R.I.P. Desktop

Right now, I have the house to myself. Real Life Romance Hero and Housemate are both off at work. Storm has found a hidey-hole (work being done outside nearby.) I am pumped full of motivation from a two and a half hour video chat with one of my besties, and fueled by a particularly tasty sandwich. My posterior is planted firmly in Housemate’s office chair because my lower back has declared, rather loudly, that it absolutely requires that we either retrieve my comfy existing chair from the storage unit, or obtain a new one; Preferably pink.

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

Lzast night, Housemate helped me determine that Ye Olde Desktoppe, or possibly its monitor, has gone to the great AV rioom in the sky. If it’s only the monitor, that’s probably the better option of the two, because then I wil still be able to access my existant edition of Scrivener, not to mention my Sims 2 and 3 installations. If it’s the CPU, which it well may be, then it means time to shop for an all in one (is that what the kids are calling it these days?) Either way, I still have my spiffy rose gold laptop, so it doesn’t affect writing plans.

Since the desktop is now out of commission, I can use its foldng desk for the laptop, instead of the kitchen table. I have no shortage at all of notebooks and pens, which is also a good thing. I am also shopping for a laptop stand, to hold the screen at an angle my wonky eyeballs can actually see. That will be greatly appreciated. For a long time, I operated on the assumption that the challenges posed by a visual impairment meant I would have to work that much harder, if I want to prove that I really want “it.”

“It,” in this case being the only job I have wanted since I was eleven years old, reading my first ever historical romance novel under the brass bed in my parents’ guest bedroom. Not that far removed from the times when I thought the only genres I was allowed to write in were hard science fiction and mystery, neither of which interested me in the slightest, and as one might guess, I fugtured out that was a complete lie, because, well,

not historical romance, but about historical romance, so I count it

I have been reading a paper book before bed the last few nights, and I have slept a lot better than usual. This is definitely going into the mental health tracker as something I want to keep on doing, to keep on going. Books to write, blogs to plan that aren’t random stream of concsiouness blabber (unless you’re into that; if so, you have come to the right place) and videos focusing on the amazing richness of the historical romance genre, from the original Avon Ladies (and a man named Jennifer) to remind me why I got into this stuff in the first place.

It’s a quiet afternoon now, the work done early. I think I may have heard Storm crunching some dry food in the other room. Housemate will be out later than usual, as she is Laundry Person. The up side of that is that A) she will return with clean clothing for eceryone, and B) I get time and room to spread out, no distractions (but the lovely day and the breeze coming through the window, and did I mention we are basically across the street from a park?) and I feel…confident. Also a little sad.

Why sad? The desktop. I bought this desktop myself with money earned writing for the monies, aka articles for the Heroes and Heartbreakers Blog, a gig I will always treasure. I learned a lot from the years I spent there, read some amazing books, watched a bunch of TV that I would have watched anyway, and some that I never would have watched on my own, and got to recommend a bunch of my facvorite romances along the way. It was a lot of fun and I would one hundred percent to be part of another such venture in the future. Most of that happened on Ye Olde Desketoppe. Same with myfalling in love with the Sims. YOLP was not may first computer with Sims on it, but it had w, 3, and 4 in place, with a bunch of custom content for all three. My laptop has 4 only, so the others will have to wait until the next desktop arrives. I think I can last until then, because I do have other things to do.

Like this. Hang out, talk romance novels and stationery. Write romance novels. Use stationery, often to write romance novels. Which is what I will be doing as soon as I send this post off into the world. What are you up to this fine day?

join me over at my YouTube channel
AnnaLog

Typing With Wet Paws: Freestyle Edition

Tails up ,Storm Troopers. I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. Aunt Anna is kind of busy right now, so I’m going to freestyle it this week.

Me, on a bag in a box

First of all, take a look at my sweet summer digs. I have my footlocker box, with a paper bag inside it. That’s pretty luxe from cat standards. I get a nice breeze from the bos fan, I can see both Aunt Anna and Uncle Rheuben from there, and of course I can see my dishes from here, too, in case anything is happening there.

Next thing is that we had an invader on Wednesday. Okay, Uncle Rheuben said the invader was Mr. Kurt, who is the proprety manager and was only here to fix the bathroom. The tub had stopped and wasn’t draining at all (don’t worry, I have zero interest in investigating that kind of thing) and the toilet wouldn’t quite flushing. Ever. I didn’t investigate that either. Anyway, Aunt Anna was out, writing at Panera, when Mr. Kurt came by to fix things. I don’t know exactly what all Mr. Kurt did, but the whole bathroom works now. I was under the big bed. Never can be too sure about this kind of thing.

