Skye O’Malley

Typing With Wet Claws: Special Caregiving Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, filling in for Anty, because she is busy taking care of Uncle. He had to go to the people vet on Tuesday. I can only imagine how difficult it was getting him in the carrier. When I have to go in the carrier, it takes Mama and Anty both to get me in there, because I know what is coming and I want to hide. One of them will turn the carrier up on its end and the other one chases me around until they can catch me and put me in headfirst. Human carriers are huge (and noisy) and Uncle is also big, so this cannot be an easy task. Maybe Anty could throw a hamburger or a bottle of Coke in there to see if he will go in on his own first.

Uncle had to stay at the people vet overnight, which I did not like. First, because he was not here, and second, because Anty smelled really really tired. She does not do her bet writing when she is very very tired (although she was rather proud of filling the last pages of her white pocket Moleskine notebook while waiting at the people vet with Uncle and thus got to start a new pocket sized book) and there is not a lot of time when there are sick-people things to do. The people vets said Uncle could come home on Wednesday, so Anty had to go help get him back in the carrier and get him back home. There were new pills to help him get better (people flu is not a good thing) and, although I was concerned that he might have to wear the cone of shame, thankfully, he did not. Maybe that is because he did not need any stitches. Flu generally does not require a lot of stitches, at least as far as I can tell. It does, however, require him to get a lot of sleep. This does not, however, translate to a lot of sleep for Anty.

It also makes Anty cranky because the library book she was reading and is almost done with is in the bedroom, and she does not want to wake Uncle by opening the door to get her book. I must make a confession here; I would try to get in if she did open the door, and I would not make any noise, so she would not know I was there. I would be happy to be near Uncle, but not happy to be away from my water bowl (that is in another room) or my food bowl (in the same room as the water bowl; they are neighbors.) I do not have to mention poop, because we are all adults here. At least, I assume that we are. Anty would figure out, when she looked up from her glowy box (or maybe when she realized her inspiration is much lower than usual, due to the absence of her mews) that I was in there, and she would have to open the door again. That would not be good for anybody, except for me, because then I would get food.

Anty (and sometimes Mama) has been doing a lot of getting food lately. She needs to get food Uncle will eat, and then she will remember she hasn’t eaten, and does not feel like cooking, so that is time to go find some food that is already made. Thankfully, there are a lot of places to buy already-made people food around here. That is a good thing.

It may seem that there is not a lot of time for writing in the middle of all the extra work that comes with taking care of a sick human, even without a cone of shame, but that is not true. Anty finds going into her story worlds is not an escape exactly (she does have to come back; the other stuff is still there when she comes back from story world) but a respite, and puts her in a better mood so that she can better do what needs to be done. This is one of the reasons why she carries around multiple notebooks at one time, but not the only one.

That is the thing about some writers (or maybe just Anty; I know some other writers, but not all of them) – even when life outside of writing gets crazy, they cannot turn off the voices in their heads. Anty does not mind this. It is nice to have company like that. The fact that these people live in her head does not mean they are not real. They still have lives to live, and sometimes, they will drop a tidbit on her while she is doing other things, for her to write down now and explore later. Anty does not mind this, because it keeps an oar in the water, as she puts it, no matter what else is going on. For now, she is spending time with notebooks and on her glowy box while Uncle is sleeping. It keeps her from getting lonely, and, of course, she has me.

It is her turn for the glowy box again, so I will give it back to her. Tomorrow, she should be picking up her new tablet, which I think does look like a cat-sized computer. I am still not convinced she is not really getting me my own computer. I will keep you posted, and see you all tomorrow for our regular blog.

Until then, I remain very truly yours,

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

See you Friday....

See you Friday….

Typing With Wet Claws: Evening Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for a slightly later than usual Feline Friday. This is the very first thing being written with Anty’s new keyboard, because the old one died for real. She and Mama went to the computer store to get this one, which will make life much better for everybody involved. Mama said that if she had to share her computer with Uncle and Anty, she would never see her computer again. That would make Mama very sad. Everybody is much happier now that Anty can use her own computer again. We are all waiting for the computer store to tell Anty she can come and get her new tablet. That should not be too much longer. Mama thought that maybe the computer store might have gotten the tablet in and tried to tell Mama it was there, only she could not ge that message because she was not on her computer at the moment. It was not there yet, but it will be there, soon. Once Anty gets her tablet, then she will be able to write and do research in a lot more places. She will be less grumpy, and that is a good thing.

