writing

Signs of Life

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Hello, all. Anna here, breaking radio silence for a bit. Hopefully Storm and I will be back to a semi regular blogging schedule, along with writing-writing, but here’s where things stand at the moment.

It’s been a rough several months, ever since the bedbug incident, and the time that we thought would be only a couple of weeks between apartments is now at month number ten. It’s been a combination of motel living, friends, and the occasional impromptu camping for short periods of time. As one can imagine, not great for mental health, but yay church family and yay modern medicine. With the COVID outbreak, this did affect Real Life Romance Hero’s line of work, as he’s a front of the house restaurant dude, and there has been no front of house for a wile. He’s looking into options, especially as restaurants begin to reopen, so there will be good news on that front soon. We’re also working with some pros to help us navigate the system, which takes some time, but will get results.

Last week, Real Life Romance Hero was in the ER twice (he is okay now) and, at the same time, my tablet died, which made blogging and social media on the go a lot more challenging, but not insurmountable.

I have long been a paper and pen writer, and the stories still need to be told, so that’s a good thing. Transcription time is also editing time, and there will be a chunk of that when the dust settles. Right now, RLRH and I are sharing a laptop, and I have been using that for social media and Simming. (Also planning a return to vlogging in the near future. First on my list: old school romance reviews.) Playing Sims stretches those storytelling muscles, and, as I dive deeper into custom content and mods and editing screenshots, I like the energy it brings. My old school Kindle is still going strong, which makes me immensely grateful that I can carry an entire library with me anywhere I go.

Deciding what to put here can be a tricky thing at times. Is this a writing blog? Is this a romance genre blog? Is it a personal blog? The answer to that is that it’s all of those things, because it’s all part of the journey. Right now, the writing life is more chaotic than I would like, but it is still happening. Number one on the list is getting Drama King, my second contemporary romance with Melva Michaelian, and getting Her Last First Kiss to the end of its second draft, which may involve some reconstruction, but I have done that before, with Orphans in the Storm, which I also wrote during a challenging time and didn’t remember selling until I got the request for the final-final manuscript from the publisher. That book, along with my first historical, My Outcast Heart, is back in my hands. Still weighing the options when it comes to traditional versus indie publishing, but these titles will be back out there as soon as I can make it happen.

For those whose most pressing question is “where are the dang kitty pictures, woman? You know that’s what I’m here for,” here you go:

Storm is doing great, and she will be back to her regular blogging duties hopefully next week. We definitely have us a travel cat, and she has taken beautifully to coming along on certain errands, when we can pop her carrier into a shopping cart and push her around while we shop. She is definitely getting that kitty stroller when we are settled, and a kitty friendly backpack/kitty Bjorn sort of thing is also a possibility. This cat is definitely going places, and so are we.

I’ve also picked up a freelance editing gig that is super fun, and something I would be very happy to do more of in the future.

A couple of days ago, while checking out the social media links for a favorite Simmer, I semi-accidentally created a Discord account. Of course being me, my immediate thought was “I wonder if there are any historical romance themed Discord servers?” and my second thought, “if not, I bet I could start one.” Not taking on the second part of that right away, but if you kno of any romance reading or writing themed Discord servers, I definitely want in.

As I’ve noted in this blog before, I have long since known I do better in my original writing when I am actively involved in a fandom. In the past, that’s usually been TV shows, but I haven’t been in a TV mode much in the last few months. Right now, it’s Sims and my favorite brand of historical romance: rich and intricate and emotional. I fully intend on steering into that particular skid.

That’s about it for the current update. TLDR (too long, didn’t read) version: things are progressing and should stabilize soon. Writing is happening. Cats are good. I love romance novels, Sims, and all of you.

Typing With Wet Paws: Under the Influence Edition

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Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. We’re going to be changing it up some this week, because Aunt Anna has been doing exactly that, and my job is to report on what she’s doing. Yesterday, she didn’t even turn on the computer to work, if you can believe that. Instead, she spent the day doing a deep dive into reconnecting with historical romance, which she has been kind of unconsciously avoiding for a little while.

