Love Scene Time

November 14, 2018annabowling Leave a comment

For the last few days, my main occupation has been putting sweaters on, and then immediately taking them off again, then falling asleep in unexpected places. This means one ting. Cold season has arrived. Add massive amounts of tea, many bottles of water, and a blanket that comes with me when I move from pillow pile to couch and back again. Not exactly the way I intended to spend the first week after signing a new book contract, but it’ll do.

This morning, I saw this outside the window:

first snow 11/18

Snow has always been, and will always be, my favorite weather, and the fact that, because we live in a complex now, shoveling is not on the agenda. Every car for itself when it comes to clearing off personal vehicles, but I am still counting this as a win. Skies are clear, so the dusting is all we are likely to get for today. For mid-November, I can take that. Since this is also the day when tat first glimmer of brain pierces through the cold fog, I am taking this 9these, as I mean both the snow and the glimmer of brain) as a good sign.

This means climbing back into the writing saddle. Now that contracts are signed, the clock begins ticking. Melva and I now get to figure out how we write a completed love scene, together, and we have a date when said love scene has to be done. I have never co-written a love scene before, so this is going to be a new experience. I have already accepted the fact that this is probably not going to be possible to write with my fingers splayed across my eyes, horror-movie-watching style.

Melva and I have shared a lot over the years, as critique partners, conference roomies, and friends. Put it bluntly, we are both well stocked with blackmail opportunities, but, then again, neither of us could afford said blackmail, and we each know where the bodies are buried, because we helped move them. Writing a love scene together, though? That’s new.

Not that we’re squeamish/prudish. We are both grown women, happily married, and have been reading romance for long enough to, well, know what we’re doing. Granted, my own love scenes have, to date, been of the fade to black, maybe a leetle beyond, variety. Her Last First Kiss is going to require me to follow my hero and heroine into the bedroom, because that’s a part of the character development, and part of the romance. , and not including that part of their story would feel incomplete.

When Melva and I first conceived of (pun very much intended) of the story that would ultimately become Chasing Prince Charming (spoiler: our heroine catches him) we did address the issue of love scenes. Our plan was to cross that bridge when we came to it, and do what came naturally, which we also hoped our characters would ultimately do. Isn’t that the whole idea? We had the option of telling the story in a sweet fashion, without any love scenes whatsoever, but we knew we didn’t want to go in that direction. Meg and Dominic taking the very big step of becoming physically intimate, and what led up to it, were too important to leave out of the story, and, so, love scene time. It’s Meg and Dominic’s first time, true, but it’s also Melva’s and mine.

This is also my first time writing a contemporary love scene, as well as writing with another author. Everybody involved is probably going to learn a new thing or two. Both of us agree that we want the love scene to be exactly that; it’s more about feelings than body parts, and the scene needs to move both the story and the relationship to a new level. Thankfully, since we already have the whole book written and contracted, what we have here is a matter of connecting the dots. That came out more salacious than it was intended, but that’s par for the course when Melva and I write together. There is sometimes unintentional blueness, we are scarily on the same page, and things somehow manage to fall together.

Which is pretty much how things can potentially go in a love scene, the sort where the characters take over, do their own thing, and let us write it down for them. That kind of thing doesn’t feel scary at all. More like business as usual. It also reminds us to keep our brains open, and a notebook on hand (that notebook part may be only me, but when don’t I have a notebook at hand, anyway?) to catch ideas for the couples from subsequent books, because they’re going to need love scenes, too, and this kind of thing is different for every couple, even if they are in the same series.

This also means that I get to start cobbling together a series bible, to keep track of whos where and doing what, mapping out romantic arcs and the like. Since stationery is one of the great loves of my life, a very close second to romance writing, this is also on my list of awesome perks of writer-hood. It will also gibe me topics for a few blog entries, which is, with the current cold-induced brain fog, a very welcome constant.

Writer friends, what’s your best tip for writing love scenes? Reader friends, what makes a good love scene for you? Stationery nerds who are only here for the deskscapes, the turquoise pen is by Jane Davenport.

Writing Lessons From My Art Journal

October 31, 2018annabowling Leave a comment

Happy Halloween, and/or day before National Novel Writing Month, to all who participate. The extrovert in me loves the community of NaNo, and the competitive side of me loves the pounding toward a goal, hell-bent for leather, as my Aunt S used to say, but anxiety is not as thrilled about the pressure, so, for me, doing the slow and steady thing works better, so I will cheer on all who are participating from the sidelines, and keep on going at my own pace..

Once again, we have Monday’s blog on Wednesday, and I am okay with that. Domestic Tornado Season is, hopefully, winding down, fingers crossed. In the meantime, butt in chair, fingers on keyboard and/or pen to paper whenever possible.

Lately, I’ve been using my art journals to destress, and, as usual, they’ve taught me a few things about the writing life. I don’t know how I settled on it, but, in the middle of one of the bigger tornado surges, I took out the nearest art journal to hand, and turned to a fresh page.

First of all, I did not draw anything on these pages. Both pages are stencils, by Jane Davenport, whose art supplies I love, love, love. The notebook cover and insert are both from her collection, as well. No compensation here, just a fan, sharing what works for me.

