Free Writing, The Chaos of Organization, and Other Stories

April 8, 2021annabowling Leave a comment

Wednesday’s blog on Thursday should give an iindicator of how acgtual Wednesday went. I had the very odd (for me) experience of oversleeping yesterday, which gave an element of surreality to the entire day. I meant to blog. I meant to edit. I got most of my social media current and then played Sims.

Theoretically ideal wakeup time today, and since I get a feel for the things I need to do the next morning, the night before, the task list wasn’t too hard to make. Unfortunately when it came to “what do I want to blog about today?” the immediate answer was “the fluff if I know.” “Fluff,” in this case, being a family word for a word that rhymes with “duck,” and is not often said around small children.

In practice, butt in chair and fingers on keyboard allows me to move on down the list instead of beating myself up over not knowing what to write. Because I do. I do it every morning in my morning pages, aka free writing. That means whatever is in my head goes on the page. This morning, for example, I filled two entire pages out of arranging the pens in my ballpoint pen cup in rainbow order and writing down my opinions of each one. That’s all. Not earth shattering in importance or creativity, but I did it and came out of it ready to take care of this whole Thursday thing, or at least figure out my priorities.

Right now, they feel like a jumble. My main job ondraft two of Drama King is to look for missing scenes, smooth out rough ones, and get word count up to goal. For A Heart Most Errant, I need to get back to addressing the first round edits and get it back to my editor. I paid for her services. I should use them. I want to use them.

There is also prep work to be done for this upcoming Saturday, where I waill present my workshop, Play in Your Own Sandbox, Keep All the Toys. This is my most popular workshop, and I love giving it. I also need to reacquaint myself, because ehhhh, it’s been a while. I could probably learn from taking my own workshop. Going back to the well, as it were, is usually a good idea.

Yesterday, I had to run some adult-y errands in the morning, and planned to attack my backlog of work like a valkyrie, but what did I do instead? Completely tear apart my shelves that hold notebooks, pens, paper, etc, and re-making them with the help of some distressed wooden crates, putting, as my mother would have termed it, “like with like.” I hated that term when I was younger, but Mom was on to something. This also means that my inability to find the set of A5 divider pockets I bought on that same outing extremely vexing because it’s not where it’s supposerd to be, even though the binder and papers are all ready for them to join the fray. I can only assume they are hiding because they know what I have in store. I don’t blame them. I also know me, and I know that utter chaos is the black moment that comes before things snapping into place. Aka, don’t sweat it, keep going.

Photo by Elly Fairytale on Pexels.com
there will be fairy lights

Which is basically where it leaves me right now. I have work to do, soem right the fluff now, and soem that cam be done after. Butt on chair, fingers on keyboard. Stock photos are fine when bookshelves are not ready for their closeups. The important thing is to keep making progress in the right direction.

Plan B and Other Stories

March 22, 2021annabowling Leave a comment

For the last few nights, my brain has been throwing some killer slumber-less parties, with me as the guest of honor. It is not my favorite thing. Being awake at night is different from being awake during the day, and while reading is sometimes possible, especially listening to audiobooks, or letting the robo-voice in my Kindle app turn any book into an audiobook, writing, well, that’s a different story. Pun intended.

We will start with the planner aspect, because I am definitely a planner. Normally, I like to take time on Sunday afternoon to plan out the week ahead. This week, I did plan on Sunday, but the current lined vertical layout, eh, no. Done. Over it. I ended up taking blank pages of a vertical layout from an old planner, glued them to the lined vertical pages that glared at me, and then followed a YouTube tutorial to design the layout. it’s pretty functional rather than decorative, but I am okay with it.

I also took a picture of it, but can I remember what file I saved it to? Nope. I have absolutely zero doubt that I will find it when looking for something else, so I will trust in that outcome and keep going forward.

The worst part about a week like this is that I had to postpone my weekly chat with Melva Michaelian. I like to be current on my assignments when we meet, so moving that back a couple of days and spreading the backlog over those in-between days, should make things a lot more manageable. There’s also figuring out which family members will be home when, when we want to handle some adulting things, like housecleaning, recycling, and quality time, because I actually like the people who live with me, so that is a very good thing.

