Shifting Out of Neutral

The main point I am taking from the first half of this week is that winging even a couple of days without a written plan does not work for me. Hence this being the first blog of the week. I do not have the spoons to figure out what WordPress’s beef is with me and pictures, so we will be using stock images today.

Photo by Liza Summer on Pexels.com

Very sluggish start this morning, which led to extra morning pages to figure it all out, which led to thinking of planners and a back and forth with my own brain about whether it was too late to even bother and maybe the whole week was um, useless. Obviously not, but throwing together a quick spread for the rest of the week, in the mini dashboard layout Happy Planner I will now be carrying for everyday use, made things feel anchored enough to actually shift out of neutral and get things done. I need the structure, and that is that.

Such blabber is maybe something to save for AnnaLog, which most assuredly needs more videos, so onward we go. As one may be able to guess, this is one of those blabbery posts so that I can check it off my list and move on along to getting current on a workshop on reclaiming dreams and desires. Rather on the nose with that one, but let’s face it, getting back to somewhat of a supposedly normal life after over a year of trauma is…new territory.

This past weekend, I gave my Play In Your Own Sandbox, Keep All The Toys workshop to a small but enthusiastic group at Capitol Region RWA chapter. This is my home chapter and I love them, so not only did I gegt to see some familiar faces, but with my snazzy new laptop, there were no problems with connectdions and audio and all of that good stuff. I’ll be talking more about that later, either here or on a free post on Patreon, once I get all of that stuff sorted.

Today is all about laying groundwork for the rest of the week. Not only things like washing dishes and putting away laundry, though those are indeed important, and not only “write xyz” on this day, but making sure I take time to take in media and other stimuli that will fill my creative well with what I want to draw from it. That’s not slacking off. That’s making sure I have tools I need to do the job that I am here to do.

This workshop is asking some tough questions. As my BFF said, a few days back, “Anna, meet Anna.” I think this is probably something a bunch of us are going through (with your own name there instead of mine) and there may be a learning curve in getting back to a normal that may be a different normal than one would expect.

Melva and I talked about that a lot during our last Zoom conference. There’s a lot of thinking involved, and, in my case, a lot of blabbering to myself on paper, semi zoning out while playing Sims (current laptop game is Sims 4, only lightly modded, very light on custom content, soooo…a French Vanilla game rather than plain vanilla?) and even time of sitting on the floor with paper and pens and various items of organizational alchemy.

Photo by Cristian Rojas on Pexels.com

Flying into the mist, some call it, and there are times when I think this is all I talk about here anymore. Then again, it’s what’s happening so it’s at the very least true. That’s also about what I’ve got for today, because I have homework and am burning daylight. Maybe this was meant to be the rambly post, and the next one will be more coherent. At least that’s the plan.

Typing With Wet Paws: Workshop Prep Edition

Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. The main focus this week is Aunt Anna getting ready for her workshop that is tomorrow. If you are curious about this or wish you could be there, guess what, you can. There is a link to learn more about attending as a guest, orrrrr you can get personal attention for the entire course at her Patreon, on the Play In Your Own Sandbox tier.

greatest hits picture of me, because Aunt Anna is wrangling with WordPress about pictures

Things are doing pretty well around here. The windows are open sometimes, and I can smell wonderful things. Getting into the window is tricky, as Aunt Anna has moved some stuff around, and they are bringing furniture in here. Aunt Anna is making what she calls a rustic bookcase from wooden crates. I think that I could probably make good use of those as scratchy things, but we will see about that.

Aunt Anna says people may want to pardon the dust on her Patreon, as she is making some changes, as things like pick a blog or video topic aren’t up yet, but you definitely can ask.

Okay. Reading challenge on Goodreads is pretty much holding steady, but that doesn’t mean Aunt Anna went without consuming any stories. This past week was for binge watching three shows on Amazon Prime, The Wilds, Picnic at Hanging Rock, and Thirteen. She recommends the first two, with some reservatins on the first one, and needs to rewatch the second one if she wants to truly form an opinion on it, but it’s great for background voices while playing Sims.

