reading

Typing With Wet Paws: Mental Health Day Edition

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Tails up Storm Troopers. I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. This is an unusual day as everybody’s mental health days seem to have coincided, so this will be more of a zoom-by post. I am super good at zoomies, as Aunt Anna can tell you, especially in the middle of the night. Woo!

Writing this week did not go as planned, but that’s what next week (and an especially beautiful writing assistant) is for. In the meantime, time to relax and take in and give belly rubs (to me) and all of that other good well filling stuff.

Aunt Anna and Aunt Melva’s video interview would have made a great sitcom episode, as Aunt Anna, famous for technology problems, had a lot of sound issues, and, well, basically got to sit there and look pretty.

Aunt Anna cleans up pretty good.

There was some insomnia involved, aka Aunt Anna being up to join me in Midnight Parkour for a couple of nights, and then this morning, the crash. That means she took a big nap, and now feels pretty okay, but still needs to read and watch and play stuff before she can do much braining. It also means, that since both Uncle Rheuben and Aunt Linda are also tired, that all of the humans are staying in tonight and getting pizza and then “being feral cats” as they say. I have never been a feral cat, myself, as I was born in a house (with a LOT of cats, as my first mom says) and went directly to my first mom and then to these guys. When I had my walkabout last summer, there were a couple of feral cats in the area I wandered, but we didn’t talk much. The possums were cool, though.

So anyway, what we get here is Aunt Anna helping me with this post and then she is going to flop on the bed to catch the cross breeze from two open windows (it is very very nice spring-like weather here in NY) and relax with the whole family. I, of course, am very very good at relaxing. Well, not at Midnight Parkour time, but most of the rest of the time.

Anyway, Aunt Anna plans on a bunch of reading, and since she just got some new library e-books, plus she has Kindle Unlimited, that is going to be all set. Nice mixture of historical romance and contemporary YA. I am unsure of the number of cats involved in any of those stories. There will also be some planning involved, maybe a new planner because the academic calendar ones are starting to show up on store shelves, and most exciting of all, it will be new laptop time. Aunt Anna has a history with laptops (see her incompatibility with technology above) but things like her Kindle Fire not being that great for Zoom conferences and such, it is time for a new device, with a camera and a microphone, which means she may as well give the You Tube thing another try, because there are not a lot of historical romance Book Tube channels, and none that Aunt Anna has seen by kids her own age, so that’s a hole in the market that she might like to fill. I’ll let her talk more about that later.

Checking in with Goodreads, that shows us that Aunt Anna is currently kicking tush and taking names in her reading challenge for 2021, with 26 books read out of 90, putting her 29% of the way to her goal, and a full 9 books ahead of schedule. Go, Aunt Anna, go! I am pretty sure that my cuddling with her at reading time is a big, big help with all of that. I will continue to do my part.

Shouldn’t be long now before the pizza, and I will of course be needed to supervise everything, so I am going to bounce (seriously, I have a very sproingy trot) and get down to business. Headbonks!

Book Juggling and Other Stories

annabowling 2 Comments

Back in the before-before-before times, I had a reading system. I read one historical romance and one Star Trek tie-in novel at a time. Well, that was the plan. I have been known to juggle historicals, especially when they were in different eras (ie one Tudor, one Edwardian, etc) and my Trek involvement centered on The Next Generation, as I was active in that fandom then. That was also the time when my book shopping happened much more in person, with an array of options. Waldenbooks was my favorite, with Borders, Chapters, and some other :gestures vaguely: and then the Aladdin’s cave of used bookstores (I miss those with a pain in my heart) and the thrill of combing through the ever changing shelves (crawling around on the floor to check out the stuff under the bottom shelf was the best part.)

Photo by Ekrulila on Pexels.com

On a good day, I could spend hours combing through the historical romance section alone. I’d have my list of books from authors I loved, plus looking for covers by my favorite artist, Elaine Duillo, and keeping an eye out for the historical eras I loved the most. Tudor was at the top of the list, and by Tudor, I mean historical romances about original characters, set in the Tudor era, not fictionalized biographies. The seventeenth century is right up there, too, with the English Civil War, the Lord Protectorate, and the glorious, bawdy, turbulent Restoration era, with women on the stage and gorgeous aesthetics (plus the origin of Cavalier King Charles Spaniels) and then we go into the whole Georgian era, but nipping out before the Regency, and then back in for the turn of the 20th century, on either side of the pond.

