possibly pointless blabbering

Grumpy Writer Blather

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Blabbity blabbity blab blab, hit keys, English words, hate it when Wednesday’s posts get bumped to Thursday. Do not remember which week I still owe a Wednesday post from, but I remember that I do. I’m trying something new today, blocking time out in one hour segments, because I am the queen of overthinking. (Seriously, I am. I was once in an NECRWA meeting, and the instructor  had broken us into small groups to work on my writing goals. I will not go into my entire dither here, but cut to the chase, where I stopped myself, and asked the rest of the group, “or am I overthinking?” They, all at once, answered with “Oh, God, yes!” So, yeah. That’s pretty much me.)

I hate going into even a blog entry without a plan. Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate it. I’d say I have nothing for this entry, but that’s not true. I always have something. I hate it that Jo Beverley died. When I think of her work, I think first of her RWA workshop on flying into the mist, and her useful lists of forms of address, as well as how long a horse, horse and carriage, team of horses, etc, can travel in a day. I think of her posts on Word Wenches and articles on romance writing, her Facebook posts and the discussion of the  merits of standalone romances in the age of series, series everywhere.

It’s only after that, that I think of her actual books. Not sure what that means. I’ve read most of the Malloren world books, and only the first of the Rogues. I’ve read a few of the reissued Signet trads, and a plethora of novella entries. Right now, I’m reading Lord of My Heart, her first medieval. Not very far into it, but it’s always an interesting experience, reading a book by a favorite author and knowing there won’t be any more. Granted, I have rather a lot of Beverley still to read, but whatever there was is now whatever there will be, and I am not okay with that. I am going to miss having her in the world, the books, the blog posts, and, even though our only person to person contact had been short exchanges on the Word Wenches blog or Facebook, never personal, it’s like there is now a part of me that isn’t there anymore, and I’m still dealing with the jagged edges left from other broken-off parts, so it’s an adjustment.

I’ll grump for a while, fuss around in my office for a while, and I’ll write. There’s a bullet point draft that needs writing, because, once that’s done, I get to the smoothing out and rewriting, which I sometimes think I like better than coming up with the initial raw material. This may actually succeed in distracting me from the fact that summer, my least favorite season, will be upon us after this weekend. Bleh. Yeah, I’m grumpy. Grumps like this are best dealt with by acknowledging they exist, and letting the grump do its thing, because it does have a job to do. Exactly what that job might be, I’m not sure, but I trust that it’s leading me in the right direction.

Not quite at the magic seven hundred, so I will keep on going until I’m there.  Blabber has a job to do, same as grump does, and the best thing I can do is keep out of its way and let it do its thing, dump the entire contents of my noggin onto the real or virtual page and then, maybe, see about mushing it all into some sense of order. There’s usually something of value, even in the biggest mess, and I do feel like a big mess today. That won’t last. I’ll work through it, but it is where I am right now, and it has a part to play in the rest of the day. The fact that I don’t know what part that is, exactly, bothers me, but getting this entry checked off my list will help me feel more like the writing badass that I am.

I get antsy when I don’t get enough writing time, and by that, I mean specifically fiction. It’s like the characters and stories bottleneck in my brain and batter at the inside of my skull. Really best, in that case, that I let them out so they, too, can do their thing. Which, apparently, is at least partly to get me to the magic seven hundred, so that will be it for this entry, my liebchens. Off to party with my imaginary friends.
 

 

 

 

Lush

annabowling 2 Comments

Romance is not about happy people in Happy Land, but courageous people in We Love Each Other Land.

–Grace Burrowes

 

Another Monday, another new week. I have no idea what I want to say in today’s blog entry, but it rankles that I still owe Wednesday’s post from a week (or two?) ago, and the stubborn, schedule-loving part of part of me is not going to create any more of a backlog than I already have, because such things annoy the heck out of me. All of which means you’re getting the rawest of brain droppings today, and fingers crossed that it actually goes somewhere. Only way to find out is to plunge ahead and find out what happens.

Right now, I am ensconced in my comfy chair, next to an open window, Skye curled in a ball at my feet, sound asleep.  Mary Chapin Carpenter’s “Something Tamed Something Wild” is playing on my earbuds, while I plan out how I’m going to tackle the day. I know the things I want to get done, and I know the time in which I have to do them, and I know that I do best when I give my eyes a break and switch between digital and analog throughout the day. This past weekend, I had the opportunity to recap season two, episode seven, of Outlander, “Faith,” for Heroes and Heartbreakers. It is here, and looks like this:

HHOUTLANDER

Skye will no doubt have something to say about this on Friday.