Aunt Anna is hoping to get a bunch of reading done this weekend, because she is killing it when it comes to the Goodreads Reading Challenge. Right now, She’s still kind of wrangling her library haul, and the video is still planned, but it’s been a week. Aunt Linda had her car in the shop twice, once for the windshield wipers, and then today for the windshield.

Last night, we had a false alarm. Uncle Rheuben was working last night, and I thought I heard him coming home, so I went to the door, all excited. Unfortunately, I was wrong. It was our neighbors. They only live here on some weekends. I think they are in a different city most of the time. They have dogs, but I have never met them, even though I asked. I have heard them, though. They bark a lot. I guess they didn’t get the memo that we live here now. I mean, the people probably know, but never can tell with the dogs. There is a dog downstairs next door, too. Her name is Ada. She was a puppy when we first moved in, so she is almost grown up now. She’s still wiggly, though. I watch her (and other dogs) from the window sometimes. There are a lot of these dogs in this neighbornood.

That’s probably about it for this week. We’re all doing well here. Aunt Anna is writing. I help her read when I flop down next to her and she can use her other hand to rub my stomach. Speaking of which, I think I’m going to go see if she’s amenable to that option, because I for sure am.

Headbonks!

Storm

Against The Current

This is one of those multipurpose titles (hopefully; it’s at least my intent) where one group of words can stand for multiple meanings. It’s been a weird week. Sunday was ugh. A fun Monday outing with Housemate got derailed before it could get started, when her just-“fixed” windshield wipers stopped working while we were driving, in the rain. Yeah. Not fun. Cue another round of Housemate wrangling the car fixer people. We did manage to salvage part of the day but at the cost of most of our collected energy. Crossed wires on the now-weekly video chat with one of my besties, on Tuesday, but we had a great chat, only a little later than usual. Sometime in there, basically our entire bathroom stopped working. Toilet went on perma-flush, and bathtub clogged

Real Life Romance Hero definitely proved why he gets that title, as he shooed me off to Panera so I could chill while he did domestic warrior king duty, dealt with bathroom fixer person, and I could get some work done in peace and quiet. If you thik you sense an incoming “but,” you are right. If you didn’t know, I have a visual impairment, so reading menu boards behind a counter is a big nope. Thankfully, most food selling places these days also have their menus online, which means if I’m on my own, it takes but the click of a button to read the menu. This only really works if I actually put my tablet in my tote. Cue frantic patting around contents of purse. Planner, traveler’s notebook, makeup pouch, annnnd that’s it. Oh crud. Ended up asking counter person to tell me what the three kinds of bagels left by that time were, which sorted out well. I ended up writing ten pages in my traveler’s notebook, and maybe sorted out my wrong turn at Albequerque in Her Last First Kiss. That will be helpful if theory translates to practice.

Speaking of translating, I have a whole scene from Queen of Hearts to transcribe and send off to my contemporary writign partner, I very much want to do this, but when insomnia medication gets confused to the difference begtween AM and PM, we get sleeeeepy summer days, which really, brain? We’re doing this now? Really?

Also throw in guilty looks at the TBR books, annnnd the video I’ve been meaning to film for mmm, two weeks now? Yeah. There’s that. Not an insurmountable thingamaboodle by any measure. Calling back to Anne Lamott and Bird by Bird. In Anna Dreamspeak, wash one dish. This blog is my dish. If I end up transcribing one page at a time, that’s okay. Still gets done, and one page is one page more than didn’t even try. For the reading thing, pick up one book. Read one chapter. That still counts.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Which brings me to another meaning of against the current. A bunch of the library books I borrowed are new releases, because well, one should (if you’re a longtime reader of mine, you know where I am going here) be reading. Well, no. Could read, yes. If one wants to. What I am excited about, as my guided journal I use at the end of the day often asks about, is doing a deep dive into some of the classic historical romances that cemented my love of the genre, as a reader and a writer. Big, sweeping epics that cover years (or even decades) and continents and bore witness to the spirit of the times, which could be anywhere from the ancient world to the early 20th century.

