware of the genre. Maybe it’s time to stream the Hamilton soundtrack, or see if any cable channels are airing 1776. Celebrating the Fourth is a fallow holiday for me right now, a resting period to let things settle and see what else can grow there in the future. In that light, I think today’s meh-ness kind of fits. I’m impatient with holidays, like I am with writing. I want the whole thing, with all the blinky lights and fireworks and ohmigosh, J brought her special baked beans, this is the best day everrrrrr moments, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

There’s only another layer. As a kid, it was enough to pick out an outfit, get in the back seat, and get out when the car stopped moving. There it would all be -holiday! Whee! How it got there was the grownups’ problem. Works the same way with holidays or books. Now, I am one of the grownups. Different vantage point, so of course it’s going to be a different view. Back then, I knew what the covers of historical romance novels looked like. Now, I read them, write them, and write about them. As an adult, I’m not only a consumer of book or holiday, but an active participant in the creation of both, whether the scale is large or small. Still figuring it all out, but also still highly in favor of tire swings. Make of that what you will.

There Are Lobsters on My Desk

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In case there is any doubt as to my lifelong case of raging Anglophilia, today’s picture should put that to rest. Paris-themed stationery aside (as in literally; I had to move my Marie Antoinette themed matchbook notepad out of the way to take this image) I’ve been hardwired for most things British straight out of the box, as far as I can remember. Don’t ask me when it began, because I have no idea, though I will allow that, by the time I was one year old, the family newly moved to a house in Bedford, NY, from Manhattan, our bottom-of-the-hill neighbors were Scottish immigrants. Shortly after that, my mom met her best local friend, a British  expat, who happened to have a baby my age (yes, our families met on a playground, why do you ask?) Very easy to guess, in this case, what sort of adults I saw most often on a regular basis in my formative years. I strongly suspect they imprinted on me, early, and with lasting impact.

While that probably explains my affinity for mentally hopping the pond, I lay the thankblame (which should totally be a real word) for historical romance being my soulmate genre at the feet of two aunts. Aunt L was my mom’s sister. She lived in New Jersey, and, every time she visited (we lived in CT by this time,) she would bring at least one paper grocery bag stuffed to the top with historical romance novels. I was too young to read them at this point, but it was still my job to take the bag directly to the laundry room, un-bag them, and set them aside for my mother’s later perusal. This was when I fell in love with some of the cover art in that first wave of historical romance. It was all painted back then, not photographs, every cover a tiny work of art. I read the blurbs, noted hero and heroine first names (I’ve been name-obsessed since I was about eight) and was a good kid, not looking into the forbidden pages, not even a little.

Well, kind of. Aunt S, wife to Uncle G, my dad’s best friend from their Army days, wrote one. Then two, then three, you get the drift. I went with Mom to the book section of Caldor, to peruse the rack and keep an eye out for Aunt S’s name. I don’t remember which one of us found it, but I remember how my heart did a skippity-skip when I saw it, then another when Mom took it out of the rack.  We were buying that book. We were taking it home. I have had that same feeling many a time, when lifting a much-desired book from its shelf, rack, box, hitting the download button, whatever, but this one…this one was the very first, and I knew, without knowing much about it, that this one would be special. I didn’t know it was going to change my life.

Even before Aunt S wrote her first book, even before (to my knowledge) Aunt L hauled grocery bags full of historical romance novels from NJ to CT (and it only now hits me that my mother and aunts were romance readers, and I never got to talk romance novels with them. I even remember mentioning something about a character from one of Aunt S’s books to Aunt G, another of Mom’s sisters, and her responding that she saw the character differently…you read at least one romance novel, Aunt G, and you never said.) I lived in Bedford, NY, during the Bicentennial (dating myself, I know, but I am fine with dating myself, because I always have a lovely time; I’m delightful.) As in town that was literally burned to the ground by the British Army during the war, except for one house. Home to a very lovely historical society I loved then and love now, and setting for my first historical romance, My Outcast Heart.

