A Camping I Will Go (NaNo style) And Other Tales

March 11, 2015March 11, 2015annabowling 8 Comments

I’m doing Camp NaNo this year.

I hadn’t planned on it. In fact, I’d planned on not doing it, because NaNo wordcounts give me the heebie-jeebies, and as I told the delightful Shannon Kauderer at today’s Saratoga Romance Writers meeting, tend to leave me in a fetal position under the dining room table, sobbing uncontrollably. Shannon reminded me that I can set my own word count for Camp NaNo, even zero, and that the moral support, which is what I’d liked about NaNo in the first place, was the main point. So, this year, I’m camping. Also, Shannon has mermaidy green curly hair and charm for days, so that may have had something to do with the fact that I am now officially signed up. Not focused on word count; it’s all about the story for me.

ready to work

Good thing, that, as Shannon, the regional municipal liason for NaNoWriMo (and camps) was the guest speaker, presenting her workshop on the Snowflake Method of plotting. I’ve taken this before, when Shannon presented at CRRWA, then, as now, with the delightful SueAnn Porter as my companion, so I knew what I was in for, and surely, I’d whip through this, no problem, be all set to charge forward.

Not exactly. The first step, creating a one sentence description of one character’s journey, had me stymied at first. Lots of writing, lots of crossing out, lots of squeezing in teeny tiny words above those crossed out lines, and I finally came up with this:

A disreputable rogue finds the love of a lifetime in the one woman he can never have — his best friend’s mistress.

Hm not half bad there. Okay, the meeting itself went rather smoothly. I felt right at home in the, warm, welcoming and professional group, and definitely plan on visiting again. I am not only saying that because I won the drawing for these lovely blooms right here:

Free flowers, that’s how to welcome visitors.

It was when SueAnn and I hit the parking lot that things got interesting. Flat tire. SueAnn figured we could limp along to the nearest service station, but reversed her decision and direction and we headed back to the parking lot. There was a quick fix kit in her trunk, which we both gave the old college try, but the green sludge in the squeezy bottle refused to go into the actual tire.

actual green slime

In my family, the words “dripping green slime” are a way of expressing barely contained anger, but there was none of that as SueAnn and I waited for AAA to show and swap flat tire for spare tire, which turned out to be the smaller donut sort. With weather thankfully warm for the day, we waited as only writers can – picking apart bad endings to good movies and TV shows, and fixing them. By the time AAA did show, we had a couple more stops before I could head home and charge straight into writing.

at least we tried

Adventure over? Not a chance. SueAnn wanted to get the real tire fixed and back on, which makes sense as she’s off on another adventure with Mr. Porter after she drops me off at home, so we had a short detour to the place from which her tires originally came. There, we met an individual SueAnn has asked me to dub “Ridiculously Handsome Tire Guy.” We do not have a picture of Ridiculously Handsome Tire Guy, but SueAnn put him at “Derek Morgan level” (Shemar Moore in Criminal Minds) found herself distracted enough to momentarily forget how to speak English, which she assures me is indeed her native tongue (but sorry, SueAnn, “tire” and “photograph” are not synonyms, no matter that the gent in question seemed to catch her drift even so) and drop her purse. Somewhere out there, she’s sure, a romance novel is missing its cover model.

ridiculously handsome writer’s dog

Quick stop by Chez Porter to feed Bailey and make sure he got to :ahem: visit the great outdoors (and pose for a photo op) and then time to brave the traffic to drop me home. What do I do immediately upon arrival? Yep, head for they keyboard. A day spent talking writerly things gets me excited to go home and put all that theory into practice. The more I live with that one line blurb, the more I like it. Should be a fun time at camp this year.

Update: Flowers now exiled to office, as incessant sneezing makes me suspect I may be allergic. Balcony door now open to let in the evening air as I snuggle under a blanket to further explore story doings.

Remembering Bertrice Small, Part Three: Beyond The Pages

March 5, 2015annabowling 5 Comments

The most vivid memories I have of Bertrice Small aren’t between the pages of her books. While there are others who knew her far longer and far more intimately than I did, these are the memories that come most to mind.