I loved the variety, the pirates, the revolutionaries, one particularly memorable Basque shepherd, Vikings, Highlanders, knights, highwaymen, and ticket of leave men, – and any of the above could be the heroines, too. I loved the variety, the scope, and the fact that I could easily read one book, get a definitive HEA, and move right along. Not that there weren’t series as well, because there certainly was, and of those, my favorite was the generational saga, where Heroine One might be the mother of Heroine Two, grandmother of Heroine Three, and so on.

I loved seeing heroes and heroines I already loved at different stages of their lives together, as parents, as grandparents, and my particular favorite tropes for the younger generations were when the young ones either think that their parents or grandparents couldn’t possibly understand what it meant to be young and in love with a mad, burning passion, or on the other side of the coin, when the kids grew up seeing the grand passion between their parents, and wondering if there could ever be something like that for them…and then there was. :happy sigh:

:hugs physical book:

Back the, I could always count on Romantic Times magazine to clue me in on the newest upcoming historicals, and give me insights into books in other subgenres that might tickle my interests. Time was, traditional Regencies were their own category (really, they were) and romance writers of a certain age may well remember the big kerfluffle if there were a place under the umbrella for mainstream fiction with strong romantic elements (including but not limited to love stories that do not have a HEA.)

Times have changed. There is no physical romance fiction magazine anymore as far as I know, at least not one available in Barnes and Noble, which is now the only chain bookstore I can get to with any regularity. I also can’t remember the last paperback I bought in a bookstore. Best I can say is it was in the before times. My Trek involvement now is confined to the video essays by a few favorite YouTubers. Contemporary YA has taken the place in my reading habits that Trek tie ins used to have, and I am finding that there are the settings I love out there, but it may take some digging to find them.

It’s not an entirely bad change. I love that I can carry around thousands of books at once, in my Kindle, and the Kindle app on my tablet. I love that I can have a robo-voice turn any e-book into an audiobook. I love that there are new authors on the scene, and that the advent of indie publishing means that everybody has a chance to get the kind of story they love out there for readers who are combing the interwebs for it, if not bottom shelves of used bookstores. Heck, I’m even moving in that direction myself with A Heart Most Errant.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, only that this is what came out of my fingers as I started this entry. Last night, I read a book my library app filed under YA thriller. The story was mm, not for me, though I loved the idea and the visuals, and the stuff that worked for me is probably simmering in idea soup somewhere on the back burner. What I remembered most was that, after the that’s the ending? ending, my first thought was “yep, need a historical romance novel now,”

Which I do. I have one historical I missed the first time around, back in the before-before-before times, plus a new release that I can’t wait to get to., I’m also keeping my eyes peeled for YAs with creepy old houses in remote locations. Getting some definite gothic vibes from those selections. Mmmm, gothics.

See the source image
homer simpson drool gif – Bing images
Anna

Typing With Wet Paws: In Like a (Calico ) Lion Edition

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Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws;. It has been a full year now since the Before Times, which gives people a lot of feels. I recommend kitty cuddles as remedy. One year is a whole third of my life (give or take; we don’t know my actual birthday, so we are celebrating it the same as Big Sister Skye’s, February 14th, because I was probably born thereabouts anyway.)Aunt Anna finds that kitty cuddles, journaling, and Sims are really good ways to cope. Also reading and writing romance novels.

this is me last year; am I a grownup now?

Now that it’s March, Aunt Anna is looking forward to when the new spring planners are released, because this re-dating everything every month is for the birds. (mmm, birds) She finds that dating undated stuff is a lot easier than red-dating wrong-dated stuff. I am not sure how that works out because humans are complicated. I think they could use some jingle balls. Those always work for me. Especially at 3AM. New planner things come out in June. She will either get a brand new pre-dated one, or use undated printables. There was an incident on Monday regarding the whole re-dating thing. Aunt Anna knows a lot of words.

dashboard vs vertical layout
big/letter size/vs classic/composition size

Aunt Anna obviously has time to figure things out, and she has a lot of options, so expect some flailing about and then settling on the right thing right under the wire. That’s how she works. That goes for writing as well as planning. I am used to it by now.

One of the planner things Aunt Anna has not yet settled on is her reading tracker. I mean, she has the notebook she wants, and the printables, but she hasn’t gotten around to printing or having them printed yet, so maybe something else will work better for now? Right now, she is using Goodreads, so let’s see how she is doing on her challenge. As of today, she has read 23 books out of her goal of ninety. That puts her at 26 percent of the way to her goal, and 8 books ahead of schedule. Well done, Aunt Anna.

