Valentine’s Day Rambles (of the writing variety)

February 14, 2018February 14, 2018annabowling Leave a comment

So, it’s Valentine’s Day, which means built in blog topic for romance writers. Woo hoo. On hour, seven hundred words, let’s go. Okay. No big plans for the day, as such. I’m writing, which is worthy of celebration, because my brain is returning from the fog of Martian Death Cold, and it’s time to write some of the rust out of the faucet, so to speak. This also means I get to spend some extra time tucked in a comfy chair (probably my office chair, which is plenty comfy and has great back support) and snuggle under a fuzzy blanket, with a cup of tea (pink skull and crossbones mug today) and the day’s soundtrack is a mixture of my Spotify daily mix and Real Life Romance Hero doing dishes on the other side of my office door. Heck yes, romance heroes wash dishes.

Okay, maybe not medieval knights or nineteenth century English noblemen. Probably not pirates, either, but, y’know, everybody does what they have to do on a pirate ship because there are only so many people to do a lot of different jobs, so maybe pirates, after all. Who can tell? Me, next time I write a pirate book? Maybe so. We will see. The point is, romance heroes do a whole lot of things. Heroines, too. That came out wrong, but I’ll let it stand, because I am in that sort of a mood.

Romance gets a lot of jabs this time of year, often from people who aren’t fans of the genre, often because they haven’t tried any recent romance fiction, or classic romance fiction, or fiction with romantic elements (though, let’s be real, that romance stuff is everywhere, and gets into many different genres, to varying degrees, but I digress.) Think pieces of this sort (of which there often does not seem to be a whole lot of thinking going on) have become commonplace enough that I can look at them, and, meh, another one of those? Okay. Whatever. What I’d really like to see is the excited discovery of a new romance reader – hey, look at all these great stories, where the focus is on the relationship and there’s history and suspense and sex and faith and it’s funny and it rips my heart out and puts it back together, and, seriously, anything can happen to these characters, as long as they end up happy and together, and, y’know what? They do. Every single time. How amazing is that?

Pretty darned, is all I’m saying. Yesterday was my weekly meeting with N, and we talked about reconnecting with what we want for our writing careers, about reconnecting with what makes a story, be it read or written, special. For me, this means a concentrated effort in reconnecting with what I love most about historical romance. If I’m going to go back to the source, the moment I fell in love with the genre, it would be when eleven-year-old me snuck a book from my mother’s nightstand, and cracked it open, by flashlight, under the brass bed in the guest bedroom. It also takes me back to countless used bookstores, where I would crawl around on the floor, inspecting the lower shelves for stories set in the sixteenth century, scanning for keywords that would catch my attention. Any mention of larger than life, or epic, or sprawling, or…:satisfied sigh:

Yeah, that. When I think of historical romance, that’s my happy place. I’m sure there’s something to be said about the role of the floor in all of this. The floor of the guest bedroom, under the big brass bed, the floors of countless bookstores, usually ending up in a tucked away corner, books spread out around me, so I could whittle down the selection to fit within the budget for that trip. To a lesser extent, there are the countless spins I made of the spinner racks in the fiction section of the library closest to my dad’s house when I was in high school, checking for fat paperbacks that meant historical romance, and the distinctive, slim spines that meant traditional Regencies, or gothics. As long as there was history, and there was romance, I was happy.

Am happy, because, decades after that first filched paperback, which now has a place of honor on the bookshelf behind me as I write, the same bookcase which once held the picture books of my preschool days, I still get that thrill. Give me two lovers who have to be together, but can’t, and I am there. If I am the one entrusted to making sure the lovers’ stars un-cross, that’s another level of fun. Frustration, sometimes, because story people can be tricky little badgers, making choices of their own, the second they hit the page. That only means they are real and alive in the sense that it becomes a collaboration between the writer and their imaginary friends. In that way, no romance writer is ever truly alone, no matter what day it is.

Over the magic seven hundred now, and time to wrap this puppy, which can get tricky when I go on this sort of ramble. As N and I discussed, sometimes it takes a while to write the rust out of the faucet, and putting down anything is better than putting down nothing, especially when putting down anything runs smack into a wall of resistance. Even so, keep at it long enough, and the faucet runs out of rust. That’s a happy ending right there.

Blabbity Blab, Theory and Practice

February 12, 2018annabowling Leave a comment

Helpful hint: going out to do laundry and run errands in the freezing rain does not hasten Martian Death Cold out the door any more quickly. Even so, I think I’m going to live. Right now, I’m at my desk, the too-bright sun that comes after yesterday’s lovely greyness, poking through the slats in the blinds. Wind is whipping the branches outside. The big candle is pretty well burned down, which means it is probably time for a new big candle, or at least a nice votive or tealight. My mug is empty now, and I am debating whether it is time to put the kettle on for more tea, or to grab my water bottle.

