Typing With Wet Claws: Tell Them About It Edition

March 10, 2017annabowling Leave a comment

SkyeMarchPolaroid

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. It is now less than one month until Anty goes to the Let Your Imagination Take Flight Conference, to talk to other humans about blogging. I will not be going, because I am a kitty, and kitties like to stay home, but that does not mean I will be entirely missing from the workshop. That would never happen. After all, I do write one-third of the posts on this blog.

It is Anty’s blog, though, and the rule is that I have to talk about Anty’s writing before I can talk about the important stu…um, what I want to talk about this week. That is the rule, so here we go. As always, Anty has her post at Buried Under Romance. This week, she talks about spring fancies, or those particular elements of romance novels that will make us buy the book without knowing anything else about it. Like, for example, if the book has cats in it. I think cats make any book better, as long as good things happen to those cats. That post is here, and it looks like this:

BURSpringFancy

Anty cringed when I told her it was time for the Goodreads update, because Anty did not do that great on reading this week (I will tell you why later) Now she is five books behind, in her Goodreads challenge, instead of four. I would be lying if I did not say she did not panic a little, because she did. Anty loves to read, and reading is very important to writers. It allows them to see what others in their field are doing, what is happening outside their preferred genre, and it is fun, so they want to do as much of it as possible. Anty did not finish any new books this week, but she did make progress (she cannot tell how much in Night of Fire, because it is on her Kindle, and that has to charge before she can use it again.) Anty’s Goodreads challenge page is here, and it looks like this:

GoodreadsProgress100317

One of the reasons Anty has not had as much time for reading as she would like this week, is because she has been doing a lot of writing. Since she is a writer, that is a very good thing. She has been doing some research for the world of Her Last First Kiss. A lot of things were different in 1784 than they would be for us today. Anty had to research about what colors rooms could be painted (did you know different colors of paint cost different amounts?) She also had to look up things about how perfumes were made. As a kitty, I appreciate the extra effort put into smells. Smells are very important. Anty reminds me of this every time she picks up some of my, um, stuff. The more details Anty can find about the world of her story, the easier it is for her to bring that world to life for the readers. Miss N says she is doing a good job with that, and that makes Anty happy, which makes for more writing, which makes her want to do even more writing.

Anty is still thinking about how she wants to set her goals for writing (she hears a Critique Partner Vicki voice in her head, saying a very big NO when Anty thinks about doing Camp NaNo, because word count and Anty are not friends; page count, however, plays nice,) but one thing she does know is that she absolutely does have to be accountable to somebody else, who will not cut her any slack on that front. It is the same for reading. If she does not have to tell anybody how she is doing, then how she is doing does not matter, and things may not get done. On the other paw, if she knows Miss N is expecting at least six polished pages by 8AM on Tuesday morning (which sometimes gets moved to Wednesday morning) then she will have six polished pages by 8AM Tuesday morning. Actually, that would be more like 8PM on Monday night, because Anty likes having things ready ahead of time. It is the same for reading. If nobody is keeping track of what Anty is reading, then does it really matter? Making this public is a reminder that it is not only Anty, shut off from the rest of the world. That is a very easy feeling for Anty to get, and talking about what she is doing, and leaving it open for comment, by anybody, staves that off.

Writing is a complicated business, and it has a lot of feelings attached to it. For writers like Anty, thinking and talking often happen at the same time (I strongly suspect Miss N and Critique Partner Vicki can back me up on this) so blabbering about the writing process helps Anty figure the whole thing out, and knowing what she is doing helps her do more of it. She does not know everything yet (she is not a kitty, after all) but every day is another step closer to Happily Ever After for Hero and Heroine, for Guy and Girl, and towards the next projects, so Anty can start it all over again.

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

skyebye skyebanner01

What’s in a Name?

March 8, 2017annabowling 2 Comments

Today’s topic comes courtesy of reader Kady Underwood (and, as Kathleen Underwood, cover artist for Orphans in the Storm.) Talented gal, and great question, first posed in my Lion and Thistle Facebook group, where we talk about all things historical romance. We had some interesting discussion on that one, so I thought I’d share the love and expand on my answers here.

The question:

Those of you who write…do you collect names for your characters? Have you ever liked a name and built a character around it? What comes first…the character or the name?

My (expanded) answer:

Great question. I’ll break that down into the individual questions.

1) Those of you who write…do you collect names for your characters?

Big yes on collecting names. I have been collecting name books since I was very young. I want to say eight, maybe. I remember having to beg my mother for my first one, because it physically hurt, I wanted it that much. Thankfully, she got it for me, and thus the beast was born. The collection has grown a bit since then, not counting websites like Nameberry, or Behind the Name, and shows no signs of stopping. For naming characters in historicals, my go-to reference is Names Through the Ages, by Teresa Norman, whose A World of Baby Names is also useful. I am on my second copy, which is showing as much wear as its predecessor. For modern-day characters, have a look at Beyond Jennifer and Jason, Madison and Montana: What to Name Your Baby Now, by Linda Rozencrantz and Pamela Redmond Satran. Besides having the most names ever (probably) on the cover of a book about names, Rozencrantz and Satran take a different approach, grouping the names by image, rather than origin or meaning.