Buried Under Romance had to take a break last week. There have been a lot of breaks, which is a good indicator that there are new and exciting things to do with that blog, coming very soon. That’s a fun way to think about it, rather than frustrating herself.

On the home front, it has been interesting. We have had super cold days, super windy days (I am glad we live inside!)some nice days, and the smoke alarm went off when Uncle Rheuben tried to reheat a lasagna. He also fixed two different sinks that did not like the cold weather. Aunt Anna says that is because this is an older building and the pipes don’t like winter. Well, winter is almost done, and it will soon be time to sit in open windows and chatter at birds. Not sure the humans are going to do the chatter at birds part, but it couldn’t hurt to try. Aunt Anna and Uncle Rheuben think it would be fun to take me out in a cat stroller, but Aunt Linda is concerned that I might go out on another solo adventure, which is a valid concern. Not that being out by myself was that great.

That should be about it for now, so I will leave you with this picture of me totally not plotting with Esme.

Esme and me, totally not planning anything

Headbonks!

Typing With Wet Paws: Double The Edits, Double the Fun (?) Edition

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Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. This week, Aunt Anna has a lot of work in front of her, because she has two books that need a second look at the same time. You read that right. This coming week, she is in double edit mode, and she kind of doesn’t hate it.

photo: Rheuben Bowling

Aunt Anna is pretty darned happy to have not only unearthed her Alphasmart, but charged her and has her ready to go. I may or may not have had something to do with the “test” document that was about a million lines of “33333333333333” over and over and over again. Nobody can prove anything. It’s all conjecture. Not my fault if the Alphasmart is super super super interesting. Aunt Anna thinks that too. She can stare at that thing for ages, and do the clickety clack thing with her fingers on the keyboard at a respectable pace. Can you blame me for wanting to give it a try?

Anyway, that’s going to come in super useful because Aunt Anna does her best writing writing in longhand, meaning it will need to be transcribed, and if she can do that from the comfort of the soft office, with hot beverage, weighted blanket and super cute calico companion, that much the better. Also, she can’t be distracted by The Sims of chats with online friends. That is a real peril for the extroverted writer, and Aunt Anna certainly is that. That’s where a mews like me has to rein her back into line.

This coming week, she has the first fifty pages of Drama King to edit (well, look at Aunt Melva’s edits, say yes or no or yes and/yes or/etc and bat it back Aunt Melva’s way) and she has the whole first pass of edits on A Heart Most Errant, and then send it back to the editor for the second pass and formatting and all of that fun stuff. If she does 25 pages of that a day, she can get the first pass dealt with in one work week, unless she hits a snag, which she can’t promise she won’t. Either way, this is a stage that she likes a whole bunch, because it’s like doing surgery on the story at hand. Most of the time, this ill also give her fuel to put new writing stuff to start its own process on the back burner, and she’ll alway6s want something ready to catch those ideas to hold them safe until it’s there turn.

Photo by Sam Lion on Pexels.com

All of that work is going to require some well filling, and that’s where her Goodreads Reading Challenge comes into play. Aunt Anna is doing pretty well this week, at eighteen books read out of ninety, which puts her at twenty percent of the way to her goal, and six books ahead of schedule. She is salty that the library does not have the third book in Eloisa James’ Desperate Duchesses series but she did suggest that the library fix that, so we will see how that goes. It’s not like she doesn’t have other books, or can’t get it elsewhere. Audiobooks make great journaling buddies, which she expects to keep on doing in the coming week.

On the Buried Under Romance front, Aunt Anna posits some questions for new romance readers (and others) in honor of last week’s Valentine’s Day. I think they are interesting questions for any time of the year. If you feel like answering any of them, or have any of your own, consider dropping your answers/questions in the comment sections on that site or this one. Aunt Anna is nosy.

So am I. Big surprise, I know. Comes with the whole being a cat territory thing. What are you reading this weekend? Have you ever used an Alphasmart? Would you like Aunt Anna to show you what an Alphasmart does? What do you think of my new signoff photo?

Headbonks!