Bertrice Small was my very first phone call. I was three days old, newly brought back to my parents’ New York apartment from Viriginia, where I was born. Their way of letting close friends know they had adopted me was to put me on the phone, and, as Aunt Sunny herself told me, she was the first. Her exact words to my mother, were, according to her, “Oh my God, you stole a baby,” then delighted laughter when my mom assured her it was a legal adoption.

Okay, not technically my memory, but that was so completely Bertrice that I had to share it. Her voice is the most calming voice I have ever heard in person, and she was the first person I called when my father was taken off life support. I didn’t have to say anything; she said “it happened, didn’t it?” and we shared the moment, together. Those two phone calls alone could serve as memory enough. Bertrice Small was, beyond a pioneer in her genre, a true matriarch who could give any of her heroines a lesson or two (and she did) but the more time I spend on the matter, the more examples spring to mind. Photographs, alas, are currently in storage, but the memories can come at any time, and my copy of Lost Love Found will always have an extra special meaning, on more than one level, so I’ll let that suffice.

To me, this book will always symbolize friendship, not because of Valentina and Padraic’s story (which I love) but because of the friendship attached. Bertrice had originally wanted her dear friend, Elaine Duillo, to illustrate that cover. Unfortunately, contractual obligations made that impossible, and another illustrator friend, Robert McGinnis, stepped in to provide the cover art. I wish I could remember the entire story, because it was a good one, but I remember the animation in her voice and the spark in her eye when she told it. I do know that her covers sparked my ongoing interest of the works of both illustrators, different styles but equally talented.

My copy came to be courtesy of Nancy, a family friend, with whom I was spending the day. I insisted we stop in a bookstore because Lost Love Found would be out and I had to touch a copy, though I didn’t have the cash on me to buy it yet. It was there, and I plucked it from the shelf and read the first few pages. Put it back with a sigh of regret. Picked it up again and stroked the cover. Nancy, kind soul, bought it for me because it was clear the book and I had bonded, even though she didn’t read romance herself. A very Bertrice-like thing to do, and all the more special because Nancy passed away shortly after that. Now, when I reread or even pet the cover, it feels like they’re both there with me still.

It’s difficult to pick out the personal memories to share. As any two people do, we had our differences over the years, and navigating a child/adult relationship as it turns to teen/adult and then adult/adult is going to have some bumps in the road, but if I had to say only one thing about Bertrice Small, the person, it would be this: her heroines would be proud. I remember that calm, yet lively voice, telling family stories with as much imagination and care as any of her novels, doling out much needed advice and opinions, making command decisions when they were needed most and showing me that it was, indeed, womanly to be smart and strong.

Comfort Food

February 16, 2015annabowling 6 Comments

Some days start out with a four page to-do list and end up with comfort food.

This is one of those days. Two dear friends have beloved mothers in the hospital, at the same time, in different states, and I can’t be with either of them, though I’d love to be with both. One expects to get her mom settled back into her own home by the end of the week, and the other, oh, my heart aches. I don’t even want to type it.

Real Life Romance Hero was home today, both of us drained and cranky and concerned for our friends. We made grilled cheese and tomato soup and hung out in the kitchen, discussing food and film and baking lemon poppyseed quickbread. He advocated greasing the pan when the directions didn’t call for it, and dumping the excess butter in the batter, both of which ended up happening. Dinner will be Chinese delivery or meatloaf and his homemade mashed potatoes (that would be Real Life Romance Hero’s mashed potatoes. I don’t know if Meat Loaf makes mashed potatoes or not, but if he does, that would be fitting.)

Prior to the comfort food, I shoveled the walk, for the third time in twenty four hours, and, also for the second time in twenty four hours, hauled a load to the laundromat. Not my first choice of activities after said shoveling, but A) it’s February, B) we live in Upstate New York, and C) I was out of socks and long sleeved shirts. So, laundry had to happen.