Names can come from anywhere, and I do keep a mental file of names I like or find interesting, besides my collection of name books (my prized book is a book of British Isles names, published in Ireland.) If I like the name, it goes in the vault, to wait for its time.

2) Have you ever liked a name and built a character around it?

Again, yes. Jonnet, the heroine of Orphans in the Storm, actually gets this twice, because she has two names – one she was given at birth, and the other that she grew up with. Her birth name, I had been holding onto since I was in college, and stumbled across it in a historical romance I found on the shelves of the used bookstore in town. I did not get that book, and still regret it, but knew I would use it for a heroine of my own, one day. One day turned into double digit years. Sometimes, it takes a while for the right character to fit the name, but I think it’s worth the wait. I still have a few names waiting for the right character.

3) What comes first…the character or the name?

It depends. Sometimes I put the name out there and see who answers (I don’t see it so much as “creating” a character as us finding each other. ) Sometimes, they walk into my head, name and all, and I have very little to do with it. I even had one character tell me I got her name wrong, she wasn’t going to answer to what I wanted to call her, and if I wanted to write her, I had to use her proper name. She was right. What I wanted to call her wasn’t her name at all, and now, I can’t imagine her being called anything else.

I’ve also had a character who couldn’t tell me his given name, because he didn’t know it. We both found out near the end of the first draft, when his heroine and I both tracked down the relative who could give him the missing pieces of that particular puzzle, so it all worked out in the end.

Naming a character is different every time. Sometimes, the name does come first, and sometimes, it comes last. I’ve written chunks of outline with “Hero” and “Heroine” used as placeholders. That isn’t the case with Her Last First Kiss. I knew Hero and Heroine’s names early on, but am keeping those to myself (and critique partners) when talking about the book for now. I suspect they’ll be more forthcoming once the second draft is done.

When Melva and I first conceived the Beach Ball, the only thing we had to go on for names at first was that she wanted a one syllable name for Girl. I shot out the first few that came to mind, before we hit one we both liked. Since Girl had a one syllable name, Guy needed a longer one; his name has three. Same process; shoot out three syllable names until the right one stuck.

With my focus, for the time being, on eighteenth-century romance, getting together a list of male, female and family names appropriate to the period is probably a good idea, and I would need a new notebook for the purpose…hmmm…..

Thanks for the question, Kady, and thanks for the gorgeous cover on Orphans in the Storm.

Typing With Wet Claws: Headache Relief Edition

March 3, 2017annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Things have been quieter than usual around here for the last couple of days, because Anty has a sinus headache. She gets those sometimes, before a big rain, which we were supposed to have, but did not get, so the headache stuck around. Do not worry, part of the duties of a mews is to be a good nurse when needed, so I have been sticking close. She is starting to do better now, so I think that means I have been doing a good job. Taking her medicine with caffeine and taking naps probably helped, too, but I think it was mostly me. Also Uncle. All right, and Mama.

Anyway, Anty thinks the worst of it is probably over, and that is a good thing. She did get a brand new picture of me, and in a very crafty way. She fed me, in my room, and then sat in the doorway and waited for me to finish. I could not get out without getting past her, and that is when she took my picture. She also paid me for my trouble by letting me watch a few minutes of my favorite movie, Koi in Their Winter Tank. I love this movie. It is wonderful. It has everything. It has fish, and, well, that is really all it needs. I will take movie time as fair payment for my work.

Anty is now making noises that could mean her sinuses are draining, or they could mean that she would like me to get to the point and post about her writing, so I will do that. She is on her own with the sinus thing. This week, as usual, she posted on Buried Under Romance. It is all about spring awakenings (no, not the Broadway show) this week, and the thrill of discovering something new. You can read that post here, and the link on the main page looks like this:

Her next post at Buried Under Romance will be up tomorrow, so stop by to see what she is talking about this week.

Since it is now March, it is now time to report how Anty is doing on her Goodreads challenge. She is four books behind schedule, which she does not like, but she is not worried. Four books is not that much, and she has four in her currently reading section, so all she has to do is finish those, and boom, back on track. If you would like to see Anty’s reading progress, you can do that here, and, so far, it looks like this:

This week, the days have been mostly the days they are supposed to be, except for Wednesday being Tuesday. That was a little disconcerting, but two good things happened because of Tuesday being a day late. The first one is that the mallards are back in the lake at the park. I am always in favor of the return of birdy-type creatures. Maybe Anty will take a movie of them and let me watch it. Anty makes very good duck movies. To be fair, the mallards may have been back before Wednesday, but that is when Anty saw them.

