writing process

Lush

annabowling 2 Comments

Romance is not about happy people in Happy Land, but courageous people in We Love Each Other Land.

–Grace Burrowes

 

Another Monday, another new week. I have no idea what I want to say in today’s blog entry, but it rankles that I still owe Wednesday’s post from a week (or two?) ago, and the stubborn, schedule-loving part of part of me is not going to create any more of a backlog than I already have, because such things annoy the heck out of me. All of which means you’re getting the rawest of brain droppings today, and fingers crossed that it actually goes somewhere. Only way to find out is to plunge ahead and find out what happens.

Right now, I am ensconced in my comfy chair, next to an open window, Skye curled in a ball at my feet, sound asleep.  Mary Chapin Carpenter’s “Something Tamed Something Wild” is playing on my earbuds, while I plan out how I’m going to tackle the day. I know the things I want to get done, and I know the time in which I have to do them, and I know that I do best when I give my eyes a break and switch between digital and analog throughout the day. This past weekend, I had the opportunity to recap season two, episode seven, of Outlander, “Faith,” for Heroes and Heartbreakers. It is here, and looks like this:

HHOUTLANDER

Skye will no doubt have something to say about this on Friday.

 

To say that this episode hit me like a brick is an understatement. If I could breathe this episode, I would, because there is so much in there of what I want to bring to the pages of my own work that, even though a good chunk of my brain had to be focused on taking notes so that I could capture the salient points for the recap, the rest of it skipped happily through the angst and the opulence (possible book title in there?) of the costumes, the setting, the soul-crushing loss and the love that pulled it all back from the brink of despair. Yes. This. Oh so very much this that, two days after viewing and recapping, parts of me are still back there. It’s not a nice story, not a pretty story, and yet it’s beautiful.

That kind of stuff makes my blood tingle. The books I love the very best, both to read and to write, have bad things happen to good people, sometimes very bad things, and yet…and yet the love is bigger. It’s stronger. It’s beaten sometimes, bruised sometimes, dragging itself along by broken fingernails sometimes, but it’s alive, and it’s not going away. That’s one of the requirements of a romance novel, and it’s going to be there, whatever other flavors the author tosses into the mix.

This week, when I whined to another writer friend about being at the “I hate this, I can’t write, I should give up” stage, I got a reality check. Friend laughed at me, and reminded me that writing super-super detailed is something I do, it’s part of my style, so quit fighting it and do what comes naturally. That’s not going to change. Write. Tell the story. Tell my characters’ story. Tell it my way. Put in the details. Describe stuff. Work the angst. I should note that this is advice I find incredibly easy to give, but, when it comes to taking it, I need a lot of repetition. One of these days, I’ll get it.

What I do know for sure is that, when I try to rein myself in, I’m miserable, and it shows in the writing, or the lack thereof, (usually that one) but when I slap the duct tape on the mouths of the Hypercritical Gremlins and dive headlong into the angst and the opulence, that’s when I feel like I’ve come home. Still learning to trust myself in this whole writing of fiction thing, but the best way out is through, and so I have pretty legal pads and fountain pens and colored ink and if my “black on white” is actually “purple on paisley,” that’s not a bad thing.

My very favorite moment from the Meat Loaf (the singer, not the food) biopic is when he and musical partner, songwriter Jim Steinman, pitched one of their early efforts to a record producer, the reaction is first, silence, then the explanation that most songs have a verse and a chorus, maybe a bridge. These guys’ songs  have bridges and tunnels and aqueducts. I want to write aqueducts, and so, those are what I need to be taking in. Something I’ve known for a while now, but, as above, something that also needs repeating, as does the actual writing. The more I write, the more aqueducts I get to build, the more movies I get to play in my head. The more lives I get to lead. Not a bad thing to start a new week.

Grande Dame

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To survive, you must tell stories.

–Umberto Eco

 

Third week in a row that Wednesday’s blog entry comes on another day. This may tell me something about time management in general.  Hypercritical Gremlins have been chatty boogers as of late, but I have duct tape and pens and paper, and, when properly employed, the latter do a pretty good job of muffling the former. As my once-upon-a-time writing group facilitator used to say, the process begets the product. I’m learning that my process is eternally in flux, which I count as a good thing, because that means I’m growing.

For some writers (I can only speak about me, with absolute certainty) it’s a juggling act between stretching for the new and getting back in touch with what’s always been there, but may have been obscured by the flotsam and jetsam of life. Some bones, we need to unearth, and, in the digging, we find the seeds we need to water so that we can bloom. Today, two tasks on my to-do list combined, as my morning pages volunteered to be most of my blog entry, as well. I took them up on the offer.

 

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19 May, 2016

Today, I want to run away. I want to drink tea and bake cookies and watch movies and make art. I want to write merely for the fun of it, without my Hypercritical Gremlins chiming in. I want to lose myself in the pages of the books I am reading and in the pages of the books I am writing.

