Skye O’Malley

Typing With Wet Claws: Anty Unplugged Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Before I talk about anything else, I have to talk about Anty’s writing (which is pretty much what I was going to talk about anyway,) but first things first.

It is now summertime, Anty’s least favorite season (and mine; you would understand if you had a built-in fur coat, like I do) and that makes her very crabby, but, fortunately, there is one thing Anty does like about summertime (apart from the increased social acceptability of having ice cream during the day.) She talked about that at Buried Under Romance. That post is here and it looks like this:

 

BUR

 

Saturday was a big day for Anty, because she also got to recap last weekend’s episode of Outlander, when Jamie and Claire get ready for war. Anty loves the grittier side of historical romance, and this episode had lots of it.  That post is here, and it looks like this:

 

OUTLANDER

In case you only read  my posts, Anty also shared a short piece of fiction from her personal vaults here, and listed fifteen writers who have influenced her, here.  She will go into more depth on some of those later, and she is still deciding about other items she has in her vault. I can make no promises, but I do think it is interesting to contrast earlier work with the current stuff and see what is the same and what is different.

One thing that is different this week (all right, two, but I am not sure if I am going to get to both of them, so let’s say one thing for now) is that Anty has been making a conscious effort to spend less time staring at screens. This may seem counterintuitive for a writer, but it is something that has been on Anty’s mind ever since she went to the people vet last month. The people vet gave Anty a paper to fill out so that they could know how to help her the best. Since Anty could not see right then, she had Mama fill it out for her. One of those questions was how many hours a day Anty looked at a computer screen. “All of them” was not an acceptable answer, but the number Anty gave, gave the people vet some concern. Maybe Anty might want to think about reducing that number.

Well. Maybe, Anty thought, the people vet might be on to something. Anty was also irritated that she did not have a lot of time to read paper books, and wanted to try something different with the way she uses her time (that is the second thing, so I will talk about that, too.) Making time that is set aside for reading paper books and nothing else is now one of her goals, and doing that means that she gets more reading done. That is a very good thing. She has also found that switching between screen-related and non-screen-related tasks is a lot easier on her eyes. Since she composes best with pen and paper, this works out very well. There is time enough to look at screens at other times and other stages in the process.

The different thing Anty is trying about how she uses her time is scheduling. Instead of giving each task a set time, like answering emails at 9AM, looking at notes from Anty Melva at 9:30, etc, she writes down everything she needs to do that day, and the hours in which she will have to accomplish those things. Then she picks what thing she wants to do most from that list. Sometimes, that means getting the hard thing out of the way first, and sometimes, it means easing into the day with something easy. So far, Anty notices that she gets more done this way, and feels less stressed. She will see how this goes when she applies it over a longer period of time, but so far, so good. Every human works differently, so this method may not work for everybody, but, for Anty, it does.

Today, Anty picked helping me with this blog as her first thing, because she and Mama have to go hunt for cat food (and people food) and she wanted this posted before she did anything else, in case the hunt takes longer than expected. Anty wants to get the hunting done early, so that she can have uninterrupted time to work on Her Last First Kiss and on Beach Ball (remember those notes from Anty Melva I mentioned?) Anty gets very crabby when anybody interrupts her while she is writing, so that needs to be in uninterrupted time, either when nobody but Anty and I are home (I wait patiently for her to come up for air before I ask for food or scritches or playtime) or when she is away from home, at a coffee house, with her earbuds in, a signal for other humans to leave her alone. When the desktop arrives (she still has to hunt for that) then she can go into her office and close the door, which will give her another private place to get things done. It is not the same every day, but it all has the same goal – to get these books finished and send them out into the world for others to read.