The other good thing is that Anty is very glad she had the extra day to work on her pages for Her Last First Kiss, because Miss N said that these were Anty’s best pages yet. Anty was very happy to hear that. Critique Partner Vicki also loved these pages, so that went a long way to balance out all of the headache ick. Getting good feedback lets Anty know that the story in her head is making it to the pages, and makes her want to go home and write even more pages. Even when a headache makes her want to smash her head into a wall. Do not worry, she did not actually do that. It is a figure of speech.

Anty also found a really, really good passage in Miss N’s pages and told Miss N exactly that. Miss N told Anty that, for that part, she sat down with pen and paper and put on the page exactly what was in the character’s head. That is also what Anty did for one of the scenes in her own pages. Great minds, it would seem, really do think alike. Anty and Miss N talked about that for a while, and how, for both of them, it is sometimes easier to write with pen and paper than compose directly on the computer. Pen and paper are also more portable (eve with laptops) so, really, writing can happen anywhere. In Anty’s case, writing by hand can help her feel even more connected to her characters, because she writes historical stories. Miss N’s story is contemporary, but she is also thinking about a historical of her own, when this is done.

Hopefully, Tuesday will be on Tuesday this coming week, because Anty is very much looking forward to moving into the next phase of this second draft. This will involve research into old-timey bathtubs, art history, and putting Hero in the unfortunate position of wanting to cross the one line he swore he would never cross. Heroine does not come off much better in this chapter, because what she wants to do and what she has to do are two different things, and she is not okay with that. Anty loves that kind of stuff.

Taking pleasure in things getting worse for other people, and taking an active role in making things worse for them, would be mean in real life, but, for writers, it is not mean at all. It is actually good, because things have to get worse for the characters, before they can get better. They can only be completely happy at the very, very end. Because Anty and Miss N both write romance, they know that the happy ending is a guarantee, but, up until then, anything goes, and that is a lot of the fun in writing. No matter what Anty and Miss N throw at their story people, things will be all right in the end. That is also the source of many of the evil cackles and overly dramatic groans anyone in Panera might hear on Tuesday mornings (or whatever day Tuesday ends up being that particular week.)

Anty says it is time for her to use the computer now, so that is about it for this week. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

Breathing Room

February 27, 2017annabowling 1 Comment

Yesterday, I played Sims 4. All day. That was it. No regrets. I’m playing this current (game) world rotationally, or, more accurately, pinging back and forth between households, to ensure that each of my families makes it to the next generation. We will not mention the one Sim I forgot about since he was a teen, and stumbled across, living by himself, as an elder, with none of my created or born in game female Sims of childbearing age unattached. I had him adopt a child, then married a widowed elder female Sim, merely because I want to see how many husbands she can go through before her own time runs out. This dude is her third. I played long enough that a teen aged up to young adult, solving the dilemma of my second adult aged bachelor. The third one is still on his own, but he has two older sisters who have descendants, so I’m not worried about him. He can meet a nice townie, or adopt.

Saturday, I picked up my first bottle of fountain pen ink. I’ve had samples before, and cartridges, but having a whole bottle feels different. It’s a commitment. I am a Fountain Pen Person now. I was before, because I wouldn’t have had a need for the ink if I didn’t already have fountain pens in need of the same, but I have a bottle now, and a box that’s probably going to find itself, at least in part, stuck in an art journal, because it’s beautiful in its wornness. This also means I am going to have to buy some converters, and possibly a syringe (to refill the technically disposable Pilot Varsity pens I hoard like a dragon hoards treasure) but that is for another day.

Today is time to get pages of Her Last First Kiss ready for N’s critique. Tuesday is Wednesday this week, which does not help my disorientation regarding what day it is but I am glad to have the extra breathing room, to make sure I turn out the best pages that I can. Breaking the habit of holding back can be difficult, though I am up for the challenge. Hero and Heroine have to live out their story the way that it goes, and that means I have to write what happens in the movie in my head. If this means putting stuff on top of stuff, then I need to make sure that’s what I’m doing.

This weekend also brought a trip to the craft store, which meant Tim Holtz stuff is probably going to come home. This time, it was a canister with several rolls of decorative tape inside it. That’s two different tapes used in the frame on the pages above. This particular book had several false starts before I figured out what its true purpose was (my daily task list.) The original pages were too plain, even with the grid lines. Meh. Nothing to see here. Add some interesting borders, though, pattern on pattern, color on color, and now we’re talking. With two weeks left in my current morning pages book, I’m thinking I might consider taking an existing book with ruled pages and adding the interest myself, with tape and a few other mediums.

Which is basically what I’m doing with this draft of HLFK. The basic pages are there already. What they need are the extra touches that make this story unique. Time to climb inside Hero’s and Heroine’s skins and look at the world through their eyes. Sub out any other character for either of them, and we would not be having this story, because those different people would do different things. Those richly textured historical romances, dripping with atmosphere, are the things I love to read the very most, so they need to be what I put out there in the world.

