Typing With Wet Claws

Typing With Wet Claws: Almost Anty’s Birthday Edition

annabowling 4 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. This is a special week, so I wanted to have a special picture today. Tomorrow is Anty’s birthday. In case you are wondering how much Anty likes her birthday, it is very close to this:

Because I was born wild, with no humans around to record these sorts of things, we do not know my birthday. The shelter people said I was about ten months old when Mama and Anty brought me home, so we count ten months back from the day I was adopted and use that when a vet needs to know these things. Anty is also adopted (I do not know how people shelters work when getting human kittens to their parents) but she does know her birthday and even the time she was born. That was eight in the morning. Anty was a morning person right from the start. Her mama and papa got a phone call very soon after that, to tell them Anty was born and it was time to come get her.

The way the story is told, Anty’s mama had to go on a plane by herself because Anty came sooner than they thought she would come and Anty’s papa still had to be at work. One would think humans could be more understanding about things like that. They probably would be, now, but this was a different time. Family lore says that Anty’s mama got very worried on the plane ride back, because she fell asleep on the plane and when she woke up, she could not find Anty. At least not her face, which should have been sticking out of the blanket in which she was wrapped. Anty was all right (as you may have guessed, because she is here now) and had squiggled herself down to the very bottom of the blanket. I do not blame her. When I was first brought home, I huddled in the back of my carrier, too, and I was a big girl of ten months. Anty was only three days old and had no idea what was going on.

She likes to think she has learned a few things since then. Like how to write good stories. She did teach a cat how to blog, so that is something. Anty really likes birthdays in general. They do not always have to be hers, which is good, because birthdays are one to a human every year. She gets  equally excited about Uncle’s or Mama’s birthdays, and she even likes my adoption day (that is in December, and she says that allows her to tick “Christmas kitten” off her bucket list. I am glad I could help her with that one.) This one is hers, though, and she is glad that it happens in her favorite time of year, October. The days get shorter, nights get longer, leaves turn pretty colors and pumpkin flavored things are everywhere. It also means Halloween and Thanksgiving are coming up, and then Christmas, which is her favorite day of the whole year, even more than  her own birthday. It counts as a birthday, though, and an important one for people who believe the way our family does.

This birthday is Anty’s, however, and, for her, it is the start of a whole new year. She likes to mark the start of a new year with new notebooks. Here are two.

Future story receptacles?

Future story receptacles?

Both of these notebooks are blank right now, but they will not be that way for long. The solid blueish notebook is a Moleskine, and has a soft cover and dotted pages. That will be a new thing for Anty to try. Well, she did try dotted pages once, but the pages were a funny whitish color and hurt her eyes, so she had to give that notebook a new home. She is interested in trying the dotted pages on Moleskine paper, which is a nice, soothing ivory.

The other notebook is by Punch Studio, which makes very very pretty stationery. Anty has been accumulating a lot of Paris-themed stationery, but here is the funny thing; she does not have any Paris-set ideas right now, so she is not sure why. She knows why she collects peacock-themed stationery (they are very pretty birds and probably taste good, because they are related to turkeys. I have recently started eating turkey, in case you are wondering, but Anty collects peacock things because they are important for a future book.) but the Paris thing remains a mystery.

There are some other things in this picture, taken on the desk that Anty had wanted fro her own since she was a very young human kitten. Now it is hers, so that is another life goal reached. The stuffed bunny in the corner is Happy Bunny. He says “let’s talk about me” when Anty squeezes him. She says he is good for focus. The big square thing is a stress cube. It is good for squishing when Anty needs something to do with her hands. Sometimes that is a lot, during the part of writing when she stares at things that are not there and has to think really hard. The fact that there are sticky notes and papers around these books are proof that they are going to be written in very very soon. The solid notebook will become her all purpose computer bag book once the current one is filled. As for the pretty Paris book, she does not know. It has pretty page inside, three different designs repeating. Anty thinks this might be a good book for morning pages, as it is easier to write on pretty pages than completely blank ones. She is not sure yet, though.