A calico cat sis with front legs folded on the keyboard of an Alphasmart. She looks like she is reading her work.
Calico got to go!
—Storm

Typing With Wet Paws: Special Wednesday Edition

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Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is a special Wednesday edition of Typing With Wet Paws. Part of my job as Aunt Anna’s mews is to fill in for her when her other obligations keep her from the blogsphere, and this is one of those times. No worries; everything is awesome over here, and once Aunt Anna figures out how to kick the tush of this current strain of insomnia, she will be back in full force.

Photo by Ono Kosuki on Pexels.com

The first round of edits on A Heart Most Errant has come home to rest. Aunt Anna is excited to get to work on that. One step closer to getting this book out to all of you, woot! She and Aunt Melva are also working on laying the groundwork for starting Queen of Hearts. This will of course require here to dedicate specific stationery items to those things, and I am sure she will tell you all about it here, and maybe on her Instagram. I had better do cute things so she will take more pictures of me, because her IG game is lagging, big time.

Photo by Lina Kivaka on Pexels.com

One good thing about insomnia is that Aunt Anna is actually doing more reading. I’m not giving any stats until Friday, but suffice it to say that she is happily delving into the Desperate Duchesses series by Eloisa James. She hasn’t really read much of Eloisa James before, but she adores the Georgian period, so this is going to scratch that itch. I will be scratching other things, like my scratchy thing, especially when the humans replace it, because I have pretty much scratched that one to cardboard shreds.

One of the things Aunt Anna thinks might help is getting a new office chair. This is kind of complicated because A) she really loves her kneeling chair, but it is pretty old. She got it when she worked retail, and Olivia was the family cat. Olivia was the cat before Skye, who was the cat before me. That’s three cats ago. I think maybe it is time for that to become a cat bed. B) she also has an office chair with a high back, which is in the storage unit, so the humans will need to move that one when they move some other furniture, or they might get another chair for the meanwhile. If they go with that option, that means a new box for me. I am very fond of boxes. I scratch the um, poo, out of them when I want Aunt Anna’s attention.

greatest hits picture of me, for kitty tax

Aunt Anna is actually making lists of household things because it is time for us to put down our roots and make this apartment our HOME. One of those things is going to be adding a lot of pillows to Aunt Anna and Uncle Rheuben’s bed, which may also be one of the things that will help her sleep during the approved human sleeping time. I like to help by sleeping on top of her, in case the weighted blanket could use a little help.

That’s going to be about it for right now, so I am going to supervise Aunt Anna, and see you guys again on Friday.

Headbonks!

Lessons From Misprinted Pages

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Yesterday, Real Life Romance Hero and I had a snow day. This seemed like the perfect time to fully move into my reading tracker notebook, which involved printing several different sets of inserts for calendars, book tracking, book reviews, etc. I’m interested in taking a closer look, this year, at what and how I read. What sorts of tropes I gravitate toward (or avoid) keep a running TBR organized by genre, etc. In short, typical Anna stuff.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com
(aka Not Me, but actually not too far off)

I spent the morning learning my new printer, so that I would minimize my number of double sided ages where one side gets printed upside down (my nemesis) and made sure I had the right amount of the right paper in the tray so I wouldn’t have to deal with annoying beeps and other printer requests. I printed a year’s worth of three different inserts, then commandeered the kitchen table with slicer tool, hole punch, scissors, and other paraphernalia. Cut first set of inserts.

Wait. Something is…off. Huh. Double check, did I print the right files? Yes, I did. So, why do they look different than the same file that I printed over a year ago, before life went blooey? Put the new pages side by side with the old pages, and then it hit me. I had printed them at “fit to page,” rather than “actual size.”

:face palm:

😥

: bad words:

:deep breath:

:punch the whole year of monthly pages for full letter, stick them in cover that will fit them:

:put everything away, retreat to bed with kitty and book:

I am still salty about this, as it wasn’t cheap copy paper, but some respectably nicer stuff, and quite a bit of it, and mot of it, apart from the monthly grids, unique to the reading notebook. Even the monthly pages look a little off at full letter size, since they weren’t meant to be printed that way, and look kind of like they’ve been pulled out of shape. That is not entirely inappropriate, since they are now in my historical romance notebook, and I have felt pulled out of shape myself, which the notebook is there to fix.

I will re-print the inserts in the next day or two, and t his time, I will definitely pay attention to which box I click regarding size of the printed image. If I play my cards right, it might even be the same day the special filler paper I ordered (because yes, when it comes to reading, I am always going to need more paper to hold my blabberings) which will make the next round of planning all that more rewarding. Will there still be some surprises ahead of me? Experience tells me yes.

