Anna Carrasco Bowling's Blog, page 25

New (Clickey-keyed) Kid in Town

Still working the bugs out of this new laptop, but I think we are going to get along fine. I’ve spent most of the day setting things up and writing down passwords, figuring out what the low vision options are (and my, my, are they welcome) Right now, I am at the kitchen table, writing my very first blog post on the new baby.

Photo by Anthony Shkraba on Pexels.com

Not going to lie; unboxing a new madhine doe scome with its trepidations. Am I going to figure this out? Oh, the files to copy over. What did theychange? What did they come up with that’s new since the last time I did something like this? I’m not too worried about this, actually, as I seem to be doing a lot of it these days. Not only because it’s spring, but because I am starting to really, truly believe, things are going to be okay. Having a computer I didn’t lug around in the back seat of our car for a year kind of goes along with all of that.

It seems there is a turn your blog into a podcast thingamaboodle that may be a new option, and I might be up for trying that in the not too distant future. If there is one thing I like to do as much as I like to write, it’s okay, plan. If there is one thing I like to do as much as write and plan, it’s talk. A lot. Those who know me in real life will not be surprised. Part of being an extrovert is that we tend to think and talk at the same time, so “be quiet” is often very close to “don’t think.” Writing seems like a very reasonable workaround, as it’s like talking on paper, real or digital.

One of the reasons I wanted to get a new laptop, besides up to date technology and protability, it’s that it has a front facing camera and built in microphone, which ara ll one technically needs to jump into this multimedia thing. Expect to see me try a few different things now that we have the technology. We’ll see what sticks, and I am certai that the process of finding out what sticks will be an adventure all its own.

Naturally, the main reason there is a new laptop in the house is that it’s for writing. Writing is the thing I’ve most wanted to get back to on a regular basis. Having a new machine free of old mistakes and drafts that petered out is a nice change of pace. Not that there won’t be such things in the future. As a matter of fact, I am counting on it.

This is a ramblier post than I had hoped to write, because there are oodles of things that need installing and updating and transferring. There’s deciding how badly I want Scrivener on this machine, because that will require digging into the wayback of the sbook with not only the codes but instructions. Maybe the desktop will stay out of storage torage unit for my storage unit, but that’s also where my classic keeper historicals are (I think) so it might be worth the aggravation. I’ve mostly been using GoogleDocs and that seems to work pretty well, so I am not in a hurry.

Maybe that not being in a hurry thing might be useful in the whole writing plan. Take the page in front of me for what it is and do the best I can with it, then on to the next. I’m still not sure if I’m going to do CampNaNo this year, though I think I’d like to, but zero idea what project I woul dlike to use. What I want the most, though, is to find the modern version of the way it felt in college, to race back from the last class of the day and park myself at my typewriter (yes, dating myself, but that’s okay. I like me.) and furiously pound keys because the story kept coming and coming and coming.

Granted, I was seventeen and didn’t know any better. I don’t have that manuscript any longer. If it exists anywhere, it is at the bottom of a trash heap. Probably where it belongs, because there were a lot of rookie mistakes in that one. Still some of them in what I produce thesse days, but that feeling of running to the keys, that I think I can find within my reach. Doesn’t help that said reach is rose gold with black keys, aka exactly what I would have designed if given free reign to make the prettiest laptop I could imagine.

We will need to spend a lot of time together, this new gal and I. We’ll make some missteps, have some fun, and boldly go (yeah, Star Trek reference) where no romance novel (at least none I have written before) has gone before.

about time for a new signoff pic; it’s a work in progress

Plan B and Other Stories

For the last few nights, my brain has been throwing some killer slumber-less parties, with me as the guest of honor. It is not my favorite thing. Being awake at night is different from being awake during the day, and while reading is sometimes possible, especially listening to audiobooks, or letting the robo-voice in my Kindle app turn any book into an audiobook, writing, well, that’s a different story. Pun intended.

Planner fatigue?

We will start with the planner aspect, because I am definitely a planner. Normally, I like to take time on Sunday afternoon to plan out the week ahead. This week, I did plan on Sunday, but the current lined vertical layout, eh, no. Done. Over it. I ended up taking blank pages of a vertical layout from an old planner, glued them to the lined vertical pages that glared at me, and then followed a YouTube tutorial to design the layout. it’s pretty functional rather than decorative, but I am okay with it.