 

To say that this episode hit me like a brick is an understatement. If I could breathe this episode, I would, because there is so much in there of what I want to bring to the pages of my own work that, even though a good chunk of my brain had to be focused on taking notes so that I could capture the salient points for the recap, the rest of it skipped happily through the angst and the opulence (possible book title in there?) of the costumes, the setting, the soul-crushing loss and the love that pulled it all back from the brink of despair. Yes. This. Oh so very much this that, two days after viewing and recapping, parts of me are still back there. It’s not a nice story, not a pretty story, and yet it’s beautiful.

That kind of stuff makes my blood tingle. The books I love the very best, both to read and to write, have bad things happen to good people, sometimes very bad things, and yet…and yet the love is bigger. It’s stronger. It’s beaten sometimes, bruised sometimes, dragging itself along by broken fingernails sometimes, but it’s alive, and it’s not going away. That’s one of the requirements of a romance novel, and it’s going to be there, whatever other flavors the author tosses into the mix.

This week, when I whined to another writer friend about being at the “I hate this, I can’t write, I should give up” stage, I got a reality check. Friend laughed at me, and reminded me that writing super-super detailed is something I do, it’s part of my style, so quit fighting it and do what comes naturally. That’s not going to change. Write. Tell the story. Tell my characters’ story. Tell it my way. Put in the details. Describe stuff. Work the angst. I should note that this is advice I find incredibly easy to give, but, when it comes to taking it, I need a lot of repetition. One of these days, I’ll get it.

What I do know for sure is that, when I try to rein myself in, I’m miserable, and it shows in the writing, or the lack thereof, (usually that one) but when I slap the duct tape on the mouths of the Hypercritical Gremlins and dive headlong into the angst and the opulence, that’s when I feel like I’ve come home. Still learning to trust myself in this whole writing of fiction thing, but the best way out is through, and so I have pretty legal pads and fountain pens and colored ink and if my “black on white” is actually “purple on paisley,” that’s not a bad thing.

My very favorite moment from the Meat Loaf (the singer, not the food) biopic is when he and musical partner, songwriter Jim Steinman, pitched one of their early efforts to a record producer, the reaction is first, silence, then the explanation that most songs have a verse and a chorus, maybe a bridge. These guys’ songs  have bridges and tunnels and aqueducts. I want to write aqueducts, and so, those are what I need to be taking in. Something I’ve known for a while now, but, as above, something that also needs repeating, as does the actual writing. The more I write, the more aqueducts I get to build, the more movies I get to play in my head. The more lives I get to lead. Not a bad thing to start a new week.

Typing With Wet Claws: About That Doggie Edition

annabowling 4 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday, and we have a lot to cover. Before I do anything else, I have to talk about Anty’s writing first. Since the people vet had some words with Anty about the way she uses her eyeballs, she has been looking at (see what I did there?) some ways to alternate between glowy box and non-glowy box tasks. This means that she is using paper more, which she is finding works pretty well. I could have told her that. She loves paper. I don’t know why it took a people vet to give her the idea, but it seems to be working, and, upside, more potential toys for me.

First Anty writing thing is that she got a surprise when Heroes and Heartbreakers asked if she would like to talk about the ending of Castle. Anty said that she would, and then promptly started doing some research to fill in some gaps. That meant she got to watch a lot of TV. Since I am a dedicated mews, I helped by sitting very very close and reminding her to take frequent cat-feeding breaks. The first post (she is still working on another) is h here, and it looks like this:

HHCASTLE

Next, well, actually before that, because Saturday comes before Wednesday, Anty had another Buried Under Romance post. This time, Anty wants to know if you will follow your favorite authors when they write in different genera.  It is here and looks like this:

BURIMAGE

Now we get to the doggie part. Anty posted a picture the other day, of some pancakes  Uncle made for her. That picture is the picture, and, if you look closely, you will see a doggie in that picture. If you need help finding the doggie, I will put only him in the second picture:

 

One of Anty’s friends, Miss Sabre, asked Anty when she got a doggie, and why I never talk about him in my blog. Even though Anty, Uncle and Mama have been talking about maybe getting me a brother, and whether that brother could be a dog (they will talk to the vet-vet about that first) I am still, for the time being, an only pet. Even though the doggie (his name is Rolf) can look very real, he is stuffed. Anty got him for Uncle, as a Christmas present a few years back, when they lived in an apartment that did not allow pets.