In short, it’s a winter Monday. Outside my closed office door, there are cat and Real Life Romance Hero. On today’s schedule: this blog entry, then work on the second batch of edits/rewrites for Chasing Prince Charming. I have my weekly Skype conference with Melva tonight, and breakfast with N tomorrow, so I need to get some Her Last First Kiss in there somewhere. The temptation to burrow into a blanket nest and binge watch the remaining episodes of Les Revenants (creepy French drama, on Netflix, which I deeply love, and will probably gush about in more detail at a later date) is strong, though not as strong as the biggest lesson I took away from this past weekend’s CR-RWA meeting; treat writing like a business.

That means that writing time is writing time, and nothing else happens during that time. New rule for this week: blog entries get one hour of my writing time, maximum. This may result, at least in the near future, to an increase in free form rambling, but that kind of stuff tends to sort itself out in time, with the right amount of practice.

My original plan was to have a defined topic for this blog entry, but I got to sleep at the lovely hour of four in the morning, because Martian Death Cold does not respect circadian rhythms, and I am burning too-bright daylight here. I am looking forward to seeing what Melva has don e on this next chunk of Chasing Prince Charming, and what notes she’s made on my segments, so I can do my share in making a good thing even better. I actually like rewriting. Sometimes, I like rewriting more than writing. There’s less pressure, and I’m not as concerned about making everything perfect, as I am when creating a first draft.

That seems somewhat backward, as the whole point of revising/rewriting is to make the writing better, but go figure. Writers are weird. Granted, we are at the part of the book where there are not a lot of changes to make, and we are likely approaching the section that is going to need the most work. Stay tuned for that one, because there will probably be much to say on that matter. There may or may not be muffled sobbing at some point, but we have our sights set on the end of March to get the whole thing spiffed and back to the lovely people at The Wild Rose Press, and we’ll see how that goes.

For today, I have fewer than two hundred words to get to my magic seven hundred, which, thanks to some scheduling math, figured out in the margins of my notes from Saturday’s CRRWA meeting, now means at least seven hundred words in sixty minutes, tops. This is where preparation would come in super handy, So would another bag of sugar free cherry cough drops, because I recently squeezed said bag, and the cough drop count has gone down to three. I am good on tissues, though, which may come in handy if I hit on any especially emotional parts of the manuscript this afternoon. I would give it fairly high odds, because I know this story, I know Melva, and I know me. It’s pretty much a sure thing, and I am more than okay with that.

Almost to the magic seven hundred. I want to promise that Wednesday’s post will be more structured (unless anybody actually looks forward to my free-form rambles, in which case, today is your day. Break out the bubbly.) Blabbity blab, theory and practice, hey, look, there we go, enough words now. Time to open the file and see what wonders may be wrought.

Typing With Wet Claws: Tough Fuzzy Love Edition

February 9, 2018annabowling 2 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Anty is down with what the humans call Martian Death Cold, which is pretty noisy with all the coughing, and smells a lot like cherries. Cherry cough drops and cherry gelatin are big features around here right now, and Anty just finished some cherry blossom body wash. Anty also has a lipstick called Cherry Picking, but she has not been wearing much lipstick this week. That is how we know it is Martian Death Cold. I cannot get Martian Death Cold, because I am a kitty, and it is a people thing, but the one upside that I can see is that Anty gets some extra napping time, usually next to a good book.

Before I am allowed to talk about anything else (which is usually Anty’s writing anyway, let’s be real) I first have to tell you where you can find Anty’s writing on the interwebs. Besides here, that is, because, if you ate reading this, you are already here. As usual, Anty was at Buried Under Romance on Saturday. This week, she talked about the think pieces humans wo do not read romance often write about romance, this time of year. Writing about books a human does not read does not make sense to me, but then again, I am a kitty. Maybe you should read Anty’s post, instead. It is here, and it looks like this:

Anty would like to thank Sabrina Jeffries for recommending Anty’s post to her (Miss Sabrina’s) readers, on Facebook. Anty considers this high praise, as Miss Sabrina is a well established romance writer, who knows whereof she speaks.

Now is the part of the post where I bring you up to date on Anty’s Goodreads challenge. As of today, Anty has read ten out of ninety books for the year. This puts her at eleven percent of the way toward her goal, and one book ahead of schedule. Well done, Anty. Keep reading. Sick time is very good for reading time, and it is perfectly okay to nap in between chapters, especially when there is a fuzzy Maine Coon kitty nearby.

The books that Anty read and reviewed this week are:

Forever, by Judy Blume

Recovery Road, by Blake Nelson

The Last Forever, by Deb Caletti

As you can tell, all three of those books are YA, which brings us to the meat of today’s post. (I like meat. Tuna is the best, but beef is also good, as are most kinds of birdie.) One of the most important duties of a mews is to keep their writer human on the right track. Last night, it was time for some tough, fuzzy love. Right now, Anty has one hundred YA novels logged on her current Goodreads account, and ninety-one historical romances. This does not count historical fiction with romantic elements, so the two may not be that far apart when we include the second cat-egory (sorry, I could not resist) but it is enough that I could not let it pass without addressing the issue.