Unplugging for part of the day is not only good for Anty’s eyeballs, but the whole Anty. She likes tackling smaller chunks of things, which are varied from each other, and being able to give one thing her full attention until it is done-done, and then on to the next. Speaking of which, that is about it for this week, because my sunbeam is here. 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: Grow-ning Pains Edition

annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another, later than usual, Feline Friday. Today, you get a beloved classic picture of me, because I am hiding. There are two reasons why I am hiding. One, some humans are working on the road near our house, and they have loud trucks and loud equipment. Two, it is going to rain here, probably soon, and rain always makes me want to hide. I go under Anty and Uncle’s bed, because that is the safest place in the world. I have not been wet from the rain once since I started hiding there, so I know that it works. Technically, I have not been wet from the rain ever since I got rescued, but hiding under the bed makes me double extra sure. It is a good thing Anty keeps almost all of her pictures of me, in case things like this happen. Anty is smart.

Anty is also talkative. This week, at Buried Under Romance, she talked about how readers can best celebrate the life’s work of favorite authors who are no longer with us. Anty’s post is here and it looks like this:

 

BUR

 

I am going to paw it for today’s blog, because Anty is mostly keeping her head down and eyes on her own paper with the writing stuff.  She asked me to let you know that the promised flash fiction is being formatted, and you can read it on Monday. She wants to get this draft of Her Last First Kiss written all the way to the end, because A) it is time to get this story baby out of her already, B) she actually likes the rewriting/revising part of the whole book thing, and C) once she gets to The End, she can probably start using Hero and Heroine’s actual names when she talks about them, but not before that. Even so, she does poke her head up every once in a while, like when somebody mentions gummi bears. Gummi bears always get Anty’s attention.

 

It is not gummi bears that got her attention today, though. While Anty was at the Laundromat this morning, she checked her mail on her phone, and found a notice from RT Book Reviews, her favorite magazine for a very, very long time. Like the cat before the cat before me long time. With time between cats, that is how long. Anyway, she opened the email and got quite the shock – the issue she plans to go out and buy later today will be the very last print issue. Anty did not authorize that. Anty is, in fact, very much against that, because A) it is her favorite magazine, and B) this means that there are now no print magazines devoted to the romance genre. (That is apart from Romance Writer’s Report, the magazine available only to RWA members.) If Anty were independently wealthy, she would probably look into immediately starting a new one (and probably very shortly thereafter be found in a fetal position under the dining room table, clutching a notebook and mumbling something about cupcakes, because starting a magazine is a lot of work and Anty already has a lot in her bowl…um, on her plate. Because she is a human.) Sadly, Anty is not independently wealthy (yet) and so she is going to have to deal with this.

Anty’s reaction was much more subdued than it would have been if this news had found her at any other time, because she is going through a lot of changes, and this feels like it fits right in with all of that. The e-publishing revolution really has been a game changer (if cats can have their own blogs, then anything is possible) and publishing, in general, is a business, and the way people use media like magazines is changing, so while she is surprised, she can see the logic behind the decision.

Because Anty is Anty, some things really aren’t “real” until she can talk about them (this is true of many extroverts,) and the friend she would normally talk to first about things like this has become a once-upon-a-time friend, so that will not be possible exactly the way Anty’s first instinct would like, and that is an adjustment on top of an adjustment. On the one hand, Anty can now call her collection of all the issues of the magazine from the time she started reading it, until now, complete. She can still look into hunting down a few years’ worth of print magazines from before the time she was allowed to read it (she started when she as an almost-almost-grownup) so there are still new-to-her issues to be found, though it will take some hunting. There will still be the website and she can even get a subscription to VIP content, but, still, she will miss the thrill of seeing the new issue on the newsstand, or in her mailbox at home.

There will be a little mourning involved. Anty has very special memories of drinking in every word of each issue, especially when she first started getting the magazine, making special trips to stores to get it, and even one time, when she and Uncle lived all the way out in California, Uncle making a very long car trip just so he could get Anty the new issue because he knew it was important to her. This is one of the many reasons Uncle is Anty’s Real Life Romance Hero. There will probably be petting of the issues Anty has in the apartment, and she will likely want to get some special magazine files to keep this last batch in good shape and close at  hand.