Today’s workplace

The smaller pad, next to the Diet Coke can, ended up with a four-page to-do list, which I informed Real Life Romance Hero about upon my return. I told him also that Plan B was to say “forget all that and watch movies.” Because sometimes, we have to. Our bodies are tired. Our heads are full. Our hearts are heavy. This is one of those days, and I do have Revolutionary Road, which I know darned well is going to be gorgeous and tragic all at once, waiting for me. I haven’t cracked it open yet, because that’s the way the day has gone.

That four page to-do list? There are going to be a lot of arrows on it. Arrows, in my lists, mean carry over to the next day. Because there will be one. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my time on this planet, it is that. Carrying things over from one to-do list to another doesn’t surprise me. What does surprise me is the way I accepted that today. Okay, not going to get All The Things checked off today, but did have a good hangout in the kitchen with Real Life Romance Hero, got to warn him not to touch the food until I’d photographed it, and had a much-needed break where we got to discuss Things That Are Important (friends’ mums, what both of us are doing with work these days, how the deep freeze outside affects our plans for the week) and Things That Are Not (current movies neither of us want to see, things we each read on the interwebs, how to share a single order of silver dollar pancakes and what side dishes there should be with that.)

We’re in a lull now, him doing dishes in the kitchen, and me under an afghan in the comfy chair, Spotify open and tuned to one of my story playlists, inspiration picture open in another window. We’re both waiting for the quick bread to cool (he calls it “a dirty tease” that there is an in-pan cooling period and an out-of-pan cooling period.) He’s puttering and I’m…writing.

It strikes me funny that, when not so long ago, trying to write meant me smashing my head against a brick wall for hours at a time, and now, when I’ve given myself permission to take a day off, I’m diving into my fictive world because that really is where I want to be, when I can be anywhere. To have the WIP be the place to go for comfort and rest, that’s a pretty good thing. I will take that, and gladly.

View from the laundromat

Duluth, Part Three

February 11, 2015annabowling 2 Comments

You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

–Eleanor Roosevelt

Here, on this lovely not-currently-snowing day, we bring the Duluth trilogy to a close. In case you missed them, part one is here, and part two, here. These all came about in the throes of writerly angst, when getting anything, even an incoherent brain dump, on the page felt like an insurmountable task. Obviously, that wasn’t permanent, but boy, did it feel like it at the time.

Duluth, pt 3

Since a writer’s work is, literally, all in their head, (and yes, I know I’ve drifted from the original topic of this post, but I don’t care; I’ll bring it back around) the upside is that there will be far fewer needles and surgical procedures involved in the writer’s recuperation, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less exhausting, aggravating and even painful. It’s neccessary, though, because writing isn’t something one can turn off. If you are, you are, and if you aren’t, you aren’t. While it is possible to be a writer who doesn’t write, as in someone who is genetically predisposed/hardwired/whatever term you’d care to use, who does not choose to exercise that ability, they aren’t the easiest people to live with and trust me, they’re not having a good time. It’s like trying not to breathe.

There’s the want. There’s the need. The how, however, that’s a different story, pun intended. Trust me, it’s easier to maintain a full creative well than to refill it. Ever try to fill an empty swimming pool using your kitchen tap? Whether it’s hooking up the garden hose so that one end is in the sink and the other in the deep end, or carrying buckets with or without the help of family members. it’s going to take a while. A long while. By that time, it’ll be too cold to swim, so what’s the point? Nope, better to call one of those trucks from the pool company and have them all dump it in at once. That, for the writer, is reading. A lot. In genre, out of genre. Books. Magazines. Backs of cereal boxes. Posters on the coffee house wall. Junk mail. Actual paper letters (really, send a writer one of these and they will love you even more.) Ebooks. Forum posts. Graphic novels. Library books. Closed captioning on movies and tv shows. Read read read read read read read until it’s not possible to hold any more.

