writing process

Raiding The Lost Archives

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Low key Monday, my background sounds a crackling hearth ambient sound thingamaboodle, tea in my favorite mug at hand, and a loose list of things to get done in the first half of the week at the ready. So far, so good.

I can’t believe it’s already going to be December tomorrow. We are, as a family, in a much better place, both mentally and physically, than we were last year, and it’s still in the getting used to it phase. The longer away, the farther the road back, some may say. In a lot of ways, that’s true. There are also times when it’s an instant transition like a Star Trek transporter. That happens, without warning, when one makes frequent trips to the storage units when settling into new digs after a long time away.

My keeper historical romance novels are still in the unit somewhere, but we will be retrieving them hopefully soon, as A) I want to read them, and B ) I have some plans for both Buried Under Romance and my return to vlogging, and I am pretty excited about both A and B. Pens and paper and various stationery items are steadily coming home to roost, and falling organically (I love when that happens) into their own patterns and methods of use. When asked if I am a pantser or a plotter, my answer is “puzzler,” which has elements of both. To put in Dr. Who terms, it’s a wibbly wobbly time wimey flying into the mist, picking up breadcrumbs as I go sort of thing. That means frequent ambushes of hibernating ideas, ninja memories, not only launch surprise attacks when I think I am doing things as mundane as unpacking dishes, but they gang with things I didn’t think I had any interest in before, but when they are hanging out with Thing I Already Like or Thing I Forgot I Like (or both) well, that’s a different story.

Playing (highly customized) Sims 4, listening to commentary on The Last of Us
(adult content warning for scary things)

Story, of course, being the key word. There’s the feeling of a glimmer of…something when one least expects it, a “hmm, that’s interesting,” and then, before one knows it, one is cannonballing into a rabbit hole, five tabs open at once, listening to commentary on video games one has never played on in the background, looking for custom content in a game one does play, to capture the same mood and/or aesthetic, but make it romance, and…yeah. A writer’s mind is a messy but beautiful place, and in this season of gratitude, I am very thankful I have one.

It happens in a moment, listening to ambient sounds, playing a game with the sound off because the other sounds are better, and one looks away from a moment, and one’s instinctive “noooooo!” turns to “hm, what if…?” I like those moments. They move quite naturally, when all aligns, from screen to pen and paper, to keyboard and back to screen. To readers, one day. Getting to that place, it would seem is not such a long road back at all.

Maybe In The Moonlight

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I have the house to myself this morning. That’s still somewhat of a novelty, both having a permanent home, and having complete run of it, though I trust I will get used to it in time, My window of time lasts as long as it takes for Housemate to get back from doing her thing at the laundromat. At that time, there will not only be another human in my space, but clean sheets (burgundy plaid, flannel, aka my perfect autumnal option) and clothing (definitely time for an overhaul there, as A) we wore most of our stuff a lot in the last year, B ) style evolution, and C) we live in New York, and we are coming up on winter in not too long at all.

That, though, is probably not why the majority (here is where I comically correct that to “both”) of readers are here, though, who knows, maybe so. Maybe this blog is a little bit about mental health, especially where it intersects with the writing process, since if there were a way to separate the two, I like to think I would have found it by now. Then again, I have times where I can set my cup down, turn around and then have no idea where the thing went, even though our apartment is not that big. I digress.

So. Writing. I am going for that. A good chunk of my relationship with my own writing, these day, can be best summed up as “Oh, there you are,” like opening the packing box labelled something like “kitchenware” and well, hello there, my favorite sweatshirt. Didn’t expect to find you here, specifically, but I sure as heck am slipping you on right away. Not quite warm from the dryer, but not smelling of mothballs, and maybe even a little bit bigger than remembered, but, all around, a much-welcome reunion.

Reading is not quite there yet. I did, however, inhale two Hulu series, both based on YA novels I had read and liked, both which turned out rather well, and one of which was actually a little better than the source. Maybe I should give Poldark or Outlander another look for the historical romance quotient. In the meantime, I have been poking my nose into books by favorite authors, and then poking right back out after a couple of pages. That’s okay. It will come. It always does.

