Anna Carrasco Bowling's Blog, page 19

Typing With Wet Paws: Company’s Coming Edition

Tails Up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. This is a super special weekend coming, because Mama Anna gets to see Aunt Mary and Uncle Brian IN PERSON, and I get to meet them for the very first time. They have a dog at home (who will probably be staying home, but I can still smell him on them and will “meet” him that way. If I mark them (which I will) the he can learn all about me that way. It’s secret code we fur people have. Works pretty well.) Anyway, Mama Ann is doing a lot to get ready for this visit, which is actually pretty fun for her.

Part of that is getting presents ready. Even though one of the reasons is for Aunt Mary and Uncle Brian to help celebrate Mama Anna’s birthday, they are also covering other holidays that they were not able to see each other, due to the global situation, and then an early Christmas. This means there are probably going to be bags and boxes for me to play with, which is always good.

photo: Rheuben Bowling

Aunt Anna says nobody is going to catch her unawares on this whole visit thing, and I don’t blame her. This is kind of big, having company. She has always loved company, ever since she was a people kitten. Can you spot the baby extrovert here? Hint: that would be Mama Anna. Also me. I love friends, and I kind of know Aunt Mary from the weekly glowy box sessions. It will be fun to see if I recognize her. I bet that I will. I am predicting headbonks (from me) – my way of saying “property of Storm.”

One thing that Mama Anna is getting excited about is that Aunt Mary is going to bring a big bag (dibs on the bag!) of the kinds of books Mama Anna loves the very best: those big epic historical romances of um…a lot of cats ago. Mama Anna thinks that will go a long way to fixing her reader’s block. Also, she is looking forward to taking pictures of all the pretty covers and sharing those here. It’s also kind of coming full circle, because Mama Anna’s first exposure to historical romance novels would be many cats ago, when Mama Anna’s Aunt Lucy (I guess that makes her my Great Aunt Lucy) would visit Mama Anna’s Mama (Grandma Erma; I have to wait until Rainbow Bridge to meet here, and that is a very very long time away) and bring…you guessed it, a big bag of big, epic historical romances.

Mama Anna’s job was to take those bags of books to the laundry room and put them on a special shelf. She wasn’t allowed to read them yet (she would overstep that boundary soon) because she was too young, but she always looked at the covers and read the back blurbs and made up her own stories to go with those elements. Now she is getting back to writing them. Point is, aunts bearing bags of historical romance novels have a relly good track record around these parts.

What’s on tap for your weekend?

Headbonks!

Storm

Birthday Afterparty

Today is a sweatshirt over the pajamas, everybody home and relaxed, grey outside autumn day, which is exactly the ay I want to spend the day after my birthday. Yesterday was wonderful, and I have fun new stationery stuff to play with this afternoon. Housemate is putting together her new bedframe and possibly bookshelf. Real Life Romance Hero is maybe playing games or doing his online homework (not sure which) and Storm kitty is comfortably lounging in the middle of the people bed. We are subsisting on leftovers of yesterday’s takeout. In my case, add microwave popcorn. We have no needs to leave the house today, though Housemate allows she may venture out for trash bags, which, honestly, we need.

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The whole day has a Boxing Day (day after Christmas) feel to it, and I am totally okay with that. There may be some TV to stream later, while I set up at least my catchall planner for the week, though the others will probably have to wait on Monday. Housemate’s bed is literally made, which means no more mattress on the floor for her. The bookcase will wait until tomorrow. I am looking at a video meeting with Melva, for Queen of Hearts discussion later in the week, with another writer friend later, and then next weekend brings two of my besties coming from CT to have a combination friendiversary, Christmas and birthdays. Housemate’s vacation end on Wednesday morning, and RLRH being home today means he will likely be at work tomorrow. This means midweek looks a lot like a great time to return to writing. I am here for that, too.

One thing I have found curious as I caught up with a lovely acquaintance yesterday, that the biggest part of the whole getting back to (new) normal process is that the form of writing that came back the soonest is…journaling. I have taken a few suggestions from various sources to focus on specific subjects for particular entries have, basically, taken off like wildfire. Nobody is more surprised than me, because one of the topics suggested elicited the :red alert klaxon sound: because selfish! Which is not always a bad thing. Permission to think about that kind of stuff…it’s heady. It’s also headed directly for fiction, which I definitely welcome.