What she is sure of is that it is time to read Critique Partner Vicki’s chapter, 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: Care and Feeding Edition

annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. I would have had this posted earlier, but Anty had to help Mama with a very important errand. They did not have to buy my regular food while my tummy was wonky, but it is better now, and I had eaten through what they had of my regular food, so they had to go to the store.

Well. I know it is time for humans to have fun with scary things, but the regular food store not having my regular food is very scary. I am a creature of habit, which means I like for things to be The Same. One time, the store did not have my scent of Febreze, so my humans brought home a different scent. They said it smelled good, but I did not think that at all. I moved my pee spot, so that they would know my opinion of that new scent. They never bought that new scent again, but I still use the new pee spot, because I am used to that now. We will see what happens with this new food they are trying me on this week. I ate some of it before, when my tummy was getting better, so it is not entirely strange. That is a good thing.

this is a good grocery haul

this is a good grocery haul

An even better thing is that I have eaten through almost all of my dry food treat, and my humans had to buy a new bag. Last winter, the humans could not find my regular size bag of treat, and got me the big bag instead. It weighed more than I did. That was a wonderful day. Today will be a wonderful day, too, because Anty and Uncle will probably give me a little extra treat if that will finish off the old bag. Anty likes the pantry shelves to be tidy, and if she can get rid of the old bag, she will be able to put the new bag there in its place.

kitty's got a brand new bag

kitty’s got a brand new bag

I had not tried any new foods for a very long time, because I was used to my regular ones (and my vet said I should stay away from gravy foods. I will not have any more of those for a while, and that is okay. I have plenty of other things I can eat, that do not have gravy.) I did not want to eat for a few days while I was sick, but then the medicine Mama and Anty gave me did its job and I got hungry. I did not want to go to my bowl, so Anty came down on the floor and offered me different foods until I took some. Then, I ate a lot. Now, I am back to normal. I run toward my bowls when it is time for my meals, with my tail up high, because I know that what is in my bowl is going to taste good and help me be a healthy kitty. I need to be a healthy kitty if I am going to follow my people everywhere and fulfill my duties as being a mews.

It is like that with inspiration, sometimes. Sometimes, a human might lose the taste for something that normally makes them happy. This does not mean that they have sick tummies. Well, not all the time. Sometimes, it might, and in those cases, seeing a people vet is probably the best idea. I am not talking about that right now.

What I am talking about is when a writer human does not find the same pleasure as they usually do in reading their regular books or watching regular TV shows and movies and such. That does not mean that those things are bad, but it may mean that it is time for the writer to try taking in something else for a while. That happened to Anty a few months ago. It was hard for her to get into reading a lot of romance novels, and romance novels are something she really loves. That was very frustrating, for her and for me, because I take my cues from my humans.

Thankfully, the library, which is a big house full of books (Anty says it is a wonderful place) has many different kinds of books and movies, so she had other things to investigate for a while. That was how she discovered there are some very good romances in realistic Young Adult novels, and those books can teach her things she can use in writing historical romance, even though they are not historical (well, most of them are not, at least as far as she can tell.) and the romances do not always end with happily ever after. Anty says her old high school biology teacher would call this sort of thing hybrid vitality. The way I see it, if what you are eating does not taste good, it is a good idea to ask for some different food. I do not think any other humans, even librarians (they are the humans who work in libraries, and know a lot about books; they are very smart) would rub a book in anybody’s face to get them to read some of it, but one never knows.