Anty was very grumpy this week, because both Uncle and Mama were sick at the same time. Then Mama got better, but Uncle was still sick. Then Uncle got better, but his hunting schedule changed. I was very happy to have him home during the day more, but by the way Anty whimpered and twitched after a few days of thinking one more day and then she could have the house to herself (and me) that might have just been me. Anty loves Uncle, but the house is where she works, and the way she has been at this book, she wants to be working a lot.

That is not easy when the computer keyboard dies, and the keyboard built into the computer does not have an H key. There are H’s in a lot of words Anty uses when she writes. Him, her, he, she, them, they, the, and a lot of other words, like hold (I do not like to be held, so I do not mind when she cannot use that word.) There are no H’s in cat or kitty or Maine Coon, so she could have written about me instead and probably have had a lot less stress. She is a romance writer, though, and I am fixed, so I kind of see her point.

Moving along. A couple of nights ago, Uncle came home from work and asked Anty if she would like to go and have dinner with only him. I had special time with Mama. She ate pizza and I ate cat food. Uncle and Anty had Chinese food and said that I could share pictures of their dinner.

i1035 FW1.1

People food

This is all people food, so I do not know what it tastes like, but Anty and Uncle said it was very good, there was a lot of it, and they brought some home. Uncle said it would not rain while they were out, but Anty remembered how, on their second date, he told her the sprinklers would not go off on them, but they did. She brought an umbrella. It rained.

This week, Anty took care of our family a lot. I was only trying to help her when I started to eat my own throwup, but she wanted to take care of the cleanup herself. I do not mind too much. Food does not taste as good the second time around.

Writing on the glowy box, without the letter H, is not the easiest thing in the world (although I think typing with paws is harder) but Anty is not dissuaded. When she is between external keyboards, she uses an asterisk (it looks like this: *) to represent the letter H, and keeps on going. Some of the people she emails think this is funny and others think it is extra work to have to translate all the *’s to H’s. For those people, Anty suggests cutting and pasting into Word, then doing a search and replace.

That is what she is going to do with the pages she wrote yesterday. She did not think she was going to be able to do much, but then Anty SueAnn asked if she wanted to do virtual sprints, and Anty said yes. Then they both wrote as fast as they could (Anty can still type pretty fast when using an * instead of an H) and Anty got into the story. There are a lot of *’s, but now she can make them H’s again. That will be very helpful. The new keyboard has all of its letters and all of its keys. We will see how long that lasts.

Time for me to give Anty her shot at the new keyboard, so I will see you next week, unless she needs me to blog for her sooner. One never knows. She has the conference to prepare for, Camp NaNo to keep up with and the tablet could be here any time now. I’m pretty sure it’s cat.-sized, and it does have its own keyboard. Plus, I need to prepare for my interview with Anty SueAnn’s pet, Bailey.

Until then, I remain very truly yours,

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

Until next week...

Until next week…

Typing With Wet Claws: Special Easter Monday Edition

annabowling 2 Comments

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

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

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

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

Schroedinger's bunny?

Schroedinger’s bunny?

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

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

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

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

See you Friday....

See you Friday….

Typing With Wet Claws: It’s Not Easy Being Mews Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. It is finally feeling like spring here. That means that it is not freezing all the time, and I can watch birdies through the living room window while Anty and Mama have their breakfast. Uncle gets up a little later, and I have his breakfast with him in the kitchen. Everybody gives me kitty food when they get their people food, so I am not going to complain.

This week, Anty began Camp NaNo. That is a time when humans who write try to do a lot of writing in a short amount of time. That is like NaNo, except it does not make Anty as stressed, because she can decide how much writing she wants to do. Really, how much writing she wants to tell people she does, because she does a lot of writing. It’s the counting the words she does not like. She likes the actual writing fine. I am glad I do not have to count things. My job as a mews (see what I did there?) is to sit very very close to Anty and send out love beams. That is inspiring, I think, although I do not know how effective it is when it comes to making her put more kitties in her stories.