I also took a picture of it, but can I remember what file I saved it to? Nope. I have absolutely zero doubt that I will find it when looking for something else, so I will trust in that outcome and keep going forward.

Photo by Ono Kosuki on Pexels.com

The worst part about a week like this is that I had to postpone my weekly chat with Melva Michaelian. I like to be current on my assignments when we meet, so moving that back a couple of days and spreading the backlog over those in-between days, should make things a lot more manageable. There’s also figuring out which family members will be home when, when we want to handle some adulting things, like housecleaning, recycling, and quality time, because I actually like the people who live with me, so that is a very good thing.

When my brain gets all oogy, as Real Life Romance Hero puts it, making lists helps me a lot. Focus on one thing at a time. Why am I feeling uncomfortable about that? What could I do to make any degree of change in that matter? How would I like it to look, ideally? There are definitely medical and spiritual components, but I’m focusing on the mental parts for right now.

Taking those couple of weeks away from planning in my catchall planner were not a good idea, even though it felt okay in the minute. Planner fatigue is a real thing, but it doesn’t have to be a block in the road. I like a lot of different kinds of planners. Try a different format, et viola. Stop fretting about what isn’t working, turn to something I know does work, and see if that gets me somewhere better.

This time, it kind of did. Housemate has her staycation this week, so we are scheduling how to best manage the days when there are two adults in one apartment, and even the days when there will be three. Real Life Romance Hero has his days off as well, so there are going to be days when I will, most likely, have to put on the hot pink cat ear headphones and put on the flashing ear lights. That’s our family signal for I Am Working On Writer Stuff. Do. Not. Disturb. Or. Else. Do Not Fight Me; You Will Not Win.

Because I love writing. I really, really, really do. Even when I am tired. Even when I am super tired. Planning helps. Pretty stuff helps. Tea helps. Remembering why I do this, remembering that it’s the kind of work I have wanted to do since I was but a wee little princess, and my best shot at being the me-est me that ever there me’d, well, that goes a long, long way.

do I need a new signoff pic? Because I think I need a new signoff pic.

Typing With Wet Paws: Ides of March Edition

Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. It’s a sunny day here in NY’s Capitol Region, and Aunt Anna is doing writer stuff, so you are going to have to enjoy a greatest hits picture of me for now. She will probably take new pictures later in the weekend, but that’s okay, because I am gorgeous all of the time.

I look this good every nap

So anyway, things are in full spring cleaning mode around here. The humans are also using words like “truck” and “storage” and “floor space.” There is talk of furniture coming in, which probably has something to do with Aunt Anna promoting the kneeling chair to cat tree. I am not sure, however, if I am allowed to still like the kneeling chair if it is not Aunt Anna’s work chair any longer. Must check the kitty code on that one. She and Uncle Rheuben are also saying “storage” a lot, and sometimes with bad words. They really don’t like piles of things out in the open. I think piles are interesting but what do I know?

Aunt Anna has been fighting the insomnia monster the last couple of nights. On the one paw, I don’t like to see her not feeling great. On the other paw, midnight parkour partner! On the other other paw, sleepless nights mean she will crash in the daytime, and then she will be grumpy if she sleeps through the morning. On the other other other paw, awake Aunt Anna does make midnight snacking a lot easier, and sometimes she even joins me. Well, she eats people food, but it still counts.

Photo by Lina Kivaka on Pexels.com

Aunt Anna’s Goodreads Challenge is moving along at a very nice pace. As of this writing, she is 32 percent of the way to her goal, with 29 books read out of 90. That puts her 10 books ahead of schedule. Right now, she’s reading a lot of YA thriller/horror, but she’s thinking that maybe she might want to lay off that particular flavor before bedtime. That’s okay, since it gives her more time to dedicate to historical romance. I don’t care what genre she reads before bed as long as she cuddles me, so we are okay either way.