I don’t like veering from schedule very much, but there are times, like this one, where even a smidge of breathing room comes in handy. That gives room to stretch, to observe, to pick out patterns, layer together things that might be two great tastes that taste great together, or they could be a colossal mistake. Thing is, with that breathing room, there is time and space for course corrections when needed. Time to move things around and make sure all is well with the fictional world. It’s not an excuse to slack off, but a chance to make sure things are done as well as they possibly can be done. At least that’s the theory. We’ll see how practice goes.

Typing With Wet Claws: Did Not See That Coming Edition

February 17, 2017annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. This week, Anty was very crafty with her picture taking. She sat on the floor, in the doorway of my room, while I ate, waited for me to finish, and then she took my picture. I was not prepared for that, but it did give room for me to play with adding graphics, so that is a good thing, even if I did not expect it. This week had some unexpected things in it, but before I can get to that, I have to talk about Anty’s writing first, so I will get to that right away.

As usual, Anty was on Buried Under Romance this week, and this time, she talked about the changing definition of Happily Ever After. Does that mean that the humans never have any problems because they are in love, or does the fact that they are together enough? Does it mean something else? What about Happy For Now? Anty’s post on that subject is here, and it looks like this:

Anty was also very excited to read her first Juliana Gray historical romance, because Miss Juliana is also Miss Beatriz. That’s Beatriz Williams, whose historical women’s fiction Anty loves, so she could not wait to see what the same author could do with an actual historical romance. She was not disappointed. You can read her review here, and it looks like this:

Now we get to the unexpected part of our post, but, since I already said in the title that things were unexpected, you probably expected that. This proves you are smart. I will start with the Anty part. If you read Wednesday’s post, then you know Anty did not expect to twist her ankle inside Panera, when she’d taken pains (see what I did there?) to avoid injury on her way to the place, but that is what happened. Thankfully, it was not a bad twist, and Anty did not even need the wrap on the second day, so it was not a big adjustment, but she is glad that writing involves sitting, and that her office chair is very comfortable. It is cat approved, by its previous owner, but not this cat. I still hate Anty’s office carpet and am trying to guilt her into having it taken out.

The other unexpected thing happened yesterday. Uncle got a phone call to come in to work ahead of his shift, along with everybody else. He was not expecting that, but he did suspect what it might be, and he was right. The company Uncle worked for closed down many of their locations in our region, and Uncle’s workplace was one of them. Nobody had expected that, but that is what happened. Uncle and Anty are not worried, because Uncle is smart and very good at what he does, and he has a plan.

Having a plan helps a lot when the unexpected occurs, which, Anty believes, one should expect. Emergencies and accidents very rarely give advance notice. That is why there is a backup bag of treats in the pantry, and I do know about the kitty laxatives they said we were all done with. Even though we all hope I will not need them again, in case I do, they are there. I should hope I would get one of those emergency treats afterward. But I digress.

Anty likes plans. She likes them a lot. Plans help her stay on track when the unexpected occurs. Get up in the morning, write morning pages, make task list for the day, do the things on the list. That stays the same no matter what happens. It is like an anchor that keeps a ship in place. Sticking to her plan yesterday helped Anty stay calm and trust that things are going to be okay even with Uncle’s big news. When it was time to work on Her Last First Kiss, Anty opened her notebook, got out her pencil, and figured out what the scene needed to make it better.

Plans also help Anty with her goals. Anty loves her sessions with Miss N and Anty Melva, and would like to make faster progress with each draft of these books. That means she needs to find a way of tracking what she is already doing and focusing on the things that will help her do it best. For some writers, setting a word count is very helpful. For Anty, not so much, but if she keeps track of different things about each session, then she can see the patterns emerge. What time of day is best for her (hint: that is morning, even if there are other humans around, so this may require leaving the house on some mornings) and worst (after 2PM, she gets sluggish, and do not ask her for anything between 9-10 PM unless you like to be snarled at; I,personally, do not.)

One thing that has worked for Anty in the past is setting a page count goal. She does not know how this came to be (much like how her electronics came to be pink whenever possible) but she and Miss N generally exchange six pages at a time each week. Anty finds that a comfortable amount to exchange, but she would like to step things up a bit. Maybe not shove a whole pile at Miss N at once, but we are past the initial draft here, and Anty’s story people are eager to meet their readers. It is her job to facilitate that meeting.

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

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

What if I Fall?

February 15, 2017annabowling 5 Comments

This week, N and Mr. N picked me up for the weekly critique session, so I wouldn’t have to tromp through the arctic tundra of the park, and risk bodily harm in the ice and snow. Good people, those Ns, but what actually happens? I twist my ankle on my way from microwave (occupational hazard of extroversion; food goes cold while blabbering, and needs to be reheated) to seat. I do not remember exactly what happened, but apparently, I was airborne for a second there.