Yesterday, she put a dog in her new book. Only a china dog in this scene, but I looked at her outline. There will be a real dog later. She said the characters put the dog in there; she didn’t. I am not too sure about that. I know that characters are people who live inside Anty’s head, so maybe she should talk to some of them about having cats. There are horses in this book, but that is mostly because horses dragged the people carriers around in the times Anty’s stories are set. I have never met a horse, so I do not have a firm opinion on this, other than that it would not be too hard for Anty to maybe mention a barn cat or two when one of the horses is in its stable. I think that is fair recompense for all my hard work. If that is okay. Anty is most dominant in our pride, so I cannot tell her what to do, but I can make suggestions. Also look very very cute. I am good at that.

tools of the trade

tools of the trade

Anty has been doing a lot of writing this week, which keeps her busy, and that is a good thing. As you may be able to see in the picture of her keyboard, we have some casualties. There is now no letter at all on the E key, the Q key now looks like a broken O, and the L is pretty much a scratchy line. Anty says she may write letters on those keys with a silver Sharpie, but she knows what keys are where, so I do not think she is going to do that anytime soon. Also, people need to kiss on TV more, so that Anty can write about that and have more posts up on Heroes and Heartbreakers. She is part of this post on bloggers’ best reads of March, which has lots of ideas if you do not know what to read next. A word of warning: Anty’s pick is a very thick book that makes a loud sound when it is dropped. Loud sounds are scary. At least she read it by the bed, so I did not have to go far if I wanted to run under the bed for some reason. She is considerate that way.

goth laundry?

goth laundry?

This week also means it is time for Anty to get ready to go to the NECRWA conference. I have talked about that before, so I will not repeat myself here, except to say that the whole getting ready thing is not exactly cat-friendly. She does open the closet a lot and take clothes out, which I find very interesting. Sometimes, she puts them back in and sometimes she does not. Ever since she took the bright colors she does not like very much out of the closet, she has more fun playing with clothes. Most of her laundry looks like the picture above. Some of it is Uncle’s, but the stripey things and anything with a skull on it should be Anty’s. Sometimes new clothing comes home when Anty goes out hunting, and it does not smell like our things, until she washes it and wears it, and then it does. Until then, I am suspicious of all new items. I am not entirely convinced that the Skirt of Doom is not going to come back, even though I was the one who made it go away in the first place. Never you mind how. I was never sure if it was on Anty, part of Anty, or, worst of all, if it had Anty. Sometimes, a kitty has to do what a kitty has to do.

Anty needs the computer back, and it is lunchtime, so that is about it for this week. Until next week, I remain very truly yours,

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

Typing With Wet Claws: Nurse Kitty Edition

annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all, Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Very exhausting week to be a kitty around here. Anty was sick, the glowy boxes staged a revolt, and all three humans were at home yesterday. Well, Anty and Mama went out hunting, so that was not everybody all day, but it is difficult for one kitty to be in so many places at once.

One of the most important kitty duties is nursing. Anty does not get sick very often, which is a good thing, but when she does, I am there. This week, Anty only thought she was tired after she got back from the critique group, but then she was hot and cold at the same time, and things ached that should not be aching, and Uncle had to be the one to break it to her. She was sick. Anty does not like being sick, because she does not like “doing nothing” as she puts it. That makes her grumpy. Really, the best thing for the other humans to do in times like that is to give her some books and some movies and make sure she has lots of liquids.

Food, beautiful food

Food, beautiful food.

She did not want food for a couple of days (I cannot imagine how horrble that must be. I always want food. Can I have some food now? I am very cute, if that influences your answer any.) but she has her appetite back now, which is a very good thing. I heard her and Uncle talking about dinner tonight (theirs, not mine, but I will assume my dinner was implied. I would like fish jelly, please.) and they seemed happy about that. She is also putting on real people clothes and even makeup, so I know she is better. This does also mean that she will be leaving the house again to go hunt (I assume she is hunting; why else would she leave a comfortable house with a kitty in it?) and do laundry. There was not a lot of laundry last time, because she only had pajamas on for most of the week, but there was still laundry. Ever since she found out how she can send her manuscripts to her Kindle, she has been taking those along and reading her own work as though she were the reader and not the writer. She says that gives a different perspective and likes to take notes on anything that stands out.