Photo by Anthony Shkraba on Pexels.com

On the writing front, she is full up on editing and revisions, which is okay by her. She really doesn’t hate that kind of thing. Some writer friends find that unusual, but whatever. She’s hit a part in Drama King where she gets to add some more detail to things that she was only able to sketch out when she and Aunt Melva were writing the first draft. As Aunt Melva said in their chat this week (which I sat in on, by the way; it was awesome) writing is a lot easier for Aunt Anna when she has a regular home and her computer is set up all the time. Aunt Anna has to agree.

Aunt Anna did not mean to take a break from her edits on A Heart Most Errant, but she will be back to those in the coming week.; There aren’t a lot of them, and when she is done with that, she can send it back to her editor for formatting and cover art and all of that good stuff, and then it will be time to launch her first historical romance in coughty-cough years back out into the world. Scary and exciting to be sure, but it’s forward movement and she is all about that. Maybe this year’s spring will be kind of a second autumn. She’s already getting excited about writing in the park on nice days, while scoping out baby ducks. She says I wil have to stay home, because because I am apparently an “indoor cat,” but I can get my outdoor fix by sitting in the open windows and sniff and watch everything, with zero chance of getting lost. Win win, pretty much.

There is still time to figure out what Aunt Anna wants to do about Camp NaNo this year, but she is kind of leaning toward yes, because A) she can set her own goals, and B) she is in one of those Write All The Things moods, and it’s usually good when she leans into that particular skid.

Anyway, Aunt Anna says it is time to get off “her” computer (maybe I will have more computer time when the new laptop gets here and she has two computers) so she can do more of that writer stuff.

Headbonks!

The Me-est Me That Ever There Me’d?

Two days without using the folding chair, and my back pain is gone. I think we may have found the culprit. I put the monitor on top of a plastic shoe storage box (blush pink to match other desk things) and increased the font size, and now working at the computer is a lot more comfortable, which makes it possible to stay there longer, which makes doing things like sitting in front of the keyboard, blogging, editing, and transcribing, a whole lot easier. Also less painful and squinty. I can go for less painful and squinty. To be clear, that is less painful and less squinty, not less painful but still squinty or more squinty. Nobody wants any of that

Photo by Maria Gloss on Pexels.com

I’m not going to try and duplicate the vanished post here, because that one was straight off the cuff, due to my being insomnia’s chew toy for two days straight. That sort of thing irritates me anyway, and leads to overthinking, of which I have already done far too much for a lifetime. I don’t think -in fact, I know- I am not the only writer prone to this sort of thing. It’s more of an occupational hazard.

The kitchen chair with cushions thing isn’t permanent. We have one office chair in storage, and may potentially snag another one like the above, as I will need one chair for my computer desk and one for my secretary desk, an antique I have loved since I was two. I have said before that I have drooled over it since I was two, and before that drooled on it, as my parents got it before they got me. Fitting, I think that a historical romance writer do her longhand work on a relic from the past.

Fitting also that we are looking into a new laptop, because I also write (well, co-write, with the fabulously talented Melva Michaelian) contemporary romance and the days of typing manuscripts one page at a time and sending them off in manuscript boxes are long in the past.

There’s also the plans for the great stationery purge, which does not include chucking it all into the metaphorical sea, but making sure that I keep the stuff I love and use, and that it all looks like it belongs to the same person. Keeping things “on brand,” if you will, because things are moving forward and I have one of those, whether I know it or not, and knowing is the better option.

This week is the second week in a row that I have taken off from planning in my catchall classic planner.

Not that I don’t still love it, because I do, but because I am over the whole re-dating every single month and week and day. That’s not fun, that’s tedious, and I would rather use that time doing something that moves me forward. Which means I will be purse planner only for the second half of the month, unless I want to experiment with some printables or bullet journal style, and then go to an undated expansion for May and June, then, July, BOOM, new planner. Which I may be obtaining in the next few days. This means excitement for this planner geek, and to know that the planner I am planning on has completely neutral pages, so I can do anything I want to make them the me-est me that ever there me’d, well, that’s a good thing.