When my brain gets all oogy, as Real Life Romance Hero puts it, making lists helps me a lot. Focus on one thing at a time. Why am I feeling uncomfortable about that? What could I do to make any degree of change in that matter? How would I like it to look, ideally? There are definitely medical and spiritual components, but I’m focusing on the mental parts for right now.

Taking those couple of weeks away from planning in my catchall planner were not a good idea, even though it felt okay in the minute. Planner fatigue is a real thing, but it doesn’t have to be a block in the road. I like a lot of different kinds of planners. Try a different format, et viola. Stop fretting about what isn’t working, turn to something I know does work, and see if that gets me somewhere better.

This time, it kind of did. Housemate has her staycation this week, so we are scheduling how to best manage the days when there are two adults in one apartment, and even the days when there will be three. Real Life Romance Hero has his days off as well, so there are going to be days when I will, most likely, have to put on the hot pink cat ear headphones and put on the flashing ear lights. That’s our family signal for I Am Working On Writer Stuff. Do. Not. Disturb. Or. Else. Do Not Fight Me; You Will Not Win.

Because I love writing. I really, really, really do. Even when I am tired. Even when I am super tired. Planning helps. Pretty stuff helps. Tea helps. Remembering why I do this, remembering that it’s the kind of work I have wanted to do since I was but a wee little princess, and my best shot at being the me-est me that ever there me’d, well, that goes a long, long way.

Cat Trees and Kneeling Chairs

March 15, 2021annabowling Leave a comment

Last night, I promoted the kneeling chair I have been using since the 90s from office chair to cat tree. This was a difficult decision. Somewhere deep in the storage unit, I do have a more traditional office chair, a gift from a local writer friend two moves ago. We will be digging it out, but probably not until my back stops twinge-ing, I am not sure exactly what the cause of this back pain is, but the most likely culprit is the kneeling chair.

I still love the dratted thing. I bought it decades ago, with money I earned from working retail. I probably paid more than I should have for it, but A) it was my money, B) a favorite author/writing inspiration had that same model chair and loved it, and C) it was (and is) pretty darned cool. It is, however, old enough to own property, join the military, get married without parental consent, and drink. It has probably wanted to do exactly that over the years we have been together, and it deserves its retirement as Storm support. (Unless Storm decides she no longer wants the chair now that it is not my office chair anymore. She is a cat, after all.)

Real Life Romance Hero moved one of the kitchen chairs in to take the place of the kneeling chair. I like the straight back, and I am already feeling the change in how using the computer physically feels Back support for the win. While I do believe there is a lot of truth in the proverb that a poor workman blames his tools, I am also fully aware that having good tools does’t hurt.

That’s largely where we are in a lot of things in the Annaverse. (Is that a thing? I say it’s a thing, and I rule the Annaverse, so now it’s law.) We have been in our apartment for six months now, so half as long housed as we were unhoused, and believe me, we are insanely delighted to be able to say that. It’s time to not only put down roots, but to make sure those roots are the right roots for the lives we want to live. For me, that means embracing life as a writer of romance and romance related blabber, and making sure that I have what I need to do that job most effectively.

Thankfully, for me, that means making a lot of lists. I would take a picture of the papers and binder discs that are scattered all over the stripped bed right now (housemate is off doing mega laundry; she is a superhero) but my back says that is not an advisble move with the angles I would have to put myself. Sitting in a straight backed chair is good, though, and lying on my side in a pillow fort is good, too. Fortunately, those are both writing positions of choice. So far, so good.

Research is underway to get a new laptop PC. We have become, over the last couple of years, the laptop graveyard> I am not going to give up on the vintage MacBook Pro, but the others, well, those probably are best suited to recycling. The HP laptop with no H key, and the screen that folds all the way back when it wasn’t designed to fold back at all; the hot pink laptop that I still love but which screen won’t show anything unless I I lie flat on my back and hold the screen at an angle that is best described as three-quarters closed. This is probably a severed wire, and probably an easy fix. We will see. RLRH also has his share of laptops that have gone to that great power strip in the sky. I can’t play Sims on that one, though, and that’s become essential. Hence the research. Writing and Sims. I know my priorities.