Same with the whole planning thing. With a little more than one month left in the year, my reaction to planning this week, which does include a holiday, has been largely “ehhhh.” I am not firm on what format or size I want my 2021 planner to be, but I do know that I want one main planner, rather than an at home planner and then a mini version to put in my bag. I have started experimenting with making my own planner stickers, example below:

appropriate quote, or what?

Using some of my favorite song lyrics and book quotes (I am beyond excited to be first in line for a hold on the newest Nina LaCour YA novel. No, I have no idea what it’s about; if her name is on the cover, I want it. Period.) feels a heck of a lot more exciting than and searching for stock images that catch the idea in my head feels like a super fun challenge, and is a good step toward getting exactly the planner stuff I want to have, even if I don’t know exactly what that looks like yet.

This ties in pretty well with my view on writing right now, so I’m going to stick with that. There is some confidently traipsing down familiar trails, and there is some splashing about in the shallows, sometimes in the shadows, but also in the moonlight. In the end, where this will lead is putting one foot in front of the other and hitting one key at a time, and then, one day, between sips of tea or bites of seasonally appropriate nibble, between kitty scritches or You Tube videos in the background, I will type “The End” and blink at the page, not entirely knowing how I got there, but glad that I did. After that? Next evolution.

Typing With Wet Paws: That’s the Stuff Edition

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Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. We are closing in on my first proper Thanksgiving with these guys, and, after a rough start to the week (depression sux) Aunt Anna can attest that the autumnal super powers have indeed kicke4d back in for her. Yesterday was a super good writing day – she managed three whole units. One blog entry and two scenes for Drama King. That was in no small part, I am sure, due to the emotional support I gave from my old-lap-desk bed next to her glowy box. I am somewhat impressed that the writing was good even with the day’s domestic adventure.

At least there was no vacuum involved.

A few days ago, the humans noticed that the kitchen sink was not draining. At. All. Uncle Rheuben, who is a superhero, but not a plumber, took a look at it. I cannot vouch for what exactly happened after that, because the humans put me in the master bedroom with Aunt Anna, while Aunt Linda helped Uncle Rheuben take care of All Of The Water. Then they called Mr. Kurt to come and help.

I don’t think Mr. Kurt is exactly a plumber, but he is in charge of apartment fixing, and he said Uncle Rheuben had the sink almost fixed. It was kind of tricky, so Mr. Kurt had to go back to wherever he comes from and get a thing called a plunger, which he left (don’t worry, it now smells right, aka like me) and there were Sounds, but the sink is now fixed. That’s good, because that is where the humans get my water, and I love my water.

New candidate for author photo

So, anyway, back to the writing. Aunt Anna followed her usual thing of writing longhand first and then spiffing it while she transcribes. She sent her scenes to Aunt Melva, and gave feedback on Aunt Melva’s scene, and they will talk more about the book later today. Then they will have more scenes to write, and the end of the book gets ever closer. This gives Aunt Anna some wobbly stomach feels, because she has issues with that kind of thing, but it also means that she can turn her attention to other books, like historical romance and things like that. Plus the next book with Aunt Melva.

Aunt Anna does not have any shortage of stuff to come next. This morning, she got a nifty kind of idea. A couple of days ago, she finished her last notebook that she used for her morning pages. That meant it was time to find another one, and since she was on a no spend week, she had to pick from notebooks she had on hand. She tried one that had awesome paper, but only dot grid instead of lines, and she really needs lines as early in the morning as morning pages will be. Which is when she got an idea.

We will talk about the tiny book later.

The notebook with the road on the cover is the planner Aunt Anna used last year. She loved the cover too much to not use it for something, even though some of the plastic discs did not hold up so well during our vagabonding. Hence the metal discs, which came in a pack of eleven, while the notebook cover only has seven. That’s where the tiny book came in handy. Aunty Anna is making that one from scratch, based on a purchased book, and she will talk about that later.