That’s where I am headed, across the board. For writing, oh definitely so. The stories I have to tell now are different than the stories I had one, two, ten, years ago. Then again, there are stories that have been waiting for literally decades, tapping their toes in restrained impatience. One day, they’ll break free of the restraints (and if it is my hands that untie the knots, so be it) and we will meet upon the page and the adventures will be glorious. Until then (and after then) it’s one foot in front of the other. This fits, that doesn’t. What I feed, lives.

I don’t have to be any of the authors who inspired me to begin writing, or those who inspire me to keep going. I don’t have to compare myself to long-established superstars or bright young things. I only have to compare myself to me, an write the best story I can, from where I sit, right now. That, I can do.

Cat Trees and Kneeling Chairs

Last night, I promoted the kneeling chair I have been using since the 90s from office chair to cat tree. This was a difficult decision. Somewhere deep in the storage unit, I do have a more traditional office chair, a gift from a local writer friend two moves ago. We will be digging it out, but probably not until my back stops twinge-ing, I am not sure exactly what the cause of this back pain is, but the most likely culprit is the kneeling chair.

Photo by Anthony Shkraba on Pexels.com

I still love the dratted thing. I bought it decades ago, with money I earned from working retail. I probably paid more than I should have for it, but A) it was my money, B) a favorite author/writing inspiration had that same model chair and loved it, and C) it was (and is) pretty darned cool. It is, however, old enough to own property, join the military, get married without parental consent, and drink. It has probably wanted to do exactly that over the years we have been together, and it deserves its retirement as Storm support. (Unless Storm decides she no longer wants the chair now that it is not my office chair anymore. She is a cat, after all.)

Real Life Romance Hero moved one of the kitchen chairs in to take the place of the kneeling chair. I like the straight back, and I am already feeling the change in how using the computer physically feels Back support for the win. While I do believe there is a lot of truth in the proverb that a poor workman blames his tools, I am also fully aware that having good tools does’t hurt.

That’s largely where we are in a lot of things in the Annaverse. (Is that a thing? I say it’s a thing, and I rule the Annaverse, so now it’s law.) We have been in our apartment for six months now, so half as long housed as we were unhoused, and believe me, we are insanely delighted to be able to say that. It’s time to not only put down roots, but to make sure those roots are the right roots for the lives we want to live. For me, that means embracing life as a writer of romance and romance related blabber, and making sure that I have what I need to do that job most effectively.

Thankfully, for me, that means making a lot of lists. I would take a picture of the papers and binder discs that are scattered all over the stripped bed right now (housemate is off doing mega laundry; she is a superhero) but my back says that is not an advisble move with the angles I would have to put myself. Sitting in a straight backed chair is good, though, and lying on my side in a pillow fort is good, too. Fortunately, those are both writing positions of choice. So far, so good.

Research is underway to get a new laptop PC. We have become, over the last couple of years, the laptop graveyard> I am not going to give up on the vintage MacBook Pro, but the others, well, those probably are best suited to recycling. The HP laptop with no H key, and the screen that folds all the way back when it wasn’t designed to fold back at all; the hot pink laptop that I still love but which screen won’t show anything unless I I lie flat on my back and hold the screen at an angle that is best described as three-quarters closed. This is probably a severed wire, and probably an easy fix. We will see. RLRH also has his share of laptops that have gone to that great power strip in the sky. I can’t play Sims on that one, though, and that’s become essential. Hence the research. Writing and Sims. I know my priorities.

We may also be doing some research into office chairs, and/or pick up an interim chair in case the chair in storage won’t fit in the back of Housemate’s car, and will need to wait for when we rent a van and move the “real” furniture home. Furniture comes from a variety of sources. Parents’ homes, secondhand, locally sourced, brand new, and the nebulous area of me finally deciding that the best way to incorporate the hammered copper topped coffee table my grandfather made when my dad was little is to repurpose it, maybe as a dresser topper, or maybe with a new set of legs, to serve as a dining table or desk. We will see. I know I want my secretary desk, that I have been in love with since I was about four, for my longhand pursuits, and then pick everything up and take it to a separate computer desk when it’s time to transcribe.

Storm, as always, supervises it all.