Anty admits she is disappointed that she will never be able to pick up a copy of the magazine with her books on the cover (that was a longtime goal of hers) but she has seen her name inside it on multiple occasions, in the letter section and in the memorial to Bertrice Small. She remembers screaming so loud the first time she saw her name and her letter in the magazine that Mama swerved into a different lane. She remembers convincing a store or two to carry the magazine, and recommending it to others. It’s going to be a loss, but not the gone-forever sort. More of the taking on a different shape sort, as there is already the website, and all of the content will still be there, that way.

As a kitty, I understand not liking changes in routine. That is perfectly normal and natural. For humans, though, changes in routine can often come out of growth. Like going from a tiny kitten to a big, majestic mountain lion like me. (I am really a Maine Coon, but Uncle says I am his mountain lion.) The in-between stages are sometimes not the most comfortable (I spent a lot of my in-between stages at the vet, so I get it) but believing that the end result will be worth it puts things in perspective.

Anty says it is now time for her to work on her draft (and sniffle about the magazine a little) so that is about it for this week. Until next week, 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: Delicate Balance Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. It is also a domestic tornado day, so I may have to write some of my blog now and some of it later. If I post later than usual today, that is why. Also, this is a really nice sunbeam, where I am sitting.

First of all, in case you missed it, Anty talked about medieval romance novels on Buried Under Romance this Saturday. Do you like medieval romance novels? Why or why not? Anty is very interested in this topic, and not only because she has a medieval romance gathering du…um, I mean in her portfolio.  She likes to read them, as well, so is always on the lookout for recommendations. The blog post is here and it looks like this:

BURIMAGE

Saturday was a very big day for Anty, as she also got to recap last week’s episode of Outlander. Watching this show and writing the recap gave Anty a big boost, because they reminded her why she writes her particular brand of historical romance. That recap is here and it looks like this:

HHOUTLANDER

In case you have not read any of Anty’s books and are wondering what kinds of stories she writes, there is an easy way to get a small peek. Anty (and I) currently has (have) four hundred and forty-nine followers. Anty would like to have four hundred and fifty. (She would actually like more than that, but she has to hit that number before she goes over it, so she wants that number first. ) If she (we) get one more, then Anty will post a piece of flash fiction here on the blog.

For the rest of this entry, I am going to paw it, because it is one of those days.  We are trying a different kind of cat treat this week, and by “we,” I mean me, because I have not seen the humans eat any of it. I think they know something. Probably that I am a kitty and they are not. Anty assures me that my regular treat will be back in a couple of days, and I can last that long. I will give you a secret: the different treat is not bad, and I am still eating it. Anty put a little bit of my regular treat into it, so that it would not be completely strange to me. I appreciate that.

This is not that different from writing. Even when a writer, like Anty, likes to try a few different things in their writing, there is usually something that is the same, so loyal readers will recognize that this is the same writer, and the experience is not completely strange. So far, Anty has written stories set in Colonial New York, turn of the twentieth century England and Italy, sixteenth century Cornwall, and both the Isle of Man and Charles II’s Court in Exile in the Netherlands at the end of the English Civil War. She has written a medieval novella, which is currently looking for a home, and Her Last First Kiss is set in Georgian England. The story she and Anty Melva are writing together is set in the modern day, but is historical romance adjacent, so Anty is not lost wandering in unfamiliar territory. (Anty is not all that comfortable writing completely in the modern age.)

When Anty and Anty Melva first began blowing up the Beach Ball, to use their term, they both wanted to make sure that each of them had one foot in familiar territory, as well as exploring new ground. Anty Melva is most comfortable writing contemporary, and Anty is fully aware she was hardwired for historical romance right out of the box. Anty loves a grand sweep within her historical romance, and Anty Melva likes a touch of suspense. Finding the right balance between the preferences and/or natural bents of two different writers sometimes takes a few tries to find the right ratio, but, so far, Anty and Anty Melva seem to be doing all right. That is the same as how putting a little of my regular treat into the new treat. It is nice to try something a little different once in a while (that is how I found out I like mushy beef cat food; now, I get that on special occasions, and my regular food every day.)