Another section is dedicated to listing not only authors and novels I like, but settings, character types, tropes, etc. Get me on that stuff, and I am off and running. Books in my genres, and books outside of them. This may in some point mean revisions to the Play In Your Own Sandbox, Keep All the Toys workshop, which is fine. I want it to evolve. Aforementioned bestie will be bringing with her a bag o’books, which gives me strong vibes of my first exposure to historical romance. That would be the paper grocery bags full of books my Aunt Lucy would bring to my mom, which Aunt Lucy and Uncle Pat visited from NJ. My job was to take the sack to the laundry room and shelve the books.

I wasn’t allowed to read the books yet (though that would soon change, when my mom bought a book in an actual store, that I could not resist) but I read the back covers, loved the art on the front covers, and created my own storylines (to the extent that my very young self could comprehend.) Those are extremely fond memories. I have a hunch that the bag o’books coming my way this weekend may have a similar flavor.

At least that’s the plan. How does your week look?

Typing With Wet Paws: Birthday Prep Edition

Tails up, Storm Troopers. I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. Zoom by edition this week because A) it is Aunt Linda’s vacation and Mama Anna is required for vacation shenanigans. We are now one week and only a few days away from one of the most important days of the year: Mama Anna’s birthday.

photo by Mama Anna

Mama Anna really, really, really loves birthdays. They don’t have to be hers, but it doesn’t hurt if it is. This time, it is. That is going to be big fun, I am sure. Hopefully with some boxes I can play with once Mama Anna gets the inside stuff out of them, so I can be the inside stuff. Next week, we are going to have company, as Aunt Mary, whom we see in the glowy box during every Wednesday chat, is coming to visit with Uncle Brian, to celebrate Mama Anna’s birthday, their friendiversary, and early Christmas all at once. I love meeting new friends. Mama Anna thinks I will probably recognize Aunt Mary, and she is probably right.

Purr-sonally, I think that Mama Anna can best celebrate by getting the adventure cave and taking me with her literally everywhere like she did for my first year with these guys, but she tells me that’s not how it works. We will see about that.

This week was kind of crazy because everybody was home for most of it, and Mama Anna works best when she has a door she can close and go about her business. Chats with creative friends helps, too. Mama Anna has been doing a bunch of journaling work, which she may talk about later. Because that is happening around her birthday, it involves a lot of stationery things, both already owned and new, and I am fully prepared to sit on all of them. Which of course means i am going to be very very busy. Better get to it.

Headbonks!

Storm

A Good Place To Be

Today is a lovely, chill, and grey Monday in October, which is to say exactly my kind of day. This may also be why it is almost three pm when I sit down to write this post. I spent all of the time prior alternating between setting up my planners and turbo napping. I am not exactly done with the plan-ification because I acquired a new planner this weekend, an early birthday gift from the friend who gave me my first Happy Planner, thus creating the monster that is now me.

The new planner is a “skinny” planner, same length but half the width of the classic version, which is here:

photo: Anna Carrasco Bowling

I haven’t taken any pictures of the new planner yet, (not this design, but this size) because A) I am still deciding how I want to use it, and B) I’m not decorating it until I figure out its purpose. The friend who gave it to me doesn’t use a planner, but uses this sort of planner as a notebook. I do know it’s the same theme as my catchall planner (the one above is my writing planner) and the coordinating sticker book. My friend says she likes that size for toting around in her purse, so I might try that. It also fits perfectly in the zip folio that would be bulky in my purse, but never felt right with anything else. I have also done squat all for months with the dot grid notebook (though it has delicious thick, smooth paper; I think I’m not a dot grid person) I put in there a few um, months ago.

I hate having partially used notebooks lingering in my possession, but they also aren’t exactly salable or re-giftable, so I am still figuring out what to do with that sort of thing. Maybe scrap paper? IDK.