As for the writing, my plans to jump right into it this morning snagged on getting the mega laundry ready to head out, with a pause for my weekly conference with Melva. We talked about the audio complications that kept our interview from going as well as we all wanted, how an offhand joke will make a great scene for our planned Christmas collection. That will probably go into the notebook I am setting up for my collaborations with Melva, most likely in index card format. Getting stuff down in the quickest away possible and filing it away works well for me to get the thought where it belongs and letting me focus on the work I need to be doign now.

I am very much into “now” right now. What can I do now? What works best for me now? What do I need right now? What is no longer serving its purpose and needs to move on along so it doesn’t become a stumbling block? What have I put away that I really need to bring back out because I miss it and want it and it’s part of the bigger picture and always has been? There’s a lot of stuff like that.

For today, getting this blog post up, even if it’s a big blob of blather, was essential. I don’t need the guilt of a missed blog post dogging me into writing time or family life, and consistency is something I want to improve. Hence this, and also trusting myself and my words, hence stopping it here and moving along to the next thing on my list for the day.

Typing With Wet Paws: Mental Health Day Edition

Tails up Storm Troopers. I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. This is an unusual day as everybody’s mental health days seem to have coincided, so this will be more of a zoom-by post. I am super good at zoomies, as Aunt Anna can tell you, especially in the middle of the night. Woo!

Writing this week did not go as planned, but that’s what next week (and an especially beautiful writing assistant) is for. In the meantime, time to relax and take in and give belly rubs (to me) and all of that other good well filling stuff.

Aunt Anna and Aunt Melva’s video interview would have made a great sitcom episode, as Aunt Anna, famous for technology problems, had a lot of sound issues, and, well, basically got to sit there and look pretty.

Aunt Anna cleans up pretty good.

There was some insomnia involved, aka Aunt Anna being up to join me in Midnight Parkour for a couple of nights, and then this morning, the crash. That means she took a big nap, and now feels pretty okay, but still needs to read and watch and play stuff before she can do much braining. It also means, that since both Uncle Rheuben and Aunt Linda are also tired, that all of the humans are staying in tonight and getting pizza and then “being feral cats” as they say. I have never been a feral cat, myself, as I was born in a house (with a LOT of cats, as my first mom says) and went directly to my first mom and then to these guys. When I had my walkabout last summer, there were a couple of feral cats in the area I wandered, but we didn’t talk much. The possums were cool, though.

So anyway, what we get here is Aunt Anna helping me with this post and then she is going to flop on the bed to catch the cross breeze from two open windows (it is very very nice spring-like weather here in NY) and relax with the whole family. I, of course, am very very good at relaxing. Well, not at Midnight Parkour time, but most of the rest of the time.

Anyway, Aunt Anna plans on a bunch of reading, and since she just got some new library e-books, plus she has Kindle Unlimited, that is going to be all set. Nice mixture of historical romance and contemporary YA. I am unsure of the number of cats involved in any of those stories. There will also be some planning involved, maybe a new planner because the academic calendar ones are starting to show up on store shelves, and most exciting of all, it will be new laptop time. Aunt Anna has a history with laptops (see her incompatibility with technology above) but things like her Kindle Fire not being that great for Zoom conferences and such, it is time for a new device, with a camera and a microphone, which means she may as well give the You Tube thing another try, because there are not a lot of historical romance Book Tube channels, and none that Aunt Anna has seen by kids her own age, so that’s a hole in the market that she might like to fill. I’ll let her talk more about that later.

Checking in with Goodreads, that shows us that Aunt Anna is currently kicking tush and taking names in her reading challenge for 2021, with 26 books read out of 90, putting her 29% of the way to her goal, and a full 9 books ahead of schedule. Go, Aunt Anna, go! I am pretty sure that my cuddling with her at reading time is a big, big help with all of that. I will continue to do my part.

Shouldn’t be long now before the pizza, and I will of course be needed to supervise everything, so I am going to bounce (seriously, I have a very sproingy trot) and get down to business. Headbonks!