I picked up one new book that I was excited to see, by the author’s name and the cover, then, a few pages in, waaaait a minute. Who are these people the current people are talking about? Oh, right. I have walked into not only the middle of one series, but two (or three?) intertwined ones. This is not a bad thing, as I do want to read all of them, but when spoons are low, I don’t want to have to do research before reading. Still, it also has one of my favorite tropes for that subgenre, so yeah, I’m reading and will figure out the rest later.

I am a big proponent of story in, story out, so getting on that track and staying there is a priority, and I need to do what it takes to keep a firm footing on that route. Again, not a bad thing. I don’t summer well, it’s true, but we are halfway through July at this point, which for me is the middle month of summer, so we are now approaching that nebulous August moment that ushers in pre-fall. The Back to School stuff is making its appearance in stores which I find delightful and energizing. I want all of the stationery, not for school, but to tell love stories, in our time and others.

Someplace around here is where my k-12 teachers would say that I need to put the closing sentence/statement/paragraph. Okay. Tihs week has been weird. I’m muddling through. School supplies are everything. Read more romance novels. Especially mine. Or someone else’s. There’s good stuf fout there.

Typing With Wet Paws: Proper Elevation Edition

Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. The big news this week is that Aunt Anna borrowed Aunt Linda’s office chair ,which Aunt Linda uses as a regular chair (no desk) and guess what – no back pain No need for an Amazon box on top of the kitchen table, either, if she wheels the chair out there when Aunt Linda isn’t home. This is a very good portent for the writing that is on her schedule, because there is a lot. All it will take is either getting Aunt Anna’s regular office chair out of the storage unit, or buying a new one. Either way is good, because A) I get to sit in it when she isn’t, B) if Aunt Anna doesn’t need the Amazon box she uses for a laptop riser, then I get it. Also if she goes with a new chair, then it will come in a box, and I can have that one. If she gets the existing one out of storage, then I get to smell Big Sister Skye on it, and learn some secrets from/about her. Anyway, it’s all good, however it turns out.

Fourth of July was pretty quiet around here. Figuratively, not literally. We can hear all the fireworks here, but can’t see them. I was a little confused, but the humans were all chill about it, so I was, too. I wasn’t aound fireworks last years, and I don’t remember the year before that, because I was too young. I guess it makes me fireworks-neutral, which is a good thing for a pet to be. We’ll find out again nest year.

best seat in the house

There was one memorable effect from the holiday, though. It scrambled Aunt Anna and Aunt Melva’s brains, so they spaced on their meeting on Monday, even though Aunt Anna had already written her whole scene -in longhand. SHe’ll have to transcfribe that over the weekend and then send it Aunt Melva’s way, so Aunt Melva can write the next scene. They might move their meeting day, not move it, or keep the original meeting and add a second one. Aunt Anna is also having another video chat with Aunt Mary, because that was super fun and motivating, She may start doing that more with other friends, as well, because extroverts and social distancing are not the best mix.

Good thing there is Aunt Linda. On Monday, Aunt Linda had the day off, and she and Aunt Anna made a huge library haul. She made a big historical romance haul, and will make an Anna Log video all about that. She will talk about here experience with the Historical Romance Readathon over on Buried Under Romance this weekend, so keep eyes peeled for that. Right now, her Goodreads Reading Challenge looks like this.

This puts Aunt Anna firmly at the 2/3rds mark, with 60 books read out of her goal of 90 which means she is at 33% of the way there. The retShe will talk more about that later. The return of the physical library has been a very good thing on Aunt Anna’s reading front. The most imporatan thing is not only that Aunt Anna super loves reading paper bools again, but that it means she can now read in bed with just the bedside lamp and no tablet screen, and she is totally free to cuddle me while she reads. That’s always a big plus.

Okay, that looks about it for my list of the week things, except for some planner stuff, but that is for Anna Log, too. Since Aunt Anna looks to be unpillbugging, that will be soon. k

Headbonks!

Nobody Stop Me, or In The Groove

Have I ever mentioned that I have since single digit ages had a very soft spot for alternate titles. Completely unrelated to the Monkees song, “Alternate Title,” though does have some surprisingly boppy social commentary, and The Monkees are on the top of the list of music to play when I write Heather’s scenes in Queen of Hearts. I have my second scene from that written out in the notebook I have specifically for that, and all it needs is transcription and then it’s off to Melva.