Finding new flavors to put into her writing is something Anty likes to do every so often. She doesn’t always know she is looking for a new flavor, but when she finds one that works for her, she likes to dive into it and experience as much as she can. She had a taste of that this past week, when she watched a lot of Outlander, and started in on a new-to-her Jo Beverley novel, in honor of Miss Jo’s passing. Miss Jo wrote mostly Georgian and Regency novels (Anty has read most, if not all of the Georgians, and some of the Regencies) but also wrote four medieval romances, and she loves Miss Jo’s work, but has never read any of Miss Jo’s medieval romances before, so that is something new, within something familiar. That is something Anty likes to keep in mind when she is writing, as well. It is a delicate balance, a challenge for sure, but also part of the fun.

That is also 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: 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

 

 

 

 

 

 

Typing With Wet Claws: Reading Room Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday.

As purr (just kidding there; I do not actually purr. That does not mean I am not happy, it only means I do not purr. I chirp when I am happy. I chirp a lot.) our agreement, I must start this entry with a link to Anty’s most recent Saturday Discussion post at Buried Under Romance. This one asks what’s in  your To Be Read pile. Here is a hint: Anty’s is BIG. She does not have a pile, she has shelves. Also her e-reading devices. That post is here and it looks like this:

BURIMAGE

It also ties in very nicely with what I want to talk about this week, and that is reading. I know what you are thinking; kitties are probably not big readers, but we do like to be near humans who are reading, so Anty’s reading experience does directly affect me. Now that Anty has had new glasses for almost an entire week, she sees a lot of things differently. It is easier to see the computer keyboard and screen, as well as write in notebooks. She can also see paper books and her e-reading devices more clearly, which brings another matter into focus. Pun intended.

Now that Anty can read without jumping through hoops (not literally, but she probably could if she wanted to; she’s pretty determined) she can also see how many books she has yet to read (there are a lot of them) and, thanks to her love of planners and calendars, what does not look like a lot of time to read them. This may require some creativity. I am willing to do my share, which means sitting very very very close to her, and being very very very quiet. I can also remind her when it is the right time to take breaks to feed and/or pet me. The people vet did not tell Anty anything about taking breaks from reading paper books, but they did say that she should look away from the screen at ten minute intervals. I think she should look at me. That will be very restful.

One of the workshops Anty attended at the conference told her that it is important to feed her creative well, and reading is a part of that. It (or maybe a different workshop; the do not have a kitty track at these things, so I did not go, and cannot be sure) also said that treating writing like a respite from the chaos of daily life (and domestic torandoes, though I do not think the instructor used that term, because it is Anty’s term, and they had not met before.) I think the same thing applies to reading. This means that Anty has some retraining of her brain to do, to treat reading as a pleasure again, instead of a task.

Sometimes, reading is work, if she is reading a book to write about it. That does not mean that it is not still fun to read, but that the reading needs to be done within a certain time, and she is also thinking about what she is going to write while she is reading. That is a different thing than flopping in her chair, bed, or tub, to read a story merely because she wants to read it. She needs to make time to do that, and to make that time a priority. That is one of the reasons why she wants to get the good office chair out of the storage unit and bring it home.

She will also need to bring a small desk home, from that same unit, for the new desktop, and the chair is partly for that. The other part, though, is so that she can use the office space for reading. That would be different, rather than trying to squeeze in a few minutes here and a few minutes there. The instructor at the workshop talked about being in the story world while writing and reading (at least that is what I gather; this is all secondpaw, since I was not physically present) and how that refreshes the brain, away from everyday life. Anty does not use the word “escape,” because that would imply that she would be away from the non-story stuff permanently, so she says “respite” instead. A time away to refresh herself and then she can take on everything else.