I’ve tried to start this blog entry many times, and I always get in my own way, so I am going to go ahead and throw whatever is in my head onto the page, which is generally how the best stuff happens, anyway.

Earlier, this week, I grabbed the art journal, pictured above, some face stencils, and a Pitt artist pen, and started throwing stuff down. These stencils have options as to what features I can put, and where. Usually, I start off placing the eyes too high. Moving them around before I actually set down any ink helps, and keeping a small notepad next to my art journal also helps, because working with art stuff is a great way to get my story brain on the back burner, which is when my imaginary friends often do some of their best stuff, while I’m looking at lines and shapes and colors.

Right now, it’s already after 3PM, which means that the ideal posting times have passed for the day, and I could call myself now two entries behind and promise that I’d take care of it tomorrow. I know this is bull, because tomorrow is already booked (no pun intended) and a post written after the ideal posting times is going to get more hits and reach more readers than the post I’m going to write, eh, sometime. This is also the first thing that my recent art journal experience has taught me about writing:

* Put Some Stuff On The Page.

This is important, because, without that, nothing gets done. The idea stays in my head, and, no matter how many people I tell about it, nobody will get the full experience. Including me. As long as the idea stays in my head, it stays perfect, and I can’t fail. Once I commit ink to paper (or the digital equivalent) the ball is actually in play. If I don’t like what I made, A) nobody has to ever see it, and B) I can open to a new page and start again.

*Use What You Already Have.

I love going to art or craft stores, looking at all the pretty stuff, imagining what I can do with it, and petting the packaging. Sometimes, some of it even comes home with me, which means I can actually use it. I can also actually let it sit there and taunt me with its un-touched-ness, but I don’t get to find out what it can really do, unless I bust it out of the packaging and put it on the page. See first point, above. Those craft store displays and online adverts are very tempting, buuut know what? That box of stuff is right here, and everything in there was the shiny new thing once. It came home for a reason. Time to actually let it fulfill its purpose, or, at the very least, see what it can do.

*Experiments Are Good

When I first started using the traveler’s notebook system of covers and inserts, I was very adamant that I only wanted one particular size, about five by eight inches, because that was the size of notebook I already liked. Two sizes, if we count pocket. Then, I had to have this particular cover, which came with this particular insert, which is standard size, eight inches square, folded in half (my brain is not going to do the math) but this was the insert that came with the cover, and it was marker paper, and I have markers, and what’s the worst that can happen?

In this case, I can fill the entire thing in a record amount of time (I am one spread away from filling the whole insert) and then start making my own, from paper I already have on hand, because I love what my brain does when I am art-ing, which leads to the next point.

*Take Notes

This one, I cannot stress highly enough. My story brain works best in a fertile environment. If I’m making art, I have a pen in my hand already, so, if there is a pretty piece of paper (or the back of an old envelope) nearby, it’s ready to catch any thoughts that pop into my head. I am also usually listening to something while I art, and, recently, that’s included a lot of You Tube videos on writing and/or reading.

This is normally where I want to wrap the post together and relate it directly to writing, but I’m not going to do that right now. I’m going to leave it where it is, hit “post,” and grab a notebook or two.

Intravenous

October 1, 2018annabowling Leave a comment

A few years back, I had several big life changes happening at the same time. A long-time friendship ended, there was a serious illness in the family, and I’d had to helm an interstate move of three adults and one cat who did not sign off on any of this. Needless to say, all of the above did a serious number on the ability to create. I have multiple Moleskines filled with random ramblings, trying to make sense of everything, but fiction? Not so much.

Those changes also did a number on my ability to sleep, so there were more than a few times that I said to heck with it, slip out of bed, and plop myself in my recliner, in the dark of pre-dawn, underneath a hand-knit blanket, and plug in my earbuds. I’d kick back in the recliner, eyes closed, and let the music play, Skye kitty nearby, to send love beams my way.

The songs on that playlist didn’t pertain to any one particular novel project. It wasn’t the time for that. What it was time for, was to feel. There were a lot of sad songs on that list, loss songs, and songs that were just…big. Meat Loaf. Mary Chapin Carpenter. Elton John. Snow Patrol. HIM. Others.

Lying in that chair, under the blanket, one thin wire connecting me to the thing that I needed to have pumped into me, reminded me of sitting with my father during his dialysis sessions. By the time the sun came up, I’d have enough to get up and start doing things. In time, I started writing fiction again.

I remember those mornings, sometimes, when I find myself facing a blank page, or looking askance at my to-do list. On those times, I’ve found that it’s usually time for a creative transfusion. This morning, that included watching Bob’s Burgers, in my pajamas, while eating oatmeal, and then meandering a few feet to the left, to the kitchen/dining room table, and mess around with some of the art supplies that had been sitting in their moving boxes for far too long. watercolor, ink and stencils layered onto the paper, guided by instinct. The language part of my brain went on the back burner, my conscious attention divided between the backlog of TV shows I’d been putting off watching, and the images that composed themselves, as overthinking was the farthest thing from my mind.