Miss Sabre is not the first person who thought Rolf was a real doggie. When we first moved to this apartment, the cable human nearly jumped through the roof when he noticed Rolf inspecting his work. (Rolf is next to the modem, if you cannot tell. I do not blame him for being interested in it. Sometimes, I like to look at the lights, too.) The cable human did not know why Anty thought his being scared was all that funny, until she showed him that Rolf was stuffed and not going to bite him or otherwise cause any trouble. This was not the first cable human (or delivery human, or visitor, for that matter) who thought Rolf was a real doggie. I am sure the humans who designed and made Rolf would be very happy to hear that people think he is real and treat him like a real doggie.

Once, a very long time before I was born, when Anty was an almost-grown-up, she went to a summer program for young humans who were good at creating. Anty went there to study writing, and one of the things she did there was take part in a poetry workshop. One segment of that studied what makes a ballad. (It is a poem or song that tells a story.) Students had to read and listen to a lot of ballads and then write one of their own. Anty wrote one and handed it in. When the teacher was discussing how the material he showed the class influenced the work the students did, he mentioned Anty’s ballad…as one of the medieval examples. The whole class laughed, and it took the teacher a while to understand why that was funny, that his brain had filed Anty’s ballad, written that same day, along with those written hundreds of years before. That was probably a sign that Anty really was meant for historical romance. Needless to say, she got a good grade.

I mention this because I take my duties as a mews seriously, and wanted to point out that the very best fiction can be as real as what is commonly called “real life.” Anty, for example, is very, very sure, that, if she were plopped down into certain houses described in her favorite books, she would totally be able to find her way around (and in some cases, out of, as fast as she possibly could) because the picture the author painted on the page was as real as if she had actually been in the physical location. It is the same with characters; if they are really real, which is to say, written as though they are actual people, then readers can form emotional bonds with them. That is why, to give another example, humans can watch unsatisfactory endings to TV shows, or read them in books, and say, “no, that’s not what happened. Those people would never do that. This is what they would do instead….” For writers, like Anty, sometimes, that is all it takes to plant the seed of a whole new book, which could then plant a seed (but hopefully for a better reason) in another reader or writer’s mind, and on it goes. I like that, and Anty does, too.

Anty also says she needs the computer back, so that is about it for this week. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

i1035 FW1.1

Until next week…

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

PS, also Rolf

ROLF

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grande Dame

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To survive, you must tell stories.

–Umberto Eco

 

Third week in a row that Wednesday’s blog entry comes on another day. This may tell me something about time management in general.  Hypercritical Gremlins have been chatty boogers as of late, but I have duct tape and pens and paper, and, when properly employed, the latter do a pretty good job of muffling the former. As my once-upon-a-time writing group facilitator used to say, the process begets the product. I’m learning that my process is eternally in flux, which I count as a good thing, because that means I’m growing.

For some writers (I can only speak about me, with absolute certainty) it’s a juggling act between stretching for the new and getting back in touch with what’s always been there, but may have been obscured by the flotsam and jetsam of life. Some bones, we need to unearth, and, in the digging, we find the seeds we need to water so that we can bloom. Today, two tasks on my to-do list combined, as my morning pages volunteered to be most of my blog entry, as well. I took them up on the offer.

 

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19 May, 2016

Today, I want to run away. I want to drink tea and bake cookies and watch movies and make art. I want to write merely for the fun of it, without my Hypercritical Gremlins chiming in. I want to lose myself in the pages of the books I am reading and in the pages of the books I am writing.

I want to pick apart great historical romance novels with surgical precision, take painstaking notes and absorb it all into my writersoul. I want to do this with a group of my peers, at the hand of a master (mistress?) at rows of wooden desks in a medieval escritoire, where dust motes float in the natural light that streams in from floor-to-ceiling windows. I want to hear the footfalls of leather slippers on stone, the whisper and rustle of the Grande Dame’s skirts and petticoats as she walks the rows of desks, looks over our shoulders as we work. I want my pages to forever carry the imprint of her pointer finger in my red-black ink, to show where she put her finger down and said a decisive, “There.”

Not “there is where you went wrong.” I can do that on my own, and I do, all too often, all too much. “There,” I want her to say, “there is where you went right.” She does not smile often, this Grande Dame, and so these moments are all the more valued for their rarity. “There is power. There is truth. There is emotion. There, my blood tingles. Keep doing that.” Her hand, fingers bent from decades of excelling at the skill I now practice, cups my shoulder. Lingers there, in the silence, but for hushed murmurs and whispers and breath. One gentle, motherly, encouraging squeeze, and she moves on. I will find, later, her fingerprint on the cloth as well. I will not wash it away.