We may also be doing some research into office chairs, and/or pick up an interim chair in case the chair in storage won’t fit in the back of Housemate’s car, and will need to wait for when we rent a van and move the “real” furniture home. Furniture comes from a variety of sources. Parents’ homes, secondhand, locally sourced, brand new, and the nebulous area of me finally deciding that the best way to incorporate the hammered copper topped coffee table my grandfather made when my dad was little is to repurpose it, maybe as a dresser topper, or maybe with a new set of legs, to serve as a dining table or desk. We will see. I know I want my secretary desk, that I have been in love with since I was about four, for my longhand pursuits, and then pick everything up and take it to a separate computer desk when it’s time to transcribe.

As for the writing, my plans to jump right into it this morning snagged on getting the mega laundry ready to head out, with a pause for my weekly conference with Melva. We talked about the audio complications that kept our interview from going as well as we all wanted, how an offhand joke will make a great scene for our planned Christmas collection. That will probably go into the notebook I am setting up for my collaborations with Melva, most likely in index card format. Getting stuff down in the quickest away possible and filing it away works well for me to get the thought where it belongs and letting me focus on the work I need to be doign now.

I am very much into “now” right now. What can I do now? What works best for me now? What do I need right now? What is no longer serving its purpose and needs to move on along so it doesn’t become a stumbling block? What have I put away that I really need to bring back out because I miss it and want it and it’s part of the bigger picture and always has been? There’s a lot of stuff like that.

For today, getting this blog post up, even if it’s a big blob of blather, was essential. I don’t need the guilt of a missed blog post dogging me into writing time or family life, and consistency is something I want to improve. Hence this, and also trusting myself and my words, hence stopping it here and moving along to the next thing on my list for the day.

How Double Revisions Are Going

February 24, 2021February 24, 2021annabowling Leave a comment

Three days into the (first) week of double revisions/edits, and, so far, things are going…okay. I think this will actually work itself out without too much fuss, and I am more than ready for that kind of deal. I am doing some adjusting of what I can most efficiently do when, but, overall, it’s feeling like fun rather than a chore. I think that’s the whole goal, so calling things good for now.

this is a vertical weekly planner, with minimal decoration and editing goals written in pen on each day — this is my command center

Having the amount of pages I intend to edit/revise does break things down into manageable chunks, and writing down where I left off at the end of a session means I don’t have to lose valuable time in figuring out what I did yesterday and where to pick up today. I like organization and keeping records, so this is kind of a no brainer. It’s also fun to see the different forms my record keeping/planning takes, visually appealing, it’s much more likely I am going to want to reference that page. Not going to lie, playing with pretty papers and my pen collection is a reward in itself.

But the actual writing. It’s always interesting to see something I’ve/we’ve written with a newish set of eyes. I remember the feeling I got when, in the very, very, very before times, when I would put physical pages from the printer or even typewriter, into a manila envelope, send them off across the country and wait for them to arrive at the other writer person’s home, for them to rad, comment, and mail back. Email is one heck of a lot faster, and saves on paper and ink, but I still have very fond memories of physically chasing pages along the highway (ish) because those pages held the comments from my most trusted reader, on the first appearance fo a new character, and if those pages were gone, they would be gone forever.

Thankfully, Housemate was with me, and we recovered all the pages. I devoured the comments while we waited for our restaurant meal to arrive, breathless for every comment. There may or may not have been a few happy tears because yes, this person got what I had intended for this character. Since this was for a shared project, I knew they would do wonderful things with this character, too, and all was rigth with the world.

Let’s bring it back to now. I get a lot of that same feeling when I look at Melva’s preliminary edits on Drama King, or when I read my editor’s comments and suggestions for A Heart Most Errant. Somebody else gets what I’m doing, and even though only Drama King is a true collaboration, a good editor (and I have one) can take a good story and make it even better. It’s like going to work, knowing your favorite co-worker is scheduled with you, which is not at all a bad way to think of this sort of thing.

At least that’s how it’s going so far. Will keep you updated on future progress. How’s your week going?

Lap (Desk) Dancing

February 22, 2021February 22, 2021annabowling 2 Comments

At some point in this week, I am going to ask myself why I thought having two books, in two different subgenres, in the editing/revising stage at the same time. A Heart Most Errant is my first stab at medieval romance, (and post-apocalyptic medieval romance, at that) and my first foray into the world of indie publishing. Drama King is my and Melva Michaelian’s second collaborative contemporary romance, this time where the Polyanna of Publishing falls for a grumpy British actor. This is also the week where Melva and I are swapping character profiles, because it’s time to lay the foundation for Queen of Hearts, book number three in our Love By The Book series.