And then…because there always is an “and then,” because that is how stories work, the tips of my ink-stained fingers tingled and itched to get at the keys. This entry wanted out of my head and onto the page, because after that (see previous comment about the inevitable “and thens”of every story) it would be time to rad Melva’s next scene for Drama King, and, after that, I can work on my own, and tomorrow, N and I get back on board with our mutual butt-kicking, for my historical and her contemporary. I am keeping one eye on library notifications, because I have some classic standalone historical romances on their way to me, to help stoke this historical fire. By which I mean get me back into historical mindset, because A) as much fun as co-writing the contemporaries is, I need some historical transfusion, and B) we are now in October, which means full superpowers should be going into effect, and I want to go at this as strongly as I can. There is also C) the fact that love beams do indeed come across the Rainbow Bridge, and writing between cats is, in fact, different than writing with a physical furry shadow.

There’s also the transfusion of last month’s Connecticut Fiction Fest, this past weekend’s Albany Book Festival (as an attendee, not a participant) and enough pages logged already in my reading tracker to put me two weeks ahead of my goal for October, on the first day of the month. Today, I got a transfusion of cartoons at breakfast, and cop shows at lunch, all the cups of tea I couldn’t have while the cold sore was in town, (totally making up for that now) and the agreement of all family members that now would be a good time to decorate our for-now apartment.

We still plan to find a pet friendly place some months from now. We can spend those months living out of boxes and staring at plain beige walls, or we can have some fun and put our stamp on the place. Expect progress pictures, as we go.

Such is the way a new normal begins. Do what you can, when you can. When it’s a struggle to put out, it’s time to take in, as much as it takes, for as long as it takes. Creative transfusions can come from old favorites, or the most unusual sources. For me, I like to throw it all in there, and see what sticks. Sometimes, the enthusiasm for writing will wane, especially when there are big life changes, even when the desire, or even the need, to write, hasn’t gone anywhere.

Even as the enthusiasm can ebb, it can also flow. Sometimes, that’s at a trickle, and sometimes, after a big enough or effective enough transfusion, crash in like a tidal wave. Usually, it’s somewhere in between. I have a list, in my bullet journal, of things that I know make for good transfusions: Spotify playlists, secret Pinterest boards, favorite movies, books, and TV. Taking the time to set up a Sims world exactly the way I want it, then spend long weekend afternoons, playing through generations. Hauling my beloved antique rocker (I don’t know how old it is, but it’s older than me) out of storage, and setting it up in my corner of the living room. It doesn’t recline, but it rocks, and that’ll do.

Butt in Chair, Pen to Paper

September 25, 2018annabowling Leave a comment

There aren’t a lot of articles out there on how to get back into the swing of writing after the loss of a pet. Personally, I haven’t found any. Hence the left foot right foot approach of putting butt in chair, and pen on paper. I work best in longhand. I always have. Still, there are times when it’s going through the motions. Writers and cats have a special connection, and Skye was, and is, my mews forever. At some point in the next couple of weeks, we will brig her ashes home. When we move, in time, to a pet-friendly apartment, we will add a new cat, or cats, to our family. They will be their own creatures, and I can’t say, before getting to know them, whoever they are, whether or not they will agree to blog for me. I have no earthly idea what Friday’s blog is going to look like, and I am okay with that. Maybe it will take a break for the week. I don’t know yet.

Last night, I had my weekly Skype session with Melva, to talk about Chasing Prince Charming‘s adventures in submission (we racked up a really good “no,” this week, so I count that as good) and where we are going next with its companion book, Drama King. I have a rough scene to smooth out, as soon as the immediate fam sorts out a domestic tornado, and, after I get Melva’s next scene, I get to rough out the scene that comes after that. Those whom I have tasked with needling me about Her Last First Kiss, you are doing a splendid job. That kind of thing works well with me.

For the first couple of days after Skye passed, I didn’t have any energy to do anything but cry, or stare at the bleak, cat-less future. Losing a pet sucks, no question about it. I found myself scrolling mindlessly through the internet. Cat videos have been extremely calming, and looking through all of Skye’s photos also helps. I have spent more time than I would care to admit, scrolling through ranked lists that pertain to a daytime drama I followed avidly in high school and college, but haven’t watched even one episode, since. The teenagers I remember are the parents now, and there may even be a grandparent or two; I haven’t looked. There are some things I do not need to know, especially when I am emotionally vulnerable.

Other things, though, have risen to the surface. Over the past weekend, I had a lot of time to myself. Housemate made a trip to Camp Grandma, Real Life Romance Hero was at work, and I gave myself assignments with a stack of new art supplies. I put pens in a new pen case. Playing with pens is always a sure soothing method, which, for a writer, is also one that is readily at hand.

I read some. Not a lot. Some, though, and there were, in fact, more reading-related activities. I’d been following the worksheets N and I are using to connect ourselves to the projects it’s high time we get out there, when I heard about Skye. Things had been going pretty darned well, actually, and then, in an instant, BOOM. Life will do that to a person.

Melva, also, recently lost a pet, and, in our weekly chat, we tossed around the idea of our two cats on the other side of Rainbow Bridge, plotting something together. Could happen. Who’s to say? We commiserated, gave each other a little more time, and made plans to move ahead.

Which is why this disjointed entry is up here. Melva and I talked about how we need to take our own advice, on writing when dealing with real life plot twists. Adjust expectations. Do what you can, when you can, and, maybe most importantly, remember why you’re doing it.