I want to pick apart great historical romance novels with surgical precision, take painstaking notes and absorb it all into my writersoul. I want to do this with a group of my peers, at the hand of a master (mistress?) at rows of wooden desks in a medieval escritoire, where dust motes float in the natural light that streams in from floor-to-ceiling windows. I want to hear the footfalls of leather slippers on stone, the whisper and rustle of the Grande Dame’s skirts and petticoats as she walks the rows of desks, looks over our shoulders as we work. I want my pages to forever carry the imprint of her pointer finger in my red-black ink, to show where she put her finger down and said a decisive, “There.”

Not “there is where you went wrong.” I can do that on my own, and I do, all too often, all too much. “There,” I want her to say, “there is where you went right.” She does not smile often, this Grande Dame, and so these moments are all the more valued for their rarity. “There is power. There is truth. There is emotion. There, my blood tingles. Keep doing that.” Her hand, fingers bent from decades of excelling at the skill I now practice, cups my shoulder. Lingers there, in the silence, but for hushed murmurs and whispers and breath. One gentle, motherly, encouraging squeeze, and she moves on. I will find, later, her fingerprint on the cloth as well. I will not wash it away.

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morning pages, doing double duty

 

 

Not quite at the magic 700 yet, so I’ll keep on going. That’s how it happens, this getting back on the metaphorical horse. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. Slap another layer of duct tape on the mouths of the Hypercritical Gremlins, and stay at that desk, pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, whatever works for the individual) and study the masters (mistresses?) and tell the stories. Fall down. Get back up. Try again. Crumple paper and throw it at the wall. Hit the backspace or delete keys as needed.  Take out a fresh sheet. Re-ink the pen. Forget all the rules of writing. Tell the story. Take all the pictures needed to make the head-images turn into English (or into whichever language one writes, if it’s something else) and tryfailtryfailtryfail as many times as it takes to succeed.

That, I need to remind myself, is how the Grande Dame got to be the Grande Dame in the first place. It’s been said that the master has failed more times than the student has ever  tried. So, too, I think, it works with  this Grande Dame in my head. She, too, was once that awkward-aged student, shifting on the hard wooden bench, bottom sore from falling off that blasted metaphorical horse for the umpteenth time, black and blue beneath worn skirts. She, too, looked for hours at the work of those who came before her and attempted to interpret how they did what they did. She was a hack. She almost gave up hope. She kept on going. She wrote one…more…page. She did it again. So will I. So I do.

Playing Hooky (Well, Sort Of)

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Today, I played hooky. Well, sort of played hooky. I’m writing this entry, after all, and after I’m done, I kind of sort of want to drop in on Hero and Heroine for a little bit. You know, to see how they’re doing, and all. Make sure they don’t feel too neglected after the weekend, that sort of thing. Touch base. Set up for tomorrow.

I didn’t start out intending to shirk responsibility. I got up early, had breakfast with Housemate, and tackled some email before lugging a load of laundry to the Laundromat, which is where the whole hooky thing started. There’s reading I should be doing (aha, there’s that sneaky should) for pending posts on other blogs, and there’s writing I owe, and good gravy, is there work to be done on both Her Last First Kiss and the Beach Ball, but I’m also feeling rather crispy crittered, as Real Life Romance Hero would put it. The bits of conference workshops on recovering the joy of reading and writing pounded at the inside of my skull, and so, with a reckless abandon, I called up one of the books on my phone. Not the eARC I should be reading, but Jezebel’s Blues, by Barbara Samuel, a classic contemporary romance I’ve been wanting to read for years, because A) it’s set in her Gideon, Texas world that I first discovered in The Sleeping Night, a twentieth-century historical romance/women’s fiction with a contemporary frame, and B) I am twirling-around-in-circles-in-fields-of-daisies in love with both her use of language and skill in finding the intimate emotion of the story. In short, I needed it. Needed to get out of my head and into my heart, because, you know, romance writing and all.

So, I started reading . The voice and the story washed over me like the river whose flood brings Eric and Celia together in Jezebel’s Blues. Oh, yes. This is why I love romance. This is why I write. This is what feels like the most natural thing in the world. This is what I want and need to be doing when I sit down to work. The dryer cycle ended before I even knew, and I closed the reading app with great reluctance. Still, the story simmered.

This was Real Life Romance Hero’s day off, and, crispy crittered as he was himself (both Mother’s Day weekend and graduation weekend are tough on the restaurant business) he asked if I’d like to have lunch at a local pub we’ve been meaning to get back to for long enough that, when we were seated, they had a whole new menu. We had this:

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I had a Diet Coke, he had a Guinness, we spent some time focusing on each other. Talked about how we wanted to address the whole desktop situation, since the original plan fell through, and the laptop is feeling the strain. Plus, I miss my Sims, and we’d both like to take a shot at Fallout 4 and Skyrim. I throw out the idea that maybe we could just hang together after lunch, watch a little TV at home, and then I can come back fresh at this whole writing thing tomorrow. We debated taking a walk through the park, for baby waterfowl watching, but nixed that, due to the strong wind chill. It’s May, and we refuse to be cold in May. So, home, Kitchen Nightmares, and…here I am.