Right now, she is still looking for the best way to fit reading into her day, and that may take a few tries, but that is okay. Looking for things is often the way we find them. What Anty and I both know for sure is that talking about what she is reading will be an impetus to read more, so that may mean more blogging. I will be here to help her out as much as I can, because that is one of the many duties of a mews. More time reading (unless it is out of the house) means more time with me, so I am very much in favor of that.

Anty says it is her turn with the computer for now, 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)

 

 

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:

 

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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,

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Until next week…

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Typing With Wet Claws: Conference Week Edition

annabowling Leave a comment

hereLet Your Imagination Take Flight conference,Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. This is the last week before Anty heads off for the annual Let Your Imagination Take Flight conference, put on by the New England chapter of Romance Writers of America. A whole weekend in a hotel full of people who love the same things that Anty loves is something she looks forward to every year, even if that is also a hotel empty of kitties. At least she has pictures of me to tide her over, and many of the other writers like to talk about their kitties, too, so she is not totally doing without. I will, however, expect extra scritches when she gets back. I think that is only fair.

This week means it is time to prepare for the conference. Besides picking out what outfits and other personal items she is going to bring, there is also the task of the elevator pitch. If you do not know what that means, I will explain. An elevator pitch is a very short description of one’s manuscript, quick enough to tell someone (hopefully an editor or agent) during the span of an elevator ride. This means whittling the whole story down to its very basic parts, while still whetting the appetite so that the other person will want to hear more. As you can imagine, this can sometimes be quite the challenge.

For Anty, this week, it may be even more of a challenge, because she is dealing with a spring cold. This cold is the kind that makes her brain all foggy, and her body want to take go to sleep at times that are not nighttime. Nighttime, during colds like this, is for staring at the ceiling, and thinking about story things. Also going through a lot of tissues, though she does that during the daytime, too.

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Pen guts for Pilot Plumix and MontBlanc Noblisse

Anty thought that getting some of her pens ready for new ink would be a good idea. That is not exactly what happened. The part of the Mont Blanc that takes ink does not work, and Anty thought she could put the standard cartridge from Jinhao in that pen, instead. It went in, but she is not yet getting the new ink to show. That is okay. She will put the pen, capped, nib side down, in its cup and then try again later. The Pilot cartridges should arrive later today. Uncle will probably check for her, because he is home, and does not have a cold. Also, he ordered Chinese food. I do not eat Chinese food, because I am a kitty. I eat kitty food. Speaking of which, I think I have some humans to stare at once I get this blog entry posted.

In case you missed it last week, Anty’s most recent Buried Under Romance discussion post is here, and it looks like this:

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What kinds of books do you wish your favorite (or new) writers would write? Anty is always interested in hearing answers to questions like that, even when she has a new topic. I would like to see more books with kitties in them, but maybe that is just me. Humans probably have different answers.

Anty will find a lot of humans with different tastes in reading and writing at the conference, but they all have a love of romance fiction in common. Anty loves the energy she gets from these conferences, and says that Saturday morning breakfast, is extroverted morning person Christmas. A room full of people, who love what Anty loves, want to talk to other people, plus endless caffeine and breakfast foods? That is about as good as it gets in that respect. There will be old friends and new friends and free books and lots of swag, plus the ride there and back, with Anty Melva, where they can talk about the story they are writing together. Best of all, Anty will get new stories to tell, both about the conference, and maybe even some seeds for new books yet to be written.

