possibly pointless blabbering

Gray Day Rambles

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As of last night, I have officially read all of Adam Silvera’s novels. On the one hand, this means I’m current. On the other hand, this also means that now I want more, and the next one isn’t out yet. Though Mr. Silvera’s books are contemporary YA, they have a lot of what I look for in historical romance. The focus on character and relationship, the vivid use of setting, distinct character voice, which melds with an author voice that fits the story world and subject matter. I want more of that. Since his next book doesn’t come out until next year, this means I need to read something else.

Thankfully, this is not a problem. I am only half joking when I say I could build a small house out of my TBR books and read my way out. Right now, I am also reading (re-reading) To Love Again, by Bertrice Small. Historical romance instead of contemporary YA this time, and the setting is Roman Britain, not modern NYC, but, here again, there is that full immersion in the story world, the clear author voice, and the knowledge that, when I pick up a novel by this author, I know what I am getting. Ms. Small is the author who got me into reading and writing historical romance in the first place, so re-reading one of her books is, in a way, like coming home. That’s a good place to come from, when one’s focus is on creating one’s own fiction.

Right now, I am at my desk, my Starbucks mug all but empty of my second cup of tea for the day. The weather is grey and intermittently rainy, which made for excellent foliage peeping as I walked through the park on my way to and from a doctor appointment this morning. My office assistant is on duty, currently catloafed on the small sliver of hardwood between my office door and the start of the carpet she refuses to cross.

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My “A Working Day” playlist is playing through my earphones, and the blinds in my window are open enough to let me peer outside and get a glimpse of the beautiful greyness that awaits on the other side of the window. The Canada Geese and their mallard buddies are still in the lake in the park. The weather has been mild enough, this autumn, that they are sticking around, patrolling their waters, and giving some waterfowl-y side-eye to humans who interrupt their routine.

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These are the autumn days I love the very, very best. Now that the days get darker, earlier, there’s an extra pep in my step. Apple cider (cold or hot, along with donuts made from/with same) and pumpkin pie are always welcome, as are steaming mugs of tea, hot apple pie and the requisite melty scoop of vanilla ice cream. This weather is perfect for walks around the lake, stories swirling in my head. Sometimes, these stories are the books that I’ve been reading, and, sometimes, they are my own.

Okay, always, they are my own. Even when reading someone else’s work, the repertory company in my head peers over my shoulder. This one wouldn’t have done that, this other one can’t wait to see a certain character’s choice bite them in the posterior a few chapters down the road, and, more often than not, my own imaginary friends work out some of their drama while I’m caught in the drama of others. Call it subliminal, or back-burner, or free-floating, all I know is that it works. If the worst thing is not knowing what comes next, then the best thing is immersing myself in the things that I love, and knowing that something is going to come out of that.

This morning, it was two walks through the park, with waterfowl, and a stranger’s Husky that had to give me a hand kiss before he would continue with his walk. It was the promise of Lapsang Souchong tea when I reached my destination, vivid word pictures swirling in my head. It was a few isolated drops of drizzle, the true deluge likely held at bay by the fact that I brought my vintage wood-handled umbrella with me, in case the sky did open. The sky did not open, apart from aforementioned drizzle, so the umbrella also remained closed. Better to have an umbrella and not need it, than need it and not have it. There’s also the fact that I like this umbrella. It’s kind of dapper. It’s plain black, but it has a presence, and it has a history, both things I like to have in my fiction.

If we had a fireplace in our apartment, I would stuff some firewood in there, maybe even toss in a pinecone or two, and scootch the antique rocking chair that I have loved as far back as I can remember, up to said fire, blanket in my lap, and pen and notebook in hand. Days like this are meant for stories, both the reading and the writing of them. For those of us who write for publication, that doesn’t mean we only write when the atmosphere is right; we wouldn’t have any books whatsoever if our favorite authors did that. Still, when these days come, they are all the more special for their rarity, a time to open the metaphorical windows of the writer brain and let the room fill, then put all of that on the page.

 

Plans and Deviations

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If I can get this blog entry written and up in exactly twenty-nine minutes, that means I can still stay on schedule. For someone highly motivated by planning, this is the carrot on the stick. Hitting the page with no particular topic this morning, but am tired of writing about not having a topic, so off I go, into uncharted territory, and, somehow, we will fill the magic seven hundred words needed to call this post done, and then I can have lunch. Sounds like a good plan to me.

It’s Monday, the start of another week, which means that my ideal plan was to spend the majority of Sunday making my weekly and daily planner pages. No, I am not going to talk about making planner pages. That is highly fascinating to people who are into that sort of thing, dead boring for those who are not, and oddly confusing for everybody who isn’t sure if they fall into either category, and isn’t this technically a writer’s blog, anyway?  Specifically romance writing; I mean, really, it’s right there in the title.