Experience also tells me this is probably going to happen with the actual writing, as well. not only the printing of the actual pages (I love doing that for the editing phase) but for how the books go together in general. Sometimes, starting over after a lot of work has already been done is annoying and frustrating, and other times, it’s more like “huh, well, this solved that other problem” even if it didn’t take care of what it was supposed to do in the first place, but hey, that’s one thing off the list and on with the show. At least that’s the plan.

Anna

Typing With Wet Paws: Sleepy Week Edition

annabowling 2 Comments

Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. As the still-holliday-themed picture will tell you, Aunt Anna still needs to work on a new header picture for me, but she’ll get to that. It’s been one of those weeks. Nothing much wrong, just not the greatest on the writing front Aunt Anna is salty about that. These kinds of things happen to everybody, so chalk it up to experience and keep on going.

Or take a nap. Naps are good.

In that vein, let’s look at some things that did go well this week. First up, Mr. Kurt, the property manager, came over early in the week, to take care of the clogged kitchen sink, and we now no longer have a clogged kitchen sink. Yay for Mr. Kurt. Needless to say, a day with all the humans home, plus an extra human, and plumbing issues, meant that Aunt Anna’s writing week did not start off the smoothest. Reading, though, t hat’s another matter.

Even though writing wasn’t t he best this week, reading went great. So far, Aunt Anna is two books ahead of schedule on her Goodreads Challenge goal of reading ninety books in this year, with five books so far. As of now, they are all YA, but that is about to change, because…drumroll…it’s…

Historical Romance Readathon!

Aunt Anna is SO HERE for this adventure, which starts TODAY. Run by Jess at PeaceLoveBooks, Lisa from Remarkably Lisa, and Lacey from LaceyBooklovers. There is a bingo card, which is technically a bing card, since there are only four rows in any direction. If you would like to see thing bign card, and maybe even play along, you can head on over to Lacey’s Instagram (Aunt Anna follows her; do you? It’s a fun account.) Click on HR Readathon, and Bob’s your uncle. Well, literally, if one of your parents has a sibling named Bob. Otherwise, only metaphorically.

Originally, Aunt Anna planned to do some intense research and plot out her TBR to a fare thee well, but see mention of the week getting away from her, and yeah, not so much. As of today her TBR is…no TBR. She is going to start with an anthology, which will give her the highest likelihood of hitting the most squares. After that, she will strategize. Also, having an anthology, she can break the reading into four different stories, which feels more handle-y. I don’t think that’s a word, but whatever. I’m a cat. Here’s the book:

How the Dukes Stole Christmas

Aunt Anna will admit to slacking on the Christmas books last year, but Christmas romances are good any time. This book hits several of the squares. The squares for Joanna Shupe, and blue on the cover are right next to each other, so Aunt Anna is halfway to bing already. It’s also a recent release, as it was new this past Christmas, and a used book, as it is a library book, but those are on different lines, but recent release may also give her bing with only one more book. The other three boxes in that line are: has a stepback; shirtless man on cover or stepback; and standalone. Aunt Ana LOVES standalones. A standalonepublisehd before 2000, which is probably wehre the majority of standalones fall, is highly likely to have a stepback and/or shirtless dude, so chances are good on that front. We will see how it goes.

Aunt Anna will also be posting on Buried Under Romance tomorrow with updates, so keep an eye out for that. If you are participating, or you have any recommendations to help her get to bing, drop your suggestions in the comments below.

Takes a lot of beauty sleep to get this beautiful

Now for the important news, aka the news about ME. Aunt Linda has a co-worker who bought her cats some fancy cat food. They didn’t like it. She gave it to Aunt Linda to give to me. I love it! This other human’s cats must have horrible taste, because this is not only the second batch of food I inherited, but they didn’t like a cat bed, and so gave it to me, via Aunt Linda. I crawled right into it and purred and purred and purred.

Here is where we have an issue in feline/human communication. When we first got the cat bed, we put it at the foot of Aunt Anna and Uncle Rheuben’s bed, which, at the time, was an air mattress right on the floor. Then they got the Real Bed. Which is not on the floor. I stopped using the cat bed that same day, even though I love to be on the actual bed with them. They have been moving the cat bed all over the place, hoping to find a lace where I wil like it again, but they aren’t getting it right. Does anybody who can speak cat and human help me let them know? It’s kind of stressing Aunt Anna out.

Headbonks!