Like with the pool illustration, if the creative well is empty, it may take a LOT of reading, a lot of taking in story in all its forms (movies, tv, plays, dance, computer games with a storyline or character development, etc.) It gushes in and in and in and in and in and in….that’s our transfusion. Next comes the physical therapy. Writing. Actual writing. I’m not going to say words on the page, because that phrase, I am pretty sure, was the piano that dropped on me, personally. Or maybe the pigeon that pooped in my eye when I looked up to see if the piano bench was going to fall, too.

At any rate, this stage of recovery means that there has to be actual writing. Meaning stuff in the writer’s head has to go someplace where it is possible, at least in theory, for somebody else to see it. Whether or not they actually do is not that important at this stage. For those who have a hypercritical gremlin in their head, jumping up and down and screaming “yes, it is!” it is okay to smack that gremlin with a copy of Outlander. If our writer had been in a physical car accident, do we expect them to crawl out of the wreckage and run a marathon? I’m thinking not.

What happens at this stage is spewing out everything that’s in the writer’s head, because even while the well is filling with good stuff, the bad stuff still has to come out. I’d say expressing pus, but that’s gross, but I also am taking advantage of this time to smack my hypercritical gremlins, so yes, it is at times like expressing pus. Bad stuff out so there’s room for the good stuff to come in.

Somewhere in the middle of all of that, things will begin to balance. The writer will get back in touch with why they accepted the invitation of all these people who live inside the writer’s head. The type of story, the type of character. They will get their voice back. They will fill notebooks and flash drives and whatever other method of storing data modern technology comes up with in the time between writing this and someone else reading it. Some of it is going to be venting. Okay, a lot of it is going to be venting. it’s going to be rough and confusing and attract hypercritical gremlins like blood in the water attracts sharks. Keep going. Because at some point, the balance will be reached. (Yes, that is passive phrasing, and no, I do not care, because hypercritical gremlins get my boot in their butt at this stage of the game.)

Up and down the steps. Up and down and up and down and up and down and then one day, without thinking about it, without planning to, without advance approval of the physical therapist, the writer takes the stairs instead of the ramp back to their room (or more likely, the vending machine on the third floor because that’s the one that has pub fries and gummi bears) – well looky there, stairs. Bunches of them. Climbed up and climbed down and the world did not end. Time to go back home and get back to business. And find directions to Duluth.

Duluth, Part Two

February 10, 2015annabowling 3 Comments

Mostly, you probably need to go deeper. Deeper, deeper, deeper. You should know everything there is to know about your characters and your settings.
–Barbara Samuel

I had a post all planned out for yesterday, but a deluge of the white stuff wiped that all out, so instead, hopping in the wayback machine to continue my Duluth post:

Sometimes, a girl (or guy) has to read. For girls (and guys) who write, that goes double. Not that it’s less important for those who read for pleasure only, because it’s certainly up there on the list of crucial things for maintaining life, along with breathing, food, water, rest, shelter, all that stuff. It should be noted that a decent bookstore or coffee shop should have all of the above, which is why I recommend visiting both as often as possible, but I digress.

The importance of reading for the writer goes double because it serves a double purpose. For most readers, reading is a break from everyday life. I say break, not escape, because when I close the covers of a book or power down my reader, the bills are still due, health isssues are still there, somebody still doesn’t get along with somebody, etc. I have to go back to what others may call “real life” but it’s with the knowledge that I carry some of the story I have read with me, and I can go back to it, or the next one, in the near future. It carries me through. True enough for all readers, but for those who write, we need to gorge, because we’re going to spew it all back out.

Seen those bumper stickers that say “no farms, no food?” We saw a good deal of them in the town where we used to live, as we were close to farm country, and it’s true. In the same way, “no books, no writers” could apply. Before any of you say it’s not the same, or ask if it shouldn’t be the other way around – “no writers, no books” – let’s put that aside for the time being.

Remember, whether you are reader or writer, that first book that invited you in. I say invited rather than sucked, because, unless there was a gun to your head or a rabid gorilla smacking his fist standing behind you, you had the option of putting the book down…but you didn’t want to. Staying with that book was an act of will. The rest of the world was going to have to wait, because what was in that story was more important.