Those of us writing for publication would like to see a royalty check, sure, but I’m talking now more about capturing that initial spark, the one that turned “I wish I could do this” into “of course I can do this.” As is often the case, thoughts became more clear when I sat myself down with pen and paper, and let the whole matter leak out onto the page.

Back when I was but a wee princess of eleven, I stole my mother’s copy of a seminal historical romance novel from her nightstand, and scurried to my hidey-hole under the big brass bed in the guest bedroom. My mom followed the flashlight beam, but too late. In the first few pages, while the heroine was still an even wee-er (more wee?) princess herself, I was sold. I’d found what I wanted to read and write for the rest of my life.

Big, thick, epic historical romance, that spans miles (sometimes continents) and years (sometimes decades) and drags both hero and heroine through one heck of a lot of trouble, before the triumph of their HEA…that’s my jam. I want to inhale that now, like oxygen. It won’t fill the Skye-shaped hole. I’ll have to heal around that one, and, when new felines come, they won’t fill it either, but make their own places, on their own terms.

There is still grieving. Other cat people understand that. There is also the steady, inexorable need to make story. Writer people get that. Sometimes the two things happen at the same time, and sometimes, they take turns. I am not in control of how they work that out. The only thing I can control is butt in the chair, and pen to paper. It can’t always be gold, but it can always be. That’s good enough.

Breaking Out the Good Stuff

September 19, 2018annabowling Leave a comment

Stuff is going down today. I can tell because A) I am the one who planned said stuff, and B) I broke out the fancy pen. Full disclosure, said fancy pen was broken out for photographic purposes, as a quick test proved that it’s going to require cleaning and re-inking before I can actually use it. The actual pens used in today’s work will probably be one of my workhorse pens, possibly erasable because I know me, and perfectionism is the big boss to defeat before I can get into reconnecting with the meat of Her Last First Kiss, which is my assignment for the day.

Tomorrow morning, N and I will have our weekly breakfast and go over our homework, aka the pages that will enable us to kick each others’ posteriors into gear on our chosen projects. For double-digit years, I was part of a weekly accountability/critique group, that included my contemporary cohort, Melva Michaelian, and I was the only person who had something to read, every single week. There were more times than I’d care to admit, that my pages for that week were written in a white-hot burst, down to minutes before my ride came to ferry me there. There were times when I wrote pages that didn’t have anything to do with a current project, but they were pages, goshdangit, and that was what mattered.

When I moved from CT, to NY, obviously, that was the end of that. I missed it, and still do. I haven’t found a local group yet, though I’ve tried a couple, and I do have local writer friends, whom I meet with individually. I miss the group dynamic, though, so still working on that one.

Writing is often a solitary pursuit. I am an extrovert, meaning that I gain my energy from being around other people, and spend my energy when alone. Communing with other writers is a great way for me to refill that energy reserve. The internet is a great source for that. I will never, ever turn down a chance to have tea and writerly talk, face to face, with a local writer buddy, and have been known to travel, to see writer friends who are farther away than public transportation can connect.

That better have pages thing, though, I’ve been missing that. Last week, when N and I had our first regular breakfast after we both went to separate RWA events, we admitted we could both use some accountability. Hence the homework. Hence the excited skip of my pulse as I write this, glancing over the top of my monitor, at the real life version of today’s picture, only a few feet away. A new cup of tea, a pen in my hand, and it will be time, once again, to dive headfirst into Georgian England, and Bern and Ruby, and all the reasons they shouldn’t and can’t be together, which are nothing compared to the fact that they must. Are they going to admit that, though? Not without a great deal of difficulty, and that, for me, is where the fun lies.

Since I’ve already written the first draft, I know how things are going to turn out. This is for going deeper, for making the book more itself. Making Bern Bern-ier, Ruby more Ruby-licious. This is going to mean finally breaking down and setting up the printer, because I need reference pictures, and family trees, and cheat sheets, and all of that good stuff. This means ripping apart the binder I made over a year ago, that I set up in a specific arrangement, then never used.

Obviously, that arrangement didn”t work. Difference between theory and practice, and all that. This is time to fly into the mist, albeit with a general idea of what I’m doing, and the boundaries of the previous draft and a half, to bump me back when I drift too far afield. I’m excited (if you haven’t picked up on that by now) and am about half super pumped to get back to this story (a huge thank you to those writer friends who have needled me about this, because it super duper helps) and half running around in circles, arms flailing, but at least they are controlled circles.

My table/desk is not going to look this neat by the end of the day, when it’s time to clear away the writing stuff and set up for dinner with the fam. I am okay with that. Probably, at some point, but probably not today, I will do battle with the fountain pens that were last packed when I had a different address, and bring them back into everyday use. That’s another topic, though, for another day.

For right now, it’s time to brew some tea, pick out pens, and make a cover page for the second half of Big Daddy Precious, then start digging.

You Asked For (Most of) It

September 18, 2018annabowling Leave a comment

Kitchen table seems to be my default workspace as of late, and, one week after my return from CT Fiction Fest, the normal routine is inching back into place. Since the normal routine includes candles, tea, books, pens, and paper, this is a very good thing. It also means I do the book writing thing, now equipped with my snazzy new tools gleaned from abovementioned conference.