I do remember my bagel getting some serious air and landing, thankfully, on the table, so no bagels were harmed, but my ankle is another story. My favorite Panera worker rushed over to make sure I was okay and had not hit my face on the table. I had not. I remembered enough to remove my boot in case of swelling (I saw none at the time, Housemate said there was some, when she got home that afternoon) and ask Panera Worker for an ice pack. Panera worker dashed into the back and returned with an impressive bag of ice, and the admission that they live with a nurse, so they know how to make these things. I propped my foot on an empty chair, plopped the ice bag atop it, and returned to bagel preparation. This particular ankle has been noodley since I was but a wee little princess, so this honestly was no big deal for me. Had worse, had wrap for ankle at home, had crutches if needed, I’m there, N is there, we have pages, let’s do this.

Since N and I have been doing this critique thing with each other for a while now, it’s no surprise that we’ve picked up on patterns in each other’s work. The word, “more,” comes up a lot. In Her Last First Kiss, Hero is an artist, and N and Mr. N are both artists, and one of Hero’s preferred mediums is one of Mr. N’s preferred mediums -I did not plan that, it happened that way, as such things sometimes do- so this is an extremely useful connection. In this scene, Hero is one gobsmacked fellow, unprepared for encountering Heroine for the first time, especially in the place and context, and he’s knocked off his axis by the experience.

N marked this passage as one of my “more” places. Hero needed to see more. Sure, it’s nice that Heroine has symmetrical features, but it’s more than that. Her hair isn’t only “brown,” but sienna and umber and the color a perfect cup of tea is before the milk goes in, and he doesn’t have all his paints with him, but he’s in London, so he’ll have to go buy them and he doesn’t have a painting room here yet and uh, what did the other people in the room just ask him? He wasn’t really listening. Oh crud, she looks impatient. How long was he off in art world? Stuff like that.

This is good. This is stuff I need to know, to bring Hero and Heroine’s story and their world to life on the page. It’s also scary. That lush detail stuff is what I love in historical romance. 1784 people are not 2017 people. They have a whole different frame of reference. Hero is always going to see in terms of lines first and then colors. Heroine is always going to want to make order out of chaos (and Hero is pretty much a whole lot of tall, ginger, misunderstood chaos on two legs) so that’s always going to affect the choices they make, and the windows through which they observe, and participate in, their world. This is why I go for emotionally complex historical romance over, say, funny contemporary (which is a whole other skill set.)

At the same time, it requires silencing (or at least muting) years of “whittle it down” and “make it simple” and “fast, fast, fast” and other commonly heard pieces of writing advice, some of which are not as well suited for this kind of story. There is no writing cabal that has hard and fast compulsories on this kind of things. To put it in terms Hero can understand, I get to color with all the crayons in the box. The good thing about that is that the combinations are endless; I can dive in, go nuts, put hot pink next to red-orange and scribble gray on top of the whole thing. I can work it so that the difference between blue-green and green-blue makes total sense, throw a neon in with a pastel if that’s what the particular picture needs.

The scary thing about that is also that I can go nuts. More combinations means more combinations that could go wrong, and what if “they” don’t like it? Oh, but, what if they do? Ships in harbors and all that rot. I’d rather take the chance than be safe. As Critique Partner Vicki once said, “intentionally go too far.” It’s easier to take out than to put in, very much so. So that’s what I’m doing now. Making notes on where I can do that whole “more” thing, and then moving along as though I had already made those changes. I’ll get those on the next pass. My goal is to get this book out in the world, on an editor/publisher’s desk, or on the road to indie release, before December.

Am I going to fall somewhere on that road? Yes. That’s not what matters. What matters is that I get back up, ice that twisted extremity, and dive in as deeply into the characters and their world as I possibly can. Kind of appropriate that my ankle twisted before the critique session began, in that regard. By the time Mr. N came to collect us, I was ready to see if I could put weight on my ankle (I could) and Panera Worker came back by our table with a big smile and a free pastry ring, to make the day better. I’m pretty sure not all rewards of keeping on keeping on in this writing game come with cream cheese and cherry filling, but, sometimes, they do.

Perspective

February 13, 2017annabowling 2 Comments

Yesterday, it snowed. A lot. I don’t have any numbers to track the exact measurements, but this is what the view from my stoop looked like around four in the afternoon:

Today, I am stuffing a ten pound cat into a two pound bag, timewise. Sunday afternoons are often used for errands that couldn’t get done when there were other engagements on Saturday, which is the case this week, since I had my CRRWA meeting. No regrets on that one, as I got to see friends, meet new people, and learn how to use social media more effectively (you are forewarned.) I also love snow, and no, I did not at all mind shoveling in front of our house, because that’s the grownup version of playing in the snow. It did, however, also mean that the emergency load of laundry I had planned on doing Sunday turned into the two emergency loads I’m doing today, which collide with the hunker down and whip chapter four into shape session I had originally planned for today. Something is going to feel the bite, because I have not yet figured out how to stop or expand time, and if that ends up being writing work, that, as well as the weather, may affect my plans for tomorrow morning.