Okay, morning pages: show me what you’ve go.

What she did now is to put the new discs in the cover, and snapped in some special filler paper, and it felt right. No dividers, since it will all be the same thing, her morning blabber. Going by instinct like this usually works out well for Aunt Anna, and helps her not get in her own way, which she can often do when she overthinks a thing. She will be talking more in the future about the whole planning by instinct thing. So far, it seems to be working.

She also has a couple of paper books in the house, but still needs to set up things on the bed with extra pillows and a bedside lamp, so that bedtime reading can be A Thing once again. She already has the most important part, the extremely beautiful cuddle buddy, aka me. Isn’t that all she really needs?

Headbonks!

Typing With Wet Paws: Friday the Thirteenth Edition

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Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. A lot of humans have been dreading this day, because apparently Friday the Thirteenth is not a great thing, but it’s been okay for me so far. Aunt Anna and Uncle Rheuben are both home, which is my favorite, because I love them. They are both doing computer things and sometimes talking to each other. On days like this, I like to nap on the bed, or on the cat bed that is between the bed and Aunt Anna’s desk. It is actually Aunt Anna’s old lap desk, which she loved, but it did not weather the vagabond days very well, so she put it on the floor, upside down, so the cushion is up, and I took it. It’s perfectly me-sized, and I can shed both my white and orange hairs on its blackness, so pretty good deal all around.

The blanket was Aunt Anna’s idea. Aunt Linda made it.

I also like the clickety sounds, which mean Aunt Anna is Writing Things. Uncle Rheuben is quieter, as he does a lot of reading and watching and studying. Sometimes, he takes a break to tell me how pretty I am and make sure my water bowl is full, which I like. I am really good at drinking water. I do not, however, like the new cat food Aunt Linda picked out (sorry.) I lick all the gravy off the meat and then leave it and complain about being hungry. Aunt Anna said we will get a different kind, that I have liked before. Aunt Anna is smart.

Not so smart, though, that it took her longer than she would like to admit to figure out this spot was original equipment, not her fault from me bopping her India ink pen.
Also, look at my claw.

Another way she is smart is to figure out new ways that put her in the writing mood. Scheduling writing in terms of “units” rather than words works for her, because the number is smaller, and not intimidating. That may change at some point, but that’s what is getting her making new pages now, so she is going to stick with it. It goes along with another thing she has found, and that is to have something going on a different burner of her brain, so to speak, and then she will switch between the two of them until she kicks into full writing gear.

This can happen either with longhand or on the computer, but longhand is best for composition, which is first draft kind of stuff, often in present tense and with a lot of cross-outs. I like that because I can bop her pen with my paws (she doesn’t like it as much, because I can still do that while she is actually writing and make marks she didn’t intend.) Either way, she likes to have some sound going, either podcasts or Netflix/Hulu, or YouTube. Sometimes, on the YouTube, she picks by the tone of the person’s voice who is talking, and doesn’t care at all about the content/what they are saying.

Believe it or not, this is a writing tool

When she is on the computer, the back burner thing she likes to do most is Sims, either playing, or more recently, designing. She likes a lot of custom content and exercising her inner control freak to micromanage her Sims and their surroundings. This kind of gets her ready to do that with words, too. Playing the actual game, that’s for another time. She says next time she makes our Simselves, she will make a SimStorm. I think that will be the best Sim ever. Woo.

As you can probably tell, Aunt Anna told me we can get back on the link thing next week. She is getting ready for tomorrow’s Capitol Region RWA meeting, which will be online (which means high chance of calico photobomb.) Last year, she wasn’t able to help with the member appreciation celebration because family emergency, but she is looking forward to getting back in that saddle for this holiday season, especially because it’s in a new format they have never done before. Let her get on the other side of that and she will be back in gear with Buried Under Romance and Goodreads and all that stuff.