While it is purr-fectly (sorry, again. That is the last one, I promise. For now.) fine for readers’ preferences to change, and that does happen, including switching genres, I did not think that was what was happening here. I have seen the way Anty looks at her TBR shelves, so we had a discussion. That discussion was about historical romance, and the point of the discussion about historical romance was that Anty needs to read more of it.

Part of the discussion was asking Anty why she has been avoiding her favorite genre lately. We kitties, especially those of us with big green kitten eyes (I am really good at big green kitten eyes. By that I mean that the eyes are green, not the kittens. Kittens should never be green. If your kitten is green, please go to the vet, or at least the groomer.) can say a lot with the right look, and we are very good listeners. I can understand Anty’s reasons, but, because it is my duty as a mews to keep Anty moving in the right direction, I could not leave it at that. Those reasons are hers to tell, and I made her write them down in a notebook, so she can refer to that the next time something like this happens.

Earlier this week, Miss N gave Anty the assignment to reconnect with historical romance. Well, Anty’s own, specifically, but reading more historical romance and remembering what it is about that genre that Anty loves enough to write her own, well, that’s important, too. Anty agreed with me (and with Miss N) but I could still tell she was a little scared and/or confused about where to jump back into the whole pool. That is where having a mews comes in handy. At times like this, the only thing that can be done is to head straight toward the loved and scary thing and jump right into it.

For Anty, this meant taking one of those books off her TBR shelf and actually reading it. For this venture, we picked Captive of the Border Lord, by Blythe Gifford. Anty has read many of Miss Blythe’s books, and liked them a lot, so it is a very good bet that she will like this one, too. It is the second book in the Brunson Clan trilogy, and Anty has already read the first one. We tried to find a standalone book, but those are kind of rare these days, so second out of three is kind of close to that. It is also a Harlequin Historical, which means that it is not a very thick book, and Anty should be able to read it fairly quickly, without feeling intimidated by a big, thick book, with a lot of pages. For bonus points, this book is set in the sixteenth century, which is one of Anty’s very, very favorite eras for historical romance.

This goes along with the philosophy of not saving the good stuff for “someday.” Read the good stuff now. Write the good stuff now. If not now, then when? The practice begets the product. We kitties would not lie about this sort of thin.

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

Dialogue With a Hypothetical Bouncer

February 5, 2018February 5, 2018annabowling Leave a comment

Last night, I legit finished an art journal. Granted, only the last couple of spreads are worth showing to anybody, because a big chunk of it is lettering practice, Tests of pens and stencils, ideas that did not translate well to the page, layouts for my planner that I may or may not have implemented, more pen tests, and, at last, the lightbulb moment when I finally figured out two important things at once.

First important thing: I finally, finally, finally figured out how to use Distress Inks and blenders to make the kind of backgrounds I’ve slavered over for literally years. Second important thing: this quest took me so danged long that most of my Distress Ink collection was no longer viable. As in dried out, not transmitting color anymore, pining for the fjords. All that stuff meaning those pads got a one way trip to the circular (actually rectangular, if we’re talking my specific office trash receptacle) file. Not exactly what I had planned.

Sure, there are other inks in that line, still available, probably most of the colors I had to toss, as a matter of fact, not to mention some new ones, and even a new oxide formula (don’t know exactly what that does, but if it looks pretty and grungy at the same time, I want it.) Since the mini size of these inkpads are sold in bundles, frequently at stores with pretty nifty coupons on a regular basis, it won’t cost a fortune to build up a decent palette or two. It’s the principle, though. I wanted to use those pads. I picked out those pads, those particular colors. While I can probably get mot of the same colors, they won’t be the same pads. That bugs me.

What I turned out with what I had on hand wasn’t bad. As a matter of fact, it was this:

This is the only page I’m showing.

That’s three clinging-to-life inkpads, one homemade stencil (dress form) with one commercial stencil (damask pattern) and one commercial stamp (face.) Also ten very inky fingers, and one sense of accomplishment. This particular art journal lives in my traveler’s notebook, Big Pink, so, at some point today, I will need to slide out this insert and put in a brand spanking new one. I haven’t done that yet, but I did, finally, give myself permission to haul out a precious, hoarded item (okay, two of them, but the pens have only been here for a week or so):

That’s a Moleskine sketchbook, with smooth, thick pages, and the thirty pack of the Stabilo fineliners. Real, grownup artist tools, and the only artist around here is :shifty eyes: me. I have vivid memories of sneaking into my father’s art studio when I was but a wee little princess, and pilfering his art supplies (pro quality is far superior to kiddo quality; I knew this even in preschool) and putting them back where I found them, because I didn’t want to get caught. Now, the only one here to “catch” me is me.

This is the part of the post where I steer it back toward writing, because the two are so closely related they can’t get married without a papal dispensation. Impostor syndrome is real. I think Mondays are its natural habitat. What do I think I’m doing, sneaking into fictionland, to play around with characters and plots and settings, all willy-nilly, with either willful ignorance or clear disregard (maybe both) of proper practices and/or market trends? Huh? Going to need to see some ID here. RWA membership? Okay, I guess that’s something, but are you published? You are? Could’ve fooled me What books? Cute backlist, honey. Don’t you have some laundry to fold?