Book Juggling and Other Stories

Back in the before-before-before times, I had a reading system. I read one historical romance and one Star Trek tie-in novel at a time. Well, that was the plan. I have been known to juggle historicals, especially when they were in different eras (ie one Tudor, one Edwardian, etc) and my Trek involvement centered on The Next Generation, as I was active in that fandom then. That was also the time when my book shopping happened much more in person, with an array of options. Waldenbooks was my favorite, with Borders, Chapters, and some other :gestures vaguely: and then the Aladdin’s cave of used bookstores (I miss those with a pain in my heart) and the thrill of combing through the ever changing shelves (crawling around on the floor to check out the stuff under the bottom shelf was the best part.)

Photo by Ekrulila on Pexels.com

On a good day, I could spend hours combing through the historical romance section alone. I’d have my list of books from authors I loved, plus looking for covers by my favorite artist, Elaine Duillo, and keeping an eye out for the historical eras I loved the most. Tudor was at the top of the list, and by Tudor, I mean historical romances about original characters, set in the Tudor era, not fictionalized biographies. The seventeenth century is right up there, too, with the English Civil War, the Lord Protectorate, and the glorious, bawdy, turbulent Restoration era, with women on the stage and gorgeous aesthetics (plus the origin of Cavalier King Charles Spaniels) and then we go into the whole Georgian era, but nipping out before the Regency, and then back in for the turn of the 20th century, on either side of the pond.

I loved the variety, the pirates, the revolutionaries, one particularly memorable Basque shepherd, Vikings, Highlanders, knights, highwaymen, and ticket of leave men, – and any of the above could be the heroines, too. I loved the variety, the scope, and the fact that I could easily read one book, get a definitive HEA, and move right along. Not that there weren’t series as well, because there certainly was, and of those, my favorite was the generational saga, where Heroine One might be the mother of Heroine Two, grandmother of Heroine Three, and so on.

I loved seeing heroes and heroines I already loved at different stages of their lives together, as parents, as grandparents, and my particular favorite tropes for the younger generations were when the young ones either think that their parents or grandparents couldn’t possibly understand what it meant to be young and in love with a mad, burning passion, or on the other side of the coin, when the kids grew up seeing the grand passion between their parents, and wondering if there could ever be something like that for them…and then there was. :happy sigh:

:hugs physical book:

Back the, I could always count on Romantic Times magazine to clue me in on the newest upcoming historicals, and give me insights into books in other subgenres that might tickle my interests. Time was, traditional Regencies were their own category (really, they were) and romance writers of a certain age may well remember the big kerfluffle if there were a place under the umbrella for mainstream fiction with strong romantic elements (including but not limited to love stories that do not have a HEA.)

Times have changed. There is no physical romance fiction magazine anymore as far as I know, at least not one available in Barnes and Noble, which is now the only chain bookstore I can get to with any regularity. I also can’t remember the last paperback I bought in a bookstore. Best I can say is it was in the before times. My Trek involvement now is confined to the video essays by a few favorite YouTubers. Contemporary YA has taken the place in my reading habits that Trek tie ins used to have, and I am finding that there are the settings I love out there, but it may take some digging to find them.

It’s not an entirely bad change. I love that I can carry around thousands of books at once, in my Kindle, and the Kindle app on my tablet. I love that I can have a robo-voice turn any e-book into an audiobook. I love that there are new authors on the scene, and that the advent of indie publishing means that everybody has a chance to get the kind of story they love out there for readers who are combing the interwebs for it, if not bottom shelves of used bookstores. Heck, I’m even moving in that direction myself with A Heart Most Errant.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, only that this is what came out of my fingers as I started this entry. Last night, I read a book my library app filed under YA thriller. The story was mm, not for me, though I loved the idea and the visuals, and the stuff that worked for me is probably simmering in idea soup somewhere on the back burner. What I remembered most was that, after the that’s the ending? ending, my first thought was “yep, need a historical romance novel now,”

Which I do. I have one historical I missed the first time around, back in the before-before-before times, plus a new release that I can’t wait to get to., I’m also keeping my eyes peeled for YAs with creepy old houses in remote locations. Getting some definite gothic vibes from those selections. Mmmm, gothics.

homer simpson drool gif – Bing images Anna

Typing With Wet Paws: In Like a (Calico ) Lion Edition

Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws;. It has been a full year now since the Before Times, which gives people a lot of feels. I recommend kitty cuddles as remedy. One year is a whole third of my life (give or take; we don’t know my actual birthday, so we are celebrating it the same as Big Sister Skye’s, February 14th, because I was probably born thereabouts anyway.)Aunt Anna finds that kitty cuddles, journaling, and Sims are really good ways to cope. Also reading and writing romance novels.

this is me last year; am I a grownup now?