With permission to kick off and do nothing, I reached for the laptop to fill some pages, not because I had it on the schedule, not because I should, but because that’s what I  want to do. No pressure, just the fun of putting my imaginary friends through the wringer, because I know it’s going to be worth it in the end. For them, and for me. I didn’t feel deprived. I didn’t feel distracted. I didn’t feel dry, or as though I had to drag individual words out of nowhere. I felt…relaxed. Natural. In touch with my story brain. This day of giving myself some space and taking in what I want to put out may not have been that wasteful after all. Maybe I need to do this more often.

 

Technically, this is last Wednesday

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Technically, this is last Wednesday’s post. I’m not comfortable with a backlog like that, and I’m still figuring out when I’m going to fit in the post that should have gone up yesterday (I keep track of this sort of thing) because Friday is Skye’s day to post. It will happen, though, because I’m antsy when I have a backlog, so pushing through and filling that space with something -most likely nonsensical babble, and maybe even a video post if I’m truly stuck for material, which I may well be. It’s been one of those weeks. Couple of weeks. I’d planned to come back from the conference, fresh out of the gate, ready to implement the tools gathered at the conference, and…life happened.

I’ve started and deleted this post more times than I care to count, because I’m not sure what the story is that I want to tell on this Thursday morning. The work for Her Last First Kiss, that I know. That’s one of the good things about having an outline. I do have to bump back the date for finishing my bullet point draft, because the last two weeks were full of domestic tornadoes. These are new patterns forming, as life in general goes into a new season. It’s only natural that this is going to carry over into the writing life as well.

Right now, it looks as though the new-to-me desktop will be arriving at some point next week, and I am looking forward to that. I have plans to move one of the bookcases from my office, into the living room, to make room for a computer desk that we need to get out of storage, along with the good office chair. That would be one with back support, though I do have the ergonomic chair (the sort where one doesn’t sit, but kneels) that I love, but when used with my secretary desk, rather than  regular desk, does not work at all. The current plan is to put a regular desk in the bookcase’s place, office chair on wheels in the middle, secretary desk on the other side, so that I can swivel from one desk to the other.  This means that a good chunk of the weekend is going to be spent getting the office ready for the new arrival, which should be an experience in itself.

Okay, about halfway into the magic 700 here, well, more than that, and I still have no idea what I want to talk about. Which means that I plow onward, babbling without purpose, because that’s purpose enough, getting my fingers moving on the keyboard and priming the pump. Some days, that’s easier, some days, it’s  harder, and some days, like today, it’s neither. The groove I want to get into is there, somewhere, but it’s not going to let me know where it is or how to get there. I will, though. Been here before, gotten through it every time, so odds are that I’m going to make it out this time, too.

On Sunday, when the optometrist attempted small talk whilst poking me in the eyeball, he asked me what I wrote. I answered that I wrote fiction, blogged about romance in books and TV for a publisher’s blog, led book discussions on another, and maintained my own blog about the writing life, his answer was, “wow, you write a lot.” Cue sound of record player needle skidding along some vintage vinyl. Huhwuh? It doesn’t feel that way, sometimes. Sometimes, it’s all too easy to do the math when the Hypercritical Gremlins gleefully circle the date of my most recent novel release in glaring yellow highlighter, and get stuck there. Those times, thankfully, are getting shorter and farther apart.

It’s been said we shouldn’t look backward, because we aren’t going that way, and in this case, I’m going to say I agree with that. I can’t move that date on the calendar, but I can take the yellow highlighter away from the Gremlins and toss it out the window. I can take a big black Sharpie and mark off, instead, my goal date for finishing this draft. I can track my progress in a way that makes sense for me, and that makes me excited to open the notebook or file every day, instead of dread it, because look how far behind I am.

Since it’s not yet been a full week with the new glasses, I’m still a wee bit surprised when I catch my own reflection, because that’s not what I’m used to seeing. That’s not the way it’s always been. The new hair color, I’m used to that now, and hey, looking pretty good on that one. It’s the same with writing. I’m not used to the new schedule yet, the new tracking, the new support system, and even the new media. It’s not yet been a year with the new laptop, but enough of the keys now have no letters on them to make me kind of proud when I look down at the keyboard. I don’t need them. My fingers know where the keys are, and I’m looking at the screen, anyway.