I helped her rest by sitting very very very close to her recliner and sending love beams in her direction. She says that helped a lot. I also helped her watch some movies. We liked The Perks of Being a Wallflower, although it did not have any kitties in it. It had friends and a love story, though, and Anty likes movies with those things in them. Also angst. There was a lot of angst. Angst makes Anty happy. This is not as alarming as it sounds. These sorts of things are perfectly normal for writers. She is open to suggestions for other movies with the same feel. She has already seen The Fault in Our Stars, and liked that one, and is looking forward to Paper Towns. She is listening to the book of that on her mp3 player right now. Well, maybe not right now. I do not know when you are reading this, so she may be listening to something else. Probably one of her story soundtracks, because she is back to writing. That is a big relief. She is cranky when she is not writing.

It is a good thing that Anty loves notebooks. Yesterday, Mama suggested that, since the computer power cords come in two peices, maybe switching the peices around would help them hold a charge. Anty tried that, and Mama is right. Anty now calls these “Frankencords,” and they hold a steady charge, where the other ones did not. New cords are on the way, and may be here as soon as tomorrow. That will make everybody happy. I heard Anty and Uncle talking about a tablet. I got worried for a minute, but it is all right. They do not mean they want to give me a tablet, and they do not mean the pill kind, anyway. The best I can tell, it is a very small glowy box. Maybe even kitty sized. It is hard to tell from the picture on the glowy box. Hm. Maybe they do want to give me a tablet, but the glowy box kind, not the kind the vet dispenses. Either that, or Anty wants to carry a really small glowy box instead of packing up the laptop every time she goes to the coffee house to write.

Speaking of writing, Anty has a new post up on Heroes and Heartbreakers, on the season finale of The Mindy Project. It is here and looks like this:

DANDY
Anty and Uncle get grumbly sometimes about season finales in March. When they were younger, TV seasons went from September to June and that was that. It is much more complicated these days. Personally, I like watching birds through the window. There are no commercials there, but sometimes trucks and busses with ads on them drive by. I guess that is kind of the same thing.

Well, it is that time again. Anty needs the glowy box so she can write, and it really is my lunchtime, so that is about it for this week. Until next time, I remain very  truly yours,

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

Until next week...

Until next week…

Typing With Wet Claws: Under the Bed Edition (With Notebooks)

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Hello all, Skye here for another Feline Friday. This week’s entry is later than usual, because Anty is taking a half day to rest. Also because I am under the bed. No, I do not want to say why, but I am pretty sure that loud thing that goes by our house in the morning is a cat zamboni, and I want to make sure it does not get me. Sometimes, when it gets especially loud, I think it might be stuck on a tabby, and I am one, so I will stay under the bed for now.

Yesterday, Anty got three blog entries written, two of them posted (one of those in two different places) and looked over notes from the new critique group she visited the night before. She says it was super cold walking to the library against the wind, and she did spend a whole hour waiting in the wrong meeting room (but does not mind too much, because she wrote and writing time is always good) but she likes the group and will go back. As she expected, her pages were everybody’s first introduction to historical romance. She thinks that is kind of special. There were no kitties in anybody’s story, which I find disappointing, but that’s how life goes sometimes.

i1035 FW1.1i1035 FW1.1

Anty and Mama ran a couple of errands after dropping Uncle off at work today, and Anty came home with the notebook in the top picture, above. She already had the one in the bottom picture, and it is almost full. She did not need a new notebook, especially not one to to with this particular topic (it is on its 2nd and a half notebook already) and she prefers for all notebooks on one subject to go together, but the looks of the two books agreed (she even checked them against each other because the store still had copies of the spiral notebook) and the bond was strong, so the new one came home. Also, she likes the words on the cover, and those suggested what she can do with the new book.