Nothing

Typing With Wet Paws: December is a Lawless Wasteland Edition

annabowling 3 Comments

Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. It’s also the end of December, right before Christmas, and the humans are okay, but draggy. It also doesn’t hurt that on Monday, everybody’s schedule got thrown out of whack when the front door froze.

too much soft focus?

Yep. You read that right. Uncle Rheuben went downstairs to head to work, and the doorknob wouldn’t turn. At all. So Aunt Linda tried it. Then Aunt Anna tried it. I would have tried it, but A) I don’t have thumbs, B ) I don’t know how to open doors by the doorknob, and C) I am not allowed downstairs (plus I don’t know how stairs work anyway.) That meant Uncle Rheuben had to make phone calls. He called Mr. Kurt, the property manager, and Mr. Quentin, the maintenance human. As it turned out, Mr. Kurt was on vacation, but Mr. Quentin was right outside, blowing snow and he called a locksmith, and then the humans were no longer trapped in the house. Uncle Rheuben’s boss gave him the day off, because trapped in the house because of a frozen door is a pretty good reason that doesn’t have a lot of arguments.

That was also the day Aunt Linda got her days on and days off mixed up, so I ended up having everybody at home, which was super cool. It was also when Aunt Anna completely gave up on getting anywhere near the keyboard that day, though it was going to be a big writing day. She knows when it’s time to just roll over and go to Plan B. Thankfully, Uncle Rheuben has mad cooking skills, so he made super melty grilled cheese and other human foods, and that went a long way in smoothing things over for everybody. I am allowed to sniff human food, but not eat it, because I am a kitty and kitties eat kitty food.

Anyway, we do have a Christmas tree, which, as of now, I am content to view from a safe distance. It hasn’t made a huge impact on me yet, but does that mean I am not hatching plans that would indicate otherwise? I can neither confirm nor deny that.

Portrait may consist of: This be night, plant an' indoor
better picture coming later

Update: I have no comment on the single Christmas tree light bulb that turned up in Aunt Anna’s and Uncle Rheuben’s bed. There are a million reasons a lightbulb could be in their bed. I mean, at least five. Why does everybody always suspect the kitty?

Anyway, we had a big, big snow. Probably a few cats deep. I wouldn’t know how many, because I am not allowed outside. I am okay with that. Outside is cold, and snow is white, and I am partly white. If I for some reason lay on the snow with my belly up, nobody would see me. Aunt Linda got a nice neighbor to help dig her car out of the snow. People around here are helpful like that. Aunt Anna went to Aunt Linda’s work pl,ace, where we used to amp in the summer, to put out some dry food for the ferals who live there, but she couldn’t get to the actual shelter, because there was a *lot* of snow, and she couldn’t see where she was goings, so she left some as close as she could get. They’ll find it.

Aunt Anna had meant to go to Goodreads and just move the fluffing goalposts already for her challenge for this year, but then she saw that she was farther head than she had thought, with eighty four out of ninety books read, and that’s only six more books, which is only one more than five more books, and five more books is a totally do-able thing, especially when she has a soft, purry calico reading buddy (aka me) to spur her along. This means that if she focuses on things she can read very quickly, like graphic novels/manga, novellas, or rereads, she can totally make her original goal, despite what 2020 has thrown in her direction. By now, it has become a point of honor.

New doings are also in the works with Buried Under Romance, in the new year, with more reviews, and editorial content, because that editorial content stuff is what Aunt Anna lives for when it comes to book blogging. She is even dusting off her classic interview questions from the very first book blogging gig she ever had, because those interviews were a whole lot of fun. We could all use more fun. For me, that means cat toys, both commercial and found, but humans, you do you.

With the reading goal set in place, the attention now goes to the writing aspect, and part of that falls into the lawless wasteland that is December, when we’re all tired and want to dive into our new planners and the new year and all that. That, Aunt Anna is looking forward to tiredly, but looking forward none the less. She and Aunt Melva will be done with Drama King by new year’s, and after that, they will be starting a fun side project, and Aunt Anna can have some brain space for historical romance, which she has sorely missed.

Aunt Anna also wants to thank the fabulous Kathleen Underwood, aka cover artist for the original publication of Orphans in the Storm, for the nudge to mention Aunt Anna’s Lion and Thistle Discord channel. She is Snowbound Mermaid over there, and apparently the numbers that go with that are 5324. Drop on by and help her natter about reading and/or writing historical romance.

