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,

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.

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.

And (Not Or)

February 6, 2017annabowling Leave a comment

It’s happening again. Monday, that is. It really shouldn’t feel like a surprise, as Mondays happen every week. That’s how it goes: Saturday, Sunday, Monday. It’s kind of a thing. I’m writing this blog entry because that is the top thing on my task list for today, and the plan is to get the things I know I can get done, done first, so that I have the bulk of my time to work on the stuff that’s going to need more attention. In this case, the writing of actual fiction. Today, I need to get the second draft of the scene in Her Last First Kiss, where Hero and Heroine meet for the first time, ready for my meeting with N tomorrow morning.

Over the weekend, I’d had a plan to get current on my rest (sleep has not been that great recently) and relax by reading (did some of that) playing Sims (did some of that) and organizing: making the part of my office that doesn’t show in my deskscapes look less like the wake of a tornado and more like a working office, sync all my paper calendars/planners so that they all have the same information, and leave room for tracking my writing output (I kind of did some of that. At least all my RWA chapter meetings are now listed on my office calendar.) All of those partial things were on Saturday. Sunday, however, turned into a family day. I am not complaining. I love my family; they are weird and have a lot of variables, and, at one point, we all ended up eating honey barbecue boneless wings in the living room (no, that is not correct, as Housemate was in her room, decompressing from her own weekend) and anything that ends in honey barbecue boneless wings can’t be all that bad, really. So, no, not complaining, but….

There’s always a but. The part of me that is forever an eight-year-old boy now snickers because but sounds like butt, and he is not wrong. Only one t, though (mmm, tea….) and here’s the thing: those buts can change everything. (One t, inner eight-year-old boy. One t.) Because I love to plan, and I get antsy if I don’t know what’s coming next, and because I am making progress in not one, but two novels, with a goal of being able to pitch either or both at the NECRWA conference this year, I need to know what’s going to happen after those books are done. With Beach Ball, it’s easy; Melva and I have already sketched out two more collaborative stories, and we look forward to writing those.

When it comes to straight-on historical romance, though, I am on my own. Since I’ve already talked about choosing a focus for this phase of the game, here and here, that gives me a general direction :salute: of where that “what’s next” is going to go. As my Aunt S often said, writing is a business, and, in the current market, linked books are the big sellers. Okay, then, I would like to be a big seller. I get the logic behind this, and I like a challenge. Trouble is, that my brain does not naturally think in series format (unless we’re talking multigenerational, but that’s a whole other story, pun intended, and we will deal with that later.) Hello, my name is Anna, and I am a unicorn; that rare romance writer/reader who honestly does prefer standalone stories. That’s how my brain works, so consciously building a linked story world is a challenge.

How do I face challenges? With organization. My plan for part of the weekend was to boot Scapple and slap down a bunch of things I love about eighteenth century romance; character types, locations, different eras within the era, names, tropes, etc, then see what connections my brain wanted to make. Not hard and fast, mind you, only something to get the wheels started turning. I have become a big proponent of “this book, now” – as in get this current draft done, and then we can think about what comes next, because I really do have to know what comes next, the same as I really do have to have pretty paper. That’s not bad thing, to know what tools one needs to do the job, and I will still make time later in the week to get that particular ball rolling in that particular direction.

I’m grumbly that I didn’t get to do that when I wanted to do it, but that doesn’t mean I missed my chance forever :flings overly dramatic arm over brow and swoons on fainting couch: As I learned when I took the leap of playing with the Beach Ball with Melva, new things don’t mean I can’t do the other thing. Co-writing a modern day (but historical-adjacent) story doesn’t mean I can’t write historicals anymore, and planning out a linked story world doesn’t mean I have to bury my beloved standalones in the cold, cold ground and wander the moors forever mourning my one true passion. It’s and, not or. I can do more than one thing without cancelling out that original thing.

How to wrangle it all into submission (pun unintended, but I will let it stand) – that’s another matter, and I’ll figure it out along the way. For now, time to make some tea and hunker down in century eighteen for the day.

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.

Eighteenth Century Love

January 30, 2017annabowling 2 Comments

There’s the way we think things are going to go, and then there’s the way they actually do. This is true both in writing and in life, and, when it comes to the writing life, it may be doubly true. Way back when, in another life, I was a dewy-eyed twenty-three-year old, opening her very first response from a publisher, I thought the response was going to be “oh my, what a wonderful book; can we please, please, please publish it? Here’s lots of money, send us another.” It was not. What I got was a professionally worded version of “you’ve got something, kiddo, but literally nothing happens in the pages you sent us. Please send us something else. Also, learn how to plot.” The “literally nothing happens” part hit me pretty hard, and I totally missed the “please send us something else” part.

