possibly pointless blabbering

Orphaned notebooks

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When I walked away from the table, there were bruises on the unheard lyrics of my yet-to-be-born songs.
-K’naan

Today, we are experiencing technical difficulties. I had a photo of orphaned (and one not really) notebooks all set to go, but my usb cable has gone rogue (or stayed in the coffee house when I left yesterday.) I think that’s rather fitting. I’ll add pictures when I retrieve or replace the cable, but the pictures aren’t the most important things.

Today’s quote comes from Somali-Canadian renaissance man, K’naan, and speaks of a record deal that didn’t work out. I first saved the quote to go along with the post on stories that wouldn’t make it all the way, but it’s here with the post on orphaned notebooks, because I can feel the loss of the words that won’t be on those pages. Maybe they will be on other pages someday, but the books remain, some pages filled, more pages blank. Each one was picked or recieved as a gift with great joy, started with the best of intentions, and then…

…well, if I knew what happened then, I could probably find a way to leverage that into something financially successful, because I would pay to figure out how to make that not happen again. The connection between a notebook user and their notebooks is a special one. Non-notebook people may not get it, and that’s okay. More notebooks for us. Sometimes, it’s the feel of the paper that calls out for a specific story, or the cover, the binding, the maker, the need for something calm and practical or fancifully wild. Whatever the draw, even the draw of finding something out later, every notebook is wanted, at first. Those that find their way to me, but are not a good match, I like to rehome to someplace they will be loved, or at least used. . Some, I alter, some I leave as is.

But the books. I know. This would be easier with pictures, but, in a way, the lack of pictures works. It’s an ephemeral thing, this connection to notebooks, and not always easy to identify. I do know some; the magenta bonded leather Markings gridded notebook, which I’d been beyond excited to get, to succeed its black, burgundy, and tuquoise predecessors as my all purpose book, is among those. Life events happened while I was getting ready to get to know this notebook, and I haven’t been able to unattach them. Bad juju, as some might say. That happens. There’s an older historical romance, by an author I admire, with a setting I love, that I had to put aside because of a life event that happened while I was reading halfway through, and I know I won’t be able to go back to that book and finish. It’s tainted. Regrettable, but it happens. Will I go back to the magenta notebook? Maybe. I’d like to think so, but it’s not time yet.

The black Picadilly cahier, I went into with high hopes, as Picadilly has sturdy paper, is great for everyday use, and if I could find 5×8 cahiers, my then-go-to all purpose format, in a much lower price than Moleskine, that would be great. It would, probably, except that I can’t get used to the slick covers of these books. One of my favorite things about the Moleskine cahiers is the cardboard covers and the way they feel in my hands. Sorry, Picadilly. Even hacking this book with a paper band to fool my hands (it didn’t) couldn’t make me love this. I try, now and again, but I know it’s not a Moleskine, and it feels like it’s, well, trying too hard. This does rather tie in with things I’ve learned about my own writing, so I get it. Probably as much psychological as tactile.

There are notebooks in which I started stories that I realized I was writing because I wanted to prove something to somebody else (oh silly younger me) or because I “should” be writing X, Y and Z, but the fact remained, I didn’t want to, and so the connection wasn’t there. So, I stopped. I used to feel like a failure when I got to that point, when a perfectly lovely notebook got put to the side because I wasn’t feeling it anymore, but now, I see things differently. Knowing when to walk away is part of the creative process. It’s not failure. It’s identifying something that doesn’t work. As my MIL says, “I’ll know not to do that again.”  Wise woman, that one.

So why keep these orphan notebooks around, if they didn’t work the first time? One of my reasons is my resolve to use what I have. Solves the problem of storing unused (or partially used) notebooks and the temptation to overspend on new ones. I have these. I can use them. Maybe not for the reason I initially thought (and that gives me knee-weakening tremors in some cases) – like the Studio Oh! book I thought would be my blabber book for Her Last First Kiss, but now, clearly, is not. I don’t know what it is now, but I know it’s not time to put it away, so it will be something. The best thing I can say is that their journeys aren’t yet over. Their times, their purposes, are going to come, and I’m not going to force them. Forcing doesn’t get anything accomplished.