Okay, technically right under the title. If we’re going only by the title, this could be construed as a blog about typing (or nail care) which would probably have delighted my father to no end. What we get instead, is one romance writer-slash-blogger making her way back onto the bookshelves after a life detour. Anything under that umbrella (and it is a pretty big one) is fair game. Which is useful on blabbery mornings like this one. I am going to leave out the stuff that would actually be interesting if this were a blog about planning (and I have not ruled one of those out, but books come first,) like how my default lettering style seems to owe a lot to American traditional tattoo art. That can probably be explained by my affinity for Ink Master, but is not actually applicable until whenever it is that I have a hero or heroine who actually has or creates tattoos. So far, we are at zero for that one, which means we are stopping this bunny trail now.

One thing I have learned when creating my own planner (I am not turning this into a post on planning, I promise. Stick with me here.) is that deviations are going to happen. Write a first draft, start on the second, and this will become eminently clear. I have, thankfully, banked enough pages to bring to critique session with N that I can put this particular puzzle on the back burner, but there’s that moment when I’m tapping my pencil against the well-worn surface of the now bonus-office-buddy-free desk (please please please be a bonus-office-buddy-free desk) and staring at chapter sixteen of Her Last First Kiss and kind of one-eye-squinting at the screen (also a reminder to visit optomestrist, because eyeballs are kind of important) trying to figure out why this second draft scene is not gelling (note: whenever a writer puts a note that reads some variation of “figure this out later” that writer should remember that later always arrives.) and a particular bit of useful but annoying advice comes back into play.

That bit would be to go back to the last place things absolutely worked. There was a decision made somewhere in there that sent something off on a wonky  track. This is also known as the place where that missing piece is probably waiting, tapping its foot and wondering what took the writer so danged long to get back to it. Sure enough, if Character X had y’d before they z’d, then Character A could be aware of the y-ing and boom, there’s where chapter sixteen wraps.

If this were a planner or bujo or art journal page, I would slap a piece of washi tape over the mistake and move on along. Washi tape does not work well with computer screens, so this requires going back to the previous chapter and making a different decision. It’s an easy fix, so why is it scary? Why the overthinking and avoidance? Why not do the writing equivalent of slapping down some washi tape – backspacing, maybe, or strikethrough, if this is a discovery draft- and keep on going? If I had the answer to that, I would not be pushing the goal date for getting A Heart Most Errant to beta readers back another week, but what I can do is start from where I am, and keep on moving in the right direction.

Boom. Back on schedule. See you Wednesday.

 

A New Notebook, Some Love Scenes, and an Ex-Mouse

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Welp, it’s Monday again. No big surprise. This weekend went by fast. Saturday started out with the discovery that I have had a bonus office buddy for an undetermined amount of time. Said bonus office buddy had shuffled off this mortal coil before I came across what he left behind (aka his earthly remains) while looking for Post It notes to put in my new notebook, for CR-RWA meetings only. My desk is a secretary style desk, with a fold-out writing surface, and cabinet space beneath. Since dear departed bonus office buddy was kind of carpet-colored, it took me a few seconds to process what lay before me. There was no necropsy performed, but from what I can tell, Bob (let’s call him Bob) was on his way out of the lower part of my desk, when his little mousey heart gave out. His exit, both from my desk,  and his corporeal existence, seems to be fairly recent.

He might have been on his way to look for foodstuffs, because I do not keep any in my desk, so going elsewhere really was his best bet, but he’d have been out of luck anyway, since all food is secured. Bob was not our first rodent roommate, that’s all I’m saying. I can at this time, confirm that Skye had nothing to do with Bob’s demise, as there was a carpet between them. Skye’s hatred of my office carpet is strong enough to keep her from de-rodenting my desk, but I do suspect some of her intent stares in my general direction during Bob’s tenure may have been at least partly for him. I prefer not to think about the duration of that tenure. I also prefer not to think about the amount of times I rested my bare feet inside that open cabinet over the last few months. I am going to assume that Bob and I have never touched.

That was how my weekend started. I did get the notebook put together, and I am rather proud of the results. Pictures to follow, because I didn’t have time to set up everything right off the bat, but turning to a fresh page of lined, cream colored paper, with the date stenciled at the top, and posting the cap to a fountain pen, adds a certain gravitas to the taking of notes. Ballpoint on notebook paper doesn’t have the same effect. This month, the topic was love scenes, by the wonderful K. A. Mitchell, which is excellent timing, because the love scenes in both of my current historical manuscripts, Her Last First Kiss, and A Heart Most Errant, are going to need some work, and my contemporary co-author, Melva, and I haven’t even talked about the love scenes for Drama King. 