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morning pages, doing double duty

 

 

Not quite at the magic 700 yet, so I’ll keep on going. That’s how it happens, this getting back on the metaphorical horse. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. Slap another layer of duct tape on the mouths of the Hypercritical Gremlins, and stay at that desk, pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, whatever works for the individual) and study the masters (mistresses?) and tell the stories. Fall down. Get back up. Try again. Crumple paper and throw it at the wall. Hit the backspace or delete keys as needed.  Take out a fresh sheet. Re-ink the pen. Forget all the rules of writing. Tell the story. Take all the pictures needed to make the head-images turn into English (or into whichever language one writes, if it’s something else) and tryfailtryfailtryfail as many times as it takes to succeed.

That, I need to remind myself, is how the Grande Dame got to be the Grande Dame in the first place. It’s been said that the master has failed more times than the student has ever  tried. So, too, I think, it works with  this Grande Dame in my head. She, too, was once that awkward-aged student, shifting on the hard wooden bench, bottom sore from falling off that blasted metaphorical horse for the umpteenth time, black and blue beneath worn skirts. She, too, looked for hours at the work of those who came before her and attempted to interpret how they did what they did. She was a hack. She almost gave up hope. She kept on going. She wrote one…more…page. She did it again. So will I. So I do.

Playing Hooky (Well, Sort Of)

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Today, I played hooky. Well, sort of played hooky. I’m writing this entry, after all, and after I’m done, I kind of sort of want to drop in on Hero and Heroine for a little bit. You know, to see how they’re doing, and all. Make sure they don’t feel too neglected after the weekend, that sort of thing. Touch base. Set up for tomorrow.

I didn’t start out intending to shirk responsibility. I got up early, had breakfast with Housemate, and tackled some email before lugging a load of laundry to the Laundromat, which is where the whole hooky thing started. There’s reading I should be doing (aha, there’s that sneaky should) for pending posts on other blogs, and there’s writing I owe, and good gravy, is there work to be done on both Her Last First Kiss and the Beach Ball, but I’m also feeling rather crispy crittered, as Real Life Romance Hero would put it. The bits of conference workshops on recovering the joy of reading and writing pounded at the inside of my skull, and so, with a reckless abandon, I called up one of the books on my phone. Not the eARC I should be reading, but Jezebel’s Blues, by Barbara Samuel, a classic contemporary romance I’ve been wanting to read for years, because A) it’s set in her Gideon, Texas world that I first discovered in The Sleeping Night, a twentieth-century historical romance/women’s fiction with a contemporary frame, and B) I am twirling-around-in-circles-in-fields-of-daisies in love with both her use of language and skill in finding the intimate emotion of the story. In short, I needed it. Needed to get out of my head and into my heart, because, you know, romance writing and all.

So, I started reading . The voice and the story washed over me like the river whose flood brings Eric and Celia together in Jezebel’s Blues. Oh, yes. This is why I love romance. This is why I write. This is what feels like the most natural thing in the world. This is what I want and need to be doing when I sit down to work. The dryer cycle ended before I even knew, and I closed the reading app with great reluctance. Still, the story simmered.

This was Real Life Romance Hero’s day off, and, crispy crittered as he was himself (both Mother’s Day weekend and graduation weekend are tough on the restaurant business) he asked if I’d like to have lunch at a local pub we’ve been meaning to get back to for long enough that, when we were seated, they had a whole new menu. We had this:

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I had a Diet Coke, he had a Guinness, we spent some time focusing on each other. Talked about how we wanted to address the whole desktop situation, since the original plan fell through, and the laptop is feeling the strain. Plus, I miss my Sims, and we’d both like to take a shot at Fallout 4 and Skyrim. I throw out the idea that maybe we could just hang together after lunch, watch a little TV at home, and then I can come back fresh at this whole writing thing tomorrow. We debated taking a walk through the park, for baby waterfowl watching, but nixed that, due to the strong wind chill. It’s May, and we refuse to be cold in May. So, home, Kitchen Nightmares, and…here I am.

With permission to kick off and do nothing, I reached for the laptop to fill some pages, not because I had it on the schedule, not because I should, but because that’s what I  want to do. No pressure, just the fun of putting my imaginary friends through the wringer, because I know it’s going to be worth it in the end. For them, and for me. I didn’t feel deprived. I didn’t feel distracted. I didn’t feel dry, or as though I had to drag individual words out of nowhere. I felt…relaxed. Natural. In touch with my story brain. This day of giving myself some space and taking in what I want to put out may not have been that wasteful after all. Maybe I need to do this more often.