Part of that is because real life has been chaotic, and getting her head into another place and time took too much energy. That happens. People change genres. That is not what is happening here. She and Aunt Melva are closing in on the first draft of Drama King, setting the stage (pun intended) for Queen of Hearts, and making plans for more contemporaries to come. That’s all good.

What hasn’t felt so good, and here is where I have done some active mews duty (thinking is much easier when rubbing a lonnnnng kitty belleh, specifically mine) is that looking at her Goodreads challenge (still super duper ahead, so she has wiggle room) showed that her reading has leaned, at times heavily, to YA over historical romance, and that she is not okay with that.

This led to a long time in what Aunt Anna calls the soft office, with notebook and pen, and me cuddling close, writing down how she feels about that and how it came to be, as well as a way back to what feels like a better balance for her. Some of this comes as she prepares material for future video blogs, and some of it comes from Buried Under Romance doings. Where Aunt Anna has landed on this is that it’s okay to go through times of not having a lot of energy (cats totally understand this) but it is not okay to use not engaging in something a human loves because of that.

Yesterday, Aunt Anna wrote down a lot of things, including a list of some of her favorite classic historical romance authors. It included but was not limited to:

If these names are familiar to you, you might notice that they have a few things in common. If they are not, consider clicking these links, and keeping an eye on this blog for more about them inthe future. These are big stories. Sometimes it feels scary to want to write big stories, especially when a lot of things in life are very very big. That is, though, maybe exactly when and why big stories are needed the very very most.

Aunt Anna is excited not only to revisit some of her favorite historical romances, by these authors and others, but to look into how they have and continue to influence her current reading and writing.

Now that that’s out of the way, it’s time for the important stuff, aka me. I have talked in the past about my adventures with the butt warmer, but I have not shared yet about my special trick (because I just learned it) and that is that I can turn off Uncle Rheuben’s trackpad. I won’t give my secrets but when Uncle Rheuben couldn’t find his cursor and the trackpad wasn’t doing anything, he asked Aunt Anna for help (she has a lot more experience with cats and computers) and she did some Google-fu.

What she found was that the number one cause of this particular problem is cats on keyboards. There was a post that told her what buttons to push to undo my trick, and she did, and boom, back in business. This does not mean that I will stop doing it, because sometimes humans need feline intervention to know when it is time to stop with the clickety clack and make with the belly rubs. Speaking of which,

Headbonks!

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

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

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

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

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

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

this song is relevant to my interstes

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

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

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

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

Anna

Intravenous Baby Steps

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Writing during a pandemic is something most of us do not have a lot of experience in doing. Keeping a productive writing schedule during a pendemic, when between permanent addresses, with one’s entire family in close quarters, with a high energy cat, making frequent 200 mile jaunts across state lines, dealing with spotty interwebs, two depressions and an anxiety, insomnia, a spouse whose job doesn’t exist during lockdown, is, well…something. Can’t make this stuff up, and frankly, I wouldn’t want to, even though making stuff up is kind of the whole point of this fiction writing thing.


On the one hand, I can defintely relate to feeling behind pretty much everything, as there are days when writing is just…no. On the other hand, I am already more than sixty percent of the way to my goal of ninety books on my Goodreads challenge, I am getting my bearings on Buried Under Romance, and the micro size Happy Notes I set up as my Sims journal for my current gameplay is getting, for lack of a better word, chonky.

I have gone hardcore into this play style, having downloaded a save file of the base game neighborhood of Simsd 2 reinterpreted for Sims 3, with a rotational play system, free will on high, story progression (aka Sims I am not controlling doing their own thing) and an ever growing cache of custom content. Plus mods. Oh the mods. Basically, it’s writing, only with pixels. Also a dystopian lighting mod, but that’s another story.

I am writing this post with a full “house” -aka hubster and bff home, cat reminding me that we did promise to get her a new red dot. I am in my pajamas, still, because insomnia turned into “may as well turn on the computer,” which turned into “eh, boot Sims,” which turned into “listen to Journeys of Romance podcast while playing,” which turned into catching the love of writing, which led to opening this Word Pad document while doing all of the above, and here we are.