Dalby and Tabetha’s story takes place a  half century and change before the war, so they’d be opinionated seniors by that time, but it’s safe to say that, growing up around that much Revolutionary history, the Georgian age imprinted on me, as well. Maybe that’s why the Georgian period seems to be my historical default setting when I start a new novel. It’s not the only period I like – I’ve written sixteenth century, English Civil War, turn of the twentieth century romances so far, that are currently available, and I have hopes for my first medieval, but when it came time to start Her Last First Kiss, there wasn’t any doubt that it would be Georgian.

There aren’t any Redcoats (aka Lobsterbacks) in Hero and Heroine’s story, though they’ll likely find a few when they get where they’re going, but in future books, there absolutely will be. Ember and her Golden Man still rustle at me from the pages of notebooks and not-quite-right drafts, and I’m sure there will be other soldiers with tales to tell, so I will keep acquiring lobster-related items along with my Union Jacks and other related ephemera. For now, I’m head down, eyes on my own paper, for Hero and Heroine’s tale, which I can now get to, as I can cross “blog entry” off my list. Happy midweek!

 

Hungry

annabowling 2 Comments

When you’re hungry, eat. When you eat, eat food.

–Kara Brooks

The fact that I know exactly how much longer it will be until lunch should explain how I got on this theme for today’s blog. The fact that I have a mental list of every snack in the house, can rattle off a ranking of which order I would prefer to consume them, and have already decided I will propose tonight as a foraging night (meaning we have food, we’re all grownups, everybody find food and eat it, because I’m not cooking) sealed the deal on today’s topic. The quote above comes from my cousin, a tall, tattooed, red-haired Army veteran with the voice of an angel, who is adept at giving me smacks upside the head when needed. I do not recall when this particular quote came into play, ( best guess a few years back) but I remember it, word for word

This is not a post on nutrition, and it is. It is not, in the aspect that I am not going to talk about calories, food groups, pyramids or any of that stuff. It is, in the aspect that one can, theoretically, own the greatest racehorse in the world, but if one never feeds him/her, how many races is he/she going to win? (Hint: zero, because horses that do not eat do not survive, and dead horses cannot run.) Now that we’ve got that out of the way, in a move that surprises nobody, (say it with me now) it’s the same way with writing. Maybe there are some people who can put out without ever taking in, but I am not one of them.

Last night, I had a Skype chat with another writer friend, and had a file open, because we do that often, write while chatting. This time, though, I stared at my split screen, Skype on one side, Word Pad on the other, and…nope. Yes, I know these characters. Yes, I love them. Yes, I know what happens next -it’s right there in my notes- and yes, I have a plan. No, I could not make any of it happen. I punched a few keys in desultory fashion, scrolled through my Spotify playlist, whined to my friend, stared down Word Pad, and…nope.

Zip, zilch, zero, nothing, nada, nil, endless void where writing ought to be. Storytelling, even. I’d take bullet points. I got bupkis.  Less than bupkis. The characters froze in place and stared back at me, their expressions conveying only a general “we thought you knew what was going on here” vibe. My reaction could best be summarized by sending over a tuxedo-clad waiter (yeah, really not moving from the food thing here) to explain to Sir and Madam that there has been a slight inconvenience in the kitchen and Chef deeply apologizes for the inconvenience.

“Slight inconvenience,” in this case, would mean that there was a raging grease fire, Chef’s only weapons a slightly damp washcloth and a bucket of what could be sandbox sand, or it could be kitty litter, but the grease fire did serve to distract from the fact that the delivery of actual ingredients for the dishes ordered (or, really, any dishes at all at this point) had not yet arrived. As in, the washcloth and maybe-sand-maybe-kitty-litter is basically what there would be at this point. I don’t think I have to point out that nobody wants a dinner of washcloth and sand and/or kitty litter. Not even if it’s rolled, burrito-style and presented with a garnish of whatever happens to be in Chef’s trouser pockets.

In a restaurant situation, this means that somebody has to go out and obtain said ingredients (okay, yes, put out the grease fire first. Always put out the grease fire first.) In a writing situation, facing a page with “well, I got nothing,” is usually a good cue that it’s time  to go out and get something. Take a break. Read something that engages, whether it’s a book, an email, the back of a cereal box, whatever. Watch an episode of a favorite TV show. Take in a movie. Take a walk. (I like to go to the park and look for ducks. Ducks usually serve as wonderful creative consultants. I think it’s all the paddling.) Have a snack. Have a nap. Play with a pet. Insert old saw about drawing water from an empty well. Not going to happen. Time to get something in there, before anything else can come out.