This goes along with Anty being in the magpie stage. Things will have connections to her, and she will need to put them together, in different combinations, until they become something cohesive and new. These notebooks go with the first notebook she started on this subject, and the one that I peed on (and that she fixed) and also with some other things. Lists of songs that suggest a certain kind of story, images of different things (some of which she will print out on the new printer when the new computer arrives -I will probably go under the bed again when that happens, because I am pretty sure there is going to be noise involved. Also furniture moving around and there may be boxes. I am pretty sure there will be boxes.)

Now that spring is here, Anty is getting ready to go to the Let Your Imagination Take Flight conference next month. It is put on by NECRWA, the chapter Anty is gone all day long when she has a meeting, and she will be gone overnight. That makes me sad, but I will have some special time with Uncle. I can probably convince him to give me some extra treat to make up for how sad I am. Then I will not be sad. Well, not about not having enough treat. I will still miss Anty until she comes home. She will have new things with her when she does get back; free books and bookmarks and pens and other interesting things, especially things that crinkle. I like things that crinkle. If she brings home any sticky notes, she will crumple some and let me play with them. If you are going to be there, too, Anty would love to say hello and chat for a bit.

Along with writing and blogging and trying the new group, Anty had a new post go up at Heroes and Heartbreakers. She got to read The Warlord’s Wife by Sandra Lake before it went on sale. That is pretty special. You can read what she thought about it here.

Anty says it is getting late and she wants the computer so she can play Sims, so that will be it for this week. There is food in my bowl, so I will probably come out sooner rather than later so I can eat it. I want to make really really sure the cat zamboni is gone first.

Until next week...

Until next week…

Until next week, I remain very truly yours,

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

Typing With Wet Claws: Creative Thinking Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Big week at our house, as usual, so that is no big surprise. Anty is very happy that she will be going to three RWA chapter meetings this week. Three. She has never been to that many in one week before. She went to Saratoga Romance Writers on Tuesday (you can read about that here, in case you are new or missed it.) Tomorrow is her day to go to Capitol Region Romance Writers (they are the closest to us) and on Sunday, she goes all the way back to where we used to live (the area, not the house) to go to a meeting of New England Romance Writers. She is gone all day when she goes to that one, but happy when she comes home.

Being around other writers, especially other romance writers, is very good for Anty. She comes home from those meetings all excited and wanting to write more.Sometimes, she comes back with more books. Sometimes, she comes home with snacks. That is people snacks, unfortunately, and not kitty snacks, though that is okay, because I only eat the food Mama, Anty and Uncle give me, and they never miss, so I am fine. This week, Anty came home with flowers. In case you missed them, they looked -and still look- like this.

They're baaaaack.

They’re baaaaack.

Anty getting the flowers was a good thing, because she likes flowers, and she, Uncle and Mama had wanted flowers for the front window (the one I watch birdies through) for a while now. She was happy to get these, and thinks they are very beautiful. There is only one problem, though. They make her head explode. That is very frightening for a kitty. When her head explodes, I run out of the room, because the sound is very loud. Then I come right back, because I am brave and curious. Then her head explodes again. I am exhausted from all the running. That is probably why Anty moved the flowers from the front window and into her office, where she can close the door.

There is only one problem with that. If the sneezy flowers are in the office, she can’t be, and she needs to rearrange the office because a new destktop computer is coming home in a couple of weeks (it is not new-new but it is new to Anty, so that still counts.) This means the flowers have to go, but where? At first, Uncle had a good suggestion. Anty could bring them to a friend who had to stay at the people vet for a while. Anty agreed that was a good idea, and she took the sneezy flowers all the way to the people vet, only to find that their friend’s room was…empty. A nice nurse assured Anty everything was okay and that the people vet said their friend was better and had gone home only a few minutes before. Anty took the sneezy flowers back home and told Uncle they had to think of another place.

Then Uncle had another good idea. He could take the sneezy flowers to the prayer chapel near his work. I should mention that Uncle is Catholic,which does not have anything to do with cats (I know, I was disappointed to find that out, too; it has c-a-t right in the name. That is rather misleading.) even though all the Catholic people I know personally like cats a lot. But some do not. Anyway, Anty was happy to hear the flowers could have a home in the chapel, and went off to write, When she got home, surprise – flowers. She waited for Uncle to come home and asked him why they were still there. He said he’d forgotten it was Lent, and there cannot be any decorations at that chapel during Lent. So much for that.