Though we had a Skype session slated for Sunday afternoon, the connection (computer, not personal) was wonky, and we had to reschedule the meeting. Didn’t help that anxiety was rampaging through my brain like a herd of water buffalo, and there was still the Outlander recap to do at the end of the night. No spoliers if you haven’t yet watched, but suffice it to say season three is off to an excellent start.

Which brings us back to Monday, and the fact that I have blabbered my way through most of this entry without a firm topic, so I will keep on blabbering until at least that magic seven hundredth word. This weekend had a few surprises. I brought a new writer friend (who is both a new friend and a new writer; hi, Erin :waves:) with me to her very first RWA meeting, where I met another new friend (hi, Terry :waves again:) who also writes historical, and makes a mean Butterfingers cookie. My beloved pink laptop may require either a system restore or trip to the computer doctor, which was not a snag I had anticipated, but will be worth the effort if it gets her back in fighting trim. Now that I have been introduced to the wonders of Skype (and of video blogging; I have not forgotten that) I don’t want to go back, and not going back means, well, going forward.

Going forward sometimes means going into the unknown. I’d say ask Bob, but Bob’s not answering anything right now. Sometimes, reaching into the recesses of one’s desk for a Post-It means finding an ex-mouse first. Not expected, not pleasant, but better to know about those things as soon as possible rather than waiting for the what’s-that-smell stage of the game. One disposes of the ex-mouse, obtains the Post-Its, and proceeds to the meeting and keeps on going.

Today, I am tucking in with some of the changes I need for this next section of Her Last First Kiss, figuring out how the puzzle pieces fit together. Thanks to K.A. Mitchell’s expertise, I have the seeds of this book’s first love scene on the pages of that new notebook. There’s a while yet before I can get there; one house party that now needs to be a specific event, in a specific place, with specific people, rather than what it had been before, but I know where I’m going. I’ll take that.

Typing With Wet Claws: Not at Nationals Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. The weather has been much better for Anty this week. I am not that pleased with all the rain we got, which means I spent more time than I would have liked, hunkered down in a safe place. I am also not that pleased with Anty moving things around in the apartment. She calls it decluttering. I call it unnecessary. I knew where everything was, and now she is moving things. I suppose there is an upside, in that there are now more places for me to hunker. If this is the way the weather is going to go, I think I will need them.

As always, I am not allowed to talk about anything else, until I talk about where to find Anty’s writing on the interweb, other than here. This may not come as a surprise, but Anty is always at Buried Under Romance every Saturday. This week, she talks about fan clubs amongst romance readers. Do you talk books with anyone? Would you like to talk books with Anty? (Seriously, Anty will talk romance novels with pretty much anybody, so your chances are good, just saying. ) That post is here, and it looks like this:

BURfanclub

Anty has some umbrage with her Goodreads reading challenge this week. She has been doing rather a lot of reading, but not all of it is actual published books, so, while her reading tracker is filling with a lot of colored squares (she will show you in her video) that does not always carry over into the Goodreads count. It is the weekend, though, and one of the books Anty is currently reading is a novella, so maybe this will be the weekend she gets back on track. We can hope. I say less decluttering and more reading.

One actual published book that Anty finished reading this week fits into her plans for world domination. Okay, historical romance domination. By that, I mean her plan (she will tell you more in her video) to find out what sorts of linked romance novels work best for her. Because she had a serious Poldark hangover, she wanted something set in the eighteenth century, with the same historical flavor. She asked friends on one of her Facebook groups, of people who also love historical romance, and someone suggested Gather the Stars, by Kimberly Cates.  Anty read that book when it first came out, and remembered liking it a lot. She likes everything she has read of Miss Kimberly’s (who is also Ella March Chase, but Anty has not read any of the books written as Miss Ella. Yet.)  Anty’s review of Gather the Stars is here, and it looks like this:

GRgatherthestars

Anty plans to read more of Miss Kimberly’s books soon (and re-read, in several cases.) That plan gave her an idea. Since Anty wanted to make sure she got all the books Miss Kimberley wrote that belong together, she wanted to write that in a special book, so she would not lose the list. Then she added more books that belong together, by other authors. Now she has a special notebook dedicated only to that. She will probably make another book for only books that are not connected to anything else, but she is working on this one for now.