But Anna, I hear some of you asking – what about the title of this post? Ah, that one. Taking another step back into re-Anna-fication, I now have a lap desk once again. My prior one did not survive our vagabond year, and I can’t get rid of it, because Storm has upcycled it to a cat bed. This means that, along with my Alphasmart and carefully curated notebooks, I am now mobile again. With the current weather, that means within our apartment. Comfy chairs are not yet installed, but I can use the office chair in Housemate’s room when Housemate is at work, unless Storm gets to it first. Storm loves that chair. Bed is good, too, or a blanket pile on the floor, with my back against the wall. I got a taste for that a while back, and it still works.

This is a vertical weekly discbound planner. The discs are lavender metal, and the only semi decorative stickers say "write," "edit" or "revise." — Catchall planner for this week

Normally, my Sundays have a special time set aside for setting up my planner spreads for the week ahead. This time, oh boy did I need it. Normally, I do a degree of decorative planning, but this week, it’s mostly functional, with what I’m writing, editing, or revising that day. Blank spaces are where I needed to check with family members about their schedules before I could assign my own time, but they will fill soon.

I’m actually excited about this. Getting to this point in two books at once, about to dive into another, coming back to a beloved genre (and a new to me time frame) and a new avenue of publishing is a place where I wanted to be for a very long time, and now that I’m here, it feels like I should sew a new patch onto my sash. If I were still in Girl Scouts, that is. Maybe there are Romance Writer Scouts? Does RWA count for that? Maybe take myself to the Panera that is basically down the street from us (with or without lap desk) and celebrate with a hot drink and freshly toasted bagel.

Anxiety levels are surprisingly low regarding all of this. Call it the Bird By Bird effect. The best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time, and while “fix all the books”: is scary, but “edit/revise X pages per day” and the like makes it a lot more manageable. There will, in time, probably be a more dedicated writing planner or tracker that naturally emerges from all of this, but for right now, I know what I am doing on each given day, and when that is done, time to do something that is fun and fills the creative well, aka read, play Sims, etc.

Some of this seems like very normal stuff that goes without saying, but getting to actually put this into practice is an absolute delight. Remind me of that when I am banging my head on the monitor because one of the fixes I need to take care of is trickier than I expected. There’s no planning for those. They are all part of the process.

It feels good to be at this stage, and the ability to flit among different methods and locations — computer, Aplhasmart, notebook, desk, bed, floor, etc– goes a long way toward taking individual elephant bites one at a time. In short, cover me; I’m going in.

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

February 19, 2021annabowling Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Headbonks!

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

Sea Legs, Inside Out

February 17, 2021annabowling Leave a comment

Happy Wednesday, Liebchens. This post is not about pirates (well, there may be pirates, tangentally) or the Pixar movie (haven’t seen it.) Wednesday is kind of my Monday this week, and I am okay with that. We had a full house at home for the first two days of the week, so those became family days. A trip to the storage unit yielded the box that is now in the kitchen, holding my AlphaSmart. I have missed that baby, muchly, in the year plus we were apart. Having it back now feels right, and that it came at the right time. I have t he first round of edits on A Heart Most Errant on my desk, Melva and I are currently second-drafting Drama King, and laying the groundwork for Queen of Hearts. For this week, my part is to write the character profile of our heroine, Heather (Chasing Prince Charming readers already met her in that book.) I am not using any kind of template, but may or may not be developing one as I go. We’ll see. I am circling Her Last First Kiss and figuring out the best way to get back on the horse, and taking a more planned approach to my blogging, not only here but on Buried Under Romance, and MelvandAnna.com.

Phew. That feels like a lot, but it’s a good lot. I could use some normal about now. Finding a big box of normal in storage felt super duper good. I honestly do feel like I am getting my sea legs back after too long on land, writing wise, . There’s even the outline of a pirate trilogy in the works (see? Pirates.) and learning the best way to have what I want to do and the best way to do that work together in the most amicable fashion. The whole sleep cycle thing remains a work in progress. The weighted blanket is amazing, thought the whole sleep schedule thing, and valiantly pushing through fatigue to Get Stuff Done is usually not the most effective way to reach the goals I want to reach.