Blank pages don’t have to be blank – many of mine come with grids, frames, lines, even watermarked images. Even those that come pristine from the printer, though, are already filled with possibility. I like to page through them now and again, and imagine the stories or notes that will someday be written there. The voices aren’t dead. They’re only resting.

Typing With Wet Claws: Recalibration Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. We are all catching our breath here, because it was a very big week for the humans. Anty and Mama had to go to where we used to live, to see Mama’s mama, who was at the people vet. The people vet says Grandma is doing well and she does not have to wear the cone of shame. That is a big relief. Also a big relief is that a big challenge that came up this week got resolved. Anty says thank you to those who were concerned and asked how we were doing.

Even when Anty goes on the road to take care of nonwriting things, she still wants to get some writing done. She may need to make a couple more trips before things are settled-settled (or Mama may go on her own if Anty is needed here) so getting a travel version of her home office (which in itself is in flux; that is a fancy human word that means things are changey) is essential. She took both computers with her this time; her regular laptop and her tablet (which is really more kitty sized than human sized, and I could have used it to talk to her while she was gone) as well as some notebooks.

i1035 FW1.1

this one is for freewriting

Note the frames drawn around the unlined pages. Anty found that trick on a notebook website when she was not sure she could use unlined pages. Then she read the tip about drawing a box around them, and now she likes them very much. She sometimes draws boxes around lined pages and then makes a big colored band on the outside of the box. This time, it was only a box and no color, and she wrote down what she was feeling about what was going on in life. That helps keep her brain from getting jumbled, so the stories have a clear path. At least, that is how I think it works.

Anty had a new post at Heroes and Heartbreakers this week, recapping the newest episode of Outlander, “Wentworth Prison.” It is here and it looks like this:

not for young viewers

not for young viewers

Some people do not like things like the scenes Anty had to recap in this episode, but Anty says they do not make her scared. She finds them interesting, and likes to see what it is that makes humans get through tough times like the humans in Outlander do. My Anty Mary (Mama and Anty got to visit Anty Mary while they were on their trip) reminded Anty that Anty needs to get the first season of Game of Thrones, because Anty will find that very interesting. Anty would like to, and she would also like more hours in the day, but they would probably get filled with laundry and things like that.

Anty also likes when books have people go through interesting things, so she is always glad to find (and write) books where that happens. She was very happy to find some books like that in the storage unit when she went to look for something else. She has read the books on the left and right before, but wanted to have them on the shelf in her office, and she had been looking for the book in the middle for a long time. Finding it in the middle of a tough day made her day a lot better.

I was named for one of these books...

I was named for one of these books…

Now that Anty is back home, she is making lists and seeing what needs to be done to get back on track. There is some talk of a new desktop computer arriving in the not too distant future. We will have to see how that affects me. I suspect that it will be scary at first, but then I will get used to it, and Anty will do more of her writing at home. This will probably require me to make some sort of peace with the office carpet. I suppose we all have our challenges.

Until next week...

Until next week…

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

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

Okay Not to be Okay

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Once in a while, life drops a bomb on all of us. That’s what’s happened in our family this week, and I’m not sure how much I want to write about it here, because this is a writing blog, and this isn’t a writing thing. It impacts my writing, of course, as time spent wrangling family stuff is time spent not writing, but it is also, as everything in a writer’s life, going to end up in a story someday. But writing about the thing itself? Ehhhh, don’t know yet. It’s still fresh. Still dealing with the things-that-need-to-be-done-now and making plans and considering contingencies and and and and and…

…there are a lot of ands. A lot of ifs, a lot of maybes, a lot of we could trys, a lot of I don’t knows. Life can be scary sometimes, and it looks like this may be one of those times. Even so, writing remains my happy place. Going into the story world and closing the door behind me isn’t so much an escape -the other stuff will still be there when I come out again- but more of a respite. It’s some time away that fills em so that I am better able to deal with what’s going on when I’d really rather be writing.

One good thing about writing in the midst of chaos, besides the respite, is that it crystallizes things. I want this. I want to keep writing the main focus of my life.  I will gaurd it and chase it and hunt it down with a club when I need to, because I need it. There’s a power in knowing this is why I am here, and this is the genre I love and I have stories yet to tell, so what other people call “real life” is going to have to calm down and take a seat so that I can get down to business. Sometimes, that will mean I can hunker down with laptop and go clickety clack on the keys for hours. Sometimes, that means I can scrible in my pocket notebook or on an index card or jot something down on the back of a receipt or napkin and keep on going with whatever else the day has demanded of me, but the main thing remains. I can’t turn it off. Not even if I wanted to, and I don’t want to, so I won’t.