There will be a learning curve with the new desktop, the new office configuration, the new schedule and all of the rest, but what’s most important is something that isn’t going to change. My love of the story is going to be the same, no matter what else is going on, and I can’t wait to see what Hero and Heroine’s love story looks like in its final form. The only way to get there is butt in chair, fingers on keyboard, pen on paper, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, no, I can’t, I’m writing. Lather, rinse, repeat until the tale is told. Then on to the next one.

 

 

 

I Can See Clearly Now: An Allegory

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On Friday night, my glasses fell apart in my hands. I didn’t do anything to them, only took them off, and the left lens clattered into the sink. No biggie, I figured, and kept calm as I retrieved the lens. The screw had been loose for some time, so likely enough I hadn’t remembered to tighten it that day. All I’d have to do would be stick the lens back in, maybe find the screw if it had also fallen out, use my thumbnail as an impromptu screwdriver, and I’d be back in business. Easy. Only, that’s not how it went.

The screw was perfectly fine, but the left arm of the frame dangled at an odd angle, the frame itself having snapped. Well. This was a pickle. No, I did not have a backup pair, and no, I did not have contacts. My Saturday was already booked full; CRRWA meeting in the morning, Tulip Festival date with Real Life Romance hero, to begin the second I got back from the meeting, and then an online viewing party for a favorite TV show with friends who are similarly inclined. None of this was going to be easy when all I could see were blurry blobs of color.

Even so, I tried, because I am me. I have two friends in the medical field who are super sure I actually broke my right foot during Caregiveapalooza, and, since there was no time to get myself checked out, I bound my own foot and hobbled around as best I could. So, I would do the same thing here. I first tried using a binder clip to keep the lens in the broken frame, which was serviceable enough for an hour or two, but uncomfortable. Next attempt was electrical tape, which technically kept the lens in the frame, but also wreaked havoc with my peripheral vision and depth perception. Also, the corners of electrical tape, when poking one in the eye socket and/or cheekbone, provide a feeling I am going to describe as discomfort, but I was not going to miss that meeting. (Heather McGovern spoke on using character and conflict to heighten the black moment, and I am all about the black moments.)

Twice, at the meeting, I jumped in surprise when friends approached me from the left. I did not see them there. Clearly, this was not going to be a workable solution, but I took notes as best I could and will compare them with a friend’s later, to catch anything I missed. Friend was able to drop me in front of my house, despite the festival traffic, and, after  short pit stop, I informed Real Life Romance Hero he was going to be my guide for the afternoon; we were going to be holding hands the entire time, and not just to show affection. He told me he’d been planning on doing exactly that. Good man.

If you’ve never attended an outdoor festival sans corrective lenses, let me give you an overview. There will be a lot of shapes and colors coming at you from all directions, and you will not be able to tell what they are. Assume they are people, and none of them know you can’t see a thing beyond blobs. There will be a small twinge of apprehension, because, if you let go of the hand you’re holding, you are likely going to be toast. After a while, you’ll start to get a feel for what it’s like; you’ve traversed this ground before, under different circumstances, so maybe you’ll be only lightly toasted, not actual toast, if your guide parks you someplace somewhat out of the way-ish, to get a couple of the best hot dogs on earth. You learn to ask questions when needed. Are there condiments? (this is always an important question) What about napkins? Is that a dog? (most of the time it was a dog; once it was a small child. Real Life Romance Hero thought that was vastly amusing.)Since I can see only blobs, will someone else please take a picture? Things like that. Food still tastes good, company still good, and questions posed to festival staff will help point you in the right direction when you suspect a favorite vendor may be present, but cannot see them because blobs of color and all that. A few modifications, but you still come home with a purse full of kettle corn and a tower of horseradish samplers, so still good.

If you’re suspecting I’m going to turn this into some allegory on writing, you’re right. Housemate and I spent the entirety of Sunday at the optometrist. The utter destruction of my former spectacles garnered some interesting comments from the staff, who were sympathetic and understanding of the entire affair. They even worked out a small discount and pushed to get me lenses that day, rather than let me swim through the fog any longer than I absolutely had to, so, overall, a positive experience there. There is the matter of something the optometrist found and would like to keep an eye (pun intended) on and discuss later, but that’s another story.

What this story is about is clarity of vision. BFF and I took a lunch break, then as soon as she steered be back into the room, I heard a chipper “They’re ready! We did it!” BFF steered me to the appropriate seat, and the person who first greeted my foggy-eyed self rushed over to see the end result. Staff member handed me my new frames, I put them on and there it was. Sight. That’s what the world looks like. Relief. Adjustment, because my brain had started to figure out how to maneuver around the blobs of color, but having the right outlook makes it all that much easier to go about my life.

It’s like that with writing, as well. The colored blobs of uncorrected vision can be like all the vague ideas that come at a writer in the early stages of a new project. Who’s that? What’s that doing there? Where are we going in this strange new land? Are there condiments? Genre can be a guide. I write romance. I know where this is going. My lovers are going to get through all obstacles, to go home together, and happy to be there. I’ve been this way before. I’ve written romance novels. I read them. I know where this is going, and I know I’m going to get there, so I can trust myself and my guide and enjoy the experience. Not too bad a lesson to learn (relearn?) when I’m pumped from conference, meeting, and have a new-to-me desktop on the way. Think somebody is trying to tell me something here?