So it was, last night. I bid my friend goodnight, saved my document and logged out. One relaxing bath and a couple of chapters later, I turned off the light, the perils of characters-n0t-my-own the last thing on my mind, ready to digest overnight. I woke up still hungry, but I have a full pantry (aka TBR shelf) to take care of that. The selection is varied, and I am only minutes’ walks from two different libraries, so if the particular flavor I want isn’t literally at hand, it’s not that far away.

Right now, I’m hungry. Yes, for lunch (which will happen after posting) but also for story, for that deep immersion in the story world, climbing into the characters’ skins and seeing what they see, feeling what they feel. I don’t want to browse. I don’t want to skim. I don’t want to nibble or sample or taste. I want the meat. I want to feast. I want to take in what I need to do what I need, not in quick bursts, but to go the distance, and, maybe, fuel somebody else’s fire.

 

 

Under the Influence

annabowling 2 Comments

No, not that kind of under the influence, and yes, that is a vintage (recent vintage)  workspace picture for today’s entry because A) burning daylight here, and B) it’s pretty. I like the contrast of the retro robot and the Paris travel mug, and the mere thought of carrying yet another owed blog post (I will get that long-ago Wednesday post redeemed at some point, I promise) makes me shudder, plus I have had an occupational hazard of typing with wet nails, meaning I have to do it all over again, polish-wise, so here we are.

Last week, I got tagged by the equally fabulous Jodi Coburn and Kari W. Cole for the prompt to list fifteen writers who have influenced me. For the curious, here it is:

Bertrice Small – historical romance
Valerie Sherwood/Jeanne Hines -historical romance and gothic romance
Aola Vandergriff/Kitt Brown – historical romance and gothic romance
Nick Hornby -general fiction/lad lit/screenplays
Angela Hunt – inspirational fiction and nonfiction/historical fiction/women’s fiction  David Levithan – Young Adult fiction and poetry
Rainbow Rowell -Young Adult and adult fiction
Jennifer Roberson -fantasy with romantic elements, historical fiction with romantic elements and historical romance
Erma Bombeck  – humor, memoir
Billy Joel  -singer/songwriter
Mary Chapin Carpenter – singer/songwriter
Ben Folds  – singer/songwriter
Marsha Canham – historical romance
Barbara Samuel/Barbara O’Neal/Lark O’Neal/Ruth Wind -historical, contemporary and category romance, women’s fiction, New Adult romance, nonfiction
Anita Mills – historical romance and traditional Regency romance

A diverse bunch, and I don’t consider the additions of Joel, Folds and Carpenter as cheating, because some of their songs are amazing stories in their own right. Billy Joel’s “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant,” Ben Folds’ “Brick,” and Mary Chapin Carpenter’s “Goodbye Again” (which is on my playlist for Her Last First Kiss, oh so very much) definitely count; even the first few notes of any of those, before the lyrics start, are enough to engage my emotions, and I’m going to need a minute after it’s over because they give me feelings…which is exactly what an emotional story, musical or not, is meant to do.

What they all have in common for me is a strong emotional impact, across genres, formats and decades-of-origin. All of them have had a strong influence on why and how I do what I do. The moment I cracked the cover of The Kadin, by Bertrice Small, which I’d stolen from my mother’s nightstand, and first inhaled the opening pages, I knew I had found what I wanted to read and write for the rest of my life. I first heard “Brick,” by Ben Folds, in the passenger seat of BFF’s car, when the clock on her dash slid over to 6AM on December 26th, and the mournful first line, “6AM, day after Christmas,” chilled my blood, and became part of me.

That’s how it works with an influential book, song, piece of art, etc. We can appreciate it for what it is, in its original state, and most of us would probably fight those who suggest  changing it, but then something else happens – it meets us, and new life begins. We aren’t the same after we’ve experienced the original work, and, for those of us who also work in creative fields, neither is what we produce. We’ve been changed. We can’t go back to the way we were before, whether we want to or not, because now we know. Everything we’ve known and seen and done and hoped and feared and imagined and wondered combines with this thing we’ve never encountered before, and something new now exists.