Writing-wise, this has been a good week for Anty. She will tell you more in her video, but I can tell you that, on Monday night, she meant to finish early, but then she hit her stride and did not want to stop. So, she did not stop. Then she noticed that it was three in the morning. and she had to meet Miss N for their critique meeting shortly after seven. She regrets nothing, especially since Miss N gave some very good feedback. Anty took a nice long nap after she got back, and I helped. by napping near her. Cat naps are always better with actual cats napping. Especially when I am the cat. I am very good at napping. I would sleep on the bed with Anty and Uncle (because Uncle is my favorite) if I could jump or climb, but that is okay. I sleep under their bed sometimes. That is good enough.

Anty is a little grumpy that she is not at RWA Nationals this year, but she can still get a few tastes of the experience through social media. She is glad, though, that she did not have to leave me for a whole week. She hates leaving me when she travels, which is not all that often, but I would hate going along even more. I did not see anything about a track for cats at Nationals, which is kind of an oversight, because a lot of writers have cats. The only thing would be getting the cats to the actual conference. We generally like to stay home. Not so for Anty. If she does not get out, among other humans, she gets a little antsy. Okay, more than a little antsy. Anty is an extrovert, which means that she spends her energy when she is alone, and needs to be around other humans to get more energy. Being in a hotel full of humans who love to read and write romance novels, like Anty does, is pretty much extroverted writer Christmas. Anty is not worried, though. Her local RWA chapter meeting is only a couple of weeks away, and she can talk to chapter members who did go, including Kari W. Cole, who won a very special award, the Golden Heart. Congratulations, Miss Kari.

Now it is time for Anty’s video.

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

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Until next week…

On the Stepping Up of Game

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Summer has definitely settled upon New York’s Capitol Region, and I’m feeling it. Not my favorite time of year, by any means. There are now two fans in my office: the big ceiling fan, and the small fan I repurposed from another room, and that makes a world of difference. In protest, my office chair has added “amusement park ride” to its job description, as I have somehow unlocked the mechanism that keeps the seat at its optimum level, and am now prone to sudden drops in altitude at unexpected moments. For this one, I am calling in reinforcements, aka Housemate and/or Real Life Romance Hero, who are better at figuring out mechanical things than I am.

This week, I am not slumped in front of a box fan, in full slug mode, because I would honestly rather be writing. Monday was not a marathon, and half of the pages I brought to critique session with N were printed on pink paper instead of white, my reminder that these are notes/outline only,  not what is going in the actual chapter. I will admit to some part of my brain making grabby hands at those pages and vowing I could fix them in only a couple more hours. Yeah, I’ve heard that before. Nice try, brain. I filed the pink pages under “good enough” and actually slept.

There are words a writer doesn’t want to hear in a critique session. Pointing and laughing (unless the pages submitted are comedy, then, in that case, pointing and laughing would be the desired outcome) do not count as words. “It’s okay,” however, do count as words. “It’s okay” is obviously better than “this is utter dreck, and you should give up writing,” but they still aren’t the best case scenario. They are, however, a starting place, and the right critique partner can do a lot with them, as in point the writer in the right direction. More over here, this part was the writer talking to themselves, move this thing where the other thing was, and go deeper in to Character X’s reaction to Character Y, instead of giving readers only a taste. Give Character X some sympathy to Character Y, because they are going to want to lock lips with them in a few pages, and right now, they sound like they don’t like the other person much.

Okay, that gives me some direction. Later today, I will plop my overheated self next to the box fan next to my comfy chair, not in slug mode, but with Big Daddy Precious notebook open in my lap, green Marvy Le Pen pen in hand (because it was the favorite pen of the writer who got me into historical romance in the first place) and, quite possibly, some DVR’d TV shows playing, if I don’t have my earbuds in and my playlist for Her Last First Kiss. I will kind of sort of halfway background watch the show, but my actual brain will be back in 1784, and the story will find its way from brain to page. I’ll transcribe later, fit it in with what I already have, or substitute, if this goes in a different direction. Second drafting can get into uncharted territory on occasion, and this is one of those occasions. Which is fine.

At the same time, I have a voracious appetite for planning and organizing. What other habits can I track? How can I use my planner/my office/my time more efficiently? How can I make my planner spreads prettier? How many new art techniques can I cram into my brain, because, right now, my brain is hungry for this kind of stuff. Famished, the same way it’s been sorting my TBR pile in order of how much I want to read certain types of books. Give me more of this, a grace note of that, pile all of that other thing on the plate, as high as it will go, because this hungry brain needs it.

I am taking this as a good sign, this overall desire to step up my personal game, and follow that hunger. The more I take in, the more I want to put out. This probably falls under my mother’s “the more you do, the more you’ll want to do” maxim, and she would probably not tell me she told me so, but she’d think it, and that would be okay. Right now, I’m not looking at the big picture. Not thinking about where this book is going to go when this draft is done, not thinking about marketing or future books or anything other than this scene, this chapter, applying the notes I got on my good-enough pages, after a decent night’s sleep, and, after that, we look at what work needs to be done on the next section.  Summer is still out there, but it’s not my main focus.