 

 

 

Home Again, Home Again

annabowling 4 Comments

Welp, NECRWA 2016 is now a memory, conference clothes have been (mostly) laundered, I still have to put swag away/distribute specific items to those who have called dibs, and follow up on contacts made over the course of the weekend.  I have notes on Beach Ball to transcribe, as Melva and I outlined four scenes on the drive back, and a wealth of information from some excellent workshops to implement. Pictures taken during the conference are in my phone, but taking their time to actually show up in my email, so I may have to wing it for today’s entry, and show the pretties on Wednesday.

Which is fine, actually, because taking a good, hard look at how things actually work is part of my takeaway from the conference. One of several, really, some tangible objects, others not, but I want to get some impressions down here before the rest of the week intrudes. Sunday, I was a slug under my duck blankey, awake long enough only to consume food Real Life Romance Hero (himself also a slug, but a really handsome one) had delivered because neither of us was up to operating complicated machinery like stoves or toasters or microwaves. I had plans to read, because reading is something I need to make more time for, as reading is absolutely part of the writing process. Reading turned to napping under the blankey while half-listening to (watching would require open eyes) Bar Rescue on whatever channel plays that show. Food Network? I should know that, but I don’t. Real Life Romance Hero had control of the remote, which was fine, because :points to duck blankey reference.:

Today was Monday, which became a transition day. Laundry, following up on contacts, planning and organization, and going over the notes from the awesome workshops I attended on Saturday. It feels like I’m getting my house in order and doing homework at the same time. That all fits with the sense of entering a new season. I’m not talking about spring, even though of course, that’s happening at the same time, but life in general.

Susan Mallery gave a wonderful workshop on writing more, which is definitely one of my goals. Encouragingly, it would appear I’m doing some things right: writing at the same time each day; paying more attention to how I put a book together, rather than what works for anybody else; and paying special attention to what books I love and what books I hate. Which books were a joy to write, and which ones made me want to shove pencils in my eyes, because that would be less painful? Since I like lists and schedules, some of her tips in that department, which she warned might be “really scary” for some participants, actually got me pumped to put them into motion. Anything that gives me a reason to start a new notebook is okay by me. This workshop also helped me decide that today would be the transition/organization/planning day. I like to know what I’m doing, when I’m doing it, how it’s going to get done, and then let me at it.

Tanya Michaels’ workshop on surviving setbacks was the perfect chaser, because that is also pertinent to my interests. Every writer is going to have some setbacks, some disappointments, some detours. Every writer is going to get thrown from the metaphorical horse. The key is getting back up, and getting back on; basic, yes, but important to hear, and important to find out the steps to take to figure out which way “up” actually is for that particular circumstance. Again, the key seems to be finding out what works for the individual and sticking with that. I loved hearing that yes, it is okay to have a core story. Watching Tanya display book after book after book and happily announce that they were all about a cowboy and a single mom, a cowboy and a single mom, a cowboy and a single mom, etc, struck a note. I don’t write about cowboys or single parents, but it’s the principle of the thing. Have the core story, and find new ways to tell it. That, I can do.

Donna Alward gave a wonderful workshop on creating character cheat sheets, which sheet I need to request, as they were hot properties, and with good reason. Joanna Shupe, whose Magnate, the first in her Knickerbocker series of Gilded Age New York historicals, I am currently reading, spoke on writing the intricacies of writing physical intimacy. Since Melva and I needed to get on the road halfway through, we’re going to have to pester friends for details on what we missed by leaving early, but that’s one of the best takeaways from these conferences; friends.

This year, Melva and I wound up at a table full of super fun, talented women, with whom we instantly bonded. Some, we’d met before, at other dinners, from other conferences, and some were new-met, but we clicked at dinner and stuck together through the weekend, and, now, that we’re released back into the “real world,” ready to put theory into practice, we’re sticking with each other here, as well. A new chapter begins.

 

 

 

 

 

Call and Answer

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Today almost ended up being a video blog, but I know myself, and that’s going to have to wait for later. What’s on my mind today is -are?- a bunch of things. There’s no time tomorrow, the last day before the conference, to sneak in an entry, and so it needs to be today. I have one ear open for the doorbell (as if anyone can miss a big ol’ prewar doorbell that vibrates the walls and scares the stuffing out of the cat…and the me, because yikes, that thing is loud. Effective, though.) because I’m waiting for a delivery for something Real Life Romance Hero ordered and the rest of my head is…not scattered, exactly. Lets call it multitasking.