Starting off a little differently this week, though (and not only because Monday’s entry is coming to you on Tuesday,) with answers to a few asks I’ve had in ye olde emaile inboxxe.

First, my planners. If you’re new, spoiler alert: I love planners. If you’ve been here a while, this is not news. For those who asked about my current system, I use the traveler’s notebook setup, aka one cover, holding four notebook inserts inside it.

Webster’s Pages classic and pocket traveler’s notebook covers

My classic (aka A5) cover is blush stripe, and the pocket size is blush. I am very into blush pink at the moment (it will probably be a very long moment) which is why I had to have the blush pink Artist Loft dot grid journal from Michaels. This is where I make my monthly and weekly spreads. I used to make daily spreads as well, but A) that takes a while, and B) my dailies migrated to a whiteboard on the refrigerator, and seem happy there, so who am I to move them? I’m experimenting with a minimalistic style in this planner, which is new for me, but fits with the blush, so it may stick.

My calendars are in Dutch, because I am learning.

Inserts for both covers are usually Moleskine cahiers or Volants, but Picadilly has some super nice A5 inserts, as well. I get both brands at Barnes and Noble. My new discovery is Yellow Paper House, on the website or Etsy, which makes gorgeous inserts with colored paper. Insert heart eyes emoji here. My favorite pens could take up another post all by themselves, but, for daily use, I like Pilot Frixion erasable pens and pastel highlighters (also erasable.) I like the clicky ones best. I am not receiving any compensation from abovementioned brands; merely fangirling over my favorites. This weekend, I plan to try my hand at making my own inserts, because A) I am a control freak, and B) I like pretty notebooks that do exactly as I want.

The next request comes from a conversation with friends, this past weekend, and the idea of top five books. This is a hard question for many readers, because how do you pick? Going with top five for right now, not of all time, and I can write more, later, in depth, about said choices, but, for today, my top five historical romance novels are:

Top five YA novels, right now, are:

I could probably break this down further, to give lists of specific kinds of historical romances, or YAs, and favorites that don’t fall into either category. (Nick Hornby, Evelyn Waugh, and (the real) V.C. Andrews, I am looking at you.) These will probably crop up in future posts, because A) instant post topic, on days when my blogging idea bank consists of “uhhh….” B) I will get to make a separate notebook to keep track of all of these lists, and C) I honestly could blabber about my favorite books forever. Ditto on the pens and notebooks, but a gal’s got to write sometime.

I am also putting a mental sticky note on the topic of abandoned notebooks, those that I started with the best of intentions and then…umm…yeahhh…:shoves stack of notebooks under bed, with foot: Some of them come back, as with Big Daddy Precious, aka the second from the bottom in the book stack, pictured. I fell in love with this notebook on sight, needed it, longed for it, and knew that I wanted to use it for Her Last First Kiss stuff. I started at it for longer than I would care to admit, then tried a bunch of different approaches, all of which fell completely flat.

Still, I packed it in with my must-haves when we moved, and, this past week, hauled it out of its box, when N and I gave ourselves homework to get ourselves back on track with the manuscripts we loved, but had been ignoring/hiding from/procrastinating. What better book than the one I can swear is giving me the side-eye? I hadn’t noticed it at the time, but the point in this notebook where I paused writing in it? Dead middle. Solution? One page break, new title page, begin as if this was a brand new notebook.

The one thing I have learned from these notebooks abandoned in midstream is that whatever I was using them for, and then abandoned, wasn’t the right thing. Maybe I thought it was the right thing, but it wasn’t, and that’s normal and natural, does not mean I am a failure as a writer and/or human being. All it means is that I need to turn a fresh page and try something that is not what was giving me guff. Decent advice for most things, really. I may need to make an art journal page about that.

The Fine Art of Self-bribery

September 13, 2018annabowling Leave a comment

Post-conference letdown is most certainly a thing. The change from spending an entire weekend amongst others of one’s kind, where writing, publishing, and promotion are the topics of the day, to quizzing one’s family on the location of garbage bags, and other domestic matters, is a big one. Sometimes, it takes a while. Sometimes, it takes more than that.

There is, of course, the physical reserves that need to be replenished. In other words, sleep. There needs to be some. The change from hotel bed, to home bed, may be an improvement, or it may be not an improvement. Kind of a crapshoot with that one, but at least home has the familiarity of home. On the down side, family members have still not consented to put mints on my pillow. Not that the hotel I stayed at did that either, but sometimes, it’s nice to have the gesture.

There’s unpacking, which usually includes laundry. I may get unicorn points for actually liking the whole laundry process, but that may also be because laundry time = reading time. This may count in the self-bribery category, an I am more than okay with that.

Getting back into the swing of things, after a conference, for me, involves a good deal of self-bribery. It’s very rare to come back from a conference as exactly the same writer one was when one went to said conference, and, along with swag, new friends, and possible free books, a writer generally comes back from a conference with new ideas and things they want to try. Do these things always fit into the category of business as usual? Not by a long shot.