That would not make me happy, as I love my Tuesday morning critique sessions, especially since we set a time limit on chitchat so that we can get down to the business of getting these books done. Life happens, however, and there are times when the sane thing to do is go to Plan B. Move the critique session to another morning, so we can have time to give our work some actual brain, instead of keeping one eye on the clock, which is prone to attracting Hypercritical Gremlins (mine have been largely silent lately, so I do not want to show up on their radar.) Postponing could also give me the chance to get some sleep (did not last night) because sleep is also essential for braining. Right now, I don’t know.

What I do know is that the time between laundromat trips is for getting this blog written and posted, for charging my phone, because I’m going to need it, and for getting all the handwritten notes for various projects in one place, so that they will be there when I get back from Laundromat 2.0. Right now, I feel crowded and overwhelmed, which I have lately learned is a signal that I need to step back,. reassess and then prioritize. Since lack of laundry would mean naked family, and this is winter in northern NY, nakedness is not a highly desirable option. Since lack of writing would mean lack of new book, that is not a highly desirable option, either.

Laundromat waiting time is good for reading (works toward my goal of reading more historical romance novels) and making notes in longhand (works toward progress on writing projects) so it is possible to do something while laundry is doing its thing. This is not the day I had hoped to have, but it is not the end of the world, either. I can do something. Maybe not everything, but something.

To the best of my knowledge, nobody ever spat out a four hundred page piece of popular fiction, that was both critically acclaimed and a fan favorite, plus provided the writer with a living wage, over the course of one morning, with no effort whatsoever, so that is not a realistic expectation. What is realistic is taking stock of what I’ve got on a particular day and doing what I can with it, to the best of my ability. Today, that means get this blog entry up, do laundry load #2, come back, work on as much of chapter four as I can, and, if it’s going to make me miserable and cranky and snappy and anxious, I have the option of giving myself, and my critique partner, more time.

On the one hand, posts like these are not always the kind I intend to write. On the other, sometimes, they happen. This is one of those. When I first moved Typing With Wet Nails to this new platform, it was with the intention of talking through the whole process, good, bad and ugly. Today, I feel rushed and crowded. Saturday, an idea pounced me before I could head off to my CRRWA meeting, so I scribbled down the bare bones. Later that night, I scribbled down a bit of muscle and connective tissue. At some other point, I will put those together in a file and very likely start a future ideas notebook, but, for now, my focus has to remain on what’s currently on my plate; Her Last First Kiss, the Beach Ball, and blog posts, here and elsewhere. Those are the essentials, even on double laundromat days.

Past Present Future

February 8, 2017annabowling Leave a comment

I had plans for this blog entry, took pictures of some of the tools of the trade I use every day, a clever trick I adapted from a notebook blog (which blog, though, I neglected to write down; ironic, that) and give a behind the scenes peek, as it were. What actually happened is that I somehow launched said pictures into space (okay, they are trapped in my draft folder) and it’s blog time, (also that I used the deskscape with a bunch of my paper things already, when I thought it would save the time of taking a new one) but the current desktop wallpaper is one of my very, very favorites (not quite Abbie and Ichabod level, but close) so let’s go with that for today’s theme.

Last week, after I’d finished my critique session with N, I got a text from Housemate, asking me what I was doing. Odd, that, because she should have been at work, and her work directly involves customer service, so sending “what are you doing” texts to household members during work hours is not exactly encouraged. Long story short, mental health day, and did I want to go out and do something? Since A) snow is my very, very favorite weather, and B) this is what it looked like outside at the time:

I took her up on her invitation. Remember the scene in Gilmore Girls, where Lorelai says snow is like catnip to her? Yeah. Same. Show me the white stuff, and I immediately have all the energy. am in a good mood and want to go do stuff. Preferably stuff that involves me going outside for at least a little while. We do not have snow today. We had some lovely gray clouds, and may get a snowstorm tomorrow, but I see sunshine outside my office window right now. I don’t like sunshine. I’ll consider this a lull between yesterday’s snow/rain and tomorrow’s snow.

Yesterday, I had another critique session with N, and came home energized, as usual. I made notes in my big daddy precious notebook

Paperblanks silver filigree journal, Maya Blue Grande

this time, with my nifty trick of drawing a line at top and bottom of each page -so the page isn’t blank anymore- in copper metallic marker -so it’s fancy; I love fancy- and then on to the next task on the list, bouncing the Beach Ball around, very much outside my comfort zone. I did have my doubts, and no, the scene was not perfect, but I sent it off to Melva; she’s my partner on this one, so she’s the other half of the writing of this book, and she can point out what needs spiffing. This was one of those feel the fear and do it anyway moments. I am learning to embrace those moments and steer into the skid.