There’s something about birthdays and planners and trackers and calendars and journals and that sort of thing. Combine that with an online workshop on resilience I am taking right now, which is highly relevant to my interests, of coming back into myself. I very much like knowing why somebody else likes something they like, and inviting me to experience it too, well, that’s special. It also still doesn’t bring me any closer to knowing what I want to use this new planner for, but eh, that’s kind of how I operate anyway. Jump in, splash around, and then sort it out in some sort of organic fashion.

That’s a heartening thought as I look at the writing week ahead, especially since it’s Housemate’s staycation. We do have some fun stuff planned, and some time set aside where she is doing her thing and I am doing mine, aka actually writing.

Ever since I started having weekly video chats with one of my besties, I have felt ever so much Anna-er. Ditto with the fledgling critique partnership I have with a local writer friend, also via video. Bonus points for said writer friend also being a big ol’ extrovert. I even have some pen and paper letters in the works, which is something I have always found both a necessity and a delight. It also means I get to dive neck deep into pretty stationery, pens, stickers, ephemera, et al. It’s a good place to be.

How is the start of your week looking?

If The Ears are on, I’m Working

It’s funny, the things we remember sometimes. This morning, when I set aside time to fully plan out my week (I hear the voice of an aunt in my head: “I don’t mind clutter, but I can’t stand chaos.” I may well be turning into my aunts, which is fine, because they were all awesome.) my brain informed me that the first time I knew (American) football was a fall sport was on my first day of maybe second or third grade, when a fall themed bulletin board included football imagery.

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The reason my brain thought I might like to know this was probably because I had laid down some autumn leaves scrapbook paper, because having an image on the page anchors my attention, making the actual planning a lot easier. Insomnia has been raging this past week, meaning that I do have some ground to recover, and planning is the way I figure out how that happens. Planning is also great for focusing on something that is creative but not storytelling creative, which gives that part of my brain some room to do its own thing without me in the way.

There’s also the fact that I can see my week laid out, mark the family days (two per week) that I will have a full house (not the tv show) so those are very unlikely to have writing time unless I leave the house. This is one reason I look forward to having a dedicated office, with a door I can close, in our next apartment, but we will be here for a while. Not at all complaining about that. I will make do with cat ear headphones. If the ears are on, leave me alone. This actually works because if eyes are on me, then I know I have to actually produce something.

For those who may be wondering, this post has nothing at all to do with football. I neither watch nor play, so it doesn’t affect me in any way I can relate. Why did it show up on my mental feed, then? I am not sure. Maybe because I am training myself to get back into writer mode, after being in survivor mode for so long. There is executive dysfunction, which is basically “I need to do the thing. I want to do the thing. I know how to do the thing. I have the stuff I need to do the thing. It is right over there. I should do the thing,” and then….not doing the thing. Gets annoying after a while, by which I mean immediately, and every time.

The only way through this kind of executive dysfunction with writing is to actually do the writing. Which means writing bad pages. Knowing that I am writing bad pages. Write bad pages until I write good pages. Lather, rinse, repeat. Feels like I have been doing that a lot lately. Probably boring and/or annoying people, because geez, get on with it, woman. Not always that easy, but there is indeed a path through. Insert the maxim about not comparing someone else’s chapter thirty to one’s own chapter five. Even if chapter five seems really long. It happens.

The point of al of this? Eh. An item off my list. Seeing things on a list, especially a visually appealing list, makes the Big Scary Task look and feel a lot more palatable. So. It’s here. So am I. I call that a win. Planner open at the ready, now off to Google Docs and some time with my imaginary friends.

How does your week look?

Anna

Typing With Wet Paws: Second Adopotiversary Edition

Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. This is a very special month, because it has a bunch of super fun stuff in it. Most importantly, though, this week sees my second adoptiversary, meaning I have completed two whole years of living with these guys. Before that, I was with my first mom, who did an amazing job of raising me as a happy, healthy kitty. I know she still loves me, and I still love her. She can see my pictures on Instagram, so she knows I am safe and happy.

pictures like this brighten anybody’s day

While that year long camping trip we went on to celebrate my adoption had its highlights, this week also means we start our second year of living in this apartment, and apartment living is definitely better. Even if the property manager, Mr. Kurt, did outsource pest control. Okay maybe it was the owner of the buildings, but still, am I a joke to them? Look at these teeth. Look at these claws. They don’t call them murder mittens for nothing. If there were a mouse in the house, I would have found it and brought it to Aunt Anna, whom I will now be calling Mama Anna (my first mom will be Mama D) because I love bringing her presents. Then again, the other apartments in our building don’t have cats, just dogs, so that could be part of it.