Oh. One more thing. She is still figuring out the new printer. She can kind of get it to work, but it tells her it isn’t happy when she tells it to print something, so she unplugs it and plugs it back in and then it prints. Eh. Whatever works. I , however, am fine with any mistakes she makes, because I can sit on the papers she doesn’t want to keep. Win-win, I say.

Aunt Anna wants the computer back so she can write more, so Calico Got To Go for now. See you next week!

Headbonks!

NaNo or NaNot, 2020 Edition

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That time of year again, when the eternal question for many of us writer types is “do I participate in National Novel Writing Month?” I’ve thought about it a lot this year, probably more than most. I came down on the side of…kind of, maybe.

While some may say NaNo or NaNot, there is no “kind of,” that’s where i landed, and rather organically at that. I love the idea of going all in and, as a favorite aunt would say, going hell bent for leather toward a distinct goal. What to write, though, well, that’s where things get murkier. I love the idea of those who can dive in with no other idea than “I’m going to write something” and make it all the way to the end. That’s not me, and comparing the way I do things to the way anybody else does things is not ever going to work. Part of my day is set aside for putting on a podcast and getting on the bed with a bunch of sticky notes and/or index cards and setting out all the things I want to write in the next while.

For some things, it’s pretty clear cut. Come hell or high water, Melva Michaelian and I are going to get Drama King, our second jointly written contemporary, done and dusted, ASAP. Part of it is that we are eager to get to the third Love By the Book story, Queen of Hearts, but how flat out fun it is to combine snarky grumpmaster Jack and ray of sunshine Kelly (cue “Tomorrow” from Annie, which might be a reasonable choice for Kelly’s incidental music) and goodness knows we could all use any fun we can get this year.

There’s also kicking myself back into historical romance gear. I am taking my first step into indie publication, and exploring a new format -novella- and time period -medieval- and taking a wide angle view of the place where what I love to do best and what the market fancies converge. That kind of excites me, to be honest, and it also gives me a reason to play with stationery, which is my second instrument after writing. There’s also the desire to not write less about writing, but to write actual fiction and see the pages accumulate (hence the attempt to set up the new printer at long last after I write this blog entry) along with writing about writing. Maybe talking about it, too, because YouTube very definitely is partly responsible for me still being here (gestures in the general sense) after very definitively the worst year of my life.

Phew. Let’s take a break. First home decor photo I can share is below. Bit by bit, we are putting down roots and making this look like home. One of these throw pillows is not like the others.

purr-fect contentment, yes?

The new normal is still taking form, and I don’t want to rush it. I actually tend to get a lot more done, and the ideas flowing much more freely, when I set aside some time to play with pens or noodle around with Sims, some You Tube or podcast or TV show in the background, consciously working toward drinking x glasses of water a day, focusing more on getting story from brain to page, one day at a time, right now. I will probably give one of both Camp NaNos a go. That’s a tale for another time.

For now, this is Monday’s blog post, t he first one for November. I do have plans for less rambly, more focused sorts of posts, if you’re into that sort of thing. Types of stories I’m looking at writing, my renewed and boundless love for black paper notebooks and pens that write on them, planner lineups for the new year, and my reading plans for same.

The fun thing about NaNo, besides getting to cheer on all those who are officially participating this year or any other, is that the principles can be put into place at any time, and modified to fit the individual’s needs. Camp NaNo is one example, and writing, in general, is another. Writer friends are available at all times of year, and I am always thankful for mine.

Happy reading, and happy writing,

Anna

Typing With Wet Paws: Let’s Get Moving Edition

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Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. This past week was better for Aunt Anna, anxiety-wise, but there has been a lot of adulting, a very warm hotel room that would be quite cozy in winter, but it’s not winter (don’t worry, the owner/manager is on the case, and it will be back to normal soon; he is only making sure the place will be warm in winter.) and the newest thing: we may be able to get into New Apartment *sooner* than we had expected. Not official yet, but a strong possibility.