Right now, I am borrowing Housemate’s office chair, with laptop on a folding desk, in front of a fan, and I am almost done with my third bottle of water for the day. The morning passed in a delicious virtual chat with my friend, Mary, whom I can’t believe I have known for almost twenty years. Doesn’t seem that long, and hasn’t she always been there/ Must be right, though, because the adorable little boy she had with her at our first meetup is now a firefighter, and, come October, will become a husband. Time does move.

Photo by Jordan Benton on Pexels.com

Yesterday, Housemate and I made a library run, to a different branch than our usual haunt, and hit the motherlode of well stocked romance section. Well, well-ish stocked. I’ll take it. I am writing a script for a library haul video after I post this blog, and will flim either tonight or tomorrow. I’m also figuring out how I want to present my current planner/notebooks situation, as I am making some changes, and they are working much better than I had expected. There’s also the reading order to suss for abovementioned library haul, and how I want to figure in ebooks as well as physical books. I have missed paper books far more than I knew, and I know my eyeballs will be thankful for the respite. from all screens all the time. This will also require major surgery on my TBR notebook, but I knew that was coming. I am not a plain paper sort of girl. Never have been.

One thing I definitely need to make time for is writer (and reader) blabber, because after three hours of happily babbling over multiple topics, including historical romance (okay, a lot of talk about historical romance) I didn’t even want to break for lunch (but I did) and instead wanted to make plans for more socializing. Not going to lie, lockdown has not been easy on us extroverts. I love my family but I need to see faces taht do not use my bathroon on a regular basis. I’m thinking about making a regular time to open the discord server or a MSM room, for a regular supply of book blather, of both writing and reading varieties. I am positively starved for historical romacne writing talk. If I had decided to officialy do Camp NaNo this month (unofficially camping this time. Maybe November.) I had decided that I wanted to find a cabin that was historical romance only. Maybe I’m early for November?

No matter. This feels like that’s what was in msy brainpan for right now, so off I go to roll around nekkid in my library haul. Kidding, kidding. I will be wearing clothing, and there may be nappage. There will definitely be many cat headbonks, and calico cuddles.

What are you reading lately?

The Sims, Romance Writing, and Stream of Consciousness

Very quick stream of consciousness post today, since I am most assuredly in the zone for working on Queen of Hearts today. If all goes right, I can have a rough version of the next scene for my weekly conference with Melva. We agreed that this book is going to go a lot quicker than Drama King did, and I want to make sure it does.

Fourth of July was pretty quiet around here. As in I did a lot of napping, and I regret nothing. We cannot see the fireworks from this apartment, but we certainly heard them. This year, hearing them was enough, as I had my eyeballs pinned to my current Sims 4 save. I’m giving the Legacy Challenge a shot. Not doing any scoring whatsoever, as I am not in this for the math, but the basic idea is to start with a single Sim, on a big, empty lot, with very little money, and then use them to build a dynasty that lasts ten generations. I am on the fourth generation now, and having a lot of fun with it.

Fiona and Osvaldo, generation four

There are lots of variations on this legacy. I decided from the start that I wanted this to be a matriarchy, as in everything goes through the maternal line, aka firstborn girl inherits. If there are no girls in a generation, then the firstborn male may hold the spot for his firstborn daughter. Pictured above are my current generation, the lovely Fiona and her (townie) husband, Osvaldo. They currently have one daughter, Alexa who is child age, and fingers crossed she makes it through, because Osvaldo has the “hates children” trait, but he was frequently the one to autonomsously tend Alexa when she was a baby, so maybe he’s a masochist? Anyway, Fiona is going to university for her art degree, so Osvaldo can stay home to tend Alexa and their vast garden.

What does all of this have to do with writing? On the surface, not much. A little deeper, quite a bit. Generational sagas have always been my favorite sort of linked stories/series, especially in historical romance, where we can see the legacy of love build from the first two progenitors, and see how the family progresses thrugh years, decades, even centuries. Follow one family from medieval times to the turn of the 20th century? Yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssss. With a gauranteed happily ever after for each individual couple in every story, the sort of HEA that only gets HEA-ier as the young lovers become parents, then in-laws, then grandparents.