 

Technically, this is last Wednesday

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Technically, this is last Wednesday’s post. I’m not comfortable with a backlog like that, and I’m still figuring out when I’m going to fit in the post that should have gone up yesterday (I keep track of this sort of thing) because Friday is Skye’s day to post. It will happen, though, because I’m antsy when I have a backlog, so pushing through and filling that space with something -most likely nonsensical babble, and maybe even a video post if I’m truly stuck for material, which I may well be. It’s been one of those weeks. Couple of weeks. I’d planned to come back from the conference, fresh out of the gate, ready to implement the tools gathered at the conference, and…life happened.

I’ve started and deleted this post more times than I care to count, because I’m not sure what the story is that I want to tell on this Thursday morning. The work for Her Last First Kiss, that I know. That’s one of the good things about having an outline. I do have to bump back the date for finishing my bullet point draft, because the last two weeks were full of domestic tornadoes. These are new patterns forming, as life in general goes into a new season. It’s only natural that this is going to carry over into the writing life as well.

Right now, it looks as though the new-to-me desktop will be arriving at some point next week, and I am looking forward to that. I have plans to move one of the bookcases from my office, into the living room, to make room for a computer desk that we need to get out of storage, along with the good office chair. That would be one with back support, though I do have the ergonomic chair (the sort where one doesn’t sit, but kneels) that I love, but when used with my secretary desk, rather than  regular desk, does not work at all. The current plan is to put a regular desk in the bookcase’s place, office chair on wheels in the middle, secretary desk on the other side, so that I can swivel from one desk to the other.  This means that a good chunk of the weekend is going to be spent getting the office ready for the new arrival, which should be an experience in itself.

Okay, about halfway into the magic 700 here, well, more than that, and I still have no idea what I want to talk about. Which means that I plow onward, babbling without purpose, because that’s purpose enough, getting my fingers moving on the keyboard and priming the pump. Some days, that’s easier, some days, it’s  harder, and some days, like today, it’s neither. The groove I want to get into is there, somewhere, but it’s not going to let me know where it is or how to get there. I will, though. Been here before, gotten through it every time, so odds are that I’m going to make it out this time, too.

On Sunday, when the optometrist attempted small talk whilst poking me in the eyeball, he asked me what I wrote. I answered that I wrote fiction, blogged about romance in books and TV for a publisher’s blog, led book discussions on another, and maintained my own blog about the writing life, his answer was, “wow, you write a lot.” Cue sound of record player needle skidding along some vintage vinyl. Huhwuh? It doesn’t feel that way, sometimes. Sometimes, it’s all too easy to do the math when the Hypercritical Gremlins gleefully circle the date of my most recent novel release in glaring yellow highlighter, and get stuck there. Those times, thankfully, are getting shorter and farther apart.

It’s been said we shouldn’t look backward, because we aren’t going that way, and in this case, I’m going to say I agree with that. I can’t move that date on the calendar, but I can take the yellow highlighter away from the Gremlins and toss it out the window. I can take a big black Sharpie and mark off, instead, my goal date for finishing this draft. I can track my progress in a way that makes sense for me, and that makes me excited to open the notebook or file every day, instead of dread it, because look how far behind I am.

Since it’s not yet been a full week with the new glasses, I’m still a wee bit surprised when I catch my own reflection, because that’s not what I’m used to seeing. That’s not the way it’s always been. The new hair color, I’m used to that now, and hey, looking pretty good on that one. It’s the same with writing. I’m not used to the new schedule yet, the new tracking, the new support system, and even the new media. It’s not yet been a year with the new laptop, but enough of the keys now have no letters on them to make me kind of proud when I look down at the keyboard. I don’t need them. My fingers know where the keys are, and I’m looking at the screen, anyway.

There will be a learning curve with the new desktop, the new office configuration, the new schedule and all of the rest, but what’s most important is something that isn’t going to change. My love of the story is going to be the same, no matter what else is going on, and I can’t wait to see what Hero and Heroine’s love story looks like in its final form. The only way to get there is butt in chair, fingers on keyboard, pen on paper, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, no, I can’t, I’m writing. Lather, rinse, repeat until the tale is told. Then on to the next one.