Since Anty will be getting a late start on her pre-conference preparations, I will be standing by, in case she needs me to take on one of her regular blog entries in the upcoming week. That is part of the duties of being a mews, and so is making sure Anty gets enough rest. To do that, I curl into a ball and sleep right in front of her chair, so that she cannot get up without waking me. I had better get to that, so that is about it for this week.  Until next time, I remain, very truly yours,

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Until next week…

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

Typing With Wet Claws: Adaptability Edition

annabowling 4 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. It is a very nice sunbeam day, but I am a dedicated mews, and so I am blogging for my Anty anyway. Anty tried to take some pictures of me in the process of fur maintenance (I am in shed, because it is spring) but I kept moving, so she could not get a good image. I do not always have good fur days when I am in shed, like  I am right now. Uncle tried to help by getting my attention, but that only made me look at him, not at Anty, who was not interested in photographing the back of my head. Note that I did not say who I was helping. Anty gave me treat anyway, because I am cute, so I do not see a problem here.

Anty had an interesting morning today, because she went to two different Laundromats. Normally, she goes to the one that is kitty corner to our house (I cannot see too much out of the window, because it is high and I am a floor girl, but if Anty is going to a corner where there are other kitties, when there is a perfectly good me here at home, I am not sure I am okay with that.) and she did, at first, but she did not stay there. Some almost-grownup humans came in, and not to do laundry. Anty was there to do laundry, and to get some writing and/or reading done, neither of which were going to work out well with the almost-grownups not-doing laundry. They way they don’t do laundry is distracting, so she took her load out of the dryer (it was still wet, and there was still time left on the dryer) and walked to the other Laundromat, a few blocks away.

That other Laundromat is very different. It is farther away, for one thing, and bigger, and there is an attendant in the dry cleaner next door, so almost-grownup humans do not feel as free to not-do laundry there. Anty stuck her load in one of those dryers, then sat down nearby the dryer to get back to her writing. Nobody interrupted her, so it was a good session. Anty may consider using this Laundromat more often, because it is a nice walk, and easy to get both laundry and reading/writing done there without any bother. The regular place is closer, though, so she may have to see.

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gratuitous duck picture; ducks make everything better.

 

Anyway, this is the first Friday since Sleepy Hollow made a lot of humans angry with their maybe-season, maybe-series finale. Anty is glad she did not have to recap that episode, because it brought back memories of when she did have to recap the How I Met Your Mother series finale. I will give you one hint as to what both finales had in common: she hated them both. Like really, really, really, saying bad words at the TV hated. Mama thinks Anty should write a blog entry about how angry it makes Anty when (mostly) boy writers think a good romantic ending means one half of the couple dies, or they break up for no reason.

One thing Anty likes about writing  and reading romance novels is that, because we know what the end point is going to be -that the two humans want and get to be together- that means the writer can throw absolutely anything at them on the way there. That is a pretty sweet deal, if you ask me, although I do not know if anyone should ask me about writing romance novels, because, after all, I am a kitty. Maybe ask Anty instead. Anty loves to talk about writing and about romance novels. She especially loves to talk about writing romance novels, so if you ask her about that, I hope you have brought some tea, and probably some gummi bears. Anty can talk a really long time when she gets going, and it does not take much to get her started.

Although it is never fun to see a TV show, movie, or even book that Anty likes take a sudden turn in the wrong direction – especially cutting off a romantic arc with a tragic ending, when the story was not billed as a tragedy in the first place (Anty will admit to being interested in seeing 500 Days of Summer, in which it is allegedly said at the outset that the humans do not end up together; it is okay in cases like that.) or strongly indicating two humans will be happy together, but whoops, no, one is dead now- there is still a good thing that can come out of it.

 

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Updates? Notebook, you’re on!

 

 

Bad and/or disappointing endings in other works can still be good for a writer because they are a natural call to playing the what-if game. What if things had gone differently? What if the human who left did not leave? What if the human who died had not died? What would have happened next, in the natural (or supernatural, if it is that kind of story) course of events? What unexpected thing could happen so that the humans still have (or still can have) each other, but the story would not yet be over? One of the superpowers writers have is that they can make up different endings for stories where they do not like the ending that was given, and, more than that, they can make that be the beginning of a whole new story of their own.