Anty does not want to throw out these flowers because they are not cut, but are in soil, so they are alive. She says she might take them to her CRRWA meeting tomorrow and give them to somebody there. I hope they are not allergic to flowers, too. Maybe next time, she should get catnip.

Speaking of catnip, since notebooks are like catnip to Anty, she wanted me to share her newest acquisition, her very first 5×8 hardcover Moleskine. Can you believe she went this long without one?

I think the discount helped...

I think the discount helped…

Anty has been very busy this week, not only with meetings, blog posts, and stories, but with her brand newest thing. Today is her day to talk at 31 Days and 31 Ways to Jumpstart Your Life. She is excited to talk about how being creative helps make life better. Tomorrow is the day she posts at Buried Under Romance. If you have never read her posts there, here is last week’s post, about finding new books. Here is the picture she took for this week’s post. What do you think she will talk about there?

what could this mean?

what could this mean?

Anty says this is getting long and she needs the computer back, so that is about it for this week.

Until next week...

Until next week…

Until then, I remain very truly yours,

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

Typing With Wet Claws: Crunching the Numbers Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Exhausting week this time, with Uncle sick, but he is feeling much better now. It is still cold outside, even though there are some birds outside the living room window. If I could jump (I do not, because I have special paws) I would be on the window seat all the time, because birds are very, very interesting.  The art across from Anty’s favorite seat at the coffee house has changed. It is now this:

i1035 FW1.1

This week, Anty has been writing a lot. There are the blog posts, here and elsewhere, and she is hard at work on a new book. There is a lot that goes into writing a new book, besides only telling the story. Since Anty writes historical romance, she has to make sure that she has the historical details right, but not in a boring or heavy handed way. The love story is the center and the history has to come second to that, but still provide versimillitude. That is a big human word that means it has to feel right. Anty  has to get enough of the historical flavor to make sure the story fits its time and the people don’t think, talk or behave like modern humans, but still in a way that modern humans can understand and relate to them. Anty usually does have kitties in her books, and I am her consultant. I make sure the kitties are still kitties, because we do not change that much, no matter the time period.

Humans, though, are another story. I did not mean to put that pun in there, but i will let it stay. The humans who are in Anty’s stories…how should I put this?  They have problems. Personally, I think that if they  had more kitties, they would have fewer problems, but Anty says humans without problems are not that interesting. I guess she knows best, because she has books out and I do not, but I still think there should be more kitties. I hear there may be dogs in this book. I am not sure how I feel about that.

Yesterday, Anty spent a chunk of time figuring out how old the important humans in her story were. Sometims, Anty gets anxious about certain details. If she gets it wrong, does that mean the book is doomed? Is it too much detail or maybe to little? Is this marketable? Maybe she should write something more on trend (I have to remind her that is a very silly human concern, since trends in books are really about two years old when they hit the shelves, and that is slightly less than one third of my age. I say she should write the story and she says I am right and then she goes back to making clicky sounds on the keyboard and I can take another nap, because i find that sound soothing.)

Where was I? Oh, right, human ages. That involves numbers, and Anty does not like dealing with numbers. She would rather tell stories, but because her stories are historical, that means she is going to have to deal with numbers at some point. Anty likes to have clear boundaries when she writes. That means she needs to know how old her people are, what year it is, and things like that. Vague definitions make her fidgety, and I pick up on that, so really, if she wants a happy kitty, she needs to deal with this. Yesterday, she was on the glowy box, and her friend , Vicki, helped her figure out the ages.

Anty was having problems figuring out who was how old. Vicki is good at noticing when Anty goes into a loop (that means worrying about the same thing over and over again so that no writing gets done.) She suggested Anty look up the average age for first marriage of male heirs of peers during the era in which her story takes place. (Anty had already figured out the year the story has to take place by looking at historical events that impacted her people, so she knew when to look for this.) The answer was late twenties to about thirty. The hero in this book is a second son, so these figures did not apply to him, but it did apply to a secondary character, and Anty knows that the hero is two years older than that character, who is two or three years older than the heroine, so there was a lot of math involved, and talking about that is tiring me out, so I can only imagine what it was like for her.