Anyway, since this is such a special week, Mama Anna said that I can talk about whatever I want. I don’t see how that is much different from every other week, because hey, I am a cat. That’s kind of how it works. For those of you who are wondering if I am calling the other humans anything different, Uncle Rheuben is now Papa and Aunt Linda is still Aunt Linda. I am not allowed outside, so I cant get them anything I would normally get. I don’t know what to do with stairs, anyway, and I can’t open doors that close all the way, so I do what I can.

I have to give the pest control human some props, because he did Psspsspss me. Of course I ignored him and went under the bed. He comes into my house and questions how I do my job? No thank you. He did recognize me as an Organic Pest Control Expert. I should give him some sort of professional courtesy. Though Aunt Linda now has to get a plastic container to put my dry food into. They sell that kind of thing where she works, which means it’s happening. If you think I am already thinking about ways I can open the lid, you are right. I like a challenge.

Mama Anna is occupying herself pretty well this week. She could do better on the reading front (mainly because if she does it on her tablet at night, in bed, I can sit on her shoulder and read along) but the writing is going well, and she is doing a stationery makeover/inventory/overhaul, which will include a…gasp…cull. I love this because that means there is more stationery laid out for me to lie on, especially when that is the particular thing she most especially needs. Speaking of which….

Headbonks!

Storm

The Importance of Stationery Nesting

Note: That is “stationery” nesting, as in nesting with stationery, not creating a nest that remains in one place, though that is probably a good idea, especially if young are involved.

Somewhere in our three room apartment, I have three, maybe four packs of my favorite discbound graph paper. There are not a lot of places this stuff could hide, but after a day of seriously whipping my writing area into shape (including but not limited to planner related things) I cannot find even one pack. This probably means that I put it where I thought it would be a logical place when I was tired or overwhelmed and a very poor judge of such matters.

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Since I am the only one who touches my planner/journal supplies and indeed the only one who goes into my writing area, the list of possible culprits is extremely small. Basically, me, aka I can only blame myself for this development. :looks at self reprovingly: I have no doubt that I will find them in the process of “putting like with like,” as my mother used to phrase it. I hated that term when I was a kid, but as we often find out when we have to start doing my own adulting, Mom was on to something. She would probably be dumbfounded that organizing and planning is one of my passions. Seriously, I have been used as a pole in a scale designed to measure how much someone likes planners/stationery, “on a scale of ‘hate it,’ to ‘Anna,’ how much do you like planning/stationery?” Probably on more than one occasion, but I witnessed the one,

As a dear once upon a time writing group facilitator once said, “the process begets the product,” and I have found that she was also right. In her case, that meant keeping the pen on the paper for the entire span of our writing sprints, but in this case, it means that I remembered where I put an important item I needed while repurposing a languishing notebook into something I actually will use, and rotating out seasonal things that do not jibe with this season. It meant that while I was making the bed, I wondered what would happen if I pre-cut the printable stickers I love, using my slicer, rather than cutting them out one at a time, fussy cutting with small scissors.

I have repurposed my Big Pink traveler’s notebook to focus on some mindful creativity exercises, as a composer I admire terms them. That means doing some hard work regarding what makes me tick as a creator. My pink A5 six ring binder is similarly now for keeping lists of my favorite authors, tropes, settings, etc. This will serve as a handy “hey, you like this stuff; maybe put some of that in there” reference for when I need such a reminder. Please note that is “when,” not “if,” because it will definitely happen. I have known myself for quite a while now, and I may have noticed a few patterns.

I am very happy to be at this stage because it means I am getting ready to Do Business with the writing stuff, and that feels frankly amazing after the last few years. Not that anybody waved a magic wand, but more a series of progressions and setbacks and a lot of little things that all lined up to get me to this place. I have even been thinking about NaNo. If I do go through with it, I will be a rebel (no surprise) but even if I don’t sign up officially, I love the idea of testing how much I can do this time around.