 

 

 

Typing With Wet Claws: Ten Pound Cat in a Five Pound Bag Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. In case any of you are worried, the ten pound cat in this week’s title does not refer to me. I do not weigh ten pounds, nor have I ever been stuffed in a bag of any sort. (There is the carrier, though, but we are not talking about that here. This time.) “Stuffing a ten pound cat in a five pound bag” is a metaphor Anty uses, and I will talk about that in a minute. First, though, here is a link to last week’s Buried Under Romance discussion post. You can read it here, and it looks like this:

BUR

Anty  is pretty sure that some people may be only seeing this now, since she is a little bit behind on things this week. By a little, she means…uh, I am getting a look that tells me I may have gone far enough on that one. Anyway, she wrote that particular post ahead of time, which was convenient, because she was at the conference all weekend, but it was also inconvenient, because she did not get a chance to share the link once the post did go live, because she was at the conference. She feels bad about that, and is rather impressed that there are comments anyway, and a little (she wishes I would stop using that word as a speech pause, because it is one of her big language peeves, so I will try my best) embarrassed that she is only noticing it now. Never fear, she will answer anyway. It has been a big week. Here is what Anty looked like when she got back from the conference:

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About five minutes in the door after coming home.

 

That is a very tired human, even though it was all for a good cause, and, while I am sure that she will get back to normal at some point, that is more or less what it’s been like for the past week. She has been grouchy, too, which is a part of being tired. This is where the stuffing a ten pound cat into a five pound bag thing comes into play. That is a term Anty came up with when she was taking care of three humans at the same time, a few years ago, and it means to have more things to do than time in which to do the. I do not know why she used cat stuffing as a comparison, but maybe it is because cats do not usually go easily into such containers. I think that is probably it.

Anyway, that has encompassed a lot of Anty’s week. One of the workshops she attended had to do with managing time so that a writer can write more, and she was eager to try that. She still is, only, because this is Friday, tomorrow is both her CRRWA meeting and the Tulip Festival (she has a date with Uncle for that one) and Sunday is Mother’s Day (it is not Anty’s favorite holiday) she will have to try them next week, because this one is basically toast. She suspects better planning could have found a way around that, but until she masters time travel, she can only move forward.

Well, mostly. There is the matter of a few assorted photographs from the conference, that Anty sent herself, which took a while to actually show up in her email. She is not sure how that works, but now they are here, so I can share the with you. Anty did not end up wearing the red shoes in this picture, like she had planned, because she forgot to break them in enough beforehand, but she showed them to Anty Melva, who agrees they do look like  a pair of shoes in the story they are working on together:

 

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Non-fictional version of fictional shoes.

Anty promises herself that, next year, she will plan what pictures she wants to take, intead of trying to remember and ending up with an odd assortment. Here are some pictures from Saturday’s breakfast. The bread table and Brenda K. Stone’s Froot Loops. Miss Brenda asked Anty to take the Froot Loops picture, so Anty did. Maybe I should ask Anty to take a picture of my food. Because she would have to feed me first, before she could do that.

 

Speaking of stuffing big things into small bags, here are all the books Anty brought  home from the conference. She was very good (walletwise) and did not buy any more books that weekend, though she did see many books for sale, that tempted her, very much. This is why Anty always brings an extra, empty bag to these events. It always gets filled.

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Eight more for the TBR shelves….

That is eight more books for Anty to read, and she already has her TBR shelves, plus her Kindle, and books to read so that she can write about them, all on top of writing books for others to read. I can see where that might make a human feel ever so slightly overwhelmed, but that is okay. As Anty says, the feelings have a job to do, so the best tactic is to let the feelings do their job and keep moving forward. That is best done by deciding what task is the most important, and doing that first. To keep with the cat and bag analogy, get the head in first, and the rest will follow.

Uh oh. I do not want to give Anty any ideas about getting me in the carrier (we do not have any trips planned, but we kitties can be suspicious about this sort of thing) so that had better be about it for this week. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

i1035 FW1.1

Until next week…

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

Typing With Wet Claws: Uncle and Baby Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. It is the conference weekend, which means that Anty is going away for two whole days. Without me. Actually, I am glad she is not taking me, because taking me would mean going in the carrier, and I do not like going in the carrier. It is scary. Home is better.