Writers have to be, consistently, at that place where we can generate stories we hope will have that effect on people. While there are times when writers do the “just one more chapter and then I’ll stop” thing when at the keyboards (and we all want to be at that phase most of the time, I’m pretty sure) there are other times when we need to take in before we can put out.

Life, for anyone, can be exhausting. Things are going to happen. Natural disasters, injuries, illnesses, a sudden diagnosis when a loved one goes to see a doctor for something and then it turns out to be something else, which affects the entire family in ways nobody ever expected. New friends come. Old ones go. Sometimes, they come back, but it’s different than it was before. Work is crazy. Work is gone. Annoying situations grow to a point where they become unbearable and then every fiber of one’s being, every hour of every day, is focused with pinpoint accuracy on that one detail because nothing else can happen until that particular monster is penned and dispatched to the great beyond.

Now, do all of the above, in one year, and then put out a book, damnit. Preferably more than one. Oh, and be happy about it. Yeah, right. If it worked that way, cupcake, I would hop on my sparkly pink, winged unicorn and gallop through the clouds to Mount Olympus where I could have tea with Scarlett O’Hara, Darth Vader and the entire cast of Lost. (by which I mean the characters, not the actors) It doesn’t. Think of a series of life disruptions all happening basically at once like a car versus pedestrian car crash.

There the writer is, minding his/her own darm business, walking along and having mental conversations with imaginary people, when WHAM! Hit from behind. Get up. What happened? WHAM! Hit from the front. Well, okay, maybe I can get out of…WHAM! Sideswiped. Wham! Wham! Whamwhamwhamwhamwham! Before you know it, it’s a ten car pileup, and then, for no apparent reason, a piano drops on top of the writer like it’s a Looney Tunes cartoon.

We’re going to have some bruises here. Some blood loss. Some broken bones. Unless medical science has made dramatic advances in the last five minutes, we do have the technology and we can rebuild him/her, but not in an instant. Nope, it’s going to need a transfusion and bandages and some surgery most likely, and after that, after alllllll of that, we start the physical therapy. Not anyone’s idea of fun (except for masochists, and for them, hey, let them have their moment) but neccessary if the writer is ever going to get out of that bed and back to the land of the living.

Think of it as climbing up and down those same three steps in the physical therapy room. They don’t look like they’re going anywhere at first sight. In fact, they can be easily picked up and stashed in a cabinet at the end of the day, and by the tiniest of nurses, too. But up and down them a zillion times a day for however many days, and know what happens? Our writer is finally cleared to go home, the medical staff confident that he/she can traverse the three steps onto the front porch, and more than that, the thirteen steps that connect downstairs to upstairs. Time for a return to business as usual.

To be continued…

Obligatory snow picture

From The Trenches

February 4, 2015February 4, 2015annabowling 2 Comments

I’d meant to have this post up Monday. Then there was Sunday’s snow, Real Life Romance Hero and I both adjusting to not being sick, all family members being home at the same time, and computer issues, and I cannot tell you for the life of me what my original topic was. Really no idea on that one. I have a note somewhere that says “longhand,” but that could be pretty much anything. So today, you get my rambles. Also some assorted pictures that I have no idea what they were originally taken to illustrate. Let me throw them up here and see if I remember.

Okay, here’s one. First cup of tea after cold sore scab dropped. Apparently freedom tastes like cinnamon and star anise. I grabbed that tea bag at random from what we call the orphan jar,. where various teabags go when the rest of their box has been dispatched, were picked up at other venues, received as gifts, etc. Though I haven’t actually played Tea Roultette (you drink what you pick) formally as of yet, it is always a possibility in our house.

Skye’s notebook, surprisingly good pen found at the dollar store. Starbucks mug, because I needed a BIG cup of tea.

Snow:

Snowy Sunday. Cars totally buried, oh the fun.

I put these guys in the front window:

A polar bear, a teddy bear, and a bat live across the street from a bar…

Workspaces:

I trudged out in the whirling white on Sunday, in desperate need of human contact (apart from the human contact I live with; there’s a difference) and broke in a new padfolio. Ivory paper, not white, not yellow. Ivory. Lots of blabber, lots of tea, listened to RWA talks from last year’s Nationals; not bad for a snowy afternoon.