Under the big brass bed in my parents’ guest room, with that purloined historical romance, in that front seat of BFF’s car as the saddest music of ever started in the predawn hour, I got that YES. That THIS. That mixture of discovery and recognition. THIS is mine. THIS is part of me. THIS is my fuel for the journey. THIS is what I need to get to the next level. I want more of THIS.

Fifteen is a pretty short list, and that’s okay. The instructions were to take the fifteen off the top of my head and I tried, but, for me, that isn’t where my favorites live. They’re not in my head. They’re in my heart, in my writerblood, combining with each other to make wholly new what-ifs and if-onlys while I’m off doing other things, waiting patiently for me in quiet moments, or chasing after me, calling my name, because no, they will not wait. It does have to be now, and the world is going to have to deal.

 

Influences of Late

annabowling 2 Comments

The last couple of days, I’ve been bingeing. Monday, I stumbled across Grace Burrowes’s FAQ section, which led to glomming on her blog, a couple of years’ worth of entries, full disclosure.  I haven’t read any of her novels -yet- but I know I have some in my TBR bookshelf, some waiting in my Kindle, and they take up a significant amount of the B shelf in the romance section at my local library branch. I started with the About Writing section of the FAQ page, and fell immediately in love, which may be a good indicator it’s time to dive into the actual books. Thankfully, there’s a suggested reading order on the author’s website, because there are a heck of a lot of t hem.

Tuesday, I investigated the Bad Girlz Write blog, whose members include the fabulous Jeannette Grey, a CRRWA chapter sister, and Heather McGovern, whose workshop on the big black moment I have  heard-but-not-actually-seen, because the day she presented at CRRWA was also the day my former pair of spectacles died, and my valiant attempt to hold them together with electrical tape and a binder clip A) did not work, and B) hurt, because electrical tape, when folded, has sharp, pointy corners, as well as C) made me dizzy and gave me a headache. I took notes anyway, but will not vouch for the legibility of same. Here, as well, I hit the back button to read blog entry after blog entry about wandering and, heck, the entire section on writer life in one go. There may or may not have been actual tears in either of the above.

There sure as anything have been a lot of tears in my other binge, Parenthood. Not the life state. The TV show. Yes, I do live under a rock, and no, I do not know how I somehow managed to never ever see a single episode of this until Netflix, but I needed a show to binge and Netflix said I might like it, because Netflix knows me, and yessssssssssss. Oh so very much yes. Only a few episodes into the first season, I had to check to make sure my OTPs (from the adult generation, that is; everybody shush on the teens, because I want to experience it myself) were going to be endgame (they were) before I could allow myself to get as deeply attached as I am wont to do in these situations.

All three of these binges brought that same reaction in my writerheart: YES. This. This is what I want to do. This is what I’m shooting for when I write. This connection. This emotional impact. This need to stop everything I’m doing and check to see if Crosby and Jasmine are going to be all right, because if they aren’t, there is no good left in the world. Also Joel and Julia. I already know a couple of things about the finale, and I am fine knowing them, but the rest, I want to discover as I go. I want to take all of this in and use it as food to fuel my own work. The tightly-knit family, made of people who aren’t perfect, who do get mad and lose their tempers and yell at little kids and shove their elders and say horrible things and lose every last shred of hope, and yet don’t give up because that’s not what they do; I love that stuff.

In the midst of all this, I noticed one interesting thing. The more I binged, the fainter and farther away the voices -and influences- of the Hypercritical Gremlins became.  Maybe Ms. Burrowes, the Bad Girlz and the Bravermans  are taking turns helping to barricade the Gremlins’ closet. Shutting out the “shoulds” is one thing, and a good thing, but there has to be something to move  into the old “should” place, or they’re only going to come back, with more “shoulds” and more Gremlins, and that only leads to paralysis and anxiety and literally ugly crying in the middle of a critique group (yes, that actually happened, and yes, in public, and yes, to me) and miscarried manuscripts and…you get the picture. But replace the “shoulds” and the forcing and the gnashing of teeth with the things that elicit that YES in every fiber of my writerheart? That brings back the joy, lifts the weight and, well, of course I can do this; it’s as natural as breathing, and I’ve been doing that for a few decades now, right? Right.