How are you nesting this season?

Scattered Monday Thoughts (but the writing is going well)

Heh. This is the funny kind of thing that happens when the writing is going well and one actually takes the time to do the week’s planning all at once. By “funny” I mean “completely forgets that this is Monday and “write blog” was right there on the top of the list. I was doing well on the rest of it, though, so a quick blabbery post and I will be back at it.

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The “it,” of course, being the writing of actual fiction, which is going in an actually-not-awful direction. This sort of thing does seem to be easier since I have been putting some time and attention to some specific-for-writers journaling thingamaboodles, which I will probably talk more about later. The weather is cool and rainy today. I am wearing real shirts and sweatshirt, but pajama bottoms, and am settled at my desk, after a morning spread out in the soft office (aka on the bed) with planner stuff and some of the YouTube stuff I’ve been meaning to listen to while I do it, feline companion comfortably settled within petting range.

I have the house to myself today. Well, technically, for about twenty to sixty more minutes as of this writing, which is when one or more family members will return. It is true what they say about home being the place that, when you have to go there, they have to let you in. I’m not too bothered by this because A) I love everybody who lives with me, and B) we already have dinner covered, meaning I do not have to cook. I will probably still be the one doing dishes, though, but I don’t mind that. Especially since we have a new set of lovely, grown-up dishes, meaning the stuff we hauled around with us for a year can go into storage and only come out for potlucks and picnics and that sort of thing.

Writing feels good today. Stopping when family arrives also feels good, because I’ve put in a decent day’s work. That feels well, good would be too bland of a word, so I will say me-ish instead. I do feel as though I am getting closer to myself, which is a rather nice sort of feeling to have, especially when my purpose here is to draw on that me-ness to make up stories and blog posts and other related ventures.

That’s probably enough free form babbling for today, especially because I want to get the rest of a scene transcribed before the evening (or prevening, as Sheldon Cooper would call it) settles in and attention turns to family members and filling the creative well. As of late, that has involved a lot of music (surprisingly heavy on the Glee covers, and no, I do not know why) and my new old faithful, listening to somebody summarize horror movies or games that I have no intention of seeing/playing, while playing a very normal suburban version of Sims 4.

trust me, in the background, a mellifluous voice is describing something horrible.

How is your week going so far?

Typing With Wet Paws: Sorry For The MIA Edition

Tails up, Storm Troopers! It’s October now, which means a lot of exciting things are happening. First of all, today starts our official second year in this apartment, something that makes us all extremely happy. I am not as pleased with the closed windows, because I got a surprise when I tried to jump into my window in Aunt Linda’s room. She says she is getting me a ledge. We will see. I do have an adoptiversary coming up, so that’s another good thing, and a good reason for her to come through with the ledge.

Aunt Anna’s birthday is also in October, one week before Halloween, so really, it’s a whole month of fun stuff. The one up side of the windows closing is that the property manager turned the furnace on yesterday, so now we can have heat. Also, Aunt Linda is going on vacation later in this month, so there will be some shenanigans. Of what sort, I do not know, but it will be fun whatever it is.

photo by Anna Carrasco Bowling

As you can see, I am quite comfy, and also hard at work at being Aunt Anna’s mews. With the stuff ahead of her, she’s going to need me. Yesterday, she had two video chats with different writer friends, and then the day before that, her weekly three hours with Aunt Mary. Aunt Anna is a social creature, so this kind of thing helps her a lot. She also is working on some exercises in making sure she pays attention to what helps her write things and what doesn’t. I of course, am close by because really, isn’t that the most important thing?

desk at golden hour
Anna Carrasco Bowling

That picture above is what Aunt Anna’s current desk setup looks like. She’s very happy with it, though she will be happier when her secretary desk comes home, which will probably be sometime during Aunt Linda’s vacation. That is probably when she will dig her very very favorite historical romance novels out of storage. Those go in the bookcase her father made for her when she was a baby baby. She might repaint them, though, because yellow is not her thing. Don’t blame her. It doesn’t complement my fur at all, so I very much support this idea.