We’ll jump right to something from my morning pages (in italics):

That’s where I feel I am now, coming back home in a different season of my life . A lot of things are changing. Some people who were always there, are now elsewhere. New people have moved into some of the vacant houses. At some point, this will be the way it’s always been.

Last night, I chatted with a writer friend, about a scene in her WIP, the emotions so finely honed that it viscerally shook me, made me first think A) well, crap, I can’t top that, and then B) I want to do that. Not top her work, because it’s not a contest. What I do want is to create my own version of that. Get that kind of response. Be that deeply involved with the characters and emotions and elicit the vivid sensory images. That kind of thing.

Her scene affected me so much that, a good night’s sleep, walk through the park, daily pages and half a blog entry later, part of me is still back there, not yet ready to leave it. Wanting to draw some of that in and make it my own and put it back out, mingled with my people and my era and their story and and and and…yeah. Writers, you know what I mean. Readers-who-do-not-write, it’s too late for us; save  yourselves.

It’s not the only thing that  has me under the influence, either. There’s a new picture in my inspiration folder, that I’m still not sure why I like it as much as I do, but I keep coming back to it, so there is something in there, even if I don’t know, at this point, what it is. I don’t have to know; figuring that out is part of the journey. There will be time spent staring at it, thinking about it, isolating different parts so that I can see them from different perspectives, trying on and discarding lyrics and quotes and looking at and looking away and thinking and feeling and not-thinking and not-feeling and putting it on the back burner until it tells me.

That’s all part of this homecoming process, knowing that, sometimes, the story tells me, rather than the other way around. It’s the difference between pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing and pushingpushingpushingpushing on a door, and reading the sign that says “pull.” Then pulling, et voila, open door. Funny how that works.

I keep coming back to this idea of homecoming, this place that is familiar-but-not. Keep coming back to the magpie stage, gathering this and that and incorporating it into what I already know. Into what I don’t yet know. It’s…not weird. Not strange. Not familiar, either, but familiar all the same. It’s part of the process. Knowing that not-knowing what I’m doing is exactly what I need to be doing, and knowing that it’s going to be different every time. Knowing that that difference is always going to be a constant. Knowing that, even though I may shy at this jump, I’ve taken it before, and  I can certainly take it again. Knowing that another lap of the place is what I need to build up the speed for that jump. Knowing that my metaphors are going to muddle. Knowing that they are going to mingle, along with pictures I don’t know why I like, songs that grab me from the first note, the scent that grabs the reins of my attention and pulls hard while I’m doing something completely unrelated, and, without my conscious effort, there I am, fully absorbed in the world of the story. Inside the characters’ skins, living their story with them. That’s home.

 

 

 

 

Coming in out of the Cold

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Monday afternoon, cold still hanging in there, but negotiating its exit strategy. We will see how that goes. No idea right now what I want to blog about today, so I am going to jump in and blabber and it will go where it goes. Which is, of course, the magic seven hundred words for the mandatory entry. I could bump this entry back to tomorrow, as I know I get two hours of uninterrupted time after my weekly meeting with N (note to self – bring Mont Blanc and standard cartridge so I can figure out what the heck I’m doing wrong in inserting the darned thing. Seriously, I’ve tried both ends, and nada. Scratchety-scratch on the paper, but no ink after I ran through the mystery dregs of the old ink that somehow missed getting rinsed out when I flushed it during a rare moment of clarity over the weekend. That’s flushed with warm water in the kitchen sink, not in the bathroom bowl. Even at prime coldbrain, I would not do that.)

Okay, pens. I can talk about pens.  The Pilot Namiki cartridges did come on Saturday, and went into the Plumix like a dream, so I have my very first fountain pen back in action. Possible review to follow, because that feels like a natural progression, and it really is an easy to use pen, plus the sepia ink is gorgeous. We will not talk about my adventures trying to put the Jinhao (international standard size) cartridge in the Mont Blanc, even though that should have fit. It probably does, and it was operator error. Hence plans to consult N, who actually knows what she’s doing with the whole fountain pen thing.

I promise that I will talk about things that are not pens, but can be done with pens, namely, writing, once I get my full brain back. Going through the process of writing down anything, as with both my morning pages and blabbery blogging, even without a plan set out beforehand, is a big help in that direction. As a once upon a time writing group facilitator, J, used to remind those of us in her group, the practice begets the product. Or something like that. Like I said, I am not fully back yet. Too fuzzy, don’t remember version – put pen to paper and/or fingers to keyboard and write something. Anything. Sooner or later, writing will kick in and something will start to make sense, fictional or otherwise.

One step at a time kind of thing, the left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot kind of thing.  With the conference only a matter of days away now, there are going to be questions asked by new friends and old, and the answers aren’t always what I wish I were giving at this stage of the game. Am I signing this year? That’s one of them. Answer I give, with game smile: “Not this year.” Answer my Hypercritical Gremlins want to give: :hysterical laughter, breaking down into wrenching sobs that give way to sniffles: They, obviously, are not my biggest supporters, and are quick to remind me that my current crop of titles are A) not all that current, and B) electronic exclusives. Neither making it all that easy to sign, but that’s okay. That’s this stage of the game. That’s this year.