Which brings me to the title of this post. There are going to be times, in life and in writing, when things are going great. There are going to be times, in life and in writing, when things are going the exact opposite way and crawling under a rock sounds like a good idea…but nothing gets done there. What I’ve had to tell myself is that it’s okay not to be okay at times. Let the feelings do their job, but don’ t dwell on them. Feel what it feels like to be angry, afraid, confused, exhausted, exhilerated, at wits’ end, triumphant, defeated, whatever it is. Feel it. Remember it. This, too is grist for the mill, and because we write, because we read, we know the black moment comes before the resolution. If things are at their chaotic-est, that’s probably because it’s the middle of the story.

To be continued…

Cranky Day, Lessons Learned, and Random Waterfowl

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It’s not even one o’clock, and I’m cranky. It’s one of those days. We were promised thundershowers. I am looking at brilliant sun through the clouds. I did not ask for brilliant sun. It burns. Yesterday was productive, I was looking forward to more of the same today, and yet…ugh. Hit the wall. Not my favorite thing to do, but writing a blog entry gets at least one thing knocked off my to-do list.

Since I am grumpy today, but want to get this entry up, I am going to be lazy and draw from yesterday’s productivity. I had my all purpose notebook with me and did some writing on Things I Have Learned about the way  I, personally, write. These may or may not be of use to anybody else, but if I get this entry written, I get to bribe myself with a walk, which should bust me out of my funk, so here we go:

  • The goal/task list I make on Monday mornings is my set of goals for the week, not the for the day. I do not want to say how long it took me to realize that, but I finally get it now.
  • I need to write stuff down, or I will lose it. Writing it down also means that I get to play with pens and paper and highlighters. I am a visual person.  If I like looking at the page, I will want to spend time there.
  • Bullet points are life. That’s how my brain works best when getting stuff out.
  • I don’t count words when writing a first draft. That completely paralyzes me, and I’ll shut down. Not going there again. Let me tell the story, though, and watch me fly. I think in terms of scenes. Bullet point draft the scene, smooth it out, get feedback, move on.
  • Yes, I do need to talk about the WIPs. I have tried, very hard, to follow respected advice to keep mum, and, for me, that kills the story. I’m talking flatline. It’s dead, Jim. Pinining for the fjords. An ex-story, as it were.
  • I don’t mean talking the story to death, which I have also done. I have a time travel romance that I really, really love, like crazy love, on life support. It’s been there for years now, and I still can’t pull the plug. Still waiting for all the toxins –too much advice, from too many people, who wanted the book to be things other than what it was, and still is, often contradictory and mutually exclusive- to filter out of its system. Then we’ll see what we can do, but lesson learned.
  • The happy medium is, for me, finding one or two trusted writer friends (and not always the same ones for every project) upon whom I can unleash my verbal onslaught, over cups of tea or instant message (or both at the same time) and keep it at that. For me, thinking and talking often happen at the same time. If I’m stumped by blank page or screen, talking it out is a lifesaver. Sometimes, I don’t know what I’m saying until I’ve said it. Then I’m good, and I can get the story down.
  • I don’t know how many times I’ve started a conversation with “I  have no idea where this story is going,” then spew my verbal sludge at a writer friend, only to be told that’s the whole outline right there. Often with extraneous details filed off, but one of these days, I will get smart and record these blathers. Probably when I can get someone else to transcribe them for me, because I’m one of those people weirded out by their own voice on recordings. Speech to text software is also an option.
  • One of the CRRWA members asked, at this past weekend’s meeting, how it is that I’ve met my personal goals (self set, shared with the group and accounted for at meetings) every month since we began the program. What I said at the time was something along the lines of, “um, I like writing?” but that was also the portion of the day where being asked my favorite TV show stymied me to the point I could only mumble something about Bones, and that after some prompting. (For the record, currently How I Met Your Mother, but not the finale, which I refuse to acknowledge, though if we’re talking only shows in current production, The Walking Dead. Those choices probably say something about me, but I don’t want to examine it too closely. Said choices may change tomorrow, but those are they at the time the question was asked. )
  • What I would have said if not caught on the spot, would be more along the lines of:
  1. Set realistic goals (aka know what you can do.)
  2. Word them vaguely when you need wiggle room.
  • That’s about it for now, as it’s time for walkies.
random waterfowl

Canada goose, eh.