Well, hah. Joke’s on you, Hypothetical Bouncer, because I already folded the laundry, and put it way, so no, I do not. I’m here at this desk for the same reason I snuck into my dad’s studio about elebenty billion times. I have to. There’s no way around it. Forget “want.” We’re talking “need” here. It didn’t occur to kiddo me, that my dad was a professional, and I wasn’t, that he had over three decades of experience and education ahead of me. I didn’t care that he’d painted murals and book covers, mainly because I didn’t know that at the time. What I did know was that I loved the feel of the white paper with the black and gray markings in one corner, that he kept in the bottom drawer of the green filing cabinet. I knew I loved the smell of the markers that had not one but two tips, even if I was not supposed to smell them on purpose. I couldn’t draw a realistic face, and even my box houses with triangles for roofs left a lot to be desired, but I loved the pen in my hand and the color on the paper, and, so, I kept at it.

Which brings us to today, Monday, and me at my desk, fingers on keyboard, not one but two projects in front of me; the revise and resubmit on Chasing Prince Charming, and Her Last First Kiss. I’m not that bothered about working on Chasing Prince Charming, because A) I’m doing it along with my co-writer, Melva, and B) I don’t read a lot of contemporary romance, so there’s not a lot to which I can compare this project.

Historical romance, though, hoo boy. Whole other animal. If I spin my chair around (and I can, because spinny office chairs are the best office chairs; I will fight dissenters on this one) I will see the bookshelf filled with Bertrice Small historicals, and another bookshelf with historical romance novels I intend to read, once I can get past the darned bouncer in front of that one. Oh hey there, YA reader girl. Looking for a historical romance, are you? Yeah, I’ve seen your Goodreads. You think you can play with the big girls? Some of the books on this shelf are old enough to go to kindergarten, and you haven’t read them yet. Not going to learn much about current market trends on this shelf. You sure that’s what you want?

Something akin to, “um, yeah actually, I do,” perches on the tip of my tongue, because I do want to read those books, and I don’t like that bouncer’s tone. That’s when I take a closer look at her. She looks kind of familiar. Long, reddish brown hair, black glasses, rose gold hoop earrings, exactly like the ones in my jewelry box. Umm, wait a minute. Wonder if I could distract her with some professional quality art supplies.

Tales of the Accidental Truck Driver

January 31, 2018annabowling Leave a comment

This morning, I accidentally applied for a job as a truck driver. Real Life Romance Hero and I are both looking for side hustles, and I wanted to show him how a job=seeking app worked, and, thanks to slippery fingers and a sensitive touchscreen, I got two beeps, alerting me to the status of my applications. One of those ads was for a truck driver.

I am not a truck driver. I am not anything driver. I write romance novels, and I write about romance novels (romance in movies and TV is also right up my alley, if anybody needs web content.) I play with pen and paper, a lot, but, when the literal rubber meets the literal road, I am not in the literal driver’s seat. There is good reason for this. Two of them, actually. Left and right eyes. To be completely transparent, it is mostly Lefty’s fault, while Righty picks up most of Lefty’s slack, but gets tired sometimes. This understandably does things to ye olde depth perception, which is kind of important when aiming tons of metal down long stretches of highway at advanced speeds. For those curious about the other accidental job application, that was for a work at home gig, and if those people get in touch with me, I’ll hear them out, but that’s not pertinent to the topic at hand.

The whole truck driver thing is actually kind of funny, because, when I was but a wee little princess, long haul truck driver was on my long list of possible future occupations. My main reason was that I loved going on car trips, watching the scenery change, and imagining stories about all the other people, in all the other cars. Where were they coming from, where were they going, and what were they going to do when they got there? I may also have had a slightly romantic view of the whole concept of “truck stop,” and, as a young teen, I may or may not have had a few characters floating around my head, who spent a good chunk of their time in exactly that sort of vehicle. I may also, in high school, have expanded that into a three=act play, two acts of which got staged readings in English class. For those curious about my grade for that assignment, I got an A+.

Which brings us around to the topic of writing historical romance fiction. I fully accept that today is domestic tsumani day (any day that starts with accidental job applications is pretty much doomed in that direction) On this kind of day, the whole concept of sitting high above the flow of traffic, music of choice playing as loud as I want it, caffeinated beverage at hand, and, let’s be real, a four-legged companion in the passenger seat -who wouldn’t want to get paid to take car rides with a dog?- is pretty darned appealing. Get in the truck, and just go. Watch the scenery change, imagine who’s going where, what they’ll do when they get there, who knows where they’re going, who’s hopelessly lost, and who is currently arguing with their passenger and/or GPS about whose directions are going to get them where they wanted to go, if that’s where they end up at all.