This year, I am at work on one novel and one novella, and cast periodic glances at the post-apocalyptic medieval novella, suspended in mid-revision. Next year, I can have up to three manuscripts ready to make the rounds. That’s pretty darned good. Yay, me. This is not a race. Success and happiness and all that other good stuff are not finite quantities. All the hundreds of other writers and publishing professionals in attendance are proof of that. All the books laid out at our seats every meal and given away as prized in baskets and at workshops and for sale at the literacy signing are proof of that. Every one of those was, at one point, butt in chair and fingers on keyboard. Every one of those was an idea. Every one of those was a “what if?” Every one of those was a “I wonder if I can…” Every one of those was a “I’m going to show up and put something on the paper/screen today.” I can’t think of anything more encouraging than that.

 

 

 

In the Pen

annabowling 4 Comments

I have a lot of pens. I mean a lot of pens. I probably picked up some of this from my dad, who was an artist, as I have vivid memories, still, of sneaking into his studio when I was but a wee princess, stealing various mark-makers (pens, pencils, higher end markers, etc) and putting them back exactly where I had found them so he wouldn’t know I’d even been there. If he did know, he never said, but I do suspect I was mostly successful. My pilfering of his papers was harder to camouflage, because, well, paper, but suffice it to say, if I were a dragon, I have no doubts what I would hoard. Pens and stationery. Well, books, too, but that’s another story. Pun intended.

My family is well aware, that, in case of Walking Dead style zombie apocalypse, we are heading to NYC, because I want to loot the Moleskine store. Also any other stationery vendors we encounter along the way, because Papaya! Art, Punch Studio, Markings, Picadilly, Anna Griffin, etc. I am hardwired for this stuff, and make no apologies.

Most recently, I have fallen down the fountain pen rabbit hole, and am waiting for two different orders of ink cartridges to arrive in the mail. I’ve said before, how writing longhand, and specifically with a fountain pen, adds an extra something to getting in the historical world of my characters -though I can also be found making notes on my phone, so I’m not a total Luddite- and I have seriously considered trying a dip pen, to get even further connected to the methods of writing my characters would have known.

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The fountain pen gang, as it currently stands, minus my Pilot Plumix, which started the whole love affair, and is now in hiding. Perfect timing, as I have an order of sepia cartridges for that particular pen winging their way to me right this very minute. Ahem. Pilot Plumix, Mommy loves and misses you very much. Please come home. All is forgiven.

ETA: My plea worked. Plumix has returned.

Current roster is:

  • six Pilot Varsity disposable-yet-potentially-hackable pens
  • one Pilot Plumix (now out of hiding)
  • one Jinhao (actual name escapes me, but we are in love, okay?)
  • one vintage MontBlanc Noblisse (thanks, Dad)
  • two ink samples, which names escape me.

 

On the way are:

  • blue cartridges for the Jinhao, which currently has a converter and lovely purple ink
  • sepia Pilot Namiki cartridges, for Plumix, which is in hiding. Show of hands who thinks I should order another one for backup?

 

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N has helped me troubleshoot the MontBlanc, and suspects that the reason it’s not drawing ink is that the suction on the converter may be all done, a small rubber part having given all it can. Considering that this pen was made in 1971, I suspect it’s had a good run. I’ve done some research on what refills it might take, and have my eye on a lovely set of burgundy cartridges by MontBlanc. Failing that, it looks like the pen should take international standard size, so there’s that option.

I am very new to the whole fountain pen world, still a wide-eyed newbie, and yet, I have an excitement that sparkles my blood when I babble about, use, look at, research, etc my pens. Inking the MontBlanc or Jinhao is a special ritual, one I look forward to, that honors the writing I do, both personal and commercial. It’s not the tool that makes the craftsman, not by any means, but there is a certain recognition, a this is mine knowledge that goes beyond mind, into heart and soul. Does that have an impact on the content of the writing? For me, I have to say yes.

The featured image  at the top of the page is not a fountain pen, but a rollerball, a gift, as part of a business card holder with plaque, that was a gift from a once-upon-a-time friend. I’d loved the pen, and was disappointed when the ink ran out. I want to say there were a couple of refills included, but that was another life, and the mist is heavy between that time and this. Nevertheless, I hoped I’d track it down someday, and, recently, by accident, I did.