Anty says it is important for creative humans to take in different things that inspire them, so that they will have more tools with which to work. I think she is probably right, because she is reading a lot more now, both older books and newer ones, and all of that is fueling her writing. She has a new Sleepy Hollow recap up at Heroes and Heartbreakers. It is here and looks like this:

look at how they look at each other

look at how they look at each other

This show has some things that are familiar to Anty: it is set in Sleepy Hollow, a town near where Anty lived when she was a people kitten; she is familiar with the story by Washington Irving that loosely inspired this idea; it has history and romance and some spooky things, too. It also has some things that are different from what she usually likes; the Ichabod in this TV series is very different from the Ichabod in the story, but she does not mind that, because it is entertaining. The history and theology do not always make sense, and there is a lot of hand-waving going on regarding those. Usually, those things bother Anty, but here, she takes it in stride, because she is here for the things that she does like. Anty says inspiration is like a buffet: take what you like, and leave the rest. Come to think of it, that pretty much sums up being a cat, as well.

random me picture because Anty likes it

random me picture because Anty likes it

I have talked for a long time, so Anty says I need to wrap it up. She has to work on her novella now, 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)

Until next week...

Until next week…

Typing With Wet Claws: Feeling Much Better Edition

annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. It has been a momentous week for me, and also for Anty. Everybody at home, really, because this week has mostly been about me. Last week, when I went to the vet, the vet told my humans they should try to get me to eat. That is the kind of vet advice I like to hear. It was not the easiest thing, though, because of my upset tummy.

Anty was very determined to get me to eat. She even got down on the floor, under the bed with me, and shone a flashlight on me to make sure that I was okay. Then she offered me different kinds of food. I did not want to take any at first, because I had been so pukey earlier. I was afraid I would get sick again, but Anty would not give up, She stuck her finger in tuna juice and people baby food and mushy cat food with gravy and rubbed it on my fur. I do not like messy things on my fur, so I licked it off. That was Anty’s sneaky way of making sure I got some food in me. She did that for a couple of days, and even started bringing her tiny glowy box down there so she could talk to other humans while trying to convince me to eat.

After a couple of days, I changed my mind. Anty put the gushy cat food, with gravy, in front of me. That smelled good. I do not normally eat gushy food with gravy. I normally eat fish jelly, which is soft, and my treat, which is crunchy. The gushy food smelled like birdie. The vets said that the medicine Mama squirted in my mouth twice a day for a whole week was birdie flavored. I do not know what kind of birdies they have eaten, but it tasted like medicine to me, plus it was cold. This gushy food was not cold. Anty offered me some gushy food on a soup spoon, and I was tempted, but still scared. Then Anty put some on my mouth fur. She knew I would lick it off. Well, I did. I liked it. I took a very small bite from the food on the spoon, and it was good. I mean really good. I ate a couple more spoonfuls, and then Anty put some of the food on a small people dish. That is what the big picture at the top of the post is from; Anty took pictures of me eating, so Uncle and Mama would know I was doing better even though they were at work.

Anty fed me a few meals like that over the next days. I would get excited when I saw her come with the flashlight and the gushy food and the plate. Here is where Anty got sneaky again. Every meal, she would move the people dish closer to the edge of the bed. If I wanted the food, I had to come closer. Then, one night, when Uncle came home, he rattled my treat bag. I ran out from under the bed, into the hallway and to my regular room, where Purple Bowl is. I only have treat out of Purple Bowl, ever. Anty and Uncle were very happy to see me eat like a normal kitty. The next day, Anty tried feeding me my normal food in my normal bowl, and I ate it.

 

The next thing is kind of gross. Anty has been very interested in my poop. That is getting better, too. I have not peed yet, but Uncle told Anty I have been running around, which I always do before I pee. I like to hold it for a long time and then let it all go at once, so this is normal for me. My old vet once said he never saw so much pee come out of one cat at one time. I set the office record. I had a reputation there, because I made a BIG poop on my first visit. In my defense, I was young and scared and new to the whole pet thing.

Anyway, I am feeling much better now, and can pay better attention to what Anty is doing, so I can tell you all about that. She says this week has been pretty much a wash on writing, but she took good care of me, so it is still a good week. She will write more this coming week, because October is when Anty gets her super writing powers back. The air is cooler, the days are shorter, and the leaves turn wonderful colors. Now that she has her mews back in working order, work will be a lot easier.