Basically, the humans are kind of cruising until the holiday is over, and I totally respect that. I also will be keenly interested in the wrapping paper that will be mine, all mine, on Christmas morning, plus string and boxes. Stay tuned for a cat’s eye view of Aunt Anna’s favorite day of the year. I’ll be taking notes.

Headbonks!

Good Question, YA Novel

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Not sure what it was about yesterday, but I ticked three, count them three books off my Goodreads challenge backlog. Okay, two of them, I had started earlier, and one of them was a forty minute audiobook prequel to a new series, but it still counts. Two of the books were historical romance, one paranormal, one not, and the other one was a YA romance, the latest installment in my favorite YA Christmas romance series. I will admit that is a pretty much niche market, but stay with me here, I’m going somewhere.

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I will never not love these books

Disclaimer: I highly, highly, highly recommend the Dash and Lily series, but do not start with Mind the Gap. Get in on the ground floor, with Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares. There’s a smart, grumpy YA hero, Dash, who is full of the bah humbug, and Lily, our spunky YA heroine, lives for Christmas and dogs and family ties. There’s a red Moleskine notebook, a clandestine correspondence, an underground Jewish rave, a madcap tour of NYC, all the holiday feels, and every bookworm’s fantasy of being locked in a bookstore overnight. Oh, and true love. Also, the cover looks like this:

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Start here. Seriously, start here.

When I first met Dash and Lily, their first book was a standalone, and I didn’t think it needed any more installments. (I stan standalones, but that’s another post) but Twelve Days of Dash and Lily won me over, when Christmas-loving Lily loses the joy of the season, and it’s up to Dash to bring back her sparkle.

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I will never doubt these authors again

Okay, so the question. First, a little backstory. I am not going to retell any of the books, because read them, read them, read them, read them, read them. I will, however, say that if there is one city that rivals a perfect location for Christmas magic than NYC, it’s London. Congratulations to Ms. Cohn and Mr. Levithan for knowing the one thing that would entice me. (The only city that could top that would be Jerusalem, but this isn’t that kind of book.) Dash is at the wrong university, Lily is finding that maybe she doesn’t want her gap year to close, and they aren’t kids anymore, but young adults (new adults?) so questions of The Future are now coming into play, and mommy and daddy can’t help them now.

There are older relatives, of course, and one of them actually does ask one really good question of both Dash and Lily, which applies to them both as individuals finding their own ways, and as a couple. What is the question? It’s an easy and profound one:

Don’t think about it, the relative urges Dash and Lily. Just answer. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that Lily comes up right away with “dogs,” and for Dash, it’s “books.” For Anna (no, there is no Anna in this book. Okay, there is one, but she’s been super dead for a super long time, and she is only mentioned once. It’s me. I am the Anna. I will be surprised if you did not get that already.) there was similarly no hesitation. Romance novels. I love romance novels. I have ever since I stole my very first historical romance novel from my mother’s nightstand when I was a very precocious eleven. I knew then and there that I had found what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and usually, I follow that with “so far, so good,” but, eh, 2020.

To recap for the new followers (hi, and thanks for following. We are thrilled to have you. “We” is me and Storm kitty. Plus my imaginary friends, um, I mean characters.) 2020 was full of anxiety, depression, homelessness, and assorted other non-delights. I told Real Life Romance Hero that I am staying up on New Year’s Eve because I want to watch 2020 die.

Things are better now. We have a gorgeous, cozy apartment that gives me historical romance cred because it started out life as part of a carriage house in the nineteenth century. It has the pink fifties bathroom of my dreams, updated exactly enough to straddle retro and timeless modern classiness. I have an awesome calico kitty who is my mews and purr-sonal asisstant, I am married to the love of my life, and our best friend is our housemate. All of this provides a really good foundation to transition out of survival mode and into who I want to be now.

Which brings us to Dash and Lily’s question. What do I love? Romance novels. I love the happily ever afters, I love the history (even my co-written contemporaries have historical touches here and there.) I love the character journeys, and the whole complicated dance from strangers to you and no other-ness. :happy sigh: I love reading these books and I love writing these books and I love talking about these books. I love the authors and the covers and the readers and the history of romance fiction and the swag and the community and…yeah. If I ever got locked in a bookstore overnight, I would like it to be The Ripped Bodice, the first big time all-romance bookstore because trust me, I would not mind one iota. Second choice is a good old fashioned UBS (used book store) that is romance friendly, with a substantial stock of pre-1996 titles.