Breakfast/lunch is a bag of microwave popcorn, positioned to the left of the keyboard, beverage of choice positioned to the right, notebook on top of the CPU, under the monitor, color coded getl pens at hand, to catch the its of story and “real” writing that trickle in as I do all of the rest. There are a bunch of notes for the Drama King scenes I owe my co-writer and I am going to have to do some reconstructing on Her Last First Kiss, but, with these intravenous baby steps, one thing at a time, it feels…doable.

Typing With Wet Paws: Almost Out of April Edition

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Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. Lots of mews duty for me this week, as Aunt Anna had a couple rounds with the anxiety monster, but I think things are under control now. That’s a good thing, because that means she can take care of some overdue stuff, like writing things and keeping new content up on Buried Under Romance.

Last week, the internet wasn’t working so great, but things should be better now. Aunt Anna is glad for that. She is a little salty about the Will and Grace finale, but gives it a grade of incomplete. If it’s pass/fail, pass, which is better than fail. She also hit her loan limit for library e-books, so there is going to be a bunch of reading ahead. She has now read fifty-four out of ninety books, putting her at sixt6y percent of the way to her goal.

She is well aware that a bunch of the books in her currently reading sidebar have been there for a while. Some are even from before me. At least one is. part of her says she should really get on that, but another part says that putting should in her pleasure reading takes the pleasure right out of it. I am not sure which is right. I’m only two, so I don’t have a lot of experience with this sort of thing (or a lot of things, really.) What do you think?

Aunt Anna thanks everyone for their patience with the Buried Under Romance stuff. She hasn’t forgotten or gone away. It’s this whole life thing, but romance novels are a happy place. What ones are you reading? Aunt Anna is mostly reading e-books now, as we are still in for-now lodgings. I can tell you one thing: when we do move into our new apartment, I am going to have a lot of book scenting to do. Her tablet and Kindle cases already smell like me, so we are all set there.

Anyway, I am being a good girl, if you don’t count 4AM Parkour sessions and systemstically knocking things off Aunt Anna’s nightstand (and only her nightstand. Uncle Rheuben doesn’t have much smackable on his, nor does Aunt Linda. I also like sleeping right above or next to Aunt Anna’s head. That’s not at all creepy, right? I want to make sure she is okay.

The big family news around here is that Chez Grandmere has sold, so it is time for Aunt Anna and Aunt Linda (Uncle Rheuben will stay here with me) to go out in that direction and load the stuff we are keeping onto a truck and drive it back to NY, where they will put it in a storage unit. From there, once lockdown is lifted, Aunt Linda will take one box of Grandma stuff every time she visits and let Grandma decide where it all goes. I am very happy to report that when it was time to put labels on things, Aunt Anna put Storm labels on my favorite chair and headboard. Well, every chair is the cat’s chair. You know what I mean, but this is the one where I hid in the boxspring. It’s special.

Let’s see, what else? Aunt Anna and Aunt Melva are putting together a real official draft of Drama King to date, with Aunt Anna searching her files for scenes that go in particular places. When they wrote Chasing Prince Charming, Aunt Anna numbered all the scenes. She is probably going back to that because it made this kind of thing a whole lot easier. She’s still working on finding the writing routine that works for the current arrangements, as in no door to close, and can’t go to a coffee shop to write. She’s smart, though, so she’ll figure it out. Trial and error, a good pair of earbuds, and some creative scheduling should do the trick.

I think I’ll wrap it here, and see if I can give one of the humans the big eyes so they will play red dot with me. I love red dot. I will catch him. I will.

Headbonks!

Typing With Wet Paws: Social Distancing Edition

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Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. Nobody is sick over here, but we are doing the weekend in New England thing again (well, end of weekend and start of week) thing, which is de facto social isolation, or, as I call it, being an indoor cat. Which is what I do every day. Being an indoor cat, that is. Another good thing about being at Chez Grandmere for a few days is that there is no interwebs, so Aunt Anna has more time to pay attention to me. She thinks she’s still going to be writing even offline, but we will see how that turns out. I suspect the chances for feline paralysis is high. The feline, of course, being me. Ah, the belly rubs.