She wanted me to mention that she will, once again, be recapping every other episode of Sleepy Hollow at Heroes and Heartbreakers (she shares the job with another human) so that is some writing already. She is very excited about the new season, though there still do not appear to be any cats in this program. Maybe the lack of cats is intentional, to enhance the horror.

It is almost time for people dinner, so that is about it for this week. 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: Vet Vet Edition

annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. This week is mostly about me, because this week, I had the adventure. Normally, I am a very healthy girl. I only eat my food that my humans give me, in my dish, in my room, so I do not know how my tummy got upset, but, this week, it did.

I puked. A lot. Also had something come out of me that was liquid, but should have been solid. Anty watched me closely and was very concerned. When Mama and Uncle came home, I did not feel very well at all, and had not wanted any of my food (if it came out of you the way it came out of me, you would not want to put any more in, either.) This is very concerning for kitties. My humans got the carrier out (I know what that means, so I made my displeasure known. I usually go along with what the humans want, but this was a carrier.) Mama got me in fairly quickly, and then we went outside (it was cold) and then in the car. Anty had her fingers through the grate on the door so I could smell her and she could feel the warmth from my body. Mama drove through the dark while Uncle used his phone to check in with my Anty Kiara, who had recommended the emergency vet.

Vets are humans who help kitties (and dogs; there were a lot of dogs in the waiting room. That was scary, because some of them were big.) and they helped me right away. The vet tech gave me a bath, even though I did not say that she could (Mama said she could, though, so that is why.) because I had a poopy butt. They poked me with needles and took some blood, which I also did  not like, but  that is  how humans help kitties who are sick. Some of the needles gave me liquids, because I was dehydrated, and some of the needles gave me medicine. The vet gave my humans other medicine to give me, and then my humans took me home. I ran out of the carrier right away and hid under Anty and Uncle’s bed. The humans offered me food, but I was not yet interested in it.

i1035 FW1.1

Anty says I am very pretty after my bath.

This is the best part next. I am starting to feel better, and food is looking interesting again. The vet said I could  have people baby food if I would eat it (I will not. I feel sorry for people babies that have to eat that stuff. No, thank you.) My Anty Kara, who has kitties of her own, and helps kitties who do not yet have humans, said that I could have tuna juice. A human Anty went to school with when she was an almost grownup said the same thing, so Anty went to the food store and got me people baby food, people tuna and a different kind of cat food with gravy in it. My regular food does not have gravy in it, because my vet where we used to live said that can make kitties like me fat. (I do not know if she understands I am a Maine Coon and I am supposed to be bigger than non-Coons.)

Anty put all the food she had bought on the floor in front of me, to see if I was interested in anything. I looked straight at the can of tuna. It was sealed and she had to get the can opener, but I let her know that was what I wanted. She tried the baby food first, because its cap screwed off. Meh. Tuna, Anty. It was hard to get the can open, because our can opener is older than me, but she did it, and put the juice in my dish. I loved it. I ate a little bit of tuna and asked for more. Then I ate some of my treat that was still in my dish. Then I had more food. Then I puked it all up, and Anty cleaned it. Anty knows a lot of bad words, but she was not angry at me; nobody likes cleaning throwup.

I still throw up a little when I eat, but most of it stays down, and Anty says I am acting more like myself. I am up to writing this blog entry, so that is something. Anty gets to cuddle me when she holds me so Mama can squirt medicine in my mouth. Then they tell me I am a good girl, but I already knew that, because they tell me all the time. I am feeling a lot better and can once again function as Anty’s mews. That is a good thing, because she has writing to do.

Last night, she recapped the season premiere of Sleepy Hollow, for Heroes and Heartbreakers. It is here and looks like this:

Ichabbies3

That is about it for this week, as it is time for my nap, and Anty needs the computer. She also is looking forward to picking up her new phone this weekend, so that she can take pictures of me on Instagram again. She was very concerned about me this week, but now that I am getting better, it is time to pay attention to writing again.