Yesterday, my goal was to write this blog entry after I got home from breakfast with N. I’d attended CT Fiction Fest, and she’d been at an all-day event with our home chapter, Capitol Region Romance Writers. Naturally, this meant that we had to compare notes. Which led to giving ourselves homework. Which meant, for me, that a trip to nearby retailers, for new office supplies. To be fair, pretty much everything is a call for new office supplies for me, so this is not as big a deal as it may be for others. Even so, the pull of playing with new pens and/or paper and/or organizing the papers I already have are enough of an incentive to get me to actually do the same stuff that was haaaaarrrrrd before the conference (or not related to a conference. I always want to go get new pens, etc.)

As a result of this venture, my everyday carry pens and highlighters are all the same brand, Pilot Frixion. As much as I love the Pentel RSVP pens, and will still use them in other capacities, A) I did not have one in green, and B) my green Marvy LePen was mostly in there for sentimental reasons, anyway. It will go into a shadowbox, with related items, later. Now, my EDC pen case is a lean, mean, writing machine. Also, an erasable one, which is extremely useful for a perfectionist, marching herself resolutely back into a draft.

Sitting across from a critique/accountability partner and coming to terms that it is high time to get back to one’s current ms in one’s favorite genre, even when the room seems to get a little smaller, and lungs get a little bit squeezy at the thought of maybe not being able to do the thing one loves, as well as one would like. Especially when the word, “homework,” comes into play.

There’s the thing, though. Homework, especially homework that involves writing in longhand, means that it needs the proper supplies. It’s going to need paper. It’s going to need pens. Highlighters, maybe. A folder or notebook, definitely. “Shopping” from my own stash, and picking out the supplies that volunteer as tribute, is as fun as purchasing new stuff, so it’s not all about the shopping.

It’s about the focus. It’s about the commitment. It’s about honoring the story and the characters, and wanting to get myself in the very best position to see this through to the end.

So, today, I lay out the pens and highlighters all from the same maker. I checked to see if the laptop cord will reach from the kitchen table, to a power strip on a nearby wall. Spoiler: it does., I will test the Mac Book and desktop later. The thought of happy back and happy eyeballs at the same time, with the added bonus of not having to scramble to my feet, is a powerful draw. So is the chance to practice drawing (pun intended) once I have my writing goals for the day, met.

There is a new scented candle on the table now, pine, to hint of the seasons soon to begin, and a fresh cup of tea, to warm body and soul. My planners (yes, plural) are nearby, so I can have visible evidence of tasks accomplished, and a clear outline of where I need to go, to get to where I want to be. The seasonal Windows theme is new to me, and it’s fun, as well as helping to set the mood. I’m not at the point, yet, where I want a different theme, depending on the project I’m working on at the moment, but that could be a reward, trying stuff out, in that manner, for doing some of the eat the frog stuff that is also on my list.

Making up stories, and polishing the rough stuff, that’s the fun part. Poking around in electronic guts, or hauling a desktop around the common room, eh, not so much, but, if I do those things, it makes doing the fun stuff all that much easier/more efficient. The instructions for the printer are right there, on top of the box. Get that in place, and I can print pages. When I can print pages, I can three-hole-punch them. When I three-hole-punch them, I can put them in a binder. When I put them in a binder, I can see the manuscript grow, as I print out the fruit of each new session. Carrot and stick; it works for me.

Tabling the Issue

September 5, 2018annabowling Leave a comment

This morning, I sat at the kitchen table -I call it the kitchen table, though it’s really in the common room; we basically have a studio apartment, plus a bedroom- and made a list on pen and paper, to make some sense of the blog topics swirling around my mind this morning. There were a lot.

Two nights ago, my writer friend, H, introduced me to an animated Japanese film, that is still holding onto a lot of my brain space, and, oddly enough, embodies a lot of what I love about historical romance, though the film really isn’t one. Still thinking on that, and will likely blog on that later. There’s the conference coming, and stuff I still have to o in order to get ready, much of which I will be doing after I get this blog entry posted.

Then there’s the (probably) most mundane thing on my list, the fact that I like writing at the kitchen table, which is not really the kitchen table. It’s not in the kitchen, and it’s basically the everything table, but kitchen table it is, when I tink about it, so I’m calling it that.

Since I am a pen and paper first writer, having the table solves al ot of the between-offices issues. When the rest of the family is ougt of the apartment, there’s my uninterrupted writing time. My brain works easier on pen and paper than facing a blank computer screen, so I’m not sure why I haven’t roughed out blog entries on paper before now.

In the best of all possible worlds, I would probably want to write in longhand only, hand the pages off to somebody else to transcribe, then go over the printed pages with pens, highlighters and sticky notes, as many times as it takes to make a finished raft. Maybe that will happen someday, when I’ve sold more books, but, for now, I have to fill both roles.

Writing at the kitchen table has a few benefits. For one thing, there is a time limit. Since this is the everything table, I need to be done by mealtimes. I usually do the cooking anyway, so that limit is pretty but make-your-own-sandwich nights, and eat in feral cat mode, aka everybody retreat to their neutral corners nights, are now a thing. In that case, I get the table.) Because the table is the everything table, that also mean I can’t let any clutter accumulate. When the session is over, everything must go, and back to the place where it lives, so I can find it for the next time.