Well, for a while, that is. The “learn how to plot” part happened through writing a lot of fan fiction, membership in RWA, and reading enough historical romance novels to build a small house, if stacked correctly. I pored over every issue of Romantic Times magazine as soon as I had it in hand, scrutinized which new releases caught my eye, and why; plot, character type, character names, author’s voice, and, the first thing I screened for every time I hit the historical romance section: setting.

Let’s go back to that dewy-eyed twenty-three-year-old for a minute. She was absolutely sure she was going to write oodles of books in her very favorite setting, Tudor England, because her all time favorite historical romance was (and, :cough: a few years down the road :cough: still is Skye O’Malley, (the book, not the kitty) by Bertrice Small. Second place is still held by Lovesong (and its two direct sequels, same hero and same heroine) by Valerie Sherwood.

my two favorite historical romance novels:

Neither of these books has an eighteenth century setting. Skye O’Malley is set in Elizabethan era Ireland, England, Algiers and the high seas. Lovesong is set in seventeenth-century Virginia, England, the high seas (see a pattern here?) and the Caribbean. So far, I have written one kind of sort of high seas story, Queen of the Ocean, set in sixteenth-century Cornwall, but it’s more of an on-the-shore story, as my heroine comes from a family of wreckers, and she and her hero don’t hit the high seas together until the very end. I dipped my toes into the seventeenth century waters with Orphans in the Storm, set at the end of the English Civil War. My very first book, My Outcast Heart, does have an eighteenth century setting, but it’s set on a small farm in Bedford, NY, a far cry from the glitter of the Georgian Court.

Her Last First Kiss gets closer, as it’s at least set (well, mostly) in London. I do a terrible job of staying in one place, setting-wise. In my heart of hearts, I am still a historical nomad, and fully plan to use a variety of settings (I must apologize to the Regency era for attempting to write in it, though. That did not go well for either of us.) but, lately, when I need to come up with a historical idea, my brain goes directly to Century Eighteen. In retrospect, I should have seen it coming, having spent my first ten years in a town steeped in colonial history, which had actually been burned to the ground by the British army during the war; yeah, think that imprinted on me pretty well.

I was an impressionable wee princess at the time of the Bicentennial, and eighteenth-century stuff was everywhere. My eyes naturally went to a certain look when I watched movies set in “the olden days” – lace and heels on everybody, including the dudes, ornamentation everywhere, powdered wigs (hey, they were hot stuff back in the day) and grand houses. When I was a teen and participated in a young artists’ program at Wesleyan one summer, we had a poetry workshop that had some eighteenth century poetry in the curriculum, and I, to this day, remember walking from dorm to the building where we young writers would meet every weekday, floating on the music of those old-timey words. Yes. That was right. That was how the voices in my head naturally spoke. Doesn’t matter what side of the pond they might be.

Fast forward to now, when Melva and I first started batting around what would eventually become the Beach Ball. It’s a contemporary story, set in the world of historical romance. When we got to the point where we had to pick a historical setting for the book within the book, I had absolutely no hesitation suggesting the eighteenth century. That came as naturally as breathing, and so there it was.

Thinking ahead to what’s next, as I’m working on draft two of HLFK and Melva and I keep bringing the Beach Ball to its conclusion, my brain is pretty darned comfortable in the eighteenth century for the time being. I am okay with that. Why does this period feel like home for now? That’s a good question. I don’t know that there’s any one right answer. I’m hoping that the Hamilton effect will ripple into historical romance, and hang out there for at least a little while (though I haven’t written American Revolution yet, and the one time I tried, I had tried to force certain aspects, and it fizzled, taking part of my spirit down with it.)

In the end, I’m going to go with “it feels right,” and leave it at that. If that’s where the stories are, that’s where the stories are. At least we’ll know where to find each other.

Waiting on Wise (Wo)men

January 2, 2017annabowling 2 Comments

Technically, it is still Christmas until January 6th, but it’s the first Monday of the new year, and that seems like the perfect time to jump back into the daily routine, beginning as I mean to go on. New year, new chances, and all of that. I like the idea of a clean slate. It fits into my clean sweep/more layers mindset, and now it’s time to draw from that well that the tucked-away week filled.