Like today, for example. Not only is Wednesday my Monday this week, but 1PM became my 9AM, as sleep sometimes happens in two or more shifts. Before, I would have thought of that as some sort of failure, and lugged the failure weight along with me as I stabbed things with a stick (metaphorically.) I’m over that. If my Sunday afternoon planning session ends up happening on Wednesday evening instead, that’s not a failure, it’s an adjustment. Still feeling all of this stuff out, and making note, while I do, on what works. If you know me, you know me and notes. Good thing.

For today, even with the “late” start, which is an on time start, because it began when I woke from a decent amount of sleep, the plan is: blog, plan, and work on character profile. I like doing all of those things. While I would like for the profile work to happen at the same time I am watching a movie, or streaming some sort of TV show, but I am not there yet. There, in this case, means watching streaming stuff. I want to be there, and it will come in time, but for now, my background noise is usually YouTube. Maybe an audiobook. Maybe I will listen to somebody I don’t know play computer games. I do that sometimes.

I am also looking forward to a super fun workshop that starts of February 22nd, Revive Your Resilience, with abundance coach Eryka Peskin. This post is not sponsored, (though I am totally open to such endeavors) but Eryka did mention that she would not be heartbroken if I shared the word. I have taken several of Eryka’s workshops, and even wrote a thing or two for prior events, and I highly, highly recommend checking out her stuff, which you can do with the link above. Five days, five exercises to help you figure out How To Bounce Back, and a super supportive community, including me, because I will be there. It’s also totally free, and there will be giveaways.

In short, it makes a lot of sense to have all of this going on at the cusp of the change from winter to spring. We live even closer to the park now than we did in our first Albany apartment, and soon there will be baby ducks. I will take pictures of them and visit them on a regular basis. Maybe I will bring the AlphaSmart.

Typing With Wet Paws: Now It’s February Edition

February 5, 2021annabowling Leave a comment

Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. We are now into the second month of 2021. Right now, Aunt Anna is getting ready for the workshop she and Aunt Melva will be giving for Charter Oak Readers and Writers in a Zoom chat tomorrow. That’s going to be a thing. They will be talking about writing through real life plot twists, which pretty much sums up 2020. That’s all in the rearview mirror now, and the month of love has begun.

Photo by Sam Lion on Pexels.com
aka Not Aunt Anna

We’ll start with the reading update. So far, Aunt Anna is seven books ahead of schedule in her Goodreads Reading Challenge, with fifteen books read out of her goal of ninety. That means she is thirteen percent of the way to her goal already. Most of that is YA at present, but never fear, there’s historical romance in there, too, and a lot more ahead. A lot of this reading is actually listening to audiobooks, which is a really good way to get through nights when her brain throws slumberless parties. I don’t mind them at all, because that is prime time for her to play with me and my favorite toy, OG Mousie. Mouse on a string, basically, and super fun to chase and pounce on and play with allll night long.

Photo by Ono Kosuki on Pexels.com
aka Not Aunt Anna

For this week’s writing focus, I picked a notebook picture, because that’s where Aunt Anna is going to be doing most of her work. As she and Aunt Melva get ready to start writing Queen of Hearts, they have some groundwork to lay first. Part of that is making sure they are both working from the same information. So far, the way they work is that one of them writes all the hero scenes, and one of them writes all the heroine scenes, and they work out the plot together.

This time, Aunt Anna will be writing the heroine, and Aunt Melva, the hero. That is different from what they did the last two times, so it is kind of new territory. Not that they mind, because that kind of thing is actually fun, but there is a point where they are both stepping into the unknown. Not entirely unknown, because the heroine, Heather was in Chasing Prince Charming, and her hero, Rob, was there, as well. Only a phone call for him, but it still counts. This time, they are taking center stage, so the Aunts have to know more information about them now than they did when they were supporting players. There will be much writing and crossing out and Pinterest-ing and then they can start fumbling their way into an outline. This will involve many video chats, which I will probably join. I am nosy that way.

For historical romance related stuff, this baby is coming back Aunt Anna’s way pretty darned soon, after editing and formatting and cover design, which means it’s that much closer to being an actual book that is ready to go out into the wide, wild world, and make room for her to start making plans for the next one. Well, the next medieval, because she is still doing the Her Last First Kiss thing, though it needs some structural work. More on that later. She’s trying to keep her focus on one thing at a time, at least in each genre. The key word is trying.