Typing With Wet Claws: Evening Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for a slightly later than usual Feline Friday. Anty has had a very full day today. She and Mama went to the computer store to pick up the new tablet. There will be pictures of it later. It really does look like a cat-sized computer, and it is pink, like my tongue. I think Anty did get me my own computer. The keys on the keyboard (which is also pink) are very tiny. Small for human hands, but the right size for kitty fingers.  I think this means that she wants me to blog more. I can do that.

Uncle is still getting better. He does not smell all the way healthy yet, but Anty hopes that he will , soon. They gave him some very good pills at the people vet, and she does not have to hold his mouth open to make him take them. When I have to take pills (that is hardly ever now, but when I first got rescued by the shelter people, I had to take a lot of them, because I was born wild) I usually get liquid the humans can squirt in my mouth. Maybe Uncle should try that. As it is now, he is getting a lot of rest. I like to be under the bed and send him love beams.

Anty is still figuring out how to use her tablet (she can call it that, but I know it is really my computer) and is trying hard not to say bad words when she makes a mistake. She has made a few mistakes. There is a user’s manual (also kitty sized, but it is not written in Kitty. It is written in English) but Anty has not read it very closely. Anty prefers to learn by doing, even if that means making mistakes along the way. When she makes a mistake, she knows she should not do that thing again and will try something else. Sometimes, this takes her a while, but she gets where she needs to be in the end. This may take her longer than she thought to get my computer set up, but I am patient. I will wait.

i1035 FW1.1

Anty does not have to wait very long for her tea when she goes to write at the coffee house, which is a good thing. Today, she did have to wait a lot while the computer got started, and then again when Word would not load and then Scrivener would not load. I do not know if Anty said any bad words or not, but I do know that she took out a notebook and wrote with a pen until Scrivener came around. Anty can be very determined like that. I think she deserved her people treat for that.

this is a people treat

this is a people treat

Anty has been so busy this week, that she did not get a chance to share the duck pictures she took on the way to visit Uncle at the people vet. She thinks there will be baby ducks in about three weeks. I do not think ducks fly near our house very much, but I do watch other kinds of birds through the window, so that is all right.

Mallards!

Mallards

There is another duck that lives in our kitchen. He does not fly, though. He helps with the dishes. Okay, he is not a real duck like the mallards but Anty likes rubber ducks, so she had to have him. Please ignore the work he has not yet done in the background.

not a real duck

not a real duck

Next Feline Friday, Anty will be at the NECRWA conference. I will not be going, because I am a kitty, but Anty is excited to be among others of her own kind. I think I will be nice and let her take my computer with her, because it is easier for her to carry than this one. If any readers will be there, let Anty know. She would love to say hello and talk about books.

writer at work

writer at work

Even with the extra things that have happened this week, Anty still likes to spend time in her story world. When the life in the really real world gets crazy, it can be relaxing to go into the story world, where things go (usually) the way Anty wants them to (but not always, because sometimes, characters have minds of their own) even if things are even crazier in there for the story people. Never mind the occasional evil cackle or heartwrenching sob from Anty. She writes romance, so all will be well in the end.

Speaking of writing, Anty reminds me that she still has some to do, so I will wrap this up for now, but now that I have my own computer, I may be blogging more often.

Until next time, I remain, very truly yours,

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

I Have No Idea, or, Roadmaps

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“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
– Arthur Ashe

Not ideas, because I am not O  at a loss for any of those. I have index card files, seriously, so I am not going to run out any time soon. Not every idea is going to be written, but each one of them has something in there that I can use in some form. Even if what I glean from that is “never pitch a book idea you pulled out of your :ahem: self after not sleeping for three days straight because the pitch session just took an awkward turn. Not that that ever happened to anybody I know. :cough: But ideas, yes, lots of those.

What I’m talking about here is those days when I have no idea what I’m doing. I hate those. People who know me know that I’m a planner. I like to know what is going to happen, when, not to mention how. I love to-do lists, and the only think I like better than listing tasks is crossing them off. Maybe prioritizing, because that’s actually fun, especially if I get to play with highlighters.