The writing news here is that Aunt Anna sent out her first historical romance submission of 2020, A Heart Most Errant. She is not sure whether the fact that it is set in the wake of the plague in medieval England has anything to do with current events, but she needed to get something out on submission, and she’s been doing her research, and it was time to pull the trigger, so to speak. She will probably make another placeholder image that better fits the mood of John and Aline’s story, but this will do for now. If you like medieval romance, road stories, and books where the history directly impacts the romance, stay tuned for news on this one.

Here is a fun fact. When Aunt Anna was first writing this book, her writer friend from way back, Miss V, said she imagined the hero, John DeWarre, as The Rock, aka Dwayne Johnson. Aunt Anna did not agree. (She does think he’s a talented performer, though, and seems like a nice human) She told Miss V that if Miss V put The Rock forward One More Time, as a physical manifestation of John, Aunt Anna, who normally does not “cast” her books, was going to base the hero’s looks after Colin Firth. Miss V learned not to try Aunt Anna on this kind of thing. Aunt Anna wants me to remind you all that she means more like from the Fever Pitch era, not his current age. He’s grumpy and crusty and stuck with an extroverted optimist, out on the open road, because he needs the work.

Aunt Anna also doesn’t normally think in linked books, but she does think that Guy, John’s friend, a fake monk and plague survivor, has potential. What medieval romance tropes do you like? Aunt Anna wants to know. Inspiration is always a good thing.

Also a good thing is reading, which Aunt Anna continues to kick tush in doing. For her Goodreads challenge, she currently has thirty six out of ninety books read, halfway through month number four. She is already forty percent of the way to her goal, which is making pretty good time. Only takes one hand to belly rub me, if I and pressed up against her, so that’s one more hand to hold a book or tablet. If she listens to an audiobook or text to speech, then she can cuddle me with both hands and not need any for holding books. Plus I can listen, too.

Still working on the picture situation on Buried Under Romance, but there are reviews coming, and also interviews, If you are a historical romance author who would like to drop by, let me or Aunt Anna know, and she will make it happen. This also coincides with the Historical Romance Readathon, which is pretty good timing, because social distancing does not mean social media distancing, and Aunt Anna is well supplied with books. This runs March 16-22, there is a bingo board (click the link to get yours) There is also a group read that Aunt Anna plans to join if she can, with Johanna Lindsey’s Hearts Aflame, the second book in her Hadraad Viking trilogy.

It’s this one, and yes, she will also read the first and third because she is a completist.

If this works out well, Aunt Anna is considering her own challenge, so stay tuned in case you like reading challenges. She will post her TBR list as she figures that out. Well, both of them. She likes lists, so more lists are better.

In most important news, I have redeemed myself from last week’s hiding in the recliner brouhaha. This time, when it was time to leave Chez Grandmere, the humans couldn’t find me again, but this time it was because I had already put myself in the adventure cave. I was even taking a nap when they found me. How’s that for making it easy on the hoomans? I didn’t even wake up until Aunt Anna picked up my adventure cave and carried it to the door. I was a Very Good Girl for the whole trip back to NY.

I think that’s it, though Aunt Anna is going to try and get a “walking away” picture for my signoff, since you readers liked Skye’s so much, and you need a good look at the way my tail comes out of a big spot on my butt. Also, I have done some growing up since that first picture.

Headbonks!

Yeah, pictures being wonky, so enjoy this greatest hits pictre.

Springing Forward

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Spring is not usually my favorite season. It still isn’t, but a new season is a good time for a new start, and, after seven of the craziest, weirdest, hardest months I have ever had, it looks like the light at the end of the tunnel may not be a train. Not that there aren’t still question marks, because there certainly are, but fewer ellipses (… -= those things) so I am going to count that as good. I have every faith that we may soon be nearing the end of our vagabond days, and I am very much ready for it.