Even though I have read voraciously in above niche, I still haven’t read exhaustively, so there are still many adventures ahead. As well, of course, as all of the fabulous new books coming out literally every month, people. Every. Month. Plus my own stories, historical and contemporary and who knows what else? One thing I can tell you, though: they’ll be romance.

Hi. I’m Anna. I write romance novels and about romance novels. I also love stationery. Come to my place, that’s what you get. Welcome. Now sit right next to me and tell me all your favorites.

Typing With Wet Paws: Mid-December Edition

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Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. This is also getting ever closer to Christmas, which is probably going to be pretty exciting for me, because it’s my first proper Christmas with these guys, and everybody’s first in this apartment. The aunts went to the storage unit earlier in the week, and had second thoughts about doing the archaeology needed to get to the existing Christmas tree, since it’s in a box near the back. In other words, behind heavy stuff. Instead, they plan to buy a new one probably this weekend. Maybe a tabletop version, even though Aunt Anna has a lot of lights at the ready.

What she did pick up at the unit, though, was the rest of her pen collection (well, the most used ones, anyway) and I helped her sort through them and get them put away.

one of the many jobs of a purr-sonal assistant

There is a high possibility that I will give Aunt Anna a pen for Christmas. Last year, I gave her a lightbulb, but that’s only because we were visiting Aunt Linda’s family, and we were shut in the guest bedroom and that was the best thing I could find. Aunt Anna loved it, though, so I guess I did good anyway. There is also a possibility that I know something about where her morning pags notebook and brand new kraft paper notebook are (she is pretty sure they are together) and could surprise her when Christmas comes.

Pile of Assorted Novel Books
thanks for the picture, Pexels

Aunt Anna had a great chat with Miss Lisa over at Buried Under Romance, and they are super excited about lots of fun stuff they have planned for 2021. For now, there is the most current Saturday Discussion, and Miss Lisa’s review of the newest Christmas romance from Jenna Jaxon. Click those links if you want to take a look.

As for the whole Goodreads challenge thing. Sorry, Aunt Anna, we have to go there. It’s time. As of right now, Aunt Anna has read 77 out of ninety books, putting her seven books behind schedule if she wants to make it to her goal by the end of the year. That means she has thirteen books to go, with twenty-one days to go. Doable. There may be some fussing, because the big reader energy is still not back yet, but she has a few ideas.

  1. Move the goal post. As in get in there and change the number to something more manageable, like 80 (or even 77, where she currently is) and be done with it. There are bigger fish to fry, after all. Mmm, fiiiiiiiish.
  2. Push through, everything else be, um, danged. Get to that arbitrary number no matter the cost because there is a reputation to uphold.
  3. Audiobooks. All the time. Even when writing and stuff like that.
  4. Novellas. All the novellas. Don’t care if she wants to read them or not, they’re short.
  5. Say the fluff with it and not even try. Losing isn’t the end of the world. It’s 2020. There are naps to take.

Yeah, she’s not going to do that last one. It’s going to be one of the others. Which one would you pick if this were you in this situation? Drop your answer in the comments. I will say that she is getting more reading time since she still has to share the computer with Uncle Rheuben and that means she doesn’t get a lot of or sometimes any Sim time, so reading is more accessible. We’ll see what happens. She’s not thrilled with being this far behind after being that far ahead as she once was, but hey, it’s 2020. These things happen.

Uncle Rheuben’s desk

Before you ask, that is not a flatlay. That is just how his desk usually looks. He’s a tidy dude. There is usually a laptop there, but since it isn’t working, it’s in its box for the time being. Hopefully a short time, because computer sharing makes Aunt Anna a little loopy, if you catch my drift.

That did not, however, keep her from having a great video chat with Aunt Melva. They have set a goal to be done with the first draft of Drama King by Christmas, which is super exciting. After that, there is going to be a poopload of editing but Aunt Anna likes that part, so it’s all good.

That’s probably about it for right now. Aunt Anna wants to get to the big business at hand for her Capitol Region RWA chapter, because it’s member appreciation time, and she gets the super fun job of shaking virtual pompoms in everybody’s direction, reading off all the great things they’ve done in this sucktastick year. She normally does that in person and gets to hand out treats and presents. That’s going to be a little different when done virtually, but I bet it will still be fun, especially with a very high chance of a calico photobomb.

Headbonks!