Instead, the focus is on my current assignment. Everything else can go grab a popsicle and a paperback and wait its turn, because that turn will come. Right now, I have two people and one moment of vulnerability that requires my full attention, so that’s where it’s going to go.

Title Goes Here

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You must do the thing you cannot do.
          – Eleanor Roosevelt

Rain started to fall as soon as I opened the document to start writing this blog entry. I will take that as a sign. It’s been oppressively humid here in New York’s Capitol Region, which is not that great for the creative brain, especially when that brain is going on roughly two hours of sleep. Nevertheless, it is Monday, which usually means a marathon writing session on Her Last First Kiss. Right now, I am dripping in sweat, and having wild fantasies about throwing the workday to the nonexistent wind and collapsing in front of the box fan with a tall glass of ice water and making some headway in rereading Shanna. I am also rethinking my decision to have hot tea with my breakfast, but my new pink skull and crossbones mug was too perfect not to take out on its maiden voyage this morning. I will always love my dearly departed Union Jack mug, but I think it would want me to find love again, and not mourn it forever, drinking out of mugs that are only okay, but don’t stir my heart. There’s a better look at the new baby on my Instagram, here: https://www.instagram.com/p/BVhS7arBVCj/

Absolutely no way I could leave that baby to languish in the cupboard without at least one cup of tea under its belt. I have no regrets. even if I do have an ice pack at the base of my spine. I was not built for summer. I’m fair skinned and light eyed, sun and heat sensitive. This would be perfectly suited for the British Isles, from which my biological ancestors most likely hailed, but somebody did something, and they got a trip across the Atlantic Ocean, voluntarily or otherwise. A couple of centuries later, here I am, but my imaginary friends, by and large, generally lean toward those British Isles, though Ruby, the heroine (aka Heroine) of Her Last First Kiss, is half Russian. Not that she’s ever actually been to Russia, but that’s where one of her parents was born, and where they went back to, after life took a turn they didn’t like.

I didn’t plan for Ruby to be half Russian, but that showed up all on its own, and, as these things are wont to do, did so in the very first line. Well, okay, then. Those kinds of things tell me that the story is real and alive, and has a mind of its own, which generally tells me we are going to work well together. Same thing when Ruby turned up her nose at the harpsichord I tried to give her in the initial draft, and informed me she liked pistols instead. Same thing with Hero refusing to accept my wishes that he be blond and play the violin. He was a ginger, thankyouverymuch (still is, and now I can’t imagine him any other way) and didn’t even want to look at the violin, but took a very keen interest in my pen collection. I let him (metaphorically) play with them, and he took to those pens like a duck to water. To write letters, yes, but mostly to draw with, because he would very happily spend his entire life drawing with pen and ink, but his painting skills were not up to the same standard, which led to his, ah, secondary career. That all spilled out of him while he doodled on scrap paper. I didn’t want to disturb him, so I let him ramble.

I also took notes. A lot of notes. This is the reason I have a lot of notebooks. Also because “notebook” may be my favorite genre, because I can put literally anything in them, but that’s another story for another day. Why was it that Hero never felt more himself than when he had pen and in in hand, but felt so lost with paint and brush that he lost all faith in himself? Of course that meant that, to get to his Happily Ever After, to be the man Ruby needs, the man worthy of her, he has to face that fear and actually paint a portrait. Actually, two, because painting two portraits is the only thing that terrifies him more than painting one.  Sure, he can probably paint the one, because it’ s a debt of honor, but then to do it again? There’s the real test.

Since Ruby and her Hero live in the eighteenth century, they’d have no idea who Eleanor Roosevelt is, but, by the end of the book, they get the drift of her message. Ruby and her Hero, and their entire story, came to me, almost all of a piece, when I was busy bashing my head against a brick wall, trying to come up with another sort of story entirely. Actually, a few of them, all of which now languish in folders in my old laptop, the one with the external keyboard and fuzzy internet connection. These characters, and this story, they found me. This wasn’t the sort of book I was looking to write, but it’s the right one for the writer I am right now, and there isn’t so much a question of “how do I handle X?” but “well, X works like this in this book.”

All of that makes these marathon days, when they come, not something to dread, but to treat as maybe a marathon of a favorite TV show; get comfy, stay hydrated, keep snacks on hand, and settle in for the long haul. That, I can most definitely do.