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: Autumnal Equinox Edition

annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. This has been a big week. Anty is okay, even after the bulletin board fell on her head. That is not the reason they did not want her at jury duty, but she did get a blog entry out of it, so that is one good thing. She still has not put it back up yet. She will need Uncle’s help and input first, and she will probably take everything off and start all over, anyway. She was not working on specific things (apart from the time travel, which was already a mess by then) when she put the board up, and she is working on different projects now.

Since the Autumnal Equinox has arrived, it is now officially fall. That is Anty’s favorite season (but when winter comes, that will be her favorite, too) and the time of year when she gets her super powers back. Her super powers mainly  (or Maine Coon-ly, because I am a Maine Coon and also her mews) involve telling stories. I think those are very good super powers. Life would be very boring without stories. Now that fall is here, the leaves are starting to turn colors, the air is crisper, the weather is cooler, and the sun sets earlier. Anty sometimes phrases this as “the darkness returns” and follows that with a creepy laugh. She also likes that skull themed things are much more easily available and stocks up now for her year round needs.

This is also the time of year that new TV shows come back, and sometimes, Anty writes about them for Heroes and Heartbreakers. This week, The Big Bang Theory came back, and Anty recapped it. The post is here and it looks like this:

Dr. and Mrs. Hofstadter request the honor of your presence...

Dr. and Mrs. Hofstadter request the honor of your presence…

Anty is also looking forward to writing about Sleepy Hollow when it comes back, and also writing about books and other articles, but what she loves writing the most in fall (or any other sesason) is historical romance (and historical adjacent romance, but that is another topic.) With jury duty and some other things this week, Anty had a rough couple of writing days, but, yesterday, she packed up her computer and some legal pads and went to the Panera across the street from the hospital and settled in for the long haul. That means a few hours, in Anty time. She got a cookie, which meant she was there to get down to some serious business.

This is Anty's serious writing business face. Please note pen in mouth and staring off into places that only exist in her head.

This is Anty’s serious writing business face.

If you see Anty with this expression (pen in mouth is a good giveaway) it is best to put down the gummi bears and back away slowly. If you do not have gummi bears, go get some, then put them down and back away slowly. This expression means she is facing down that point in the story where a perfectly good scene has stopped and won’t get moving again. She hates those scenes, and, yesterday, she was faced with two of them, at the same time.

Anty likes to work on more than one project at a time, because switching between them keeps her energized. If one is not working, she can work on the other, and then, by the time she is ready to go back to the first one, it usually has solved its own problem. If not, she can try something else. I think petting me is a good something else. Sometimes, she does, too, but sometimes that means going for a walk or working on a different project.

For Anty, the best way to work out a story problem is to talk about it. Yesterday, she talked with Critique Partner Vicki in email about one sticky point, and found out she still does not know enough to write that scene. That irritated her, because she wants to write this book, and write it fast, but she also wants to write it well, so that means making sure that all the foundations are laid before she dives in and forges ahead. She has had too many books fizzle out because she doesn’t know what she is doing. This is one point where the gummi bears are useful. She cannot grumble if she has gummi bears in her mouth. Tea is also good for this, plus she can have hot tea again because it is fall, and look at the different colored leaves out the window. Soon, she will be able to swaddle herself in sweaters and hand mitts, which enhance her super powers.

At the same time Anty was online with Critique partner Vicki, she had one of her legal pads at hand, to free write about what was bothering her about the other scene. For Anty, free writing is like talking to herself on paper, and often helps her figure out what she is thinking when her mind is jumbled. In this case, she’d had a scene she wanted to write, but it would get to a certain point and stop. This frustrates her, but it is not a lost cause. What she has found works best is to go back to the last point the scene worked and make a different choice for what comes immediately after that. In this case, it meant taking out a character’s reaction that she liked a lot. It ought to work, and, in theory, it would, but when she got it on the page, everything ground to a halt. So, she deleted it. Maybe that deleted bit will end up elsewhere, but taking it out got things moving once again.