This time last year, I did not have a new planner to move into on the first of the year, and I don’t have one to move into this year, either, but for a different reason. This year, I picked up a seventeen-month planner (how have I managed to ignore these things until now?) so I moved into the new planner in the summer, and am starting the year off by using the stuffing out of this one. The pen for this book is actually a Sharpie liquid pencil (another thing I had no idea existed until recently) and, so far, it’s working. I have long since accepted that I am a planner. I want, even need, to know what I’m doing, and when I’m doing it. Then, within those boundaries, I can run wild. Hey, it works.

So, what does the new year hold? For one thing, lots of historical romance. Actually, that would be two things, as I mean both reading and writing my favorite genre. Last year, I set my Goodreads reading goal at fifty books. I actually read eighty-nine, so this year’s goal is ninety. I have one down so far, and should be finishing at least one more in the next day or two. The way I figure it, if I read two books each week, allowing two weeks for dry spells/rest/deadline crunches, I’m going to be sitting pretty in the reading department.

Writingwise, this is the year. The last ten have been a wild ride, which could be a book in itself, but I don’t write horror. What I do write is historical romance, and, with Melva Michaelian, historical-adjacent romance. Since I work best with regular feedback, it’s my responsibility to make sure I get exactly that. Today, I will work on the next draft of chapter two of Her Last First Kiss, which I need to turn in to N tomorrow morning. She, in turn, will have pages from her WIP to show me, and the plan is to read and comment on the spot. N asked me to bring printed pages rather than sending in email ahead of time. This is out of my comfort zone, as it will require me to A) figure out WTF is jamming my nifty awesome printer that will not print, or B) hie myself to library or office supply store to print on their devices. Probably B) and then A, but the point is that this is stretching, which is what I want.

Thanks to the RWA critique partner matching registry, I have a good lead on a historical romance critique partner. Not only do we share common interests within the genre, but in other things as well, and even prefer similar historical periods. Next step is exchanging sample chapters and seeing if we are indeed the good fit it looks like we may be, and then onward we go. If I’m being held accountable and receiving regular feedback, it’s a lot harder to tell myself nobody cares, or I’m not making a difference. Maybe the benefits of external validation have something to do with being an extrovert, maybe not, but this feels good. It feels right. It feels as though a piece of the puzzle that got knocked loose during the last ten years is fitting back into place. I like that.

While I was writing this entry, I got a notice I had new email, which, of course, I had to check, because A) I am me, and B) email fits into my social media time, and I am darned shooting sure going to stick to what’s on my schedule on the very first day of having said schedule (seriously, this planner works with the way my brain works, but more on that later.) What was said email? Notice that I had won a Fierce Cheerleading session with abundance coach, Eryka Peskin (who is super awesome, and if you have a chance to be in on one of her challenges, I highly encourage you to take it.)

This morning, I had another notice, on Goodreads, that a new group had been formed, dedicated to the love of historical romance and fiction set in one of my favorite eras, the seventeenth century. That’s the setting for my Orphans in the Storm, and one hundred percent a setting I plan to use again, maybe soon. That’s because my next goal, after finishing both Her Last First Kiss and the Beach Ball in 2017, I need to look farther down the road and decide what’s coming next. Sitting down in front of a blank screen doesn’t work for me, so that means I need to put some feelers out there and see what I’m going to be writing next, after these two couples find their happily ever afters. Because writing historical romance? That’s my HEA. Okay, that and Real Life Romance Hero, because he has truly earned the title, but this is the year to be a little (or a lot) less “Grace Kelly” (though the party in the video does look awfully fun):

and more in the spirit of this ditty below (language may not be for gentle readers or little ones in the room):

This year, I don’t feel a letdown at the end of the tucked-away week, like I have in the past. 2017 is the year I get to cross “present at NECRWA’s annual conference” off my bucket list, and I could not be in better company than my co-presenters, Corrina Lawson and Rhonda Lane. It is still Christmas until January 6th, what my father called Three Kings’ Day, which others may know as Epiphany, or the celebration of the wise men arriving at one very special manger. This year, my planner has “ornament harvest” where “take down tree” used to go, because, this year, I’m looking at the new season differently. I think I’m going to like the view from here.