I’d forgotten about the cookie. I think it was pumpkin.

This sign was on the counter where I wrote. I only had a legal pad, so I’m good.

Have I shared this art before?

I like sitting at the small counter facing this window when I write longhand at the coffee house. There’s something about having my back to the world,. a view of art, raw brick and the world outside -best when it’s snow or rain, and there was plenty of snow on Sunday- that feels very comfy and creative.

Today:

Displaced chessmen

There’s a table in the coffee house that has a built in chessboard and Risk board, both very cool, and usually, the chessmen are in place, but, today, they were on a field trip to another table. I think they look like they’re having a fine time.

Do I have any better idea now what I was going to blog about? Nope, but I’m still here. My brain may be mush for anything apart from fiction writing at present, but that’s not entirely a bad thing. Sometimes entertaining for family and friends, but the spaciness is actually a good thing. It means my head is in that story space I’ve wanted it to be in for longer than I would care to admit, and I can’t begrudge that.

Throwback Thursday: Daddy’s Girl?

January 29, 2015January 29, 2015annabowling Leave a comment

I don’t have a date for this book cover, Dad is no longer with us, so I can’t ask, but Amazon says the book was published in 1962. That’s definitely in the pre-Anna days, when I was not yet a glint in my biological father’s eye.

Since I’m adopted, I don’t share any DNA with my father, Rudolph J. Carrasco, but one place where we always had a shared interest was art. Dad was always a working artist through my entire life, both in the commercial field (family friends say he did several book covers around the same time he did Party of Dreamers) and his own original art. As a very small child, I remember seeing him paint over a family portrait of our neighbors (the parents had emigrated from Scotland, which may have been an early contributor to my love of the UK) and not understanding what he was doing, but fast forward a few decades, and we call that mixed media art now. I’ve slapped paint over more than a few pictures myself in my day.

Since the statute of limitations is likely over by now, I can freely confess to sneaking into his studio as a wee sprog and making off with his supplies, always careful to put them back exactly where I found them (paper excepted, and I always remembered where the good stuff was.) I asked him for art instruction. He declined. That may have been for the best, as my taste and his didn’t have a lot of common ground, but, in his later years, he loved when I brought him art magazines while he had hid dialysis treatments, and asked to keep a special issue of Somerset Studio devoted to color theory. Though we had our differences, some of them large, I’m glad we had art in common.

Sicko, pt 2

January 28, 2015annabowling 2 Comments

If I can’t blend in, I may as well be who I am.
–Rainbow Rowell

Two days ago, I ran out of socks. The list of things I want most in life is as follows, in constantly shifting order:

Tea
pizza
orange juice
soup
full use of my entire mouth, including but not limited to :
- ability to wear lipstick again :pets lipsticks:
- ability to brush teeth without having to work around large dome-shaped crust on lower iip.
- expressions of affection to Real Life Romance Hero

Please note that “socks” is not on that list because I dragged myself out to the laundromat this morning and did a load, while listening to recordings from last year’s RWA Nationals. Also free writing while doing both of the above. Even under the weather, multitasking makes me happy.

This post was originally going to be another dip into the archives, with a continuation of my Duluth post, but it’s a big file and would need to be split into two posts, and I’m cranky. See item #1 on the list above. So, instead, I’m going to ramble.

Today’s quote comes from the fabulous Rainbow Rowell, and it fits with my current area of self-directed study. Today’s picture comes from my write-in with SueAnn Porter on Monday. Since we both compose in longhand, we left the laptops at home and instead brought our notebooks. SueAnn worked with one. I brought three, because my brain was all scattered, unfocused and prone to wandering off without me.

SueAnn suggested that our first writing sprint would be brain dumping, which I sometimes call bloodletting, spewing whatever is in my head onto the page. That went in the black hardcover Picadilly, and I’d planned to use my black Pilot Varsity fountain pen for that exercise, but pen had other ideas, and my first page has a small, interestingly shaped blob of ink in the middle. I ended up using a different pen.