Anty feels better about moving forward with both projects today, and would like to get to that, so that is about it for me 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: Direcat Edition

annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, all. Skye here, for a slightly later than usual Feline Friday. Anty has been busy this week, as we get things with Uncle and people vets sorted out. I am happy to report that he still does not have to wear the cone of shame and does not have to take as many pills after we saw the most recent people vet. I imagine Anty is relieved, but mostly, right now, she is tired.

I am writing this post on Mama’s laptop, because Anty’s has decided it does not like the internet anymore, or maybe it thinks that now the tablet can do all that internet stuff. Either way, this means that Mama’s laptop is now everybody’s laptop, and the humans have to work out a schedule to share it so that everybody gets their fair shot at things. I am glad the tablet is kitty sized, though touch screens can be tricky if you have paws instead of fingers. Anty is looking at other laptops that might be better to use than trying to navigate among several computers that can each do part of the job. We will keep you updated on that search. It is going to take a lot of hunting, but things will calm down when that is settled.

One good thing that has happened in all of this is that Anty has discovered Game of Thrones. That is the TV series, not the books, at least not yet. She and Mama have started calling me their direcat. I do not know exactly what that entails, (hah, see what I did there? Entails? Because I have a tail.) but I did find this sigil generator, and I made my own sigil:

JoinTheRealm_sigil

If you want to make your own sigil, too, the generator I used is here. If you do make your own sigil, for yourself, or your pet, or maybe your characters, if you write, please feel free to share a link to what they look like in the comments. Anty would love to see them.

My favorite episode so far is “The Pointy End,” because that is the episode where a kitty got away from a young human who was chasing him. I am very proud of that kitty. That was some good running. I should note that this is not a show for gentle viewers who do not like to see Bad Things happen, or Very Private Things, either. Anty is not phased. She knows it is pretend, and she likes stories with very high stakes. She says she knows this show is in the fantasy genre, but it feels more like historical fiction to her. I can see where she gets that. She did not like what happened to Lady, and she would really like to see more romance (and not between siblings, thank you) but it is still a very good story so far, and makes her want to see more of an epic feel in historical romances, because she would very much like to write something like that in historical romance.

First, though, she would like to take a nap. That will probably not happen for a while, since she has a lot of writing to do. That is not always easy when the machines on which she writes are giving her guff, as Uncle calls it. Anty says that having notebooks helps her a lot in this regard, because they only crash if they fall off the table. The worst that can happen then is that she will lose her place, but that is usually easy to fix, because that is usually where the writing stops. Unless she was transcribing, and then it might get trickier, but she does like to change ink colors for every session, so if she knows she was on pages written in red ink, that narrows things down when she needs to find her place again. That is very useful when she has to stop to tend to domestic tornadoes or feed me or other important stuff like that.

One good thing about technology is that the camera cord came in the mail today. That means that there will be new pictures of me, and probably also of ducks (Anty says that the ducklings are teenagers now; the girls have blue stripes under their wings and the boys have green heads. There are more girls than boys, if you are counting.) and probably notebooks, too. Anty has a stack of Picadilly notebooks she would like to hack, but she needs to do some more writing first. When a writer has been dealing with other things, even if they are very important,then the writer will miss writing, and they may get grumpy and short tempered. In those cases, it is best to tread carefully and let them do what they need to do. Giving kitties treats also helps, I have found. At least it helps me.  People snacks probably will help the writer, too.

Sharing one laptop  among three humans and one kitty means that we only get a certain amount of time to use it, and that is about it for my time right now. 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: Work From Home Edition

annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, all. Skye here for another Feline Friday.

Interesting week here as always. Anty painted her claws, Uncle got an extra night off because of the snow, and we are getting more snow this weekend. This will probably mean there could be snow days for Mama and/or Uncle, but Anty does not get snow days, because Anty works at home. This does not seem entirely fair to me, because Anty really really loves snow, but I am only a kitty and snow days are human things.