On the fifth of March, we have been officially between apartments for seven months. Longer than I had thought or expected, but also, we are, as Skye would have said, badbutts, because we are still standing (cue Elton John) and, as Mr. Rogers’ mother said, looking for the helpers is always good advice. Storm is a travel kitty extraordinaire, and I have become far more adept than I ever thought in breaking down a desktop computer and reassembling it in another location, and knowing for sure and certain that longhand really is the best way for me to compose.

Writing, yes, can be done anywhere (seriously, anywhere) but the part that goes beyond composing, the transcribing, the editing, the polishing and submitting and/or planning out an indie pub (independent publishing, where the author is also the publisher) strategy, those things need a home base. It’s getting there. Before too long, there will be a new location for Stately Bowling Manor, a new office to move into, books to bust out of stuff jail (aka storage) and set into place. Time to know and declare that the new normal is now within reach. Not here yet, but within reach.

Which comes to the often sticky part of writing, finishing. When I first started writing romance, a starry-eyed seventeen-year-old with an electronic typewriter and a dream, of course I could finish a book. A lot of books. Now, I could be the parent of a seventeen-year-old, with some wiggle room. (I am not. Real Life Romance Hero and I decided early on that all of our kids will have four legs and fur.) Life and writing are not always that easy. That girl with the stars in her eyes and correction ribbon on her fingers had read once that Valerie Sherwood wrote twenty pages at a session, so okay, that’s a normal pace. The more seasoned writer now also remembers that Valerie Sherwood also said that any writer who says they write thus and so every day is lying.

There are days when the words, when the story, don’t come, and life has proven that, in heaps. There are also days when they do, and those are the days that I want to nourish. This past weekend, spent at Chez Grandmere, I took an outdated planner I inherited from Housemate, and ripped out the guts but for the monthly dividers (setting aside the unused guts to repurpose as plotting charts) and cutting down plain white office labels to cover the names of the months, and now it’s my general writing :salute: notebook/planner.

Writing each area of focus on each label – historical romance, contemporary romance, blogging, Buried Under Romance, Patreon, even “paper” (one can never have enough filler paper) — felt…good. Right. A few weeks ago, I posted on Facebook that I had a finger hovering over a stock image on a cover art website, because the couple in it? Could very well portray John and Aline from A Heart Most Errant. My first thought when I figured out what I was thinking was, “Anna, what are you thinking?” because, well, vagabond days. Vagabond months. Independent publishing isn’t cheap. I have never done it before.

Hm, though, but have I? In the intro to my “Play In Your Own Sandbox, Keep All the Toys” workshop, I mention that I spent well over a decade amongst Klingons, Newcomers, Immortals and others, not only writing for fanzines, but also, in time, publishing my own. I didn’t know what I was doing back then, either, when I started on that (huge props to my friend, the awesomely talented E. Catherine Tobler, who did a lot of very patient hand holding and talking me down from ledges of various heights) journey, so, maybe…cannonball? I don’t know.

What I do know is a page a day is a book in a year. I know I don’t have to reach every reader (and can’t, and shouldn’t) but only my readers, who are going to respond with, “please, miss, may we have some more?” The answer I want to give is “yes, of course, here you go.” I know I am too fond of italics and need to brush up on my comma use (thankfully, my contemporary cohort, Melva Michealian, has a PhD in English, so odds are I am going to catch on sooner rather than later.) There comes a time, and I think this is it, as my finger hovers over cover stock, and I have sussed out to get myself as bottom of the line webcam, because starting somewhere is better than not starting at all.

Which all feels pretty on-brand for spring. New life. Things blooming. Baby ducks. Baby ducks make everything better, and if we end up somewhere near Washington Park once more, there will be baby duck pictures aplenty. Even if not, there will be stories. That’s what I do. That’s who I am.

see you next time

Typing With Wet Paws: Signs of Spring Edition

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Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. Human stuff is settling down, at least a little bit, so Aunt Anna expects to be showing her own face on the blog once again, before too long. Once she sorts out the password stuff, that is, but that’s another story.

This week, Aunt Anna actually scoped out some new electronic doodads that will be helpful. in the whole Patreon thing, because that is totally happening. She’s working on content even now, and I am keeping a close supervisory (and slow blinkey) eye on the whole process. I have already volunteered to review cat toys, so Aunt Anna can save all her reviewing energy for books and stationery. I think that’s the most efficient division of labor. Also, I will do most of the napping. Leave it to the master, amiright?