This does bring in the issue of character death, since our medieval progenitors are not going to be alive in the Belle Epoque. I’m actually okay with that, as my taste in historical romance hews more to the dramatic than rom-com. In a more lighthearted series, death of a main character (after many years) would seem out of place to a lot of readers, and many lighthearted series tend to focus on one generation at a time, so maybe it doesn’t come up all that much? I have seen the demise of older heroes and heroines done well, and done poorly, but it’s part of life, and those generationgs outside of the current characters’ living memory can take on a legendary tone, so that is actually a plus in my book.

grab it here

Ah. Aha. Wait. I found a connection. Heather, the heroine of Queen of Hearts, lives in the shadow of her mother’s reputation. Jessica Stewart was a legendary author of epic historical romance, and Heather now has the responsibility of running the publishing house her mother started. Heather is not a writer, but she’s passionate about the historical romance genre, its books, its writers, its readers, its, well, history. She’s trying to figure out where she fits into all of that, while raising a precocious six-year-old on her own, and very gingerly sticking her toe in the dating waters after a painful divorce. For those who love a genuinely good hero, have no fear, her best friend, Rob very much fits the bill. He’s very different from Dominic from Chasing Prince Charming, or Jack from Drama King, which is exactly how I want it to be. The historical heroes, as well, are a whole other story, pun intended.

Okay back to writing I go. Cover me, I’m going in.

Typing With Wet Paws: Heatwoven Edition

Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. It’s a cool and sometimes rainy day over here in New York State, which means the heat wave has broken, and Aunt Anna will be re-entering functional adult life. She’s been taking it super-easy for most of the week, staying cool and hydrated. Thankfully, I have been on the juob the entire time. Often on her, because what’s better for heat wave sluggishness than a beautiful calico girl sitting on one’s torso?

Okay, most of the time I was near her rather than actually on her, but being on our humans is one of the ways we kitties show our love, and I love Aunt Anna a LOT. Like really a lot. She’s my favorite. Uncle Rheuben and Aunt Linda are pretty good, too, but yeah. Anyway, this was not the most productive of weeks. and that is okay. Even with all the hotness and the sweating and the hydrating and stuff, she did actually get some stuff done. Here are a few of them:

Reading

Heat waves are pretty good for reading, especially when Aunt Anna can stick in some earbuds, flop in front of a fan, and have a professional voiceover person read her a story. If pressed, she is even okay on the robo-voice that comes with her Kindle’s text to speech function. Even that goes a long way. A friend, Miss Lisa, from Buried Under Romance, told Aunt Anna there is a way she can change the robo-voice if she wants to, to maybe get a male voice when she wants it, or even a British voice, male or female, but she hasn’t looked into that lately. Standard robo-voice will work quite well.

She’s even gone to the library (away from me for an Entire Hour, ahem) to get some paper books for the Historical Romance Readathon. She did pretty well on that front, and will talk more about that on Buried Under Romance. Aunt Anna likes reading challenges like this because not only is it community related, but it’s also a way to try some bokos she might not have noticed on her own.

The fact that it comes during a heat wave is a very convenient coincidence. It also does wonders for her Goodreads Reading Challenge. As of this writing, she has read 58 out of 90 books, which puts her at 64% of the way to her goal. Not bad, if I do say so myself. Keep going, Aunt Anna.

Photo by Cristian Rojas on Pexels.com

Writing

Even though Aunt Anna is only unoficcially camping this year, July is still for getting back on the historical romance hrse while discovery drafting her third book with Aunt Melva, Queen of Hearts. If that sounds like a lot of stuff to writie, that is exactly what Aunt Anna likes best. Keep her on the page, and she is a happy camper, even if she did not sign up for CampNaNo this year. She has a notebook all set up for un-bungling the second half of Her Last First Kiss, and, now that the heat has broken, she has the brainpower to complete her edits on A Heart Most Errant and move forward in that project. Soon, there willl be formatting and cover art and all that good stuff. She’ll figure out what metric she wants to use to track progress. I am betting there will be a paper notebook where she keeps track of all that. I plan to sit on it.

Photo by Element5 Digital on Pexels.com

Planning

This is a big week for planner enthusiasts like Aunt Anna, becasue July is the time of year when eighteen month cladendars start. When I say planners, this also includes new notebooks for special reasons, like working on her focus projects for the next few months. Writing about historical romance, Aunt Anna has found, is an essential part of writing historical romance, so she has a notebook set up for that, tracking what she likes and doesn’t like, the history of the genre, and what its future might be. Those are things she will share on Anna Log and Buried Under Romance. There is a lot going on on that front. Trust me on that. I have laid on a lot of these books, so I can vouce for them.