Coming back from bad anxiety can take a while, and it’s more a bunch of baby steps in the right direction until, oh hey there, she’s writing again. A lot of it was playing Sims while listening to You Tube videos. For this past week, a lot of it was from the channel Heart Breathings, which is where author Sarra Cannon shares how she does what she does. One of the things Ms. Sarra said was that having beautiful stationery makes her want to look at the pages more, which is exactly how Aunt Anna feels.

so we’re doing this now…

I should mention that the pages you see here are not from Heart Breathings, but from Aunt Anna’s Writing Helps Pinterest board. She did print out a bunch of stuff from M. Sarra’s board, though, and will talk about that more later. Big life changes affect writing a lot more than a human might like, so trying new things may be a good way to get back into a routine that works best for the writer a person is, now.

I should also mention that, at this time last year, besides not knowing me yet (we call that the Dark Ages) Aunt Anna thought the Happy Planner line was silly and ew, plastic discs. Then she got two for her birthday, and now she loves it, especially the notebooks,. and has found a use for every size they offer, from big to micro. She likes metal discs better than plastic, which is fine by me, because I think the plastic ones will be perfect for playing with in the new apartment. We all know that’s going to happen.

Anyway, there is a questionnaire she printed about how to reconnect with a story after time away, and boy does she ever need that one. Some of those questions are hard, but also look like they can pinpoint what went wrong and how to fix it. For Aunt Anna, a lot of the time, the big stumbling block is “I don’t know.” We are working on that and while it’s kind of scary, nothing can be as scary as the year just past, so she’s up for the challenge. NaNoWriMo is not a go but it’s not off the table, especially in an unofficial capacity. Right now, she’s counting progress in “units” which she will explain later, and seems to work pretty well so far, and, most importantly, does not need to be perfect. She is also kind of salty that she thinks she might like to try a writing group again, but NY is still taking precautions, so maybe online groups might be a good idea.

As you can imagine, this is one of those drive-by posts but Aunt Anna wanted to show signs of life, and it is Feline Friday, after all. More details to come as she has them, including a review of how these new tools work for her and the way she writes now.

Headbonks!

Back at It

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For the first time in over an entire year, the other two adults in my family are both at work at the same time, so that means that I am, too. It’s great and it’s strange. Right now, as I write this, I am also in an informal meeting with Lisa from Buried Under Romance, because I was around and she was around, and “yeah, let’s do this right now” hit, and that’s pretty much how I feel about writing in general at the moment.

When I lay out my weekly plan in my household planner, the truth of our now finally hit – with that swatch of pastel orange highlighter, and the new swatch of blue highlighter, both Housemate and Real Life Romance Hero will be at work at the same time, for a several hour stretch. I stared at the colors for a while and then it hit. When I see both those colors at once, that is my prime writing time. How to make sure I’m inspired when that time hits? I am inspired. I like money. I like living indoors. I like eating food, and maybe most importantly, I have a pen and paper habit that cannot be tamed, so I better darned well have a stream of income open.

our one-year-old

For me, that means writing books. Since Melva and I have already passed the first anniversary of Chasing Prince Charming, it is high time that we get up to date on Drama King. Since the general suckiness :salute: of real life has been a factor in knocking me off track with my share of the work, it stands to reason that things straightening out will provide me with new opportunities to make up for lost time. At least that’s the plan. There will probably be some setbacks and side quests, but, for today, I am here at the keyboard, I have a concrete goal to meet, and I know Melva will provide the feedback I run on, so things are looking good.

As for historical romance, watch this space, as there will be an update soon. Trying a couple of new things, and pretty excited about them. Also kind of daunted because this will mean putting some pressure on myself, but I think it’s going to be the good kind of pressure, and never try, never know. All I’m going to say for right now. but historical romance fans, I will have something for you in the not too distant future.

Vagueposting, I know, but it’s fun to slip one of those in there after more than a year of the world being on fire. Today means that I am up to and able to interweave writing and planning and I like that combination. Right now, I’m looking at my temporary command center, at the blush aesthetic I have going on here, and the dark red Pilot Precise V5 (clicky!) I picked up not too long ago means that my autumn aesthetic is going to start organically finding its way into my day to day. I’m looking forward to that.