The table is also within eyeshot of the kitchen, so I am only a few strides away from tea, at any given time. Tea is an essential part of the process, so this is a huge plus. When I look up from the page, the first thing I see is the flame of the jar candle, which is another strong positive. Maybe its’ something primal about how our ancestors would gather around the communal fire, and tell stories. Maybe it’s that I like candles. Maybe Stare at the flame for a few seconds, take in the scent (iced tea scent, today) and then get back to putting ink on the page.

There are a few negatives, too. For one thing, I really like writing at the table, but handwritten manuscripts are a thing of the past. Little historical romance writer humor there. Very little. This means that, at some point, I am going to have to transcribe.

This is an issue because all of the outlets directly under the table are occupied by router and something else with blinky lights. There are also outlets that I could reach, with an extension cord, to the left or right, but, on the right, those outlets are already occupied by TV and cable box. To the left, we have Housemate’s bed. The cord would go directly across her face. We’re good friends, but extension cord across the face is a lot to ask, even for besties. This also means that I would need to fix the Mac’s three-beep thing (which I have to do anyway, so put on the big girl panties, Anna) and/or propping the pink laptop up with multiple binders, so it’s at the right angle, or, for the truly desperate and/or dedicated times, hauling the desktop and monitor over to the table, and then putting it back where it goes, when the transcription session is done.

When we do move, and I can get my real desk back, I want to keep it for handwriting, and get a different desk for computer work. Since my beloved office chair has wheels, I can put each desk on opposite walls, an turn around when I want to go from one, to the other. Space permitting. If not, well, I really do like this table.

In other news, there is an update on the War of the Roses. Tudor (or maybe Lancaster, as it is possible that somebody mixed up the pots before they got labeled) officially has a blossom. Bloom? Flower? I will know for sure when it fully opens and shows us if it’s all red, or red-and-white. More petals than bud now, so I can’t say bud anymore, but my rose vocabulary is lacking. At any rate, I am proud of this new development. His brother has some new leaves, and there may be things going on with the stems growing new stuff, but this is the first actual flower since the great drowning of August. Maybe it’s a sign.

Running Around In Circles, Planning

August 27, 2018annabowling Leave a comment

Connecticut Fiction Fest is now only two weeks away. Melva tells me our workshop is slated for 10AM on Sunday, which suits me fine. A) I am a morning person. B) This will be after breakfast, so I will be properly caffeinated. C) I may very well be hyped up to the enthusiastic anticipation level of a five-year-old at six-thirty on Christmas morning.

All of this means that it is time to crank planning for this event, into high gear. I love planning. I mean love, love, love planning. If I couldn’t be a writer, professional organizer would be a fabulous job. I have pulled friends over to the dark side, purely for the pleasure of helping them find their planner bliss and finding their own aesthetic. Note the planner case, with pen loops, and the blush pink thing I have going on.

Note, also, the kitchen table, which is new. Not new-new, but new to us, and, this morning, the difference between setting up for my Monday planning at an actual table, in an actual chair, and curled up on an air mattress, balancing stuff in my lap, is remarkable. With the heat for the next couple of days here in NY’s Capitol Region forecast in the high nineties, this means rearranging my schedule is going to be a must, so seeing what can be allocated where, for each task to be accomplished most efficiently, is key.

There’s something about getting up in front of a bunch of people, who have paid cash money to learn how to improve their writing game, who have also looked over all of the options available for that slot of time, and picked your fifty-minute chunk, over other options, ranging from presentations by other writers and/or publishing professionals, to staking out a chair in the lobby to actually write, or saying “stuff this” to the planned program, and nipping off with friends old or new, for a beverage of choice, that makes a person want to at least have the appearance of having their stuff together.

Thankfully, this year, I get to go into the event with new releases that are not old enough to go to kindergarten. My Ravenwood novel excerpt is currently available, My nonfiction anthology piece, “Greetings from Boxville,” is available for preorder, so it does feel like there is, at last, progress. We like progress. Details are still forthcoming on my next involvement with Charter Oak Romance Writers, but it feels good to be asked back, and, also, for a writer friend I’ve previously worked with, to ask me back for more freelance work. These are all good things. Signs of life, if you will.

All of this brings me to this morning, at the kitchen table, with multiple planners open, nudging all (or at least most) of my ducks into, if not exactly a row, then a loose conglomeration, in the same geographical area. I like to know what’s going to happen, when, and who’s going to do it. That means that, this week, I get to go over my presentation with Melva, and plan out what I want to cover in the segments that are assigned to me. In reality, we’ve both going to interrupt each other a lot, and Melva will probably go unintentionally blue, at least once, at some point, but I like knowing how things are meant to go, in theory, even if practice doesn’t always follow the standard practices.

While a good deal of the planning at this stage of the game, for Fiction Fest, involves the practicalities -which route do I want to take to the venue? What am I wearing? What electronics/pens/paper have to come with?- there is also the planning for the post-conference days. Autumn is, and always has been, the season when my superpowers, usually dormant during the summer, come back, full-fledged, and ready to rumble. In my case, that means writing. If any opportunities come from meetings, planned or chance, at Fiction Fest, Melva and I will need to jump on those, because timing matters.