Note the absence of tea and presence of a can of seltzer with a straw sticking out of it. The cookie, though labeled as “cookies and cream” was actually red velvet (thank you, Jess-the-Barista, for clearing that up; red velvet makes anything better) and ended up coming home with me, because with the writing and the talking, some things have to take a back seat.

The Abbington Park notebook did not get used in this session, as SueAnn suggested I face my hesitation about working on Her Last First Kiss by doing some character work . Maybe, she suggested, I’m balking at this particular jump because the themes strike too close to home. There is some truth to that. Granted, I do not live in the eighteenth century, am not a member of the nobility and Real Life Romance Hero and I have been happily ever aftering for some time now, so my love life is not as tumultuous as my characters’ romantic prospects.

The thing, though, is that, without knowing it, I had seeded this book with some personal issues. Not fitting into one’s family of origin? Yep, know that. Caregiving? Know that, too. This book isn’t about me; it’s about my hero and heroine, and those really are their issues, and it would change the story into something else entirely were I to take those aspects out and give my people other hurdles to overcome. Well, okay, then. Guess we’re doing this.

Knowing what the roadblocks are doesn’t make them go away, but it does make it possible for me to look at them head on and see how to climb over or dig under them. It’s not a bad thing. Part of that wandering around in the forest time was spent trying, often too hard, to write things to which I did not have a close personal attachment, and that went down in flames, so going to the other end of the spectrum seems like a logical step to take.

Maybe it’s a good thing SueAnn and I had this talk while my brain took frequent mini-vacations without me, because at the end of most of our sprints, I had pen (blue Pilot Varsity) in hand, scratching across the mottled ivory of the page, spelling out how my hero got from adorable cherub child to grown man with seriously warped self image, and responded with, “Really? Already? Are you sure?” and kept making a few more quick notes. Not a bad outcome, that. We’re going to have to have more write-ins like this, but next time, the cold sore is not invited.

Sicko

January 26, 2015annabowling Leave a comment

For most of the last few days, I have been a lump under the blanket in the recliner. On Thursday night, I felt a suspicious tingle on my bottom lip. I’ve had enough of those to know what that meant: cold sore.

I hate cold sores. They’re painful. They’re ugly. They sap my energy. They present a lot of complications for a lipstick loving tea drinker who was looking forward to pizza on Friday night. Until the scab drops, it’s goodbye to all of that and hello to ibuprofen and ointment and a brain whose new hobby is flitting off without me. In a word, not fun. Okay, those were two words.

Because I am me, the need to rest took a while to sink in. Friday, I did laundry and then hied myself off to the local CVS because all the ibuprofen in our house had expired last month. Saturday, I decided that I was feeling up to running the weekly errands with Housemate. I found out fairly quickly into that trip that I was not. I take some comfort in knowing I was mildly entertaining, and that I did have the presence of mind to replace toothbrush and two out of three lip products.

The adventure of Saturday errands over, I retreated to my recliner and blankey, played the Sims 4 game time demo until I’d exhausted the time allotted (will probably get the game with the next computer, but it’s a bit much for the current machine, as well as a more cartoony game than I generally like) watched DVDs, napped a lot, and wrote.

Today, I’m venturing out, ahead of the big snowstorm barreling our way, to meet SueAnn Porter for a write-in. I’m going to miss the tea, mightily, and spend my time sucking seltzer or iced tea, if I can make myself order that when it’s eleven degrees out and we will be buried under a blanket of white by nightfall. I have no idea what I’m actually going to be writing today. Hopefully something Her Last First Kiss related, but if it ends up as freewriting or something else, that’s okay, too. I’m allowed a partial sick day.