Technically, Anty will be only gone from Friday morning to Saturday night, but that is a long time for a kitty to be by herself, and by “herself,” I mean me, because I am that kitty. Being alone is not my favorite thing in the world, because I like to be around my people as much as I possibly can, same as Anty. That is why I like to sit in the areas of the apartment where there is the most foot traffic. Then, they will have to see me and pay attention to me. Uncle has to go hunt on both days, so I will have more time by myself than I like to have, but when he does come back from hunting, it will be Uncle and Baby time, all the time. That makes it somewhat better, because I love Uncle and Baby time. Uncle plays with me a lot and gives me scritches. I am not allowed to make any comment on the amount of food he gives me, but I am a happy kitty. I like to sit really really really close to him (on top of his feet is my absolute favorite) and follow him everywhere. By “everywhere,” I do mean everywhere. If the door to the human litterbox room is open, I take that as an invitation and will come in to observe, so Uncle never has to worry about being left alone.

Anty will also not be alone, because she will be with Mama on the drive from NY to MA, and then she will be with Anty Melva for the drive to the conference, and, then, she will be with a whole hotel full of people who also love to write romance novels. Then, when it is over, she will be with Anty Melva for the drive back to meet Mama, (Mama will also not be alone; she will be with Grandma) and then drive back with Mama, until, at last, they are both home, and they can be with Uncle and me. Then we will all be together again. Having all of my humans in the same place is my very favorite thing. Okay, that and treat. I love when my humans give me treat.

I am sure that Anty will come home from the conference with a lot of stories to tell, both fictional and otherwise. I could tell some stories about how Anty tends to get overthinky about pretty much everything before she actually heads out to the conference, but I also remember that she is in charge of how many treats I get, so I will not do that. All I will say is that following her around while she gets her suitcase packed has made me one tired kitty, but that is all part of the job of being a mews. I do not know if there is such a thing as a mews conference, but if there were, I would hope it would be done by remote, so we could attend from the comfort of our own homes. Comfort is a pretty important thing for us mews-es. We have to feel secure and familiar with our surroundings, if we are going to provide inspiration and support for our writers.

In case you did not see last week’s Saturday Discussion post when it was new, Anty talked about comfort reads this week at Buried Under Romance.  Many humans have certain books, or types of books, that they turn to when they need to feel secure and familiar with their stories, and that can mean many different things to different people. Some of Anty’s favorite comfort reads may not seem very comfortable to some readers, but what matters is that they make her happy, and that is reason enough. You can read that post  here, and it looks like this:

 

BUR

What are *your* comfort reads?

 

Anty says it is about time for me to wrap this up, because she has to get going already, so that is going to be about it for this week. Next week, though, is the Tulip Festival, and Anty and Uncle go to that every year, which means that will be another big weekend for Anty, and whole other blog entry for me. I had better start doing my research, so, until next time, I remain very truly yours,

i1035 FW1.1

Until next week…

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Call and Answer

annabowling 2 Comments

Today almost ended up being a video blog, but I know myself, and that’s going to have to wait for later. What’s on my mind today is -are?- a bunch of things. There’s no time tomorrow, the last day before the conference, to sneak in an entry, and so it needs to be today. I have one ear open for the doorbell (as if anyone can miss a big ol’ prewar doorbell that vibrates the walls and scares the stuffing out of the cat…and the me, because yikes, that thing is loud. Effective, though.) because I’m waiting for a delivery for something Real Life Romance Hero ordered and the rest of my head is…not scattered, exactly. Lets call it multitasking.

We’ll jump right to something from my morning pages (in italics):

That’s where I feel I am now, coming back home in a different season of my life . A lot of things are changing. Some people who were always there, are now elsewhere. New people have moved into some of the vacant houses. At some point, this will be the way it’s always been.

Last night, I chatted with a writer friend, about a scene in her WIP, the emotions so finely honed that it viscerally shook me, made me first think A) well, crap, I can’t top that, and then B) I want to do that. Not top her work, because it’s not a contest. What I do want is to create my own version of that. Get that kind of response. Be that deeply involved with the characters and emotions and elicit the vivid sensory images. That kind of thing.

Her scene affected me so much that, a good night’s sleep, walk through the park, daily pages and half a blog entry later, part of me is still back there, not yet ready to leave it. Wanting to draw some of that in and make it my own and put it back out, mingled with my people and my era and their story and and and and…yeah. Writers, you know what I mean. Readers-who-do-not-write, it’s too late for us; save  yourselves.

It’s not the only thing that  has me under the influence, either. There’s a new picture in my inspiration folder, that I’m still not sure why I like it as much as I do, but I keep coming back to it, so there is something in there, even if I don’t know, at this point, what it is. I don’t have to know; figuring that out is part of the journey. There will be time spent staring at it, thinking about it, isolating different parts so that I can see them from different perspectives, trying on and discarding lyrics and quotes and looking at and looking away and thinking and feeling and not-thinking and not-feeling and putting it on the back burner until it tells me.