 

 

 

Write Like a Stove

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Not feeling the blogging thing today, and that’s okay.  Writing, yes, but not blogging. I have my daily task list all planned out, but when I come to “write blog,” there’s a blank. Which is fine. White space and all that. Part of the reason I blog is to clear out the gunk from my brain so that I can be primed and ready for the good stuff, which, from my perspective is writing fiction. The same could be said for morning pages, but the difference here is that morning pages are private, and blogging is…not. It’s the opposite of private. It’s splashed onto the screen with the explicit purpose of being read (passive tense, ooh, dangerous) by others. Commercial fiction, which is what I write (subset: romance, sub-subsets: historical romance (on my own) and contemporary romance (with writing partner, Melva)) is also meant for public consumption, and, when we add the extra factor of a reader or readers, that also brings in the knowledge of the potential reader or readers.

I do a lot better when I have a topic planned out ahead of time. This time, I don’t, so what you get instead is the first thing my brain can latch onto, which is…the stove.

 

STOVE

that would be this stove

 

This post is not about cooking. We did get a new stove yesterday, the delivery window starting after I had left the house for critique session with N. Real Life Romance Hero had the day off, and earned extra hero points for supervising the removal of the old stove (which Landlord and I delicately referred to as “vintage.”) and installation of the new one. Since strange people moving appliances around is not an environment especially conducive to writerly  concentration, Real Life Romance Hero and I agreed I would remain at Panera, post-critique-session, and get some work done.

Aha. Here we go. Connection time. One of the things I like about keeping some of the notebooks that I do, is that it makes the spotting of patterns easier. Since one of the patterns I’d noticed of late is that, when I try to cram all the work on Her Last First Kiss into Monday, because Tuesday is critique day, I feel rushed and crowded. Feeling rushed and crowded also makes me feel pressured, and I focus on the number of pages I’m putting out, rather than making the story the best it can possibly be. So, clearly, that is not a good thing to have going on, on a regular basis. N and I both agreed that we wanted to bring more pages to our critique session each week, which means I need to find more time to devote to that book. Where to find that?

As it turns out, right there. Since I needed to stay out of the house while the stove was installed, I had extra time in Panera, bottomless iced tea (my second of the day, as I’d accidentally knocked the first one into the trash; could not have planned that if I tried.) and my writerbrain already riding on N’s comments, as well as the energy of being with another writer in person. I don’t have any blogs due on Tuesdays. Double aha. Since N and I had discussed a new scene needed to break up a big block of Hero scenes, I wanted to strike while the iron was hot, and that worked out pretty darned well. A week is a lot more comfortable lead time than a day, so this is probably going to become a regular feature. The sooner N and I get to The End of our drafts, the closer our respective imaginary friends are to getting out into the world and into the hands of readers.

Right now, I’m looking at my task list for the day, and feeling that rushed and crowded thing again, and that tells me I need to recalibrate. The same as the stove only has four burners (plus oven and warming tray) my brain has space for front burner tasks and back burner tasks.  Back burner does not mean “never,” and trying to put all the pans on the front burners at the same time is going to result in dishes nobody is going to want to eat. In fact, the results may not even be fit for consumption, but, putting each thing in its proper place and time, well, we can get a banquet out of that.

Which all brings us to over the magic seven hundred, so that’s it for today. I am off to play with my imaginary friends.

 

 

Nobody Likes a Naked Panelist

annabowling 8 Comments

Let me qualify that; there probably are some people who would appreciate nude presenters at a conference, but A) I’m not going to  that kind of conference, and B) most of those who will be attending the workshop I’m co-presenting would prefer said nude presenter to have body parts I do not, if nude presenters were a thing, which, to the best of my knowledge, they are not. Plus there’s the problem of chilly conference rooms, so clothing is indeed in order.

The question, then, is what sort of clothing? This year, for the first time, people will be looking specifically at me for the better part of an hour. Thankfully, I have my lovely and talented co-presenters, each with their unique personal style, to share the vision, as it were, so anybody who shows will not be looking, specifically, only at me. That takes some of the pressure off, but the fact remains that dressing for this particular conference is different from years prior. This year, I am going not only as a writer, not only to network with my peers, not only to sit across a small table from a publishing industry professional and convince them why they might like to give me and my writing partner monies for the adventures of our imaginary friends (and, if the “do you have anything else?” question comes into play, my individual imaginary friends as well) but sitting/standing/walking in front of people who have chosen to learn about blogging, over the other workshops that are being presented at the same time.

So, clothes. In some aspects, men have it easier. In a word, suits. I’m sure there are gentlemen out there (or some dapper ladies) who can school me on the complexities of suit wearing, but, in broadest terms, suit, shirt, tie, shoes, done. Basic equation, which, at eight days before conference time, has me thinking the guys might have things easier in this regard. The clock is ticking, and writing schedule and other obligations mean that shopping is not going to be a much or an option, which means I’m going to have to work out of my closet, which is, to put things bluntly, in flux.