For right now, the new header will be the ‘face” of this blog for the rest of summer (to be measured by however long it feels right) and I will autumn-ify it as needed. I like that comfortable evolution of things slipping into place, rather than me trying to shove a ten pound cat into a two pound bag, which I am wont to do more times than I would care to admit. There will be a few new graphics, and I may move around the way things look in general, but it’s not o much becoming different as it is becoming right. I don’t know of a better way to put that, and I don’t think any better way is needed. What I do know is that this feels right, doesn’t need pushing, and is headed in the right direction.

Anna

Things They Don’t Tell You About Writing While Homeless

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In a word: everything. I went into this knowing nothing about how being between permanent addresses would affect my writing. Since we are getting ever closer to getting to the next permanent address, hopefully in the near future, here are a few things I’ve learned from this experience.

  1. It’s hard. Writing rituals, routines, or schedules? Buh-bye. Gone. Not there anymore. It’s uncomfortable and disorienting, and feels like adding insult to injury, when the questions of the day include things like “where are we sleeping tonight?” and “are we eating?” Writing fiction doesn’t seem like an important thing when basic needs are on a case by case basis,k especialy in the not-wanting-people-to-know stage.
  2. Writing groups/dates and memberships in professional organizsations may lapse. Conferences may be off the table, especially in this time of social isolation, because getting food on the talbe and a table upon which on can place that food, is top priority. There will be days when a write can’t. This does not, by the way, indicate failure.

2) It’s necessary. I have stories inside me, and they want to get out. They need to get out. For a long time, when our vagabond days just started, the only writing I had brain for was journaling. Oh so much journaling. I depleted the stash of notebooks I had on hand and went back into storage for more. Brain dumps, no filter, whatever was in my brain went on the page. I still do that, but I did that before, and I don’t see it going away any time soon. It primes the pump and clears the brain space for actual writing-writing things. (Fiction counts as writing-writing, for me.) Some screaming into the void, bits and pieces of my much-beloved, much-neglected historical and contemporary romances, sometimes all of the above at the same time. It happens.

Besides fiction, my own blog, and my still-feels-new position as head gal in charge of Buried Under Romance all suffered greatly, adn I am not okay with that, but I would also be the first person to tell somebody else not to feel guilty, so something to think about there. That’s the worst of it, really, the wanting desperately to connect with the works in progress, and not…quite…reaching. Sometimes it was because getting to pen and paper was an issue, or because I didn’t have enough me left in me to do that kind of thinking. Some times, the closest I could come to productivity was to remember. Remember that scene? Remember when that character did that thing? Or what I intended to write when they would do that thing? sometimes that’s enough.

3) It’s essential, which is not the same as necessary. I say this for me. I am not saying that any writer going through any kind of big life change absolutely must write, because that is not the case. If putting a thing aside is what yo need to do to be okay, absolutely do that. For me, writing in general, and writing romance in particular, has been a lifeline. Not only does the romance genre remind me that every story in this genre has a happy ending, no matter how dark the black moment may be, and that love (platonic and family as well as romantic; pick the ones you like and leave the rest) it’s that immersing myself in a good story, whether I am the one reading it or the one writing it, allows me to not escape, but gain respite.

Reading or writing fiction is a place I can go when I don’t want to be where I am. Yes, I did just quote my own character, Dominic, in Chasing Prince Charming, and when I do have to put down book or tablet or pen and paper and deal with things in the everyday world, I’m stronger.

There’s more to it, of course. This isn’t a one and done sort of topic, and I don’t want to be a downer here, but, in the words of Sir Elton John, I’m still Standing, and those of Ms. Gloria Gaynor, I will survive. I shall close out with the wise words from Mr. Elvis Costello…every day, every day, every day, every day, I write the book.