What could go wrong? Well, plenty. That’s part of life, but the encouraging part, thanks to reading accounts of others navigating the often treacherous writing waters, is that I’m not alone. I’ve done this before. I’ll do it again, and I have no shortage of fuel for the journey.

 

Typing With Wet Claws: Delicate Balance Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. It is also a domestic tornado day, so I may have to write some of my blog now and some of it later. If I post later than usual today, that is why. Also, this is a really nice sunbeam, where I am sitting.

First of all, in case you missed it, Anty talked about medieval romance novels on Buried Under Romance this Saturday. Do you like medieval romance novels? Why or why not? Anty is very interested in this topic, and not only because she has a medieval romance gathering du…um, I mean in her portfolio.  She likes to read them, as well, so is always on the lookout for recommendations. The blog post is here and it looks like this:

BURIMAGE

Saturday was a very big day for Anty, as she also got to recap last week’s episode of Outlander. Watching this show and writing the recap gave Anty a big boost, because they reminded her why she writes her particular brand of historical romance. That recap is here and it looks like this:

HHOUTLANDER

In case you have not read any of Anty’s books and are wondering what kinds of stories she writes, there is an easy way to get a small peek. Anty (and I) currently has (have) four hundred and forty-nine followers. Anty would like to have four hundred and fifty. (She would actually like more than that, but she has to hit that number before she goes over it, so she wants that number first. ) If she (we) get one more, then Anty will post a piece of flash fiction here on the blog.

For the rest of this entry, I am going to paw it, because it is one of those days.  We are trying a different kind of cat treat this week, and by “we,” I mean me, because I have not seen the humans eat any of it. I think they know something. Probably that I am a kitty and they are not. Anty assures me that my regular treat will be back in a couple of days, and I can last that long. I will give you a secret: the different treat is not bad, and I am still eating it. Anty put a little bit of my regular treat into it, so that it would not be completely strange to me. I appreciate that.

This is not that different from writing. Even when a writer, like Anty, likes to try a few different things in their writing, there is usually something that is the same, so loyal readers will recognize that this is the same writer, and the experience is not completely strange. So far, Anty has written stories set in Colonial New York, turn of the twentieth century England and Italy, sixteenth century Cornwall, and both the Isle of Man and Charles II’s Court in Exile in the Netherlands at the end of the English Civil War. She has written a medieval novella, which is currently looking for a home, and Her Last First Kiss is set in Georgian England. The story she and Anty Melva are writing together is set in the modern day, but is historical romance adjacent, so Anty is not lost wandering in unfamiliar territory. (Anty is not all that comfortable writing completely in the modern age.)

When Anty and Anty Melva first began blowing up the Beach Ball, to use their term, they both wanted to make sure that each of them had one foot in familiar territory, as well as exploring new ground. Anty Melva is most comfortable writing contemporary, and Anty is fully aware she was hardwired for historical romance right out of the box. Anty loves a grand sweep within her historical romance, and Anty Melva likes a touch of suspense. Finding the right balance between the preferences and/or natural bents of two different writers sometimes takes a few tries to find the right ratio, but, so far, Anty and Anty Melva seem to be doing all right. That is the same as how putting a little of my regular treat into the new treat. It is nice to try something a little different once in a while (that is how I found out I like mushy beef cat food; now, I get that on special occasions, and my regular food every day.)

Finding new flavors to put into her writing is something Anty likes to do every so often. She doesn’t always know she is looking for a new flavor, but when she finds one that works for her, she likes to dive into it and experience as much as she can. She had a taste of that this past week, when she watched a lot of Outlander, and started in on a new-to-her Jo Beverley novel, in honor of Miss Jo’s passing. Miss Jo wrote mostly Georgian and Regency novels (Anty has read most, if not all of the Georgians, and some of the Regencies) but also wrote four medieval romances, and she loves Miss Jo’s work, but has never read any of Miss Jo’s medieval romances before, so that is something new, within something familiar. That is something Anty likes to keep in mind when she is writing, as well. It is a delicate balance, a challenge for sure, but also part of the fun.

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

i1035 FW1.1

Until next week…

Skye O’Malley Hart-Bowling
(the kitty, not the book)