Now that it’s March, Aunt Anna is looking forward to when the new spring planners are released, because this re-dating everything every month is for the birds. (mmm, birds) She finds that dating undated stuff is a lot easier than red-dating wrong-dated stuff. I am not sure how that works out because humans are complicated. I think they could use some jingle balls. Those always work for me. Especially at 3AM. New planner things come out in June. She will either get a brand new pre-dated one, or use undated printables. There was an incident on Monday regarding the whole re-dating thing. Aunt Anna knows a lot of words.

dashboard vs vertical layout
big/letter size/vs classic/composition size

Aunt Anna obviously has time to figure things out, and she has a lot of options, so expect some flailing about and then settling on the right thing right under the wire. That’s how she works. That goes for writing as well as planning. I am used to it by now.

One of the planner things Aunt Anna has not yet settled on is her reading tracker. I mean, she has the notebook she wants, and the printables, but she hasn’t gotten around to printing or having them printed yet, so maybe something else will work better for now? Right now, she is using Goodreads, so let’s see how she is doing on her challenge. As of today, she has read 23 books out of her goal of ninety. That puts her at 26 percent of the way to her goal, and 8 books ahead of schedule. Well done, Aunt Anna.

Buried Under Romance had to take a break last week. There have been a lot of breaks, which is a good indicator that there are new and exciting things to do with that blog, coming very soon. That’s a fun way to think about it, rather than frustrating herself.

On the home front, it has been interesting. We have had super cold days, super windy days (I am glad we live inside!)some nice days, and the smoke alarm went off when Uncle Rheuben tried to reheat a lasagna. He also fixed two different sinks that did not like the cold weather. Aunt Anna says that is because this is an older building and the pipes don’t like winter. Well, winter is almost done, and it will soon be time to sit in open windows and chatter at birds. Not sure the humans are going to do the chatter at birds part, but it couldn’t hurt to try. Aunt Anna and Uncle Rheuben think it would be fun to take me out in a cat stroller, but Aunt Linda is concerned that I might go out on another solo adventure, which is a valid concern. Not that being out by myself was that great.

That should be about it for now, so I will leave you with this picture of me totally not plotting with Esme.

Esme and me, totally not planning anything

Headbonks!

Spring Thaw?

This past weekend, I had a raging case of insomnia, felt-like-subzero temperatures, two clogged sinks, one smoke alarm that is lasagna-sensitive, one pair of glasses gone walkabout (and then brought back home) an opportunity to improve family communication, two power outages in the same day, and a general feeling of swamp-edness. In short, pretty much what one would expect for the end of February.

Photo by Jill Wellington on Pexels.com

All of this did tospyy-turv-i-fy my plans to kick butt and take names in the realm of double edits, and, after a talk with the magnificent Melva, sticking a toe into new writing for Queen of Hearts. :Ulp: This week also brought a-in retrospect, hilarious- DM conversation with a person inviting me to present a virtual workshop for Organization A, when I thought they were asking for Organization B, Oopsie. Thankfully, both parties were able to laugh about it, and there are now not one but two workshops in my reasonably near future, one in April, and one in one of the autumn months. More details on those as they are confirmed. Having a workshop to give in April makes up, to some degree, not being able to attend a regional RWA conference in person, like I did in the Before Times. Hopefully soon, we will be in the After Times, and I will once again be picking our conference shoes and packing an extra bag to bring home all the free swag and signed books.

Right now, I am looking at doing my start of week planning (writing related) in the middle of the week, which feels…weird. Chalk it up to the change of seasons. Before Times Me would be inclined to say “eh, this far into the week, write it off (no pun intended) and slack until Monday, then come out of the gate swinging.” Not going to lie, that option is still appealing. Especially so, since Real Life Romance Hero has the windows open, for some gorgeous fresh air, which we definitely couldn’t do back when the temperatures were in the single degrees. Welcome to March in New York.