Typing With Wet Paws: Summer’s On Edition

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Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. Even though the calendar says summer does not officially start until later in the month (I am only two, so I don’t know a lot about calendars) for Aunt Anna and the other humans in my family, this counts as summer. It is Aunt Anna’s least favorite season, but our basecamp, as Aunt Anna calls it, has air conditioning, so the summer really doesn’t bother her or Uncle Rheuben at all. They have also found that they share a desk really, really well. If I am feeling especially sproingy, we can all three share the same workspace. That’s what I call efficient use of space.

Even though summer is usually Aunt Anna’s worst time when it comes to productivity, she had a super good writing day yesterday. It all started with hauling herself over to the computer with the promise that if she could write some notes on the stinkybad movie in Drama King, and then send it to Aunt Melva, then she could play Sims. Aunt Anna is super easy to bribe with Sims, especially since she had to reinstall stuff when the latest patch broke pretty much everything (whoops) and she had to start fresh. Surprisingly, she did not mind that at all.

Aunt Anna says making this stuff helps her think

Starting from scratch was actually kind of fun, and she got to use one of the premade families to test out some new gameplay features, fiddle with custom content, and maybe a mod or two. If you think that sounds kind of like writing fan fiction, you are not wrong. Aunt Anna sees that, too. As a matter of fact, Aunt Anna had Sims stuff open in the background while she read a lot of Wikipedia articles about movies (stinkybad or otherwise) to know what kind of information goes into such a thing, laughed a lot while using name generators to get over herself already, slap down a placeholder and move forward, and refresh herself on the recipe for a romantic comedy movie, plus all the ways one could go wrong.

In the middle of doing all that, she also had Scapple open. It is kind of like a whiteboard on the computer. If you don’t know what Scapple is, click here to read about it on Ginny Frost‘s Apps For Writers blog. (Miss Ginny also writes contemporary romance for The Wild Rose Press, so check out her books while you’re over there.) While Aunt Anna had the seeds of a scene on her mind, she might as well get a few things down where she would be able to easily access them.

That’s when something clicked open, and a whole bunch of stuff came out of her head and onto the screen. It’s kind of messy, mixing tenses and Aunt Melva (who has a PhD in English) may have a headache from switching from script form (many of Aunt Anna’s first-first drafts of dialogue are in script form when they fall out of her head) to dialogue and narration but then again she knows how Aunt Anna works and still wants to write books with her anyway, so there’s that.

That stuff is now in Aunt Melva’s hands, so Aunt Anna is now turning her hand to writing a faux Wikipedia article for a different fictional movie, and getting ready to do the same thing with Her Last First Kiss, but there won’t be any movie stuff in there, because there were no movies in 1784. Probably no YouTube mouse videos, either. It was the dark ages.

Speaking of mice, Aunt Anna and Aunt Linda got me some! Uncle Rheuben stayed behind to give me pets while the other humans went for groceries, and they found themselves in the cat toy section. Ever since my red dot died, I have taken to going to the corner near the door and giving big kitty eyes, to indicate that I really need a new red dot. Well, the store didn’t have any (the nerve!) but they did have a package of three catnip mice. Aunt Anna figured they’d see how I liked them, so she threw me one as soon as she got back, and I LOVE IT. I call them all “Prey.” When I bring Prey to a human, the human is to throw Prey, which I will then chase and CATCH, and then I have no idea what comes next, but a nap comes after that, and the whole thing starts over again.

Before I fur-get (hah, see what I did there?) Aunt Anna was at Buried Under Romance this past Saturday, with a topic that comes to a lot of readers’ minds this time of year (or so I have heard. Again, I’m two.) and that’s weddings. Are they really needed in cotemporary romance? If that is a topic that interests you, read about it here, and pull up a chair in the comments to chime in with your opinion. Aunt Anna already talks to herself enough. Trust me on this one. Part two will be about historical romance, and probably will go up Saturday but might be Sunday because she just got done being sick and is running a little behind.