Speaking of books, let’s check in with Aunt Anna’s Goodreads Challenge. As of this writing, she is as 81% of the way to her goal of 90 books in 2021, with 73 books under her belt. That is six books ahead of schedule, so feel free to give her a paw bop when she complains about not being able to read anything, because that is obviously not true. Even if it seems that way at the time.

I would not be surprised if the reading thing gets even stronger this month, because A) it’s October, B ) that sometimes means she gets books for her birthday, and C) she’s already listening to music again and thanks to Uncle Rheuben, she is even watching TV. Okay, streaming, but still. He made her watch Only Murders in the Building. It hits a lot of tropes that Aunt Anna loves, has a great cast (she was sold on Steve Martin and Martin Short, and the prewar apartments sold her without knowing anything else.

Hm, I think that’s about it for right now, but I will be sure to pop back in if I think of anything else, get new toys, or anything else interesting. Feel free to drop your recommendations for sourcing a good red dot in the comments.

Headbonks!

Storm

My New Horrible Hobby?

N

ow that it is officially autumn, things are falling into place. Pun intended. I have a snickerdoodle scented candle burning in the kitchen, my drink of choice toady is tea, and I am taking time to plan my week, including writing, and that important thing called reading. While I do this, I am listening to my background sound of choice recently – recaps of horror movies, and since I am starting to run out of the backlist of the YouTubers I follow in that genre, I have now added recaps of the storylines of horror video games.

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This might seem like a strange choice, seeing as how my genes that I write are historical and contemporary romance, and my favorite genres to read are historical romance and contemporary YA fiction. There is a small tie in on that last one, though, because I do like a good YA thriller. I usually want to change the ending, though, and I do believe that there are romances (largely including mine) that could benefit from a tinge or two of horror. You know I like it gritty. Even so, I don’t watch horror movies. I don’t play horror games. Well, for the most part.

When I played games on the Choices app, I did play It Lives in the Woods, and got all characters to the end alive, (but for the one that…um, it’s complicated) so yay me. If you like spooky atmosphere that lands an emotional punch, and like phone games, I would recommend giving it a try. There was a sequel, and I did play it, but it didn’t stick with me the same way, and I don’t recall if I even finished it. I don’t play any phone games at moment. I have Stardew Valley and West of Loathing (honestly, I never thought stick figures would be this much fun) as well as Sims 2 and 3, both of which are held captive on my dead desktop.

The only game I am playing right now is Sims 4, but heavily modded, default-replaced, custom content filled, and as of this weekend, all premades nuked and replaced by Sims I have either made or downloaded from the galleries of Simmers I follow on social media. No, there cannot be violence in The Sims, but there are vampires and ghosts, and Sims can and do die, sooo…not really an issue though as I mainly play regular people type games. Families living their lives, chasing their goals, forming relationships.

This sounds an awful lot like writing. I freely acknowledge this. Case in point, though the creator of Deception Pass has not continued the story in Sims 4, they are giving it a graphic novel treatment, and I can tell you now, I will be All Over That. Such is the power of storytelling in Sims. I am convinced that it is helping me get back into my own writing mojo, though my Sims games would make for extremely boring fiction, and the stories I write would be difficult to play in Sims of any incarnation (there are four so far) but it still works well enough.

So why the horror? In part, it’s the voices of the presenters. The sound of a voice means a lot; if the voice isn’t working for me, I don’t care what they’re talking about, I’m out. The other part is that I find it fascinating how intricate some of these plots can be, how emotionally deep they go, and in the end, it’s al about facing our fears. Do my romance characters have to deal with fears that threaten their chance at HEA? Oh yes.

In case there is any confusion, psychological horror yes, splatter, heck no. If there is any sort of historical aspect, my ears prick, especially if they have an effect on whatever the present day of the story might be. That is very much something that can carry over into romance, only the endings are hopeful instead of horrific. Though there may well be horrors along the way, they aren’t the end all and be all, as my mother would say. The love relationship is, and I am more than okay with that. (Also, I don’t kill off companion animal characters.)

What’s your take on horror?