Aunt Anna really likes Sims

Aunt Anna has been having a great time putting Sims 4 on her new laptop. It reminds her of when she was a people kitten, and her teacher, in an open classroom, noticed that Aunt Anna did a lot better on days when people kittens were allowed to bring their own toys for free play time. Aunt Anna brought Barbies on thoe days. Can we spot the future writer here? I would have brought Mousie, or maybe a jingle ball.

This week is also when Aunt Anna takes part in a Reclaim Your Dreams workshop with Eryka Peskin. In case you are wondering what that means, you can find out more about it and even register for a virtual retreat if that sounds like your thing, here. This is not a sponsored post; Aunt Anna finds she gets a lot out of Eryka’s workshops and even sometimes coaching.

Photo by Anthony Shkraba on Pexels.com

Of course the most important thing this coming week is the writing. Even though Aunt Anna usually gets her superpowers back in fall, they seem to have been on backorder this year, which is completely understandable. She feels a lot more in her groove these days, which is due to a lot of things. Faith, modern medicine, family, friends, a computer that actually works, reliable housing, me. You know, the important stuff. It’s an interesting phase to watch, and from what I hear, thisis how writers get books. Me, I just sit on them. So it’s win-win.

Headbonks!

still working on the signoff picture thingamaboodle

Free Writing, The Chaos of Organization, and Other Stories

Wednesday’s blog on Thursday should give an iindicator of how acgtual Wednesday went. I had the very odd (for me) experience of oversleeping yesterday, which gave an element of surreality to the entire day. I meant to blog. I meant to edit. I got most of my social media current and then played Sims.

Theoretically ideal wakeup time today, and since I get a feel for the things I need to do the next morning, the night before, the task list wasn’t too hard to make. Unfortunately when it came to “what do I want to blog about today?” the immediate answer was “the fluff if I know.” “Fluff,” in this case, being a family word for a word that rhymes with “duck,” and is not often said around small children.

In practice, butt in chair and fingers on keyboard allows me to move on down the list instead of beating myself up over not knowing what to write. Because I do. I do it every morning in my morning pages, aka free writing. That means whatever is in my head goes on the page. This morning, for example, I filled two entire pages out of arranging the pens in my ballpoint pen cup in rainbow order and writing down my opinions of each one. That’s all. Not earth shattering in importance or creativity, but I did it and came out of it ready to take care of this whole Thursday thing, or at least figure out my priorities.

Right now, they feel like a jumble. My main job ondraft two of Drama King is to look for missing scenes, smooth out rough ones, and get word count up to goal. For A Heart Most Errant, I need to get back to addressing the first round edits and get it back to my editor. I paid for her services. I should use them. I want to use them.

There is also prep work to be done for this upcoming Saturday, where I waill present my workshop, Play in Your Own Sandbox, Keep All the Toys. This is my most popular workshop, and I love giving it. I also need to reacquaint myself, because ehhhh, it’s been a while. I could probably learn from taking my own workshop. Going back to the well, as it were, is usually a good idea.

Photo by JESHOOTS.com on Pexels.com

Yesterday, I had to run some adult-y errands in the morning, and planned to attack my backlog of work like a valkyrie, but what did I do instead? Completely tear apart my shelves that hold notebooks, pens, paper, etc, and re-making them with the help of some distressed wooden crates, putting, as my mother would have termed it, “like with like.” I hated that term when I was younger, but Mom was on to something. This also means that my inability to find the set of A5 divider pockets I bought on that same outing extremely vexing because it’s not where it’s supposerd to be, even though the binder and papers are all ready for them to join the fray. I can only assume they are hiding because they know what I have in store. I don’t blame them. I also know me, and I know that utter chaos is the black moment that comes before things snapping into place. Aka, don’t sweat it, keep going.