Anty and Vicki agreed that it all depended on how old Anty wanted the heroine to be (Anty would say it’s not how old she wanted the heroine to be, but how old she is, because that’s the way people show up in her head, and you can’t go around telling people how old they have to be, because that’s not the way that it works. Plus, I think that would be rude.) and they could figure out everybody else’s ages from there. First round of numbers Vicki came up with, Anty shot down because everybody felt too old. So, Vicki asked Anty (Vicki has known Anty and the way Anty writes for a long time, so she is smart about things like this) how old the hero feels. Anty said twenty-seven, which is what Vicki also thought, so that meant the other human male was twenty-five and the heroine twenty-two or twenty-three. This is, some might be surprised to find out, not out of the ordinary for a woman to be that age at that time and not yet married. These are things humans find out when they do research.

Anty is giving me that look again, and I want a snack, so I will wind this up for now. If you did not get to read Anty’s post last week at Buried Under Romance, about how to pay tribute to a favorite author who has gone to Rainbow Bridge, it is here. If you are new to the blog and have not read her posts on remembering BertriceHuman, they are here, here, and here.

That is about it for this week. Until next week, I remain very truly yours,

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

Until next week...

Until next week…

Typing With Wet Claws: The Book, Not the Kitty Edition.

annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, all. Skye here for another Feline Friday. I know my picture this week is fuzzy, but so am I. This has been a sad week, because Anty had somebody she loved go to Rainbow Bridge. That would be a human, not a kitty, the human who wrote the book for which I am named. My Anty first read that book a long, long time before I was born, but she and my Mama, who also likes that book very much, both agreed that its title fit as a name for the new family addition. The Skye O’Malley in the book was a brave, smart, beautiful female who had many adventures and triumphed over much adversity, to find true love at last. I like to think that fits, but there are some differences, too.

the book, not the kitty

the book, not the kitty

HumanSkye -I will call her that to avoid confusion, and I will still be me- lived a long, long time ago, in a place called Ireland and a lot of other places, like England and Algiers. I do not know where any of those places are. I am seven and was born in Massachusetts. I live in New York now. HumanSkye was both friends and not friends with a very powerful human named Elizabeth Tudor, who Anty tells me actually lived in the really real world. I know there is a difference between really real world people and those who live in writers’ heads like Anty’s characters do. HumanSkye was born in Bertrice Human’s head, but she was inspired by a really real world person named Grace O’Malley.

Writers, I have found, do that quite a lot. They will take something from the really real world and then make it into something else. Sometimes this is a person, like with HumanSkye, and sometimes, it is a place or part of a song or a picture. The writer takes many different things and mixes them together until they become one new thing. This is how books get made. My Anty is working on a book right now, and that  means that she is gathering lots of inspiration.

One thing she likes to do is make soundtracks for her stories. That means that she finds a lot of songs she likes, that sound like her characters or what happens to them, and she puts them in order and listens while she writes. Some writers do not like to listen to any music, or any music that has words, but Anty says the words do not bother her, and the lyrics mean something, so they are fine. I like when she plays very soft music. That makes me want to curl into a ball at her feet and take a nap. it is very relaxing when she does that.

Another thing she does is to make Pinterest boards with pictures of people and things that look like her story. I would share those with you, but she says that if she makes the board public, then she does not want to work on the story anymore, so they must stay private until the stories are done. She can put music with pictures on those boards, too, although I do not know how that works. Sometimes, she will stare at pictures and listen to the same song over and over and then she will write a lot. That is part of the writing process, too.

So is watching TV shows that she really, really likes. One of those is Sleepy Hollow. She says she now has an idea for a new colonial book, but it must wait until her current book is finished. She wrote about the season finale, which may or may not also be the series finale, here. It looks like this:

season finale or series finale, what do you think?

season finale or series finale, what do you think?