A few years back, I culled most colors out of my closet, because it felt too jumbly, to look in there and have to think of what went with what. I’m visual. I love color theory.  That wasn’t the issue. What bothered me was that those colors didn’t feel like me, so out they went. Immediately, I felt more settled. Calmer. Me-er. What’s left now is mostly black, gray, and white, a little navy, and occasional shots of red or purple. Almost everything goes with almost everything (do not ask me to mix black and navy, because that is not going to happen.) This should make things easier.

It doesn’t always. Neutrals provide a blank canvas for accessories, which are also in flux at the moment. Most days, I wear at least one piece of jewelry with a skull on it, sometimes more. I don’t know where the skull thing started, but A) I like skulls, and B) we all have one; for me, it’s a symbol of humanity.  I also love heels. Housemate is convinced I walk better in heels, and trip more often when wearing flats. She’s not wrong. I once fell down two fights of stairs when the heel of my flats caught on the edge of a tile. This was back in college, and I landed at the feet of two nursing students, which I thought convenient. (I was fine.) I am going to take a wild guess and suspect that I am not going to want to repeat that experience. So, heels. but which heels will depend upon which actual clothing items come with me, and, as of now, I have no idea.

Writing, domestic duties, and other obligations have meant schedule hopscotch this week, which left no time for going through the closet and making a proper, informed selection. While Housemate is happy to decide what she’s going to pack about five minutes before she has to be out the door, that doesn’t work for me. I’m a planner. I want to know in advance, preferably well in advance, and, preferably, have a backup plan, in case something (like a two-staircase tumble) goes wrong with the original. This makes me itchy. It also lets me know what I need to feel confident, which, as it would turn out, is the most essential thing I can wear to a professional gathering.

At some point, something in my head will click, and I’ll know what’s for Friday day, what’s for Friday night, and what I want to be wearing from very early Saturday to very late Saturday/possibly early Sunday. What I need to keep in mind is that I know this stuff. I have two smart, entertaining, stylish women to share the spotlight, and more people are likely to look at the Power Point presentation than what the presenters are wearing. It’s a workshop, not a fashion show. What’s most important is to be confident and comfortable.

Blogging, I can do. Talking, I can do.  Telling stories, I can do. Talking about stories, I can do. Sitting up half the night in the hotel lobby, talking with other writers about what we’re writing, what we’re reading, and the workshops we’ve attended, or, this year, presented, I can definitely do.  At some point, things will click, and I’ll know what to wear, what to pack, and, in the end, what most people will take away from the presentation is the content, not the appearances of those presenting it. Thinking about it, though? That’s all part of the process.

 

If At First You Don’t Succeed…Blabber

annabowling 2 Comments

Go figure; I plan a blog post with tons of pictures, to blabber about my various notebooks, and that has to be the day all the pictures get stuck in a Gmail queue. This is the same day that my desktop earbuds become my desktop earbud, singular. Slapping a greatest hits deskscape up for now, and we will see if anything changes by the time I get this entry posted. In one ear, I have 80s music, and in the other ear, (short intermission for minor domestic matter) the sounds of puttering Real Life Romance Hero and his fuzzy shadow, Skye. There was also a brief discussion of expiration dates on luncheon components (occupational hazard and/or benefit of having a spouse in the restaurant industry.) The verdict: lunch will not kill us today. That’s reassuring.

One more check of Gmail, annnnd….nope. Le sigh. Okay, winging it instead, because I have pages to get ready for N tomorrow, more pages for Melva soon thereafter, and an arduous stretch of research for an upcoming Heroes and Heartbreakers post. (Okay, not that arduous, as it involves watching key moments from The Walking Dead.) Right now, I’m grumbly, because I had an outline for the post I intended, even a bunch of sticky notes on the wall next to my desk. My first instinct was to take a picture to make up for the pictures that I can’t access until the queue comes through, but that picture would go to the end of the queue, so not exactly an option here. Which is okay. I can refocus.

Plan B is a part of the writing life. It’s going to happen. It happens when we hit “delete” instead of “save,” empty our trash, and then realize what we did. It happens when life intervenes, and we can’t write about XYZ right now, because it’s now either too close to home, or we’re not in that place anymore. Any number of reasons, really. This is the part of the post where I haul out the old Japanese proverb, fall down five times, get up six.