Okay, I think that’s it for now. No Goodreads update, because mostly Aunt Anna read a little bit of stuff and fell asleep and then her loans expired, so she is starting new books now. Maybe I will start telling you when she starts reading a book and then what happened to it. First, though, this Prey isn’t going to chase itself.

Headbonks!

Meat Loaf, Muscle Memory, and Writing Romance (Also Sims)

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Most importantly, the Meat Loaf of which I speak is the singer, not the food. I did get to meet Meat for about five seconds, at an autograph signing. I blurted out that he broke my creative block. He immediately lit up like a Golden Retriever at hearing “who’s a good boy?” and asked which song, and how, and what genre did I write, which was when his handler gently apologized to both of us and said he had to move the line along. That stuck with me, though, and cemented my love of the Loaf. Which brings me to last night.

I was not listening to Meat Loaf last night. I was listening to a Sims 4 Let’s Play video, which is probably my current favorite viewing material. Even so, I had no intention of writing-writing (cue amused chuckles) as I listened, and managed custom content, and fiddled with my Sims journal, shown here in the charge of my co-worker:

That thing is packed full of altered index cards, because a) they are sturdier, and b) with my vision, dot grid only works if it’s about an inch from my face, and crooked writing is a big no. Every card is a Sim, their aspirations, goals, traits, spouses, children, and ultimately, when they move to the “graveyard” section, causes of death. No overthinking on this stuff, because it’s a game. So, there I am, thinking that I’m going to have to cut down and punch more cards, because we’re moving into the next generation, and then I’m grabbing one of those discarded dot grid pages, to make notes for the cards I’m going to want to make for the Sims 2 and 5 versions of what I’m doing.

Still no Meat Loaf. There was, though, at some point, a frantic pat through the dark (ah, the joys of motel writing when Real Life Romance Hero is asleep) for my writing-writing notebook. After that, a lot of ink came out of the pen in my hand, as notes on a long-overdue scene from Drama King filled the formerly empty pages. Pages. Plural. When I am done with this post, I will transcribe and send the scene off to my long-suffering contemporary writing partner, Melva.

Still not listening to Meat Loaf while I wrote that, but as soon as I set down notebook and pen to try and get some sleep (my brain throws slumberless parties on a regular basis) the first notes of this song trickled into my subconscious:

this song is relevant to my interstes

One thing that has stuck with me was a tidbit from an interview, where Meat talked about his songwriter, Jim Steinman. He said that what audiences need to remember is that everything Jim writes is part of a universe in his head, that is basically an epic vampire opera. I believe some of it was produced as an opera, in Germany. Possibly in German, which does not sound out of the realm of possibility.

What does this all have to do with muscle memory or romance writing? Actually, a lot. In the midst of custom content and screenshots and Let’s Plays and other things that are still creative but not focused on producing pages, my brain gets to free-float and do its story stuff wihout me getting in its way. Ad the facilitator of a long-ago writer’s group often said, once we put pen or pencil to paper, we were not allowed to stop it moving. The process would beget the product.

With things like this, my brain goes “storystorystorystorystory” and “atttttmosssspheeeeeeereeeee” until I am darned near besotted with it. When that happens, oh look, how did all that writing get on the page? I better get more paper. Not just for one book, because while I was furiously scratching out dialogue for Drama King, Bern and Ruby, from Her Last First Kiss were at the edge of my vision, tapping their feet, and next to them, Cornelis and Lydia from Plunder. All of them with lists grievances….uh, adjustments I need to make so that they look the say they do on the page as they do in my head. Not only physically, but you get the drift.

One of my Sims notes is to set aside time (after writing) to learn Reshade (lighting editor…ish?) and fine tuning presets I didn’t even know could be fine-tuned but make all the difference from bright and cartoony (which is fun, too, when I have the taste for it) to…my people. It is like that with reading and writing, too, as recent conversations with bookish friends have confirmed. Keep at it, when it’s possible. Put the pen on the paper. Keep it there. Sooner or later the muscle memory will kick in, and therein likes the tale. Literally.

Anna