John DeWarre, the hero of my medieval novella, A Heart Most Errant, is probably the closest I am going to get to the image I had in my early pubescent head about the life of a nkight of the road. That’s because he is one, a knight-errant in fourteenth century England. He doesn’t have a truck, because it is fourteenth century England, and he doesn’t have a dog, but he does have a horse, creatively named Horse. That’s because John is not creative. Not even a little; he’s a soldier, even if he’s not at war, and has no master. He’ll still carry out his duty anyway, grumbling his way around a post-plague wasteland.

No story if that’s all that happens, though, right? Which is where Aline comes in, talkative, optimistic, and willing to risk it all on a one in a million chance, because, hey, those odds are better than staying where she is when her and John’s worlds collide. The plague wiped out the life she’d known up until that point, so girlfriend seriously does not have anything to lose here. Once she and John get on the road, they do not lack for adventure, and getting their story out to readers is not going to lack adventure, either.

Their story is my first road story, but probably not my last. Writing road stories does scratch the itch of mental wanderlust, and, let’s face it, has fewer chances of engine trouble, travel delays, or weigh stations. I have my music of choice playing right this minute, got the four-legged companion covered already, as Skye is my faithful mews, though she will abandon me in a not second, if Real Life Romance Hero becomes available. He is her favorite, and she loves him the most. As for caffeinated beverage, it’s probably about time to make another cup of tea. Spoiler alert: it is always time to make another cup of tea.

Typing With Wet Claws: End Of January Edition

January 26, 2018annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. It is the last Friday of January, which means the end of the first month of the year is almost over. Anty is getting ready by finalizing her planner color scheme (I am fairly certain this will mean pinks and reds, because Anty is a traditionalist when it comes to this sort of thing, but she will add her own edge to it, because she is still Anty.) That is important, because she uses her planner, and her big pink book (her planner is pink, too, but a different kind of pink) to plan out the writing and reading she will do in the months to come.

Before I am allowed to talk about anything else, (like the fact that I definitely need more glowy box time, that is for catching the glowy box mousie, as well as blogging) I have to tell readers where they can find Anty’s writing on the interwebs this week. Besides here, of course, because you are already here, so you do not need directions. As always, she was at Buried Under Romance on Saturday. This week, she talks about the first time the humans in the books have, um, grownup private time. I, personally, am fixed, so I do not think about that kind of thing a lot, but I gather it can be important in romance novels. That post is here, and it looks like this:

Saturday Discussion: Feels Like the First Time

Now is the part of the post where I show you how Anty is doing on her Goodreads reading challenge. She is one book behind again, but it is the weekend, and she is near the end of one of the books she is reading now. That should all even out before too long. Anty has gone over her goals for the last two years, so I have faith in her. If you want to follow Anty’s reading challenge, you can do that here:

Reading Challenge 2018

Right now, Anty is only at 20% historical romance, but it is still January, and she can read YA books really, really fast, and they are comfort reads. It has been kind of a crazy week. She is still planning on trying one book she’s always been meaning to read, and one reread every month, and both of those lists are comprised of historical romance. February will mean two books from the always wanted to read list, because sbe did not read any of those in January. I should probably say she has not read any of them yet, because we still have a few days of January left. You can do it, Anty. Read those books.

The books Anty read and reviewed this week are:

The Year We Fell Apart, by Emily Martin

Backlash, by Sarah Darer Littman

Anty should be home for a good chunk of the weekend, so she will have time to read more books, and, more importantly, give me her small glowy box so that I can play my game. The mousie game is my favorite, but I also like one with a laser pointer, and there is a movie where I can watch a squirrel through a window. I do not try to hunt that squirrel, but it is very exciting to watch him. If I am very lucky, all the humans will be home when I play, so they can all see what a good hunter I am. Those computer mousies do not stand a chance when I am on the job.

This would probably be a good place to segue (that is a fancy human word that means to do a different thing) into Anty’s writing. Empty notebooks really don’t stand a chance when Anty is on the job, either. She has a lot of notebooks. Thanks to a human named Mark Twain, who lived a very long time ago (like about a million cats ago, that is how long) writers cannot send handwritten pages to publishers (probably not to agents, either, but do not quote me on that) so Anty does, at some point, need to transcribe her handwritten pages into the glowy box, so that they can become files. This is especially important with e-books, because that is how readers read them.

Writing with pen and paper comes a lot more easily to Anty than writing new pages on the computer, even though, at first glance, writing on the computer seems more efficient. The pages would already be in the file if she wrote new pages on the computer, and she could skip the step of transcribing. She understands that, and, in theory, it does have its merits. For some writers, like Anty’s friend, Miss Vicki, writing on the computer is the only way to go. Miss Vicki does not understand Anty’s thing for paper and pen, especially when it comes to pretty paper. They have very different aesthetics, anyway, so take that into consideration.

For Anty, there is a connection that comes with the act of writing on actual paper, and watching the cursive come out the tip of her pen. Every once in a while, I have to remind her of this, especially when she gets back to writing after a domestic tornado has held her back. She thinks it will be faster, but then she forgets about the staring at the screen part, until she notices that she has been staring at the screen, or that she is on Facebook instead of actually writing. I may only be a kitty, but I do not think anybody has made a successful career in commercial fiction by reading conversations on Facebook.