Earlier this week, Rhonda Lane, one of my co-presenters for “Blogging Isn’t Dead,” and the brave volunteer to put together our Powerpoint presentation (I have never done Powerpoint, so this will be another new adventure) asked if I would like to feature one of my books in my part of the …um…intro…thingy…where…they…tell people who we are, or something like that. My first inclination was to say no, my books are too old, but then I pulled up my big girl panties and sent the cover and information for Orphans in the Storm. I love that book. I’m proud of that book. That was the best book I could write at the time, when life was in chaos, and would continue to be for several years afterward, and I still love Simon and Jonnet, and am honored to have been the one to help them along the road to their happily ever after. It also has my favorite cover of any of my books. I mean, look at this gorgeousness:

Cover art by Kathleen Underwood

Could I write a better book now, :coughtycough: years later? I certainly hope so. I’ve had a whole world more of life experience, some good, some bad, and I’ve written more, read more, taken in more information and influence and and and and…you get the picture. Do I plan on rewriting Simon and Jonnet’s story? Right now, no. They’re fine where they are. They’re happy. They’re good. That’s the beauty of writing a standalone novel; the happily ever really is exactly that. They’re together, they’re happy, they have an estate to manage, probably a gaggle of mini-thems by now, they have friends and family, and they’re better for what they’ve been through, even if they didn’t think that’s how things would turn out at the time they were actually going through it.

Would I like to revisit the seventeenth century at some point in the future? Absolutely. Right now, though, my focus is on the century that comes after that. I’m writing Hero and Heroine’s story, and there’s a seventeenth century tie to Guy and Girl’s story (not time travel; that’s a whole other kettle of fish) and I’m slowly gathering things I might like to play with for the next phase of the journey. That’ll get me where I need to go.

Typing With Wet Claws: Conference is Coming Edition

February 3, 2017February 3, 2017annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. This week, you get a greatest hits picture of me, because Anty’s mail server loves the picture she took of me this morning so much that it does not want to send it to her desktop and wants to keep it all to itself. We are now in the second month of 2017, which is probably my birthday month. When Anty and Mama found me at the shelter, the vet said I was about ten months old, which means, since that was December, I must have been born in February. Maybe I am even a Valentine baby. Anty thinks that would be fitting, and, since part of her job as a writer of historical romance, is figuring out what could have happened in the past, we are going to go with that. More on that later, because, first, I have to talk about Anty’s writing and where you can find it.

First, as always, Anty has her Saturday Discussion post on Buried Under Romance. This week, she talked about books that become movies, in reality, or in readers’ minds. That post is here, and it looks like this:

maybe Anty should put the funny pictures at the top of the post?

The next two links are kind of sneaky, because they are not whole posts, but posts where Anty helped at Heroes and Heartbreakers. First, like every month, Anty got to say what her favorite book of the month is, and, this month, it was a book she already wrote about on that site, which she liked very much. That post has recommendations from other H&H bloggers, too, so it is possible, in theory, to get a whole TBR list from one post alone. That post is here, and it looks like this:

The other link is really the sneaky one, as Anty did not write the quiz, (Anty loves taking this kind of quiz) one of the potential results comes from a post she wrote, about a hero she liked very, very much. So, though Anty is not in that post, one of her favorite characters is, so she thought I might like to include it in my post anyway. She was right. That post is here, and it looks like this:

Now that it is February, that means April is only a little bit away, and that means it is almost time for the NECRWA conference. Anty loves going to that conference every year. Sometimes, people tell her how much they like my blog. My blog. Let us spend a moment on that, if we may. As Anty once said, when a fellow writer asked her how she comes up with new ideas for her blog every week, the key is to get a cat to write one third of the blog posts. I do not know if that will be part of her “Blogging Isn’t Dead” workshop, which she will be co-presenting with Corinna Lawson and Rhonda Lane, but I would not be surprised if the topic came up at some point.

The approach of conference time means that Anty has some work to do, not only to get together with Miss Corinna and Miss Rhonda, to talk about what they are going to say (and who is going to say what, specifically) or connect with people she definitely wants to talk to that weekend (Anty is an extrovert, so basically everybody) or what she is going to wear, but really important stuff. I know what you are thinking, and we can cross the most important item off that list right now. Uncle will feed and play with me while Anty is away. Conference weekend means Uncle and Skye weekend, so it is a holiday for me, too.

The really important thing Anty wants to focus on this year is her own books. Since she has a first draft done of Her Last First Kiss, and she and Anty Melva are working steadily toward the end of the first draft of the Beach Ball, it is time once again for Anty to look at pitch sessions, and what she is going to say to any agents or editors she might meet at any part of the conference. Anty has never gone to a conference with a book and a half in the hopper (book and two halves, if she wants to count her post-apocalyptic medieval, which really only needs half a revision to be ready for indie or traditional publishing. Probably indie, though, because it is post-apocalyptic medieval, and those aren’t exactly thick on the ground these days. Or any days. Anty still loves the story, though.)