March in New York means that leaving the house requires a few special considerations. Bring along your parka, bikini, umbrella, sunblock, hair ties (if your hair is long, because wind is brutal) plus sunglasses, a sweater or three, rain boots, and a travel mug that can handle hot and cold beverages, because there will be times during the day when you will want both. Possibly both at the same time, but we can’t have everything. Before I know it, there will be baby ducks i n the lake in the park that is a few minutes’ walk down the street. No Tulip Festival this year, because Covid, but I am expecting the flowers to be there anyway. Things are coming back, and I am happy to see them come as they will.

One thing that came back, unexpectedly, was watching TV. I binged the third season of Disenchantment. The end of that season came far too soon, so I am now in the position of finding another show to do the same thing, but this is why I set up my catchall journal/commonplace book with lists of shows and movies I want to see on the streaming services we have. Actually, there are a couple of titles I need to add. Maybe reading historical romance will be next. I did, however, finish Maya Rodale’s Dangerous Books For Girls , which is nonfiction about the stigma against romance novels, and where it came from, as well as how to handle it. Working on a review of that, but I do want to look through my reference books in storage and find some of my older books about the romance genre. Some things are wildly different than they were in the 80s and 90s, and some things never change. I have thoughts about all of it.

Spring is also time to check out all of the new pastel and floral stationery things that are coming out, beause pretty stationery makes me want to use all of it, which works out well when I am writing and editing a lot of things. Which is what I am doing, come to think of it. April is Camp NaNo, after all, and I think I want to participate this year. We’ll see how it goes. Sometimes preparing a project notebook is like getting a garden ready for planting season. At least that’s what I remember from what my mom used to do in the spring.

Spring is not my favorite season, but I do like the aspect of coming back to life, which is very much in line with a lot of my, well, life, these days. I don’t hate that. Also, I have hot pink kitty ear headphone with lights, so those alone are a fun reason to gt back to the keyboard. Pictures forthcoming.

Anna

How Double Revisions Are Going

Three days into the (first) week of double revisions/edits, and, so far, things are going…okay. I think this will actually work itself out without too much fuss, and I am more than ready for that kind of deal. I am doing some adjusting of what I can most efficiently do when, but, overall, it’s feeling like fun rather than a chore. I think that’s the whole goal, so calling things good for now.

this is my command center

Having the amount of pages I intend to edit/revise does break things down into manageable chunks, and writing down where I left off at the end of a session means I don’t have to lose valuable time in figuring out what I did yesterday and where to pick up today. I like organization and keeping records, so this is kind of a no brainer. It’s also fun to see the different forms my record keeping/planning takes, visually appealing, it’s much more likely I am going to want to reference that page. Not going to lie, playing with pretty papers and my pen collection is a reward in itself.

But the actual writing. It’s always interesting to see something I’ve/we’ve written with a newish set of eyes. I remember the feeling I got when, in the very, very, very before times, when I would put physical pages from the printer or even typewriter, into a manila envelope, send them off across the country and wait for them to arrive at the other writer person’s home, for them to rad, comment, and mail back. Email is one heck of a lot faster, and saves on paper and ink, but I still have very fond memories of physically chasing pages along the highway (ish) because those pages held the comments from my most trusted reader, on the first appearance fo a new character, and if those pages were gone, they would be gone forever.

Thankfully, Housemate was with me, and we recovered all the pages. I devoured the comments while we waited for our restaurant meal to arrive, breathless for every comment. There may or may not have been a few happy tears because yes, this person got what I had intended for this character. Since this was for a shared project, I knew they would do wonderful things with this character, too, and all was rigth with the world.

Let’s bring it back to now. I get a lot of that same feeling when I look at Melva’s preliminary edits on Drama King, or when I read my editor’s comments and suggestions for A Heart Most Errant. Somebody else gets what I’m doing, and even though only Drama King is a true collaboration, a good editor (and I have one) can take a good story and make it even better. It’s like going to work, knowing your favorite co-worker is scheduled with you, which is not at all a bad way to think of this sort of thing.

At least that’s how it’s going so far. Will keep you updated on future progress. How’s your week going?

Anna