That means, usually, that when Anty gets to the staring at the screen phase, it is time to shut down the computer (or give it to me, so I can catch mousies) and take out paper and pen. Anty is particularly fond of pretty legal pads, that have designs already on them. That way, the page is already not blank, and, sometimes, the pictures suggest things that might work for the particular scene. Sometimes, Anty has to do what she calls a brain dump, and write about things that are on her mind, that may be getting in the way of the story. Once she fills a few pages with that, she is usually in a better place to get on with the business of writing fiction.

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

The Big Candle

January 24, 2018annabowling Leave a comment

Since I started hygge-fying my office, lighting a candle has been part of the routine when I open the desk for the day. When I first started, I had a single votive on hand, a tealight, and two mini jar candles. When I blew through those, there was only one option left. The big candle. I do not remember when the big candle came into our home. but my educated guess is that it was part of a holiday gift from somebody’s work. The scent is Autumn Wreath, the maker, Yankee Candle. I’d always thought it was too big for my desk (cue visions of the entire thing going up in flames, taking a bunch of my notebooks and favorite pens with it) but here it is, and now, I find it’s the most natural thing in the world to have it there.

One of the biggest things about having the big candle on my desk was that I didn’t want to waste the wax. In the candle world, this is known as tunneling, when the candle isn’t burned the proper amount of time on its first outing. When that happens, the candle remembers how far it was burned, and that’s how far it will burn throughout its life. This means all the wax isn’t used, and, at the end of that particular candle, there will be a bunch of wax clinging to the sides, either to be carved out with a knife, possibly with the help of boiling water or a stint in the freezer, or tossed, along with the jar, because it’s too much trouble to get the stuff out, merely to have a plain glass jar, for some undefined purpose. In that case, the jar gets tossed. Maybe the garbage smells a bit better that week, but that’s about the only benefit.

For this particular candle, that meant a three-hour burn. That meant three hours of me at my desk, keeping an eye on the flame, while simultaneously doing my thing (aka manipulating the lives of my imaginary friends. There may or may not also have been the final two episodes of the US version of Being Human, which may or may not have made me cry, and may or may not have spoiled me for jumping directly into another series. This will probably mean more time for books, both the reading and writing of same, with the big candle along for the ride, in either event.

Even with careful attention (I am going to blame the Being Human finale) I did end up with some tunneling. There’s still a bit of wax around the rim that should have melted, but apparently I didn’t time things correctly, and now I am either stuck with the one thing I didn’t want to have happen, or…or I could turn this around. Fold a strip of tin foil twice, make a sort of tin foil tenty kind of thing, around the mouth of the candle for about half an hour, and boom, back in business.

This is all a very word-pad-y way of saying that, sometimes, writing is hard. Or weird. Or crammed into five minute bites, when what’s really needed is a good solid couple of hours, but there is life and…there is tin foil. All the good stuff is still there. The story, the characters, the world in which they live, those are all still there, only clinging to the jar instead of melting into lushly fragranced …good…smelling…stuff. The fact that I am writing this blog post when the clock ticks down to 5PM should be an indicator that I am quickly running out of English for the day and need to replenish the well.

The default has been bingeing on Being Human, but that’s all done now, and I’m not ready for a new show yet, although the fourth series of the original, UK version is now on request at the library, and will be on its way to me soon. Or I could read. I could build a new house out of my TBR pile, and there are friends’ manuscripts calling. I’ll figure it out, but, either way, I will have one eye on the big candle. We’ll get through this together.

Somewhere Between No and Yes

January 22, 2018annabowling 2 Comments

Lovely grey day here in New York’s capitol region. Lots of clouds, but no rain in the immediate forecast. Laundry is done, candle is lit, tea is made, and I am settled into my office chair, blanket in my lap and pillow I the small of my back. The new pens that came home over the weekend are close at hand, for when I turn off the computer and put pen to paper. Real Life Romance Hero is wrangling domestic tornado tasks, and it’s me, the blog, and my imaginary friends. It’s Monday, the start of a new week.

Right now, the office is quiet. No music yet, but there is the sound of traffic outside, the occasional squeak of door hinges and floorboards as RLRH goes about his business, and miscellaneous kitty sounds from my office buddy, pictured below.

Skye O’Malley, the kitty, not the book

I’m writing this entry later in the day than I’d originally planned, and even thought about saving it for tomorrow, when I’d maybe have a more concrete idea of what I wanted to write about than I do today, but carrying two back entries at one time is more than this particular writer is willing to carry, so this is what you get. Later tonight, Melva and I will talk via Skype, to discuss the proposed changes to Chasing Prince Charming, for the resubmission to The Wild Rose Press. I’ll have a better bead, tomorrow, on what we’re doing, but this is Monday, and not writing the Monday post would bother me.