Plannerwise, she still has a few things to finalize, which is pretty much par for the course for February, or so I am told. This is only my second February with these guys, and the first one where things have been predictable enough to do any real planning, especially on the scale Aunt Anna would like. It’s looking good, though, because she has a coherent color theme going, and it’s one that shows off my best attributes (aka that I am gorgeous)

There is a gold cover, too, but Aunt Anna was using that notebook while I was writing this, so it’s not in the picture, but still agrees with the whole aesthetic. She’s still working out what goes in the stripey pink cover, and the black paper notebook (the one on the end) but that will work itself out. Those things usually do. The blush pink cover in the middle is for her reading tracker, and she is waiting for some special filler paper to arrive before she puts it together for reals. Of course, I will need to give my Storm stamp of approval on any paper that comes my way, usually by sitting on it, and most often exactly when Aunt Anna needs it.

Speaking of which, that open notebook isn’t going to sit on itself.

Headbonks!

What Printing My Own Stickers Teaches Me About Writing

January 27, 2021annabowling 2 Comments

Not the catchiest title, but it’s one of those days, which is not a bad thing. We had a snow day yesterday, with everybody home. Today, I had planned to take care of a few other things, but plans changed (everybody is fine) and well, low hanging fruit is printing stickers.

When I say “my own,” I don’t mean my own design, though I am splashing around in the shallows with that, but stickers I purchased, or downloaded, digitally, and printed on my home printer, for my own use.

Stickers by DaysUntangled and
PlannerologyStudio

I am all about the black/white/blush aesthetic right now, with strong elegant gothy leanings, and that’s not necessarily something one finds every day in things readily available in brick and mortar stores. Which is okay. I( am obviously not the only person in the world with my sort of aesthetic, needs, and preference, and it’s all about finding who makes what I want, and what I will actually use. Kind of like writing and reading, hm?

Of course this is also kind of like writing the sort of book I would like to read -which I hope is what I am doing- because it involves a bunch of research, typing odd combinations of words into search engines, until something pretty appears on the screen. Since I have a visual impairment, this kind of DIY stuff does make me ask “how badly do I want this unique thing?” on a regular basis.

For some things, like printing double sided pages, I will be going to the pros. March right in there with a flash drive full of clearly labeled files, and notes on numbers of copies, color or black and white, paper weight (the weight of each sheet, not a paperweight in hand to throw at annoying people and/or people who misprint my order) and one or two sided printing. Probably some other things, but I’m not looking at those notes right now. Ah. Paper cutting. That’s another one. I do have a slicer type paper cutter, which works pretty good, if I make dark pencil lines where the light cut lines are printed, but there are certain things best left to the professionals. That also applies to things like editing, formatting, cover design, etc, whether with a traditional publisher or on the indie route.

If I hand over the raw materials, go do something else for a while, and tender coin of the realm, I will get back a nifty bundle of very useful items. From there, it’s up to me to apply those in the right way. With what I printed today, I have stickers to pop into my planners and tell me when I need to blog, outline, revise, edit, keep track of progress by word/page/scene or whatever else makes sense for me at the time.

Some of the printables I’ve purchased, or downloaded for free, are going to require that professional attention, and though I can and do print stickers at home, I do not have a Cricut or Shilouette machine to do the individual cutting for me, which means I get to do the old scissors thing, and figure out whether I want to deal with the fussy cutting around each image, or go for a less labor-intensive method of cutting on the spaces between images, so I’m basically going for white squares around everything. Those don’t actually look too sloppy if I draw a black (or other color) frame around with a fineliner.

\One thing that bothered me a lot when I started printing my own inserts and printables was waste. Not toxic as such, but the way things are laid out on letter size paper, there are going to be big areas of white, that doesn’t get anything printed on it, especially for those that are sized to cut down into smaller pages that will fit into planner folders. Sticker paper is not cheap, so throwing away any of it unused is annoying. Except, I figured out, that it doesn’t have to be:

Those scraps get a date with my rubber stamps. These aren’t all of them, but they do fit with the way I want things to look, and I love handling them. Doing things with visual arts actually does quite a lot to get the idea hamster running, so this is a good thing. Stamp on the scraps, peel off the backing, et viola, we have new stickers. That thing I thought I had to throw out, I don’t have to throw out at all, only make it into something else.