That’s all part of this homecoming process, knowing that, sometimes, the story tells me, rather than the other way around. It’s the difference between pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing and pushingpushingpushingpushing on a door, and reading the sign that says “pull.” Then pulling, et voila, open door. Funny how that works.

I keep coming back to this idea of homecoming, this place that is familiar-but-not. Keep coming back to the magpie stage, gathering this and that and incorporating it into what I already know. Into what I don’t yet know. It’s…not weird. Not strange. Not familiar, either, but familiar all the same. It’s part of the process. Knowing that not-knowing what I’m doing is exactly what I need to be doing, and knowing that it’s going to be different every time. Knowing that that difference is always going to be a constant. Knowing that, even though I may shy at this jump, I’ve taken it before, and  I can certainly take it again. Knowing that another lap of the place is what I need to build up the speed for that jump. Knowing that my metaphors are going to muddle. Knowing that they are going to mingle, along with pictures I don’t know why I like, songs that grab me from the first note, the scent that grabs the reins of my attention and pulls hard while I’m doing something completely unrelated, and, without my conscious effort, there I am, fully absorbed in the world of the story. Inside the characters’ skins, living their story with them. That’s home.

 

 

 

 

Coming in out of the Cold

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Monday afternoon, cold still hanging in there, but negotiating its exit strategy. We will see how that goes. No idea right now what I want to blog about today, so I am going to jump in and blabber and it will go where it goes. Which is, of course, the magic seven hundred words for the mandatory entry. I could bump this entry back to tomorrow, as I know I get two hours of uninterrupted time after my weekly meeting with N (note to self – bring Mont Blanc and standard cartridge so I can figure out what the heck I’m doing wrong in inserting the darned thing. Seriously, I’ve tried both ends, and nada. Scratchety-scratch on the paper, but no ink after I ran through the mystery dregs of the old ink that somehow missed getting rinsed out when I flushed it during a rare moment of clarity over the weekend. That’s flushed with warm water in the kitchen sink, not in the bathroom bowl. Even at prime coldbrain, I would not do that.)

Okay, pens. I can talk about pens.  The Pilot Namiki cartridges did come on Saturday, and went into the Plumix like a dream, so I have my very first fountain pen back in action. Possible review to follow, because that feels like a natural progression, and it really is an easy to use pen, plus the sepia ink is gorgeous. We will not talk about my adventures trying to put the Jinhao (international standard size) cartridge in the Mont Blanc, even though that should have fit. It probably does, and it was operator error. Hence plans to consult N, who actually knows what she’s doing with the whole fountain pen thing.

I promise that I will talk about things that are not pens, but can be done with pens, namely, writing, once I get my full brain back. Going through the process of writing down anything, as with both my morning pages and blabbery blogging, even without a plan set out beforehand, is a big help in that direction. As a once upon a time writing group facilitator, J, used to remind those of us in her group, the practice begets the product. Or something like that. Like I said, I am not fully back yet. Too fuzzy, don’t remember version – put pen to paper and/or fingers to keyboard and write something. Anything. Sooner or later, writing will kick in and something will start to make sense, fictional or otherwise.

One step at a time kind of thing, the left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot kind of thing.  With the conference only a matter of days away now, there are going to be questions asked by new friends and old, and the answers aren’t always what I wish I were giving at this stage of the game. Am I signing this year? That’s one of them. Answer I give, with game smile: “Not this year.” Answer my Hypercritical Gremlins want to give: :hysterical laughter, breaking down into wrenching sobs that give way to sniffles: They, obviously, are not my biggest supporters, and are quick to remind me that my current crop of titles are A) not all that current, and B) electronic exclusives. Neither making it all that easy to sign, but that’s okay. That’s this stage of the game. That’s this year.

This year, I am at work on one novel and one novella, and cast periodic glances at the post-apocalyptic medieval novella, suspended in mid-revision. Next year, I can have up to three manuscripts ready to make the rounds. That’s pretty darned good. Yay, me. This is not a race. Success and happiness and all that other good stuff are not finite quantities. All the hundreds of other writers and publishing professionals in attendance are proof of that. All the books laid out at our seats every meal and given away as prized in baskets and at workshops and for sale at the literacy signing are proof of that. Every one of those was, at one point, butt in chair and fingers on keyboard. Every one of those was an idea. Every one of those was a “what if?” Every one of those was a “I wonder if I can…” Every one of those was a “I’m going to show up and put something on the paper/screen today.” I can’t think of anything more encouraging than that.