Life, especially the writing life, doesn’t always work that day. Sometimes, the nonwriting life takes a good long look at a writer and says, “Writer, you are now officially my puching bag.” Whompity whompity whomp. Nonwriting life can have a mean left hook. Domestic tornado chains whip through what should be a fairly productive writing day. Sick family members, financial hiccups, domestic duties that require immediate attention, lest the universe implode, and the like are not going to take a break because we’re making good time on the work in progress, or a blog post due.

Which is where today’s ramble comes in. Yesterday had its challenges, and there was no way on earth I was going to give up my time with Her Last First Kiss, so Monday’s post got moved to Tuesday. I probably had some vague notion (or maybe a not so vague one) about what I wanted to cover in this blog post. Something about notebooks, maybe? A Camp NaNo update? How much fun it is to be splashing around in the shallows of a new book, and then, without meaning to, diving down deep and finding ohhhhhh, that’s why that thing was in that scene. I may not have known what I was doing at the time my hero picked up a china dog in a shop (and a scene I didn’t plan), as a gift for the heroine, but he did, and that’s what matters. He knew she would like it, even if I had no earthly idea, bu a few chapters later, when she finally admits a Deep Secret she will only trust to him, it all makes sense.

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We’ve been in our current home for about two and a half years now, Real Life Romance Hero and Housemate and Skye and I , and only recently did I finally get around to employing an arty idea I’d had while apartment hunting. I’ve tried scrapbooking, and it’s really not for me, but I love mixed media art, and anything even remotely notebook-related. About a week or so ago, I took out the map we’d used in finding our home, so that I could memorialize the search with art. I covered the cardboard box that my new computer cord came in with part of that map, and now use it to store pens and a small notebook. Easily portable, unique and personal. It reminds me of the writing desk the hero of Her Last First Kiss counts as his most prized posession. His is wood, not cardboard, far more durable than what I have, and he sure as anything wouldn’t have made it himself (carpentry is not his thing) but the connection, that’s there, and it’s strong. Through all of his travels, my hero counts his writing desk as his true home, and I can relate to that.

Today has been one of those punching bag days. Yesterday was another. This post exists because I don’t like having to push back Wednesday’s post because I haven’t yet done Monday’s post, and because posting is one thing I can control when nonwriting life starts lobbing stuff at me. Sit down at the keyboard and blabber about writing? I can do that. I may not know the exact topic when I set out on the journey, but that’s okay. I know how to write. I’ll get there.

So it is with the art and discipline of writing a book. It’s been a while since I’ve had a hero and heroine talk to me this clearly ( things,perhaps, only other writers will understand) amd I am not going to squander that. Maybe I don’t know where we’re going for a particular session, but I trust them. I trust that I know how to write a book. I’ve done it before. I can do it again. I am doing it now. Sometimes, we need to make the maps while we explore, then follow them later.

Typing With Wet Claws: Special Easter Monday Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for a special Monday edition of Typing With Wet Claws. I am blogging for Anty today because she is taking a mental health day. So far today, she has cleaned throwup twice (only one was mine, but I did try to eat it again. She would not let me.) and poop once (that was mine, but I did not try to eat it) and both Mama and Uncle are at home when they were meant to be at work. Mama is resting now, to get over her tummy bug,  and Uncle got his shift changed, so that pretty  much took care of Anty’s plans to have a productive day of writing at home.

That does not mean that she will not have a productive day, or that she will not write. Anty has a lot of notebooks, and is even now deciding which ones (plural) she will take with her when she heads outfor the day. She does not have a plan at this point, and I must admit her occasional cackles give me some pause (I already have paws. Four of them.) because that is not a sound I her very often, but Uncle convinced her that it will be best for everybody if she heads out for a while. Uncle likes to putter, which is not always compatible with Anty writing in the living room. Her other plan today was to work on organizing the office while listening to Paper Towns, but that would be too noisy, as the office shares a wall with her and Uncle’s bedroom.