Which is a very good thing to keep in mind about those scenes, phrases, characters, ideas, etc, that we have to cut from a story during the revision and editing process. Could be that bit doesn’t die, but only becomes a seed to grow something new. Not exactly the same thing, but something with the same flavor, something that fits in with the rest, but has its own special voice and appearance. Considering that I have a couple of stalled stories that need to be transported to other eras, or seem to be me stuffing a ten pound cat into a two pound bag, which I often do tend to do when starting a thing. Sometimes it’s both. What I end up with something other than what I first intended, but I’ve learned a new thing, and that means I have more tools going in to the next project.

Planner Changes, Writing Changes

January 25, 2021annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, lieblings. Monday’s post on Monday, because I have it in my planners (plural) and some things are about to be a little different.

We will start with my everyday carry planner. This is the one that lives in my purse. I promised myself that I would give myself a solid month to try the mini vertical layout to see how I liked it, and…I have issues.

Being one month into a new sort of planner means I’ve had a chance to know what works for me and what doesn’t. I was thrown at first by the new vertical format in a mini size. It’s okay, and I think I’m actually getting the hang of it, because this week’s spread, that one I like. What I don’t like is having to completely re-date every single page, every single time. Not saying that this won’t be something I’m into later on, but for right now, I want to keep my energy focused on the whole writing thing because 2020 was not great for it, and things are a lot better now.

Here’s where I’m torn: February is a gorgeous pale pink confection, which I adore. This would still require complete re-dating, but the dominant color would be pink, which works really well with me for February for all the Valentine-y, month of love stuff. Especially for a romance writer. Right now, I am looking at getting ready to see two different projects go to the editing phase, and the first draft attention goes to totally new stuff.

Well, not entirely new, as some of it is venturing into the world of linked books, which is still kind of new to me (as Drama King was indeed my first planned connected book) and the most important thing to consider when planning is figuring out how I can best make this work for me. Sometimes that involves trying a lot of different tuff and finding a lot of t hings that may not work the very best. It’s all part of the process.

okay, so this thing
:drums fingers on table:

Sharp-eyed readers may notice I haven’t mentioned my social media planner yet, because that’s one of the things that I am reconsidering. I found the skinny mini planner above on a deep discount (yay, end of January planner prices!) and fell totally in love with the watercolor floral theme, and I like the compact space for writing/decorating. I am probably going to fake plan in one (or more) of the expired weeks and see how that feels. I also may try putting social media back into the regular planner, or possibly some other arrangement. We’ll see.

Now on to the writing. This is the week where I get all of the pens and papers together and sticky notes and index cards and throw ideas out there. The Lion and Thistle has Sunday night Discord chats, and last night’s was themed around Medieval or Pirates?

Since my first medieval is now in the hands of an indie editor, I’m naturally thinking about what do I want to do for any connected stories in this world. I do have an idea of the hero for book two, an old comrade of the hero’s, but the heroine? IDK. Zip. Zero. Nada. Not. A. Clue. I want to meet her, I really do. Guy deserves some good love. Maybe it will all pop into my head when I get the edits back, because the right editor can make absolute magic.

Yeah, these guys. I started on a pirate story called Abandon some years back, and figured out when I was elbow-deep, that I was writing the wrong story, because the heroine’s parents kept taking over the story. As a dear writer friend pointed out during a chat, those parents have strong voices, and they really do need to come first. The whole trilogy is pretty clear in my brain, the only nebulous stuff the third book, because that heroine is the daughter of the couple in book two, and that feels okay. I need to let her grow up on her own.

Contrast that with the “ummmm” about the medievals. Part of my brain says shove those pirates way, way down and get through the medievals. Why do I have to “get through” a project? I do fully find a way to fall in love with the medeivals, especially finding my groove after a while away. Maybe this kind of thing is normal. Maybe it’s normal for me.

There is a very big part of me that wants to tackle all of it at once. Do I want to splash around in all of it and see where I naturally gravitate (and yes, I naturally gravitate to the things with deadlines) and let the priorities sort themselves out. We’ll see. There are only so many hours in the day, and things have to fit into all of the rest of life. That’s definitely one of the reasons I love planning as much as I do, and how much I love how it intersects with writing. Let’s see how it goes.

Typing With Wet Nails

for the love of romance

writing process