One sure sign of spring is the planner clearance sales that provide Aunt Anna with a chance to try out new notebook systems and get a few of her metaphorical writing ducks in a row. It also helps her get ready for April’s Camp NaNoWriMo, which she is heavily leaning toward doing this year, probably but not definitely getting Her Last First Kiss all the way to the end of draft number two. It’s also about time to um, stuff of get out of the litterbox about getting My Outcast Heart and Orphans in the Storm back out there, where readers can find them. She’s still overthinking about the whole submissions versus indie route thing, but if there is a paw that hits “send” sometime in the coming week on one of those submissions, well, I was in a sunbeam the whole time. You all saw me, right?

Spring is a time of changes, and Aunt Anna is on them. Buried Under Romance will be back ASAP, and if anyone doubts Aunt Anna’s devotion to romance, I direct them to her Goodreads challenge, where she is kicking tush and taking names at 30 books read out of 90, which is fourteen books ahead of schedule. Yeah. She’s like that. Channel that energy into writing and publishing, and this gal is going to be unstoppable.

Now we come to the important part of this entry, which is to say the part about me. We spent a few days at Chez Grandmere this past week, where my beloved Blue Chair lives. I love Blue Chair. He is mine, and I am a very smart girl. I am so smart, in fact, that when I saw the humans getting ready to pack the car and head out, before I was done with Blue Chair, I was not about to let that happen.

I made a beeline for the master bedroom, where I hid inside the box spring (that is my go-to hiding place. My mom laughed super hard when Aunt Anna first found out the hard way) Aunt Anna and Aunt Linda teamed up to flush me out of the box spring, but I was not done yet. I zoomed into the living room, and then poof, disappeared into thin air, or so the humans thought. Everybody looked in all the closets, the big dark basement where I am not allowed, the washer, the dryer, the refrigerator, all the cabinets, even outside in the rain, under the shed and everything. No Storm. I made Aunt Anna cry, but she also Googled about hiding cats, and then the humans looked in Blue Chair.

Aunt Linda found me inside that box spring, looking quite comfy and un-budge-able, but then Uncle Rheuben turned the chair on its back and he and Aunt Linda got me out while Aunt Anna grabbed my adventure cave. That’s when it hit me that we were Going On An Adventure, and I love adventures, so bloop, I went right in without question, and off we all went. The ride back home was great. It rained the whole way, so my view was incredible. Aunt Anna loves rain, too, so that probably helped her mood

Headbonks!

Cautiously Optimistic

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Today is a very Monday-y Tuesday, but that has ceased to phase me. Internet may be spotty this week, but blogging feels normal, so I want to get an entry up on as regular a schedule as possible. The offline times are good for writing longhand, so I am not complaining at all. As much as I love winter, this has been a tough one, and I will not be that sorry to see it go. I am ready for a new season.

The title of today’s post comes from a discussion Real Life Romance Hero and I had earlier this week. We are pretty sure that the light at the end of the tunnel is not, this time, a train, so we are moving in that direction. That also means that the Patreon will indeed be a go, and, for the first time, setting up tiers doesn’t seem as scary as it once did.

This past weekend, I presented Play In Your Own Sandbox, Keep All the Toys, at Capitol Region Romance writers. I learned a couple of things. First, I really do need to use visual aids, for myself as well as the people taking the workshop. A dry erase board usually does the trick, and I probably should learn PowerPoint. I will add that to my list. The second thing I learned is that, when visually impaired, and knowing darned well one needs high contrast, do not attempt to work, in front of a group, from handwritten notes, if the only inks available are pink and turquoise.

Even so, I crazy love this workshop, and the CRRWA chapter, and I came away from the experience remembering how much I really do love writing romance. When I got home, a chapter was waiting for me from my contemporary collaborator, Melva, which has me excited to work on Drama King. I also need kick in the behind to get Her Last First Kiss back in action, because those pirate books are chomping at the bit. That’s part of what I’m taking care of this week.