Photo by Elly Fairytale on Pexels.com
there will be fairy lights

Which is basically where it leaves me right now. I have work to do, soem right the fluff now, and soem that cam be done after. Butt on chair, fingers on keyboard. Stock photos are fine when bookshelves are not ready for their closeups. The important thing is to keep making progress in the right direction.

Monday Stream of Consciousness

Jumping into this post with no actual plan, because A) blog is under the “low hanging fruit” category of stuff I need to do today, and B) if I don’t do it now, it will nag me throughout doing anything else.

Usually, Sundays are my planning afternoons. Yesterday, though, had a few different influences. A) I am still getting used to new medication, so surprise slumber parties for one are a thing; B) yesterday was also a full house, with all family member hone in a smallish space, and C) I am not at all sure that my plan to coast along from April through June on mini planners and no classic planners is going to work as well as I thought.

That last one is the easiest to fix: hop on over to a craft store that carries my planner of choice, grab a currently dated one from the clearance section, hand over a pittance and jump right in, back to the usual method. That leaves mostly just today to be free floating in no classic planner land. I could technically re-date older pages, but that is far too labor intensive when what I want to do is jump in and lay out for my plan of attack.

I like seeing things laid out, where I can tell at a glance what jobs I need to do, to get to where I am. Making it aesthetically pleasing is a plus, and, with the new YouTube channel, I have a lot more ideas of what I want to not only talk about, but write about as well. I don’t normally do TBRs but I see those are frequent on BookTube, and look like they may indeed work toward my goal of reading more historical romance. They also look fun. I could use some more fun, and, after a very long time without it, fun is something I can do these days.

Over the last couple of nights, I binged Picnic at Hanging Rock on Amazon Prime. Loved it. Australian Gothic is a thing, and I want more of it. Which reminded me that I very much do want to rereach On The Jelllicoe Road by Melina Marchetta. I refuse to use the shortened American title, because that’s not its name. Yes, I will die on that hill. I also want to see On the Jelicoe Road made into a movie (I don’t usually) with an all-Australian cast, on location, with 80s film effect on the 80s timeline. Failing that, I would like to hear it on audio, with two Australian narrators.

Thankfully, I can carry that over into historical romances set in Australia, by Australian authors, like Cadace Proctor and Alison Stuart. Ms. Stuart also writes Engilsh Civil War historical romance, which is one of my all time favorite settings.

In the meantime, I get to do mundane adulting things, such as putting away laundry and straightening my work area, both things that are super good for letting my creative brain do stuff on the back burner where I am not looking.

I am a little disappointed that I won’t be doing Camp Nano this round, but July is not that long away, and it’s also when I can bust out my brand new eighteen month planner, so I take that as a sign. What do you think?

Typing With Wet Paws: April Not-Fool’s Edition

Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. This week, Aunt Anna wasn’t feeling that great, so she went to the people vet. The people vet gave her some medicine that helps her sleep, but she is still figuring out the right time to take it, because as it is, it makes her sleep at unexpected times. That’s why this post is going up in the evening. By next week, things should be more reliable.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Aunt Anna is way too done with this day to help me figure out why WordPress doesn’t want to use her jpeg files, especially when they are of me, so please accept the public and greatest hits photos until we figure that out.

watch the channel trailer!

In case you haven’t heard yet, Aunt Anna now has a YouTube channel! If you like when she blabbers here about romance novels and notebooks and stuff, then you will probably like the channel. Will I make a guest appearance? It is entirely possible.

Aunt Anna is the only one allowed to cuddle me. The only one.