I think that’s about it for this week. Overall, life is pretty good, if uncomfortable for the last several days. Thankfully, we have cooler weather for the next few days, so Aunt Anna is feeling a lot more Aunt Anna-y. How is your week?

Headbonks!

Storm

Pillbugging

This post has nothing to do with actual buts, and probably very little to do with actual pills. In case you’re not familiar with what a pillbug (also called roly-poly) is, it’s this. Armadillidium Vulgare. Basically an armadillo bug that assumes pill shape when it hits a situation where the only acceptable answer is “nope.”

In our family, it’s also a code word for “I need to disengage for a bit. Please leave food at the door and back away slowly.I will emerge when I am rested.” Which is in part how I feel at the moment. Everything is fine, though we are in for a good old fashioned July heat wave, which I plan on observing by slopping in front of a box fan, continuously hydrating, and reading historical romance until I fall asleep. Though, seriously, I have found a YouTube channeo that explains the history of multilevel marketing schemes that actually seems to be perfect for knocking me right out.

This is also the time of yearr where planner aficionados like myself are giddy with joy, because the eighteen month planners are starting, so all of my planner stuff is shiny and new. New formats, new things to track. Household planner and writing planner are acgtually two separate books this time around, with NO household things in the writing planner at all, I think this is going to be a big help in focusing, especially since this is also the month for Camp NaNo.

I haven’t signed up yet, and I may not, because I am not yet sure exactly what I want to track. Maybe time spent on the project? I know I zigged where I should have zagged, and the surgery on the second half of the book is what’s needed, but does it really have to be in the middle of a heat wave? It does? Okay. I’ll deal.

It’s also the time when Melva and I are discovery drafting Queen of Hearts. We have each read each other’s first scene, and it’s meshing. I am looking forward to the rest of the journey. Same with AHME edits. Breaking it down into manageable bites, not geting ahead of myself, and, maybe most of all, knowing that it may be tougher to do in my least favorite season, but making adjustments is totally okay. Good, even.

Photo by Cristian Rojas on Pexels.com

I am excited about my writing projects, and about reading as well, as I’ve been pinpointing exactly what it is that hits my historical romance loving heart straight in the feels –female-led adventure seems to define it pretty darned well at pressent, and yes, the HEA is a must, so still romance.

It may be a little slower and less social media-y than I would normally prefer, but different seasons have different speeds, and that’s probably for a very good reason. I once talked about this sort of thing with an acquaintance, and referenced crop rotation, not sure if they would get the connection, but they had grown up as a farm kid, so it hit home. Basically, let’s say Farmer has four fields and three crops, red, yellow and blue.

Year one, they plant Red in field one, Blue in field two, and Yellow in field three. Field four? Nada. Chill, bro. Year two, Red goes in field two, Blue in field three, Yellow gets to call “first” on field four, and field one can take the season off, rest up, because next time, it’s getting Yellow, while Red goes in field two, and so on. Ebb and flow, in a way, and what’s come before norishes what comes next. I like that idea.

Summer Daze and Caterpillar B*tt

Brand new week, and we have a heat warning where I am, so I am parked in front of a nice big fan, staying hydrated and fully stocked with my favorite writing thingamabobbles. Laptop, traveler’s notebook, pen pouch, lapdesk and cag ear headphones. The old ones broke, and the ears on this new set do not light up, but the ear covers do have glitter in them, so close enough. I had too much sun yesterday, so my Sunday afternoon week planning will happen this evening. Next week, we start July, with Canada Day and Fourth of July in the same week, annnnd I get to dive whole hog into my new eighteen month planner, plus six month writing planner extension, It’s also Historical Romance Readathon, and I have a vague TBR list, focused mostly on getting through the numerous half-finished historical romances I have on my Kindle.

Photo by Adrienne Andersen on Pexels.com

All of those are stalled at around the halfway point, and for the most part, it’s not them, it’s me. Some of them, I started during oru vagabonding time, and going back to those books, no matter how much I like the author, characters, or story, will bring back a lot of bad memories, so on the shelf they go to wait for a better time. Please pause now to imagine me petting a physical bookcase and whispering, :soon, my darlings.” There is also a vintage standalone historical medieval in the mix, stil in the back seat of Housemate’s car, which I will probably need to start from the beginning and pretend it’s the first time. Before I do, though, I may need to dive (back) into the author of the book I read (aka devoured) before that one, as I’d read some of her in the before before before times, and I am still thinking about how much I loved them, so time to hunt them all down once again.