Anyway, this week, I would like to talk about what it is like to have a human who works at home. Merely because the human is in the home does not mean they are not working. While it is true that Anty likes to do laundry, she always has a notebook with her, because quiet laundromat time is good writing time. Anty says she does her best writing in longhand and can put it into the glowy box later. When she is putting things into the glowy box, and has her headphones on, that is a signal that she is At Work and Not Available. It does not always work out that way, because emergencies happen. Like feeding me. I get little bits of food throughout the day, so I  need to ask a human when I want a snack. Most of the time, that is Anty. Usually, I give her big pitiful eyes, and that will do the job. If I get between the left side of her comfy chair and the table next to it, then she knows I really , really need her.

Sometimes, she really, really needs me. That is usually when she wants to take my picture. I do not always want my picture taken. Like this time:

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The humans all like to mess around with the fur on the top of my head (Mama calls that my hair) but I do not know why. Can any of you figure it out? Anty messed with my hair before she took this picture. I, as you may be able to tell, was not an enthusiastic participant.

Most days, Anty spends the majority of her time with a notebook or glowy box, sometimes flipping through big books to look for something she needs to know. Sometimes she talks to other writers inside the glowy box. All of those things are work, but that does not mean she does not take time to play with me. If I look really, really pitiful, she will take a break and we will play.

Me and the BEST TOY EVER

Me and the BEST TOY EVER

This week, Anty has been doing a lot of work. She got the first scene down for Her Last First Kiss, is fixing a short story she wrote a long time ago (I was not even born yet, if you can believe that) and is very happy with that. She also has a new post at Heroes and Heartbreakers, about this week’s big shippy moment on The Mindy Project (I did not see any ships in that program, but I think she means it is kissy things. Anty writes a lot about kissy things.)  Her post is here, and it looks like this:

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That is not all, because more things are Coming Soon.

OnBeyondFanfic

It is only eight more days before Anty goes to her CR-RWA meeting and presents her On Beyond Fanfic workshop. She is still deciding which exercises to have people do during the meeting, so if you are planning on going, it is probably a good idea to bring paper and pen. She is looking forward  to this very much, and will talk about it more next week.

It is less than a month before Anty participates in 31 Days & 31 Ways to Jumpstart Your Life. Anty is one of many people talking about ways to make life better. Her topic is creativity. I think convincing a cat to blog is pretty creative, so maybe give this thing a try. It is free and Anty would love to see you there.

Okay, Anty is looking at the clock now and telling me it is almost time to move to the coffee house and put things in the glowy box, so I guess 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: Under the Weather Edition

annabowling Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next week, I remain very truly yours,

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

Typing With Wet Claws: Picadilly Edition (not the circus)

annabowling Leave a comment

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

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It has been an interesting week around here, as usual. Uncle did not feel well at the start of the week, but then we got some medicine and he felt better. Now it is Anty’s turn. She says that having a cold sore is especially bad for a tea drinker who loves lipstick and was looking forward to pizza for dinner. She also mentioned that the bottle of orange pineapple juice in the refrigerator is mocking her. I think that a nap in a sunbeam would do her a lot of good. I will demonstrate by doing exactly that myself and see if she can take the hint.

This week, Anty asked me to talk about notebooks. Not the usual topic for a kitty to tackle, but notebooks are something Anty really loves. She has a lot of them, and keeps getting more, but that is okay because she uses them all at some point. Because there are a lot of notebooks in Anty’s office, we will only look at one kind today; the hardcover Picadilly in the 5×8 size.

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Anty was not sure she would like Picadilly books at first, and thought maybe they were trying too hard to be like Moleskines, though at a much lower price. She actually tried her first one by accident -she cannot remember if that was softcover or hardcover, because it is in storage- without knowing what it was, and then she changed her mind.

The paper is thicker than the paper in Moleskines, but she likes them both, so that is not a problem. It also comes in many different colors. I think she wants them all, because she is like that when it comes to notebooks. She is currently using the black one as her general purpose notebook in her purse. The blue one was supposed to be her general purpose purse notebook, but the blue color bothered her when it got to be fall (and she had been using the wrong pens in it, but that is another story; she has since learned how to find the right pens so that will not happen again) and the red one, as you can see, is new. She will not take it out of its wrapper until she has one of the other two finished.