Goodreads Reading Challenge

Aunt Anna is kicking this challenge, with 33 books read out of 90, which puts her at 36% of the way to her goal, and 10 books ahead of schedule. The last 10 books she read were YA contemporary, which is not at all a bad thing, but she would like to get in more historical romances, because that’s the focus of her channel. She’s not quite ready to make a formal TBR list, but she is looking into how she would like to handle that. One of the suggestions is to follow one or more online book clubs. For this month, one of the selections (she’ll talk more about that later) is

Shanna, by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

Aunt Anna had read this book before, a long time ago, when she was probably too young to um, appreciate it. Now she is a grownup, and an author, and reading it will be a different experiencre. She does remember it as having gotten some fuss because the heroine wasn’t…gasp…likeable. Aunt Anna doesn’t see that as a big problem.

Me

This was a week of some deliveries, which meant that I get all of the boxes and bubble wrap, which has been very entertaining. It’s kind of like a present for me when the humans get their stuff. I could get used to that.

For those who have been wondering if I was ever going to get used to my cat bed now that it and the people bed are not on the bedroom floor anymore, we finally have an answer. It is now under the kitchen table which is also sometimes Aunt Anna’s computer desk, and I will sit there, but only if Aunt Anna already has her feet on it.

One of the things Aunt Anna got last week was a set of daubers, which are art tools she uses to put ink directly on paper. Last night, when she went to put them away, one was missing. Uncle Rheuben found it this morning, right at the entrance to my litterbox (on the floor side.) He also found one of his new ties there. This probably means I am busted. Hmph. That’s okay, because I also have been hunting a bug that got into Aunt Linda’s room. It turns out I am super good at hunting bugs. It is also super interesting. I hear this is much more common in spring.

Anyway, that is about it for this week. Aunt Anna plans to spend next week focused on getting the first round edits of A Heart Most Errant back to their editor, and do her part in getting Drama King chapters polished and ready for Aunt Melva to plug into the “full monty” as she calls it, of their second draft. Rest assured that your calico in the know will keep you fully apprised.

Headbonks1

So, I Have a YouTube Channel

Happy Wednesday, my liebchens. In keeping with the spirit of trying new things this year/spring, I finally made good on my threat to start a YouTube channel -different from my short-lived vlogging channel-AnnaLog is finally a thing.

AnnaLog

check out my channel trailer

Over the last year, I watched a lot of YouTube. I mean a LOT of YouTube, often BookTube, and out of that, I found a lot of creators I like and follow, but I didn’t see a lot of talk about the more vintage side of historical romance. Aha. Heeeere’s Anna.

Check out my answers to the historical romance book tag

I am very obviously learning here, from angle of the laptop screen to topics and tagging and such, so pleae pardon my dust, and get comfy, because this will be a place for me to blabber about all the things I love -and some that I don’t- about historical romance novels, as a writer and a reader.

The first thing I wanted to cover, apart from a chapter header, was the historical romance reader book tag, created by Jess from PeaceLoveBooks on You Tube. Basically, if you ever wanted to pick my mind about historical romance, this is your opportunity. Only the tip of the iceberg, naturally, but tons of fun to make, and, I hope, to watch as well. Like, subscribe, share, all that good stuff, and yes, I am available for hire on my Patreon, to make a video on the historical romance topic of your choice. This is already lots of fun, so strap in, it’s going to be quite the ride.

Camp NaNononoooo

My workload made the decision for me for this round of Camp Nano, starting tomorrow. Eep. As much as I was looking forward to writing something newnewnew for camp this year, my editor’s notes for A Heart Most Errant cleared its throat and tapped its foot, so my April will be, historical romance-wise, has to be that. Contemporary-wise, it’s edits on Drama King, so my plate is full.

I am okay with that. I like direction. I have some ground to cover before I am, productivity-wise, where I want to be. One day at a time, one page at a time, and the video channel to remind me why I love historical romance as much I as I do. Getting back to one’s roots is always a good thing when one is so inclined, and I am so inclined, indeed.

Going to leave it at that for today, as adulting awaits, and after that, dun, dun, dun, the formation of a writing plan for April that will get me where I want to be. Yes, this involves planners and color coding and all of that good stuff, and yes, I will be sharing that here. Until then, behave yourselves, but I will not say how, so use your own discretion.

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.