When I was but a week princess, the local library (historical romance cred: said library started life as the school where First Chief Justice John Jay’s kids attended) hosted a summer reading contest for the kiddos. Naturally, this was my element. One of the prizes was a handmade yarn caterpillar with a fabric, cotton-stuffed head. Caterpillar has long since crawled off to a new adcventure, but I loved that thing. Going to the library with my mom was like going to a candy store, where everything was priced at zero. There was a cap on how many books I could take out, and I wasn’t allowed to go outside of the children’s room (until I got kicked out of it in third grade and pointed to the adult section. YA as we knew it wasn’t really a thing yet, and I think Librarian hit tilt on how many times checked out a certain book. I visited the library a few years back, and went straight to that shelf. It was still there. Hello, old friend.)

I’m feeling those same summer reading viges this year, and I am all for it. Anybody who wants to give me a braided yarn caterpillar (pastel variegated yarn, please, and peach cotton for the head) is more than welcome to do so. I am fully preared to lead a yarn caterpillar army if need be. What I may do is re-create the progress chart. We all started out with a head, and every book read got us a segment of caterpillar. If we got all the way to caterpillar butt, we got a caterpillar. I’m thinking there may be a re-creation of this chart, though I don’t recall how many segments were between caterpillar head and caterpillar butt. I’ll set my own goal, or maybe just see how many circles fit in a two page spread and call that good. The important thing, like with that long ago contest, is to have fun. The fact that I can do so in front of a fan is a cherry on top of the sundae. Mmmmm, sundae.

Typing With Wet Paws: Dog, I Mean, Cat Days of Summer Edition

Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. Pretty quiet week this week, but not a boring one. On Monday, Aunt Anna and Aunt Melva hashed out the basics of the outline for Queen of Hearts, and they are also shooting some questions back and forth. Co-written book number three is officially ON. Secondary characters are getting names (or telling them to the aunts, as it often works) and while there may not be a cat in this book (though the one from Drama King might make a cameo; no promises) ther is probably going to be a d-o-g. I don’t know how I feel about dogs. I haven’t met any that I remember, unless it was when I was really little. My first mom said I came from a house with “a lot of cats,” but she didn’t say anything about dogs.

greatest hits picture of me, because quiet week and all that.

Anyway, there’s prep for July historical writing, and that includes moving the office area in the bedroom from where it is right now to the other side of the bedroom (the bedroom is pretty big) so that Aunt Anna can get near the window, and have more desk room, since Uncle Rheuben claimed the new desk they got recently. I am all for this, because if there is a desk near that window, then I can use athat desk to get into that window. I love sitting in windows.

Wait. I may have misspoken about the dog thing. We have a neighbor who has a puppy who is almost a grownup, but still has a lot of wiggle in her. We haven’t met in person, but I know her when I see/smell her from through the window screen. Her humans walk her in front of our building a lot. She seems okay, but I’ve got my eye on her. The other dogs around, I only have my ears on, because I have only heard them. Also smelled. There are two other units inour building, and the people who live there come on the weekends mostly. When they come, they bring their dogs. I have not met them, but it’s more than one dog in each apartment, I think. They bark a lot when my humans go into the hall and stairway. We’ve been here almost a year now, and still it’s a big surprise every time. Go figure.

So. Aunt Anna. She’s not sure what she’s doing for the Historical Romance Readathon, exactly, but she knows she wants to do something with it. Here’s the bingo card:

check PeaceLoveBooks for further information

The thing that Aunt Anna has about this is that iit does look fun, but she’d already decided that she wants to A) finish the half-read books she’d had languishing on her Kindle forever, and B) devour some of the old school stuff on Kindle Unlimited that she’s always wanted to read. First up is the entire Marsha Canham canon. Maybe she can make that work for the readathon anyway. If you want more information on the readathon, check the link above, and also on Laceybooklovers and RemarkablyLisa. Aunt Anna will probably talk more about this on Anna Log later, but for now, the plans are nebulous. Still counts as a plan, though, which makes her happy.

I, of course, will be closely supervising, as always.

Headbonks!