Even when I feel like horse poop that’s been crushed by a steamroller, there’s still that part of me that wants to drag out of the energy-free sludge and head off to story world, because that’s my natural environment. So, the HLFK notebook goes into my bag, along with a fountain pen, because writing with those always feels like a special treat, and I’m going to give it a go. Total crash time afterwards, at least until it’s time to recap tonight’s Sleepy Hollow, but tomorrow could be a sick day and a snow day at the same time. Which I will probably spend writing. There could be worse things. Not being able to have hot chocolate while having a sick day and a snow day at the same time may be one of those, but I think I will live. There is something to be said for anticipation.

Throwback Thursday: Duluth, Part One

January 22, 2015annabowling 2 Comments

I sometimes forget the lessons of my past. We all have them. But don’t worry they come back to remind you that your journey isn’t over.
-Adrian Paul

I normally don’t do Throwback Thursday, but blogging three times per week is one of my goals, and since I am not going to show up at my next CR-RWA meeting (especially because I will be the speaker) on February 14th and say I did not meet my goals (if I make a goal public, I will meet that or die trying; it’s something I do) and because Sue Ann Porter has a way of encouraging me, today, you get to hop in my wayback machine.

The year was 2013, our family newly arrived in Albany, my writer brain in a constant state of shock and caught between projects. I had only recently discovered the joys of Hudson River Coffee House, where I am writing this entry. On this particular day, date lost to the wilds of time, Housemate banished me there after one of my mild freakouts (“What on earth am I doing, thinking I can write anymore?” variety) and said I had to write something. So, there was this:

2012 was one of those years. Family health issues. Planning and carrying out an interstate move when one family member was not physically able to make any of the apartment hunting trips. Carrying out said move in stages, one of them involving sending one family member into a hurricane to carry out said stage solo because another did not want a third anxiety attack that week. A first trip to the hospital from our new home. Changes in important relationships. Buying a second snow shovel because we live in Albany and it’s winter and one shovel is not going to dig us out properly.

2013 is an unknown quantity. I’m letting one ms settle and diving into another. It scares me. What on earth am I getting myself into? Fear. The bad kind. Fear. The good kind.

What’s the difference between the two? Good question. When I find out, I will let you know, but I’ll give it a stab (and stabbing does seem like a good option at times, the object of which can vary.)

Bad fear = what if every bad thing anybody ever said about my writing is true? What if it’s true and I have no other marketable skills? What if I really do suck? What if I suck and there was something I could have done to not suck but I didn’t do it and now it’s too late to fix it because I really do suck and it’s all my fault? What if I have to live with the wanting to write and the needing to write and never being able to write for the rest of my life ? DOOM! DOOM!DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!

Good fear = I have never done X before, but it could be fun. Am I really doing it right?

:pokes X with a stick, then scuttles back a safe distance to observe:

:comes back, presuming the poking of X did not result in personal death or obliteration of all humankind; pokes X again. Repeat until done, then poke something else.:

Do I have all the answers? No. Do I have my answers? Maybe. Let me look around the bottom of my purse a while longer. Or fumble my way through manuscript B and occasionally poke A with a stick. There is fear, both kinds. There are times I feel like I can’t find my way back to my normal writing self any more than I can find my way to Apartment Four, 738 North Anything Street in Duluth, Minnesota. At night. In a snowstorm. On foot. Wearing earplugs. During a blackout. In the zombie apocalypse. One thing is sure, though; if I never take one step, I’ll never get there.

So. This is a step. Today, I wrote. Is it a completed work of fiction between eighty and one hundred thousand words in my chosen genre? No. Is it real? Yes. Is it true? Yes. Is it finished? Yes. Did it bring me one step closer to that mythical apartment in Duluth? Yes. Are the residents expecting me? Maybe. I’ll find out when I get there. So will you. We all have a Duluth. I firmly believe that, and I firmly beleive that putting one foot in front of the other will eventually get you there. Maybe you’re on the right track now, and maybe you’ll need to circle the world a time or two, but the surest way to make sure you never get there is to not try. Right foot, left foot. Right foot, left foot. Right foot, left foot. Dress in layers. Stay hydrated. Rest, and then continue. Fill the well. Write something. Ask for directions. Right foot, left foot. Right foot, left foot. See you there.

Typing With Wet Nails

for the love of romance

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