I know how to do this. I know how to write books. I know how to write good books. This is the thing I wanted to do more than anything else in the world for as long as I can remember. It’s easy, though, to lose sight of that when life gets crazy, and boy howdy, has it ever this past year and change. I am hanging onto the “change” part. I have mad, mad, mad respect for the productivity of authors like Sandra Sookoo and Kathryn LeVeque, the staying power of Cynthia Wright and Kimberly Cates, and yes, there is most certainly a seat at that table for me. It comes by putting butt in chair (or passenger seat) and pen to paper and telling those stores. Dump from brain to page, rough and raw, and make it pretty later.

Right now, I am tired and stressed and hopeful, and very much in love with my chosen genre. I have added an ebook edition of the material for PIYOSKATT (pee-yose-cat? Pie-yose-cat?) as a Patreon perk for a middle tier, because now, it feels like a reachable goal, and actually kind of fun. Small online class offerings may also be in the offing, because I also crazy love teaching workshops, both on my own and with other talented author type people. It’s a good place to be.

see you next time

Typing With Wet Paws: Happy Valentine Edition

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Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and it’s Valentine’s Day. Aunt Anna is cramming for her workshop tomorrow, at Capitol Region Romance Writers, but only to a certain point, because there comes a time it is possible to overprepare, and it’s really better to shut that stuff down and play Sims. Better yet, play Mousie, with me. I have a signature move. It involves hiding under the bed, where the blanket hangs down, then when Mousie goes by, I pounce. Works every time.

Buried Under Romance has been on a little vacation, but Aunt Anna is back on the job, and there will be new content up ASAP. Since I already put the Goodreads update in my last post, there isn’t that much to update on that front, and I can’t recap her workshop until she gives it, so that does leave me with a certain amount of wiggle room. I am exceptionally good at wiggling.

Since Aunt Anna is all about the workshop for right now, maybe I will stick with that for a while. She’s not doing visual aids this time around, because we are still on the vsgabond track, and because she isn’t doing any exercises that require visual aids, but she is hoping to put some sipplemental material on either the chapter website, or her own. She is strongly thinking of turning the material for her online workshop into an ebook for her Patreon patrons, and, for that, she’s goling to need pictures that are not copyrighted (well, not to anybody who is not her) so she will need to take new ones. It is a tough job, but I may volunteer to be her model. What *isn’t* better with a beautiful calico girl? I mean, look at me. I’m stunning.

will work for tuna

One thing Aunt Anna likes to do at the start of this workshop is that it is *not* a workshop on how to write fan fiction. That might be a fun workshop to look into another time, but if she had to say only one things about that, it would be, “have fun.” Also make sure the characters are in characters. Okay, that is two things, but it is not this workshop.

What this workshop is, is a way to use the media a human already loves, to amplify their individual voice and abilities. Voice is how readers can tell who wrote the story. No two writers will write the same story the same way. Aunt Anna thinks that is pretty exciting. This is part of why the romance level is such a wide and varied place. It still has a way to go, but Aunt Anna is adamant that writers who follow their own hearts put the very best passion into their work, and readers can definitely tell.

How does a human find that voice? Aunt Anna said I can’t give away her secrets, but she did say I could share a link to a bunch of songs Spotify says she really, really likes. Can you see any common threads (apart from the holiday music thing, but that too) in this playlist here? https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1EpQ64htXwwvLs?si=aTSPRkcAQ0G3rATUOit9TQ

Huh. I thought that was a link. Hm. Hard to type with paws sometimes. If you copy and paste that link, it will work. Aunt Anna will try and fix the link once she comes up for air. We will see how that goes, but I will remind her. I do that by putting my paws on her leg while she is at work, and look soulfully into her eyes until she gets the idea. Usually this works when it is dinner time, but also when it is time for her to go to bed, but I think it will work in this case as well.

That’s about it for now, and my sunbeam is hitting the exact spot for premium nappage, so I am going to wrap this here and let Aunt Anna get back to business. Hope you are all having a good Valentine’s Day.

Headbonks!