Long ago, in what seems like another life, I submitted my first ever partial manuscript. It was not good. I soon received my first ever rejection letter, which was, in retrospect, good, as rejection letters go. Though the editor did let me know, in a gentle but straightforward fashion, that nothing actually happened in my first three chapters, she did also ask me to send something else. At the time, I skipped right over that send something else part and focused, instead, on the nothing actually happened part. Would thing have been any different if I’d shifted my focus and written something else, instead of believing this was proof positive that no was it for me?

Probably so. There have been more rejections since. My favorite is the first page of my manuscript sent back to me, in my SASE (self addressed stamped envelope) with the word, “no,” scrawled on it in pencil. I don’t think I have the actual paper anymore, but the memory remains. Also in that category are the small magazines that bought or said they would like to buy my stories and them promptly shut their doors. A once upon a time friend and I used to joke about how I could probably start a side business taking out hits on such publications (this never came to fruition, but did provide some good natured entertainment.) There have been pitch sessions that went down in flames (never pitch after being up for seventy-two hours straight, and never, never pitch a book that is not actually finished. Seriously. Don’t.)

There have also been sales, one of which I do not remember making, because of the domestic tornadoes that whipped through my life at the time, but I am going to go out on a limb and say that things like that are the exception. The not remembering, not the actual selling of books; new books do come out with great frequency, which is a very good thing for us writer types, and for reader types as well. Somewhere in the middle lies the request to revise and resubmit. It may not be as common as the other two, more definitive outcomes of a submission, but it’s an exciting one.

As soon as I read Melva’s email, that she’d heard back, I was prepared for a thanks but no thanks, and, instead, got a rare opportunity. We got the chance to make a good thing even better, which is its own sort of adventure. Not really the same as that sale I did not remember making, with the manuscript that had vanished and had to be Frankenstein-ed together with hardcopies from my then-critique group (of which Melva was a member) but some of the feelings are similar.

There’s the “eee, this is exciting” feeling. There’s the “egads, this is going to be a lot of work” feeling. There’s the “at least I’m not doing this on my own” feeling, which I will take, any day, over sitting cross-legged on an itchy carpet, surrounded by piles of paper, trying to put the puzzle together. Not entirely by myself, because one panicked message to said critique parnters brought in a flood of aforementioned papers, and, in the end, it all fit together, and became Orphans in the Storm.

Chasing Prince Charming, the story that began because Melva and I were early to breakfast at a conference, and only wanted to kill time, is going to have its own hero’s journey, as we take it apart and put it back together. Tonight, over Skype, Melva and I will Throw the beach ball around once again, put ideas out there, and see where our imaginary friends want to take things to the next level. I’m looking forward to the trip.

Getting Hygge With It

January 17, 2018annabowling 2 Comments

Yesterday, I found a spot on my desk, where I can light a candle without burning down the house. I also, without fully knowing how, found a piano instrumental channel on Spotify, which fits nicely with the flickering light inside the small jar in the corner of my desk. This may or may not have had something to do with me finally finding out that the aesthetic I’m going for in my office actually has a name: hygge. Depending on which Danes (great or otherwise) one asks, it means “wellbeing,” or “to embrace,” or, possibly, “to think or consider.” In modern parlance, “cozy” might be the most accessible term.

For my purposes, we’re going to translate it as “comfortable.” Physically comfortable, yes, because when a writer is not physically comfortable, that’s going to be an obstacle to getting any sort of work done, but it’s more than that. I’ve always felt more grounded with things I love around me, so it makes sense that I would focus better when I carry that over to my writing space. Especially on a day like today:

Actual view from our balcony.

I love snow. Snow is my favorite weather. Snow turns the entire world into a gorgeous, magical playground. I have not, as yet, attempted to get any serious writing done outside, in the snow, but, when I was but a wee little princess, I would stay out in that stuff for literally hours, making up adventures in my head, to the point where my mother would make me come in to have a hot drink and switch to my other snowsuit, because the first one would be soaked through. Snow invigorates me. To quote The Gilmore Girls, it’s my Catnip. My first novel-length fan fiction was set on an arctic planet, solely so that I could have all the snow I ever wanted.

Snow has always meant stories and adventures for me, so maybe that’s part of the current hygge-fication (is that a word?) of my work space. This morning, I rearranged the notebooks on the top of my desk’s hutch, until they felt more harmonious, like they were ready for what I wanted to bring to the metaphorical table. The books I use only occasionally are no longer the closest at hand, but still where I can get to them when I need them. The peacock cup, filled with a hodgepodge of pens I don’t really use all that often, has been demoted to the B team, and now resides on a bookcase, with the rest of my peacock themed collection. Their time will come.

Right now, I want to ground myself in what I am actually doing, what will welcome me to the desk every day. It’s a process, and I’m not going to discount the value of the time spent taking everything out of each cubbyhole, examining it, and putting back in only what has some sort of benefit. I’ve become pen-snobbier (sorry, ballpoints) and more highlighter-savvy (pastel highlighters ftw) and the way I use notebooks has evolved. Behind me, right now, is the blank cardboard binder I set up for Her Last First Kiss use, several months ago, then promptly misplaced.