Time After Time

December 21, 2016December 21, 2016annabowling Leave a comment

My original concept for this entry was to write about my adventures as a historical nomad, and that’s still probably where things are ultimately going. First, though, a slight detour. When I logged into Facebook this morning, it showed me my daily memory, a link to my first Hypercritical Gremlins post, here:

https://annacbowling.wordpress.com/2015/12/21/hypercritical-gremlin-interview-part-one/

Technically, it’s the Hypercritical Gremlins’ birthday. Okay, not technically, as they did exist before I gave them a name or a voice on my blog, but funny thing about that; giving them blog space took away some of their power. They’ve been mostly quiet of late, and I consider that to be a good thing. I finished my initial draft of Her Last First Kiss, and Melva and I are a good chunk of the way into the Beach Ball, so yeah, I think letting the gremlins out once in a while actually has some benefits. Happy Birthday, guys. I’d lob a cupcake into the closet for them, but A) I do not have any cupcakes, and B) if I did, I would not throw them into closets. Maybe a couple of pieces of hard candy will suffice. Spirit of the thing, more than the letter of it, and all that stuff.

Back to historical nomad-ness. Vagabondary? Whatever I want to call it, I’ve always been that way. When I was but a wee little princess, I lumped all historical eras into what my father called “the olden days.” I seriously thought that was how it worked, which was A) kind of confusing, and B) partially explains how it made perfect sense for me to reenact the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet with my Jane and Johnny west figures. I want to say I was maybe four? Five? At any rate, young. I grew up on fairy tales, and my dad’s strong interest in the 1920s. We lived in Westchester County, NY, where relics of the Revolutionary war were commonplace; stone walls built by the Dutch settlers still marked land boundaries, and the town itself had been burned to the ground during the war, but for one house (Can a historical romance writer hear that and not get ideas about why that one house was spared? No, she cannot.) and there is a fence around the Bedford Oak, which is more than five hundred years old and still hanging in there. Talk about living history.

We also made frequent trips into NYC, where the turn of the century (and prior) architecture still holds echoes of times long past. Not all that different from where I currently live, in Albany. A five minute walk will take me to Washington Park, where continental army soldiers drilled. The name, Schuyler, is everywhere, and yes, those Schuylers, Hamilton fans. I remember, once, when my mom levied the worst possible punishment (no idea what I did, but she had her reasons) for teeny me -I had to sit facing a blank wall and not talk to her for x amount of time- I was allowed paper and crayons (likely for her sanity more than my amusement) and spent my time figuring out what the planets would have been named if the names were taken from different pantheistic mythologies than what they were. This was entirely my own idea, and I was pretty heavy into mythology when I was in about first grade, so it was probably then. I remember asking her if there was any kind of grownup job that involved reading myths all the time, and she said no, there was not. Guess she forgot about “writer,” because that’s where I landed. Stories are, and always will be, my happy place, even if that place moves around a lot.

I popped my current paperback read, The Queen’s Christmas Summons, into today’s deskscape because of the sheer strength of the grabby hands I made at it as soon as I saw it on the shelves at Barnes and Noble. Standalone (as far as I know; if it’s not, please do not disillusion me; it’s Christmas, or nearly so, and I do love my standalones) Christmas Tudor Romance. Did Amanda McCabe (another historical nomad, as she’s written Tudor, Regency, and 1920s so far; must investigate further) read my diary? No, she did not, because I do not have one, but if I could have designed the perfect concept for the sort of book I was in the mood for when I went to the store that day, that would be it, to the letter. There may or may not have been happy dancing right there in the aisle. (Okay, there was.) The Tudor era was the first one I fell in love with as a setting for historical romance, and I chased after it like a madwoman. Not used a lot these days in historical romance (and whyever not, because it’s perfect for it, but that’s another topic) but I love it all the same. Ditto for a later discovery, the Stuart > English Civil War/Interregum> Restoration era(s,) which I touched on in Orphans in the Storm.

My Outcast Heart, my first published novel, is set in 1720 Bedford, NY, where I spent the first ten years of my life. and still a favorite place to visit. Queen of the Ocean took me to 16th century (technically, my first Tudor era romance; I did not even put that together until right now) Cornwall, and Never Too Late brought me to turn of the twentieth century (aka Edwardian.) England and Italy. Her Last First Kiss could be set nowhere else but Georgian England, which seems to be my current default, back to the era that surrounded me in my childhood, even if it’s on the other side of the pond. I still have my postapocalyptic (oh, tell me the Black Plague wasn’t an apocalypse to the survivors, and we are going to wrangle) medieval romance to finish editing, and I don’t think my historical travels are going to end there.