A little bit of a favorite TV show, a little bit of a disappointing movie, snatches of songs and whiffs of scents, a few interesting images from media and real life, an assortment of other things, let them sit for a while until they are ready to filter through keyboard or pen, and a whole new story can be born. Sometimes, this happens right away, and sometimes, it will marinate for a really long time, but, with dedication and discipline, wonderful things can come from all of that. Like I said, pretty sweet deal.

In case you did not see Anty’s post last week at Buried Under Romance (there is a new topic every Saturday,) on the effect character names can have on the reading experience, you can still read -and comment on it- here, and it looks like this:

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That is about it for this week, 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)

Typing With Wet Claws: Z is for Zoomies Edition

annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. My day started early this morning, and, because of that, so did Anty’s. What happened was that I had a case of the zoomies. That means I had too much energy, and I needed to run. A lot. Very fast. I needed Anty to know that I was running, so I would run up to her, chirp, and run away again. I kept that up until she knew it was time for up, which means time for feeding me. As you can imagine, I worked up quite the appetite with all that running. Uncle thinks it is cute when I get the zoomies, but he is not the one who has to deal with the aftermath, which is usually my, um, stuff. Needless to say, Anty required more tea than usual to get her brain into gear after a start like that.

In case you missed them, Anty has two posts at Heroes and Heartbreakers this week. Her post about the second-to-last episode of this season of Sleepy Hollow is here, and her post about the first book in Charis Michaels’ Bachelor Lords of London series, The Earl Next Door, is here. They look like this:

 

There is a new member of the family that joined us this week. The Jinhao fountain pen Anty ordered online came in the mail. She was super excited, because she did not know it came with a converter, which meant she did not have to wait for the cartridges to arrive. She could ink it right away, which is exactly what she did. The ink is purple, which is very good for writing in Anty’s daily pages book. Here is the pen, resting on that book. Anty gets grumbly when she reaches the end of a two-page spread, because she usually wants to keep going, but that only means she is ready for the real writing of the day.

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deskscape, with new pen and daily pages book

 

Yes, that is Henry VIII peeking out of the top of the Paris notebook. Anty likes to live dangerously. This is one of the perils of being a historical romance writer with various interests. Although Anty does not write her books in her daily pages book, sometimes, she writes about them. That is kind of like zoomies of the brain, when she has so much in her head that she has to dump some of it out on paper. It is fitting that she does that with a fountain pen, because filling those can sometimes be messy, the same as it is putting things down on the page for the very first time. Also, going over the same thing multiple times, exploring new layers, from different angles, until Anty gets what she needs.

Another way of getting things out of her head and onto a page is with her art journals. Those do not always involve words at all, and the supplies smell very interesting, so I like to stay close when she is working on those. This is a current page in progress:

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Anty says that the Picadilly paper is not very good at taking wet media, so she probably will not use it again in this book. That only means she can get a different book, with watercolor paper, so she can use wet media in that one. Pencils and stencils and magazine papers are better matches for this sort of paper. Anty has put more things on this spread since this picture was taken, but we do not have pictures of that new layer right now. There will probably be more by the time she is happy with it and ready to move on to the next spread. She also needs to find stencils that can make different shapes from the ones she used here.

It is kind of like that with writing. In the stage where Anty is with Her Last First Kiss, the bullet point draft, it is only when Anty drops things onto the page and mushes them around, that she can tell what the story still needs. This week, she found out she misplaced a certain character for several chapters, so that, when she needed that character later on in the book, she had no idea where that character would be. This will involve reading through what is already there and finding out how fast that character’s injury would heal, so she knows if they would be able to move around on their own or not. She also is working on a scene where she knows the beginning and end points, but does not know the middle of the scene. She has worked both ends against the middle before, so that is not a new thing, even if it can be aggravating at times.

Anty is also getting ready for the Let Your Imagination Take Flight conference, which will be at the end of the month. If you are going to be there, Anty would love to talk to you. She will have pictures of me on her phone, if that is an incentive. Maybe even some videos.

That is about it for this week, 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)