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Where did the blue book go? Nowhere.

The blue book took a rest for a very long time, until Anty remembered she had something special. A long time ago, somebody gave her a Celtic leather notebook cover. It had a notebook inside it ,but she did not like that notebook. She gave it to somebody who did like it, and tried to find a notebook that would fit the cover, which she liked and likes a lot, but it took her a long time.  A couple of months ago, she decided to see if the blue Picadilly would fit the leather cover, and it did. Huzzah! That notebook is now her all purpose book for her comfy chair. I am not sure if the red book will replace that one or the purse book. I think it is a race.

Here is a better look at the cover by itself:

Inside...

Inside…

...and outside

…and outside

Anty does not know if the cover will fit a hardcover Moleskine, because she does not have one at present (I should probably not say this, but she does, only it is not  a regular Moleskine, but a special Assassin’s Creed edition she got because she liked the look of the end papers  and it makes her think of pirates. She really likes pirates.) but she will check and see if it fits Markings notebooks, too. She has a few of those.

Anty was very pleasantly surprised to find the red Picadilly at Barnes and Noble, and hopes that they get the other colors in, as well. Keeping notebooks in different colors helps her tell them apart, because she works in several at once. She will definitely be writing in some of them this weekend, but I will do my best to make sure she gets some napping in there, too. Naps always make me feel better. I will show her how that works.

That is about it for now, so, until next week, I remain very truly yours,

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

 

Typing With Wet Claws: Explaining the Writer Brain Edition

annabowling Leave a comment

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

The humans say the new year is now underway, but it has been for the last week or so, so I think they need to pay better attention to their calendars. Anyway, this week has been cold. Thankfully, I have a built in full length fur coat, and I am an indoor kitty, so I did not have to go outside. My humans did, every day, and they were not always happy about it, but they are happy to come home to a warm apartment, and, of course, to me.

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One good thing about  the weather being this cold and sometimes snowy is that it inspires Anty to hunker down and get some writing done.  This is what her current desktop screen looks like. She picked this picture because it is very similiar to the cover of the calendar on the wall of her office, but will probably change the desktop a few times before she finds something that feels really right. The important thing here was to put the Christmas desktop away until it is Christmas again. She is always a little sad to see her favorite time of the year come to an end, but it is my job to remind her that this means the start of a new year, and Valentine’s Day is coming very soon. Valentine’s day is a very important day for romance writers.

Also important is when Anty has a new post at Heroes and Heartbreakers, and this Monday, she did. She is very glad this was her week to recap Sleepy Hollow, because a lot happened, for three different ships (I am still not sure how ships fit into this kind of show, but they do not tell kitties these things.) Her post is here and looks like this:

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There have been a lot of domestic tornadoes this week, but Anty is not letting that distract her from getting ready for the new book. I can tell she is working hard at this because sometimes, she does not seem to be all there. Writers’ pets, you know what I mean. If you are not a writer’s pet (or a writer’s human) then I will explain.

Sometimes, your writer may get so deep into their book, especially when they are getting ready to make their first draft, that part of their brain will stay there, even when they are doing other things. Even when they are doing important other things, like ordering tea or making human food. Ask them a question that they should be able to answer easily, but all the answer that gets is a confused look, something that sounds like “huh?” and maybe a quick mumble before they start getting antsy (like I do before I have to, um, defend my family against the Green Chair of Evil.) At that point, it is best to accept the inevitable. Your writer has a new book brewing, and they are going to be spending a good deal of their time talking to the people who live in their heads. Anty says it is more a case of making sure the people in her head talk to her. Either way, the people in Anty’s head live several  hundred years in the past, so it makes sense that it takes her some time to get back to the rest of us. As long as she can still open the bag of treats, I am okay with that.

Anty's typical view

Anty’s typical view

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)