I’d hoped to get a refill for a totally different pen, and picked up the wrong refill. I tried it anyway, but pen and refill were not compatible -different makers- and, again, I was sad. then I had a whim – why not try it on that pen? I did. Perfect match, and, as is super important to those of us who love pens and are not independently wealthy, super affordable. Win-win. I wasn’t sure what I was going to use it for, but, when I sat down this morning to write to a friend, my gaze drifted from the cup of fountain pens, to the glossy black barrel, then down to the pad in front of me. Then the pen was in my hand and we danced. The pen did, that is, and by danced, I mean moved across the paper, but pens don’t do much without hands to move them, and, before I knew it, seven pages were ready to wing their way to their intended recipient. It felt right.

Last night, I chatted via Skype with a writer friend, partly about a scene that wouldn’t come and wouldn’t come and wouldn’t come. The computer had eaten the original document the scene was from, jump-drive-that-is-on-its-last-legs says that copy is corrupted, and really, that’s pretty much a sign when that happens. I told my friend that I knew what I had to do next. Shut off the word processing program, plug in my earbuds, and break out pen and paper. Time to dance.

 

 

 

 

Draw Shapes

annabowling 2 Comments

We have snow. In April. I am going to have to go outside and shovel the sidewalk. In April. Even though snow is my favorite weather, it had the whole season of winter to show, and it didn’t. I live with two springophiles, and they’re sad at the loss of their favorite season, which makes it hard to enjoy this unexpected dose of mine, so this is an interesting conundrum. I may need to take a snow day.

 

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view from our balcony

 

 

For my fellow Sleepyheads, my recap of Sleepy Hollow‘s latest episode, “Delaware,” is up at Heroes and Heartbreakers. Man, this episode. Two particular Ichabbie scenes could count as love scenes -donuts and boat, for those who have seen- because the connection is that strong, and sure, and understated and all the more obvious for it. If this were a book, I would have sticky notes on those chapters, so I could see how they did it and learn to do it for myself. Still no word on whether the show will be renewed or not, so next week’s season (and hopefully not series) finale should be interesting, not to mention cause for great speculation. It is here, and it looks like this:

ICHABBIE

New member of the (notebook) family came home this weekend, when I saw this gorgeous specimen at Barnes and Noble, in the red dot clearance section:

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new art journal – what can I do to it?

 

I’ve always wanted to try an unlined Picadilly, and one of their larger notebooks, so when I saw this, and it announced it was my new art journal, (because notebooks talk to me; don’t they do that to everybody?) I fell in love with the creamy pages, and spent a rather blissful chunk of time at the kitchen counter, slapping down seemingly random things that were within easy reach, and I’m rather pleased with the results.

Though I don’t remember who actually said this particular gem, I want to say it was in an issue of Art Journaling magazine. In every issue, multiple contributors are asked the same question about their creative process. That’s probably my favorite feature, as I love finding out how different people do the same thing. In one issue, I want to say the question was something like, how to get started when ideas aren’t coming.

One answer stuck with me.  “When you don’t know what to draw, draw shapes.” I am fairly certain I’m paraphrasing here, and probably need to go back and find the actual quote and artist’s name, because that had a big hand in getting me out of a creative funk. Draw shapes. Well, that’s easy. Anybody can draw shapes. So, today, when I sat down with a two page blank spread in front of me, that’s what came to mind. I stuck down a piece of scrapbook paper, tried out some long-neglected stamps, with a longer-neglected ink pad (that pad has earned all the RIPs in the image) and then…nothing. Which is where the shapes came into play.

I grabbed an old stencil that was, apparently, made by IBM, for…IBM-related something, I imagine; my dad probably bought it for art use, and now it’s mine…and started tracing shapes. Then I filled them in with an old #2 pencil, which I’d found in the same box of stuff. I didn’t think, didn’t plan, only let one shape flow into the next one, my mind drifting along with the music, picking out the stories from the songs, the snapshots of emotion captured in sound, and that told me where to go next. When I got to the point of “done” with shapes, I looked at the blank space for a while. It needed a figure. I grabbed a stack of pages torn from old magazines, cut out the first one I saw, glued it down, added some shade, then sat back.

Words. I needed words on that page, but didn’t want to overthink it. What ended up going on the page were the lyrics that played at that exact moment. It worked. Done. I liked the whole process a lot, and will probably do that again, because it gets my creative brain in gear. So, what does that have to do with writing? Other than inspiration, that is, because there was definitely that.

It’s the blank page. It’s the shapes. It’s knowing that I know how to  do this. Once there is a shape on the page, once there is a splash of color, or even a single mark, the page isn’t blank anymore. The first step will invite the next one, which will make the page an entirely different thing from that, and once I get in the groove, it’s easier to keep going than it is to stop. It’s trusting myself and knowing that  what works for me, works for me. It’s feeling the doubt and going ahead anyway, because otherwise, what else is there to do but stare at a bank page? Put something down. Anything. Fix it later. Add to it later. Cover it later. Rip it out later, if you want, but put it down there. Use a template if you need. Go freehand if you want, but start. Make your mark. Draw a shape. Write a word. I dare you.

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