It’s been a while since Anty has had a pitch session, and, as much as she loves them (Anty thinks eight minutes of a publishing professional’s undivided attention is right up there with amusement parks, romance-only bookstores, and bottomless cups of Lapsang Souchong tea; let’s be real, if there were an amusement park that had a romance-only bookstore in it and served bottomless cups of Lapsang Souchong tea, we might never see Anty again.) getting ready for them is the nervous part. Anty has been in sessions where the other person has said “I love your sample, send me the whole thing” right away, and she has been in sessions where the other person has said “I don’t like stories that have Element X in them,” when Anty’s whole story is about Element X. Most sessions fall somewhere in the middle. Anty said I am not allowed to talk about the pitch session she had when she had been awake for three days straight, because that is when she gets into really punchy territory. That can be entertaining at home, not so much in a pitch session.

Since I am running out of room here, I will cut to the chase (please do not chase me; that would be scary) : it is time to hunker down and get stuff as ready as it can be, because one never knows when the other person might want the whole book, right now. It’s a magical time of year. Editors and agents go to these conferences for the specific reason of finding new writers and new books. They want to hear about what writers have to show them (but not in the people litterbox, please) so knowing what a writer wants to say about their books in advance is usually a good idea. This involves planning, and Anty loves planning, so I think she will be okay.

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

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

Declaring My Major

February 1, 2017annabowling 1 Comment

Later start on the blog than I had expected today, but that’s fine. I wrote two pages of a scene for Girl and Guy, from the Beach Ball, while at the laundromat, did some recon for an upcoming feature at Heroes and Heartbreakers (oh, the odious task of looking for outstanding declarations of love) and took a picture for the original concept of this post, which was going to be about my inability to resist pretty paper. Yes, the paper on which I write does have to be pretty, thankyouverymuch, and I am particular about it. Nothing wrong with having the right tools for the job. That almost works as a transition to the thought that hit me part way through my process of winding down yesterday evening.

We’ll skip the particulars of said winding down, as it happened in a room where the furniture is made of porcelain, but there I was, thinking of something entirely unrelated, and then the thought hit me: I’m focusing on the eighteenth century now. This should not have been a surprise. I wrote about that exact thing the day before yesterday. I jabbered about it at lunch with my BFF. I may or may not have sent thought waves out into the ether, because that seems to be a step in my process (much like my need to circle a scene and smash my head against a brick wall or two until I bust through) but it wasn’t until last night that it sank in that I am declaring a major here.

Back in another life, I majored in early childhood education. The most important thing I learned by studying that discipline is that I am not suited for early childhood education. If I ever master time travel and end up as a seventeen-year-old college freshman again (though, seriously, if I ever master time travel, my own seventeenth year is not where I would be going) I would strongly counsel seventeen-year-old me to go with her gut and major in drama, like I originally wanted to do. Declaring a major means deciding where the majority of my time and mental energy is going to be allocated. That decides what I study, how much I study it, and what things have to get moved to the side to give my main area of focus some breathing room.

For a writer, that means we are now in the realm of branding. As an advertising executive’s kid, I learned, from an early age, that how a thing is presented has an effect on how that thing is perceived. Writers need to let readers know what kind of story they can expect when they pick up one of our books. What kind of story are we going to tell them? In what kind of world is this story going to take place? For historical romance readers, in what era do these stories happen, and how much is the history going to affect the romance? All important questions, and all part of building a brand.

I am still a temporal nomad at heart (can we call this interdisciplinary studies?) I love a lot of periods. I have a rough draft of a Golden Age of Piracy romance, which may need to be two books (because I didn’t count on falling in love with my heroine’s parents in that one, and kind of want to play with them for a while) and a post-apocalyptic medieval romance (the Black Plague counts as an apocalypse – fifty percent of Europe taken out in a twenty year span? Totally counts.) and they will get written. I still want to write more seventeenth century, and I will. That dewy-eyed twenty-three-year-old hasn’t given up on the Tudor era, either, and I want to write in the Edwardian era again, but moving forward with a career plan means figuring out what kinds of stories I want to tell for the foreseeable future, and, last night, my brain told me what that was.

This is a good thing. Picking a major means focus. It means that eighteenth century romances get precedence on my TBR shelves. Not that I can’t read books set in other eras (hello, temporal nomad here :waves:) and a good story can be set anywhere, but, right now, seeing how others who have gone before me do what I am doing now becomes extra important. It’s picking a direction in which to travel, especially now that, with two WIPs viable to term, I’m looking at what comes next. I know the time in which these new stories will be set, so that settles that issue, an important one to writers who do love a wide array of settings. Back in another life, it was common for a historical romance author to write one medieval romance, then the next book might be a western, then a pirate story, then Gilded Age New York, then an Elizabethan, then Australian, then American Civil War, then…well, who knows? I would love for that sort of thing to come around again, and I hope that it does, but, for right now, picking a major and going for it is the smart move.

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