So, what does this mean for today? Since we are now three weeks until I join fellow writer/bloggers,  Corrina Lawson and Rhonda Lane at the Let Your Imagination Take Flight conference, and talk about blogging, I feel like I should have something to say here about what one does when one finds oneself in a situation like this. There’s “feel like” and there’s “actually do.” I like having a plan. In fact, the post I wanted to write was all about my use of notebooks in planning, my solution to getting to the end of my current morning pages book before finding a suitable replacement (the answer: DIY, pictures to follow) and how a notebook, no matter how much I love it when it’s pristine and brand new, isn’t really mine-mine until it’s stuffed full of sticky notes, with notes scribbled in the margins, decorative tape on the pages (that’s a new one, but what has been seen cannot be unseen) and how Picasso really was right that all creation begins with destruction (of the blank page/canvas.)  I can blabber about all of that, but it’s not the same without the pictures. Not that not having pictures stops me, but it does present a challenge.

Which is okay. I can write that post on Wednesday. I have the pictures on the way,  I have the sticky notes on my wall, and I’ve blabbered my way to nearly the magic 700, so I’ve got that going for me. Once I am done here, it is lunch with Real Life Romance Hero, and then I get to go play with my imaginary friends (part of me suspects I should be capitalizing that -Imaginary Friends- since I am using it instead of their names) and also have some tea. The tea is important. By that time, I will probably have given up on my earbud, singular, and opt for closed office door and computer speakers because I need my playlists. This will also result in Skye outside said office door, looking pitiful. Okay, maybe make the speakers and slightly open office door and Real Life Romance Hero will need to deal with the sounds coming from said speakers, because kitty face.

Allrighty, past the magic 700 mark, so time to feed my beloved family and then off to century eighteen. See you Wednesday.

Sifting For Nuggets (not the chicken kind)

annabowling 2 Comments

Right now, I am sitting at my desk, with my second cup of tea after I got back from the laundromat (third cup of tea for the day, total) in a short-sleeved t-shirt, with a blanket on my lap, because wearing a sweatshirt is too hot, but not having anything snuggly is too cold. This is the acceptable compromise. So far,  I have written and discarded several paragraphs of this entry, because they ended up going nowhere, which means they were not the right topic for today’s post. I am listening to the Discover Weekly playlist Spotify suggested for me. I would rather be writing fiction.

Part of that is because I have my weekly critique session with N tomorrow, and I need to show her pages. Part of that is because I have more of an idea what I need to write on both books than I do this entry. I like having a plan. Because of last week’s sinus headache, I do not have a plan for this entry. Which means I am winging it, because I can get to the fiction writing once I have the blog posted, so time to whip off the metaphorical coverup, run down the metaphorical dock, shout, “Ronkonkoma,” and cannonball into the water. There. That’s  plan. Kind of. We’ll go with that.

The first thing I tried to write about here was that today starts the official (for me, anyway) countdown to conference time. One month from now, I will be on my way to the Let Your Imagination Take Flight conference, and my first time co-presenting a workshop (on blogging, yet; wait, I know stuff about that? :shifty eyes: Hi, I’m Anna. I take pictures of my desk and blabber about my imaginary friends. Thank you for giving me roughly an hour of your time. Did I mention numbers are not my strong suit? Yeah, that’s why I make up stories and tell people who kissed on TV.) I am also, after a coughtycough years hiatus from pitching, voluntarily sitting across a very small table from an industry professional and tell her why her readers should hand over coin of the realm to play with my imaginary friends. I also have no idea what I’m wearing, although it will probably be black. So that’s one thing settled…and I’m drifting, but over halfway to the magic seven hundred words that will let me post this puppy and move on to the fiction writing part of our day.

The other part of why I would rather be writing fiction right now is that this is one of those turning points, where Hero commits to a course of action and takes his first steps -or missteps, really, at this point- in that direction. He knows what he wants to do, even if he isn’t entirely sure how to start actually doing it, and, while that’s not at all fun for him, it is for me. Call it one of those instances of authorial schadenfreude. Maybe two, really, because, when I get done with him, I get to go torture Heroine for a while. I also get to mess with Guy and Girl later in the week, when Hero and Heroine need a break.

The pull to get back to both couples is strong, and I get itchy when I’ve been away from them for too long, which is a very good thing. That means they’re real and alive and taking an active role in getting ready to meet readers. Always helpful when they carry their share of the load. Mighty kind of them, as Real Life Romance Hero would say.

One might argue, if the pull is that strong, that I might have flipped things around and written the fiction first, before tending to bloggy matters. That’s true, I might, but I also know myself well enough to know that, once I get in there, I’m not going to want to come out and I’d get to the end of the day and oh shoot, where did the blog go? Nope. This is where the discipline comes into play. To paraphrase Lin-Manuel Miranda (who kind of maybe knows a thing or two about this writing stuff) when inspiration isn’t there, toss stuff on the page without inspiration and then sift for nuggets.

I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean chicken.