TLDR (too long, didn’t read) version: I love history. I love romance. I love historical romance, in all its various eras and places and tying myself down to one is not going to work. So, I don’t. Love is love, in any era, no matter how hard life might have been. Isn’t it in the hardest times that we need love the most? Must’ve worked, because we’re all here, so people did fall in love and make more people back in the olden days, or there wouldn’t be any contemporary folk. That whole “proof of a thousand loves” thing: I’m sticking with that.

Typing With Wet Claws: Happy Anniversary To Me Edition

December 16, 2016annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. This is a very special edition, because yesterday was my ninth anniversary of getting adopted and becoming a pet. I was ten months old when Mama and Anty came to the shelter to get me. I had been living there since I was six months old. Before that, I was wild, because I was born that way. I did not stay that way, though, because the rescue people found me when I got hurt by a car, and they took care of me until my humans could find me. I did not know what was happening on my adoption day. The rescue humans put me in a carrier, like when they took me to the pokey place. I did not want to go the pokey place and see a vet, but that is not what happened.

What happened was that Mama and Anty came to the shelter. They did not know I was already in the carrier, so they talked about how much they wanted to meet the kitty they were going to take home. They talked about how Olivia, their other cat, had gone to Rainbow Bridge, and how sad they were because of that. I did not want these nice humans to be sad, because that made me sad, too. I was already sad, so that means I got sadder, but the story is not over there (obviously, because you are reading this.) The rescue humans showed Mama and Anty where I was, and then they got happy, because of me. They asked if I wanted to come live with them and if they could call me Skye. I think my response was something like, “um, okay?” because I still did not know what was going on, but other humans who came to take kitties to that home place were always happy. Happy humans are my favorite kind. One of the rescue humans helped put my carrier in Mama’s car, and Anty called Uncle at his work to let him know I was coming home. She told him other things, too, like what kind of kitty I was (Maine Coon, which I still am) and what color I was (brown tabby) and that I had a ginger spot on my head (it is the only orange fur on my whole entire me) and that I was scared but still a good kitty.

Everybody was very patient with me while I got used to being in my new home. Anty even thought it was funny when I tried to nurse on her toe (Anty says we miss one hundred percent of the shots we don’t take) and now it is one of her favorite Baby Skye stories. She says that adopting me crossed “Christmas kitten” off her bucket list (maybe that is one of the reasons “Skye Bucket” is one of her names for me?) but being adopted by my humans crossed “get a home” off mine. It is a good home.

It does not, however, get me out of talking about Anty’s writing (she let me go first this week because it was my adoptiversary.) As usual, Anty has her post at Buried Under Romance to share with you. This week, she talked about romance novels and related items as holiday gifts (if you have gifts yet to buy for reading friends, books are good ones. Especially Anty’s. Anty gets really happy when people buy her books.) That post is here: http://www.buriedunderromance.com/2016/12/saturday-discussion-the-gift-of-romance.html#comment-9289 and it looks like this:

Anty also has a new post at Heroes and Heartbreakers, where she talks about six of the shippiest moments on This Is Us. Anty loves writing and she loves This is Us, so this was a fun piece for her to write. Is your favorite couple/moment listed? (My favorite moment was finding out that Clooney, the cat, was okay and even got extra pettings. I hope that was not a spoiler.) That post is here:

http://www.heroesandheartbreakers.com/blogs/2016/12/best-this-is-us-moments-of-season-one#comments and it looks like this:

But can we really feel too much? Really?

Another thing Anty wrote about this week was something that helped her pursue three goals at the same time: reading more historical romance, feeling more Christmassy, and writing more about what she reads. That is all because she read My First Noel, by Danelle Harmon, who is a favorite author anyway, (and a very nice human, even if she does have dogs and a horsie. rather than cats.) This book was Miss Danelle’s first time writing in the inspirational genre. Anty was all over that from the concept alone. Her review is posted here:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1839106619?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1 and it looks like this:

If you would like to see all of Anty’s reviews she posts on Goodreads, you can find them here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/8485744-anna?shelf=read. If you have read any of Anty’s books so far, and would like to write a review of them, or you are interested in reading them, you can find them on her “I Wrote It” shelf, which is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/8485744-anna?shelf=i-wrote-it. Anty would like to say thank you to all the new Goodreads friends she made this week. She is always up for more Goodreads friends, and has plans to make her “I Wrote It” shelf bigger in the coming year. I will keep you all up to date on that front, as I am very dedicated to my duties as a mews.

That is about it for this week, so I will give the computer back to Anty so she can play with her imaginary friends, and make more books for you to read. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,