Anty had two other bits on Heroes and Heartbreakers this week. First, she shared her favorite read of February along with other H&H bloggers here. There are a lot of books in that post. I do not know how many of them contain any cats, though. They should put things like that on the website. More cats would read them then, I think, but nobody asked me.  There are also links to posts Anty wrote before about BertriceHuman’s books in the news roundup here. She will put links up later in another post with all posts where she mentions BertriceHuman, so they are easy to find. Maybe her best read for March will be one of BertriceHuman’s books. Or maybe the new Nick Hornby. She likes his books very much, too. She likes a lot  of books, which is probably a good thing for a writer.

One more thing before I sign off. Any has talked to SueAnn Porter and said that Bailey may be coming here for a posting playdate soon. I think that is very exciting, and also a little bit scary. If you know of any questions you would like to ask a writer’s pet, please let me or Anty know, and maybe we will use it.

Okay one more one more thing. Anty was quoted -twice-  on Peter Andrews’s blog, How to Write Fast, here. Anty first met Mr. Andrews a couple of years ago at the NECRWA conference, and they had a very interesting conversation about writing and reading. She took his workshop on how to write fast and still uses some of what she learned there in her writing now.

Anty needs the computer back, so that is all for this week. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

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

Until next week...

Until next week…

Typing With Wet Claws: Post-Presentation Edition

annabowling Leave a comment

Hello all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday.  A lot has happened this week. I know I always say that, but it is always true. This week is a little different, and I do not know what to make of that. On Sunday, my Mama got a call at work that her mama (her name is Grandma) had to go to the people vet, so my Mama went to be with her. Mama says People Vets are taking good care of Grandma and she should be home soon, which means Mama will be home soon. It is nice being with Anty and Uncle, but I miss my Mama, too. Grandma’s home is far away; we took a long car ride to get from our old home to our new one, and I did not like being in the carrier that long. But that was a long time ago.

Anty's class

Anty’s workshop

This time last week, Anty was getting ready to present her workshop at Capitol Region Romance Writers. She had a really really good time and went home and wrote on her book. For those who told her they wished they could have been there, she is getting something ready for you so that you can have a taste. I do not know what is written on the papers she has been crumpling, but they are very fun to bat around the floor, so if they are as fun for you as they are for me, you will have a very good time.

The view from the meeting room

The view from the meeting room

There was a lot of snow the day Anty gave her workshop, and there is still a lot of snow now. There will be more falling from the sky tomorrow and then again later in the week. As a Maine Coon Cat and descendant of Norwegian Forest Cats, if even I have had enough (and I am an indoor kitty) then I can only imagine what it is like for humans who have to go out in that every day. I will think of you while I nap next to the heater, in my built in fur coat.

Whiteboard = Anty toy

Whiteboard = Anty toy

Anty was very happy that there was a whiteboard in the room where she gave her workshop, because that meant she got to write all over it. She got too excited with the presentation and discussion, and forgot to take pictures of what she actually wrote on the board, so here is a picture of the board as she found it. A very nice librarian cleaned it off for her, and she got to play with a blue marker. Now she wants a whiteboard for our house. I do not know how I feel about that. I cannot bat a crumpled whiteboard around the floor. Those things are huge. Maybe if she gets markers that smell good, that might make a difference.

I think this means more paper...

I think this means more paper…

It is a good thing that Anty and I both like paper, but for different reasons. Most books have only words in them, and Anty likes those very much, but she also likes to put pictures and colors along with the words in other sorts of books. She has not done that a lot recently, but says she would like to get back to doing that on a more regular basis. I am in favor of that, because it probably means more paper for me. Anty says she is not entirely sure how to go about this thing, so she likes to consult magazines like this one that help people figure that out. I want to know where there is a magazine for kitties of people who do that. I bet the pages would crinkle very nicely.

That is about it for now, except for one more thing: Anty has added a new book to her favorite romances shelf on Goodreads. It is  Attachments, by Rainbow Rowell. and you can read about why she liked it here.  Anty needs the computer back so she can work on her book, so I will go sit by my dish and look very fluffy. That usually gets me fed, and it is about lunch time.

Until next week...

Until next week…

Until next week, I remain very truly yours,

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