Anty calls days like this well-filling days. That means she needs to take in new things so that she will have more to draw from when she writes. I have seen  her try to write when she does not take in enough, and it is not a pretty sight. This day away from the keyboard (well, mostly. I know my Anty.) will be good for everybody. She mentioned something about going to the park to look for ducks, and I did see her putting her camera in her big purse. The computer is probably staying home today, unless she comes back to get it and write at the coffee house, which she might do.

Normally, Anty likes to have a plan for her days. She will make a list of things that need to be done on a given day, usually over breakfast, and pick which one is the most important, then do that one first. Then she picks the next most important, and so on. Sometimes, things get carried over to the next day, but a day without plans does not happen all that often, especially on her own. Today, though, it is necessary, not only for staying away from sick and/or cranky people, but making sure she does not become one of them herself.

Schroedinger's bunny?

Schroedinger’s bunny?

In other news, yesterday was Easter, which means Anty gave Uncle an Easter basket. The foil wrapped chocolate bunny is important. Anty learned that the hard way, after we had to hand off at least four (I could not count higher than that, since I was counting on my paws) naked chocolate bunnies from the freezer to our former downstairs neighbor when we moved. Uncle does not like unwrapped bunnies, and Anty does not care for chocolate that much, but didn’t want to throw away perfectly good food items, so they lived in the freezer. Some of them, for a very long time.

Every basket also has to have a stuffed animal. This year, it was Cadbury Bunny. Very nice of him to come wearing a name tag, and he brought snacks. Anty and Uncle put him on the floor so that I could meet him (they are very good with that) but I am confused. This bunny talks. He makes chicken sounds. He does not move, but he does talk, and I am not sure if he is alive or not. Still figuring that one out, but Anty and Uncle seem to like him a lot, so I will follow their lead.

That ends this special entry. I will see you all on Friday, so until then, I remain very truly yours,

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

See you Friday....

See you Friday….

Typing With Wet Claws: Under the Weather Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday.  This has been a big week, mostly because of two things. The first thing is that Anty got sick, and the second thing is that we got snow.

Anty almost never gets sick, but this time, she did. Part of her feeling bad is the thing she calls a bug (I can understand that. I had fleas a long time ago, and I hated that) and part of it is that because of that bug, she cannot have a lot of the things that are good for humans when they are sick and it is cold out. No tea, no orange juice, no soup, no spicy foods. I am glad I eat cat food. That is much easier to figure out.

The one good thing about Anty being sick (please do not tell her I said this, because she might think I am happy when she is sick, and I am not) is that she is at home all of the time. I like having my favorite humans around, and when Anty is on her glowy box, like she is even on sick days, I can sit near her and feel very safe and content. Today, she is painting her claws. I love the smell of claw paint.

Most of the time, though, she is writing in a notebook or on the glowy box.  On Monday, she watched Sleepy Hollow and recapped it for Heroes and Heartbreakers. It is here and looks lie this:

Yowling humans can be entertaining...
Yesterday, she had her planner and calendar and some Sharpies (which also smell very interesting to a kitty) because it was time to update her Coming Soon page.  She will be participating in 31 Days & 31 Ways to Jumpstart Your Life, in March, writing one of the daily posts.  Her topic will be creativity. She will tell you more about that when it gets closer to March.

On Valentine’s Day (very appropriate for a romance writer,) she will be presenting On Beyond Fanfic, the updated and in person version of her From Fan Fiction to Fantastic Fiction workshop, at Capitol Region Romance Writers. She really loves doing this workshop, and is excited to present it live. I think that may be why she has been watching a lot of DVDs and taking notes this past week.

It may also be because she is grumpy over not being able to get out and have fun in the snow. Snow is her favorite weather, and we got it two times this week. One of those times is today, and it is not done yet.  She says she is going to go out and take pictures (and get pizza and tea) as soon as she is better, but she did get one picture on the day it was supposed to snow a lot and only snowed some. Since I am an indoor kitty, and the windows are up high, I have to take her word on this, but this is what it looked like outside our house. Is that a lot of snow? I would not know, as I have never been out in it.

i1035 FW1.1

That is about it for this week.  As you can imagine, there is a lot for a kitty to do when their human is under the weather, especially in more ways than one. I think I will take a nap by the heater to restore myself, because a kitty’s work is never done.

Until next week, I remain very truly yours,

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

Throwback Thursday: Daddy’s Girl?

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

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

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

 

 

Sicko, pt 2

annabowling 2 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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