More than that, there is the fact that I will come back from the conference, energized, with new writer friends, maybe new ideas, and my enthusiasm and confidence cranked up a few levels. This is especially important when I look at getting back to Her Last First Kiss, and historical romance, in general. If you think this is going to mean I’ll be re=formatting the planning of how I approach this part of my writing life, you’re right. Do I have any idea what that is going to look like, in a physical sense? Not at the moment, but not the stuff I put together because that’s how it’s “supposed to” work, or because that’s what “real writers” do. The way it’s meant to be is in the best way possible for me to easily access not only the physical documents or files, but the way that makes it possible for me to connect with that special story place, the one that makes me eager to come to the page every morning, and tell these characters’ stories, the way they want them to be told.

The fact that I get to play with pretty pens and papers and assorted ephemera is only coincidental. Really.

Typing With Wet Claws: Off The Grid Edition

August 10, 2018annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, all. Skye here, for another very special Feline Friday, coming to you from Camp Grandma. This is a special post, because it is a special day, and that special day is because Anty is getting ready to come and spend most of the next week with me. Because Camp Grandma does not have interwebs, apart from the remote connection, Anty will be off the grid (and on the floor, with me, because I am a floor girl) and therefore will not be posting on Monday. She has mentioned some vague ideas of writing a post on Monday anyway, and seeing if she can upload it when Anty Melva comes to camp to take Anty to lunch (I will stay in my bunk and have fish jelly, because that is the best lunch ever. Except for peanut butter, and I already know Anty put peanut butter on the grocery list) but Anty said not to make any promises, but she is keeping a retreat diary and will share some of that when she can.

The day that Anty goes back to Right-Now Apartment is also a very special day, because that day is also Uncle’s birthday, aka the best day ever. I do not know what Anty is getting Uncle for a present, but I already know what I am giving him. I think he would like a shed whisker, maybe a claw, or a glop of early fall shed fur. What do you think? Maybe I will give him all three. Anty will take pictures of me, but nothing beats the real thing, amirite? All three it is. Probably. We may have to see what happens on the laser pointer front first. Worst case scenario, the ghost cats have mentioned something about a flashlight that is rumored to be almost as good as a laser pointer, but only at night.

Being off the grid until Uncle’s Birthday will not affect Anty posting on Buried Under Romance on Saturday, because she knows how to travel through time, and already set up that post. I do not know how she does it. Probably something related to planning, because she has been doing a lot of planning lately. Like, a lot, but that is a whole other post. Her most recent Saturday Discussion post is here, and it looks like this:

Um, no, actually, that is the picture that goes with Anty’s next post for Buried Under Romance, but I will leave it there, because Anty has a very strict schedule for today, and the “help Skye with her blog post” section is a lot smaller than I would normally like, but I do get Anty 24/7, apart from her lunch with Anty Melva, and possibly a walk to the post office (that would be Anty walking to the post office, not me, because I am an inside girl. I spent the first six months of my life outside, because I was born wild. Trust me, it was not that great. Inside only for me from now on, thankyouplease.)

When it comes to Anty’s Goodreads Challenge, this entry will be very brief. Thanks to Anty’s new discovery of Book Tubers, she has been adding a lot of books to her To Be Read lists. As of today, she is ten books ahead of schedule, having read sixty-four out of ninety books, which puts her at seventy-one percent of the way to her goal. Since Anty has a fully charged Kindle, and a whole bag filled only with books, I think it is safe to say that she is going to be reading a lot during this retreat. Sometimes, she does read out loud to me, which I very much appreciate. If there is a kitty in the book she reads aloud, she does do the kitty voice. She has a funny accent, but she does okay.

Another thing Anty does okay, and would like to do okay-er is art. I like watching Anty do arty things, because it is very interesting. Her hands move a lot, she usually has music playing, and, sometimes, her supplies have interesting smells. Some kitties like to help their humans by batting the supplies around, but I do not do that. I sit nearby and observe, because I am a good girl. Anty and I have some of our best talks that way. Often, when I help Anty do arty things, that lets the story part of her brain free-float, and then some of her writing problems work themselves out, on their own. Bloop, all solved. Anty is very much looking forward to that part of the retreat. Maybe I can sneak some peanut butter, if she is absorbed enough in arty things while her rice cake is left unattended.

Anty has not made any art here yet. These books and pocket are made by Dyan Reavely

I am not sure if Anty is bringing that particular art book with her (it is very cool, though, and she looks forward to playing with it) because she has a theory that keeping the supplies on hand to a carefully curated minimum will encourage her to use them in more ways, but I figured this post could use another picture, and she had that one hanging around, so that’s what you get.

Anty is also bringing a bunch of movies, that we can watch together. It is very thoughtful of her to have a laptop that plays movies, because Grandma keeps her TV in Big Carpet Room, in which I am not allowed. I like watching TV with my humans, but Big Carpet Room is a no-kitty zone. That is because of what Michelangelo, one of the ghost cats did (back when he was a non-ghost cat) and Grandma has concerns that it will give me ideas. I cannot say exactly what it was, but I strongly believe it has to do with, um, stuff. Grandma has me 100% on my stuff habits, and she is not taking any chances. Grandma’s house, Grandma’s rules, so Anty and I will have movie dates in my room.

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

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

Typing With Wet Nails

for the love of romance

writing process