The system I used to set it up at the time made sense, logically, but it was all theory, and no practice, mainly because I never connected with the way I’d arranged things. It’s probably somebody else’s perfect notebook, but for me? Ehhh, not so much. I’m more of a cannonball off the end of the pier and then splash around until I figure out which way shore is, then plan the best way there sort of gal. Deciding that, because there are four colors of notebook paper, there must then be four sections, of an equal number of pages is not going to work here. If my space doesn’t work, neither will I. It’s like trying to go through the whole day with a hole in a sock, or shoes that don’t fit.

For me, it comes down to the “embracing” part of the equation. This is my writing space. This is me, on a desk. Lots of paper, lots of pens, lots of tiny compartments with hidden treasures. Flickering light that harkens to an earlier time. Lots of layer, lots of detail. Something for all the senses to do. A place to tuck in and spend some serious time. The place I want to go when I want to go home. This is who I am. This is what I do. Welcome.

Typing With Wet Claws: Three Days to Christmas Edition

December 22, 2017annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. It is really almost Christmas now, because today is Friday, and Christmas is Monday. Anty and Uncle have been doing a lot of human stuff to set up for the year ahead, but they did remember to get me a big bag of treat, so I can forgive them. There have also been rumors of turning on space heater and letting me watch special movies that are made only for kitties, on Anty’s tablet for Christmas. This meets with my approval, but more on that after I get the other stuff out of the way, first.

The deal with me getting control of the blog once a week (at least) is that I have to tell readers where they can find Anty’s writing on the interwebs, besides here, before I can talk about other (more interesting) things (like me; everybody loves kitties.) This week, as always, Anty was at Buried Under Romance on Saturday. Her post this week was about holiday magic. You will have to go read the post if you want to find out what kind of holiday magic she means (hint: there is more than one kind.) That post is here, and it looks like this:

Even though I said I was done with reporting Anty’s reads for 2017, since she has already met her goal, she is kind of kicking backside with the reading, as you can see here:

We will have a few words, later, on the YA to historical romance balance, but, even though this was a very full week for Anty with non-book-related things, she still managed to read and review Things I’m Seeing Without You, by Peter Bognanni. That review is here, and it looks like this:

Our Christmas tree, which is now up, looks like this:

The snowflakes are a frame for the picture; they are not really inside our house. There is snow outside our house, though, because it is snowing as I write this. We are nice and warm inside, so I do not mind the snow. Anty likes it, and it helps her feel energized. Some humans, like Uncle, find that the wintertime makes them miss sunshine, but, for Anty, it is the other way around. Anty loves when it is cold and grey and snowy. That is a very good thing where writing is concerned.

This has not been the easiest year for that, but there is a whole new year ahead, and Anty is looking forward to that. For the next few days, though, it is all about Christmas. I will make sure that includes time for Anty to burrow under a fuzzy blanket and read some Chrisrmas romances, and maybe watch one of her favorite Christmas movies. She has seen only one so far this season, and it made her laugh, but probably not in the way the creative team intended.

Tomorrow, Anty will do laundry and bake Christmas cookies. These are both very good things for her writer brain, because they let the front part of her brain focus on the thing that she is doing (for example, washing clothes, or baking cookies) and that is the time that her imaginary friends (some people call them “characters”) get to play in the back part of her brain. To some, this does not look like anything other than washing clothes or baking cookies, but writer humans understand that there is something more at work here. Writer humans know that this is part of the writing process, even when it is farther along than a first draft.

Sometimes, this is part of re-connecting with the story after real life demands the writer’s time, and sometimes, it is some special one on one time (or one on two, because romances generally involve two humans besides the writer) with the writer and their characters. Of course, there are times when all it is, is laundry or cookies, which are both good things on their own, but, when it comes to writing, there is usually something else going on, and that is usually how it goes with Anty. When she is baking cookies, then I can be in the kitchen with her, to supervise. Sometimes, she will talk out loud about the story and tell me parts of it. Other times, she is all in her own head, with or without music playing on her phone.

Somewhere in all of that, connections are made that she might have missed if she were actively looking for them. I do not know exactly how that works, but it does. When it is a holiday, that can get magnified, so I would not be surprised if some of that reading time under Anty’s fuzzy blanket turned into writing time instead (or alongside it.) Either way, clean clothes and cookies can only help.

In the meantime, forget Disneyland. The real happiest place on Earth for me is with my Uncle. I do not normally like being picked up, but, sometimes, it happens. This week, it did, and I got to be in Uncle’s arms. I will stay with him longer than I will stay with any other human, because he is my favorite, and I love him the most. Other kitties can have Santa pictures, but I will take my Uncle picture over that, any day. I mean, look at him:

Anty, Uncle, Mama and I, all hope that, whatever holiday you are celebrating this season, you are doing it with those that you love. A few good romance novels wouldn’t hurt, either, because those things are all about love. Seriously. I can recommend Anty’s.

That is about it for this week. Until next week, I remain Very Truly Yours,

see you next week

Typing With Wet Nails

for the love of romance

writing process