Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 113
October 1, 2015
And My Head Explodes
I'm not a plotter. Oh, sure, I kind of have a framework, but it's loose enough where I don't feel strangled by it, but it gives me structure. With the Work In Progress (WIP), though, I've tried to do a little more advanced planning. It makes my head hurt. Okay, maybe more like explode.
Asking questions like what's going to happen to push my character to change leaves me foundering. I know what kicks off the story. My heroine arrives in town after more than a decade away to find that everything has changed while she's been away. But is this the incident that forces her to change? I could argue that the incident that forced change was when she decided to return to the town. That happens off screen.
Although, maybe the incident that forces her to change is when she discovers what she loves to do. She doesn't like her job that well, but feels she has no other choice. Yet, in the story, she discovers what she wants to do for a career. To keep that pleasure, she's going to have to make changes and be innovative.
Except, well, none of these things really is enough. I think it's a progression of things that gets the heroine to change and grow. There's the decision to return to town, there's the changes she sees once she's there, there's the discovery of her passion, there's meeting the hero and all these things work together to not only get her to start changing, but to continue changing. It needs to be a journey because people don't like change and will retreat to the familiar any time they can.
Which means it's really hard for me to come up with the inciting incident. There's multiple inciting incidents all working together to foster change. And this is just one question in the plotting book I read. None of the other questions are any easier for me. I feel like a plotting failure.
Asking questions like what's going to happen to push my character to change leaves me foundering. I know what kicks off the story. My heroine arrives in town after more than a decade away to find that everything has changed while she's been away. But is this the incident that forces her to change? I could argue that the incident that forced change was when she decided to return to the town. That happens off screen.
Although, maybe the incident that forces her to change is when she discovers what she loves to do. She doesn't like her job that well, but feels she has no other choice. Yet, in the story, she discovers what she wants to do for a career. To keep that pleasure, she's going to have to make changes and be innovative.
Except, well, none of these things really is enough. I think it's a progression of things that gets the heroine to change and grow. There's the decision to return to town, there's the changes she sees once she's there, there's the discovery of her passion, there's meeting the hero and all these things work together to not only get her to start changing, but to continue changing. It needs to be a journey because people don't like change and will retreat to the familiar any time they can.
Which means it's really hard for me to come up with the inciting incident. There's multiple inciting incidents all working together to foster change. And this is just one question in the plotting book I read. None of the other questions are any easier for me. I feel like a plotting failure.
September 29, 2015
A Cooking Non-Adventure
When I cook, it's usually time to batten down the hatches. My mom says that I'm not a bad cook, and that's sort of true. My biggest problem is that it bores me and so I tend to wander off. Things get very dry or burnt regularly. I try to stick to simple things that are nearly foolproof like hamburgers or eggs. After I moved to Georgia, I did invest in a slow cooker. Mostly that helped, but even then things don't always turn out awesome.
My biggest challenge is chicken. I love it, but I'm scared to death of cooking it. I'm always worried I'm going to under cook it, and because of this, I cook it too long and it ends up dry and horrible. Not even the slow cooker is a guarantee that it will come out moist.
Despite all this, I bought chicken and kalamata olives at the grocery store, and with a little help from a Twitter friend, had Greek Chicken recipe that sounded good.
First off, I was missing a couple of ingredients. I didn't have any tomatoes or feta cheese. Since I loathe grocery shopping with the fire of a thousands suns, you can bet I wasn't going back to the store for a second time in three days. I knew I had diced tomatoes in a can and lots of other kinds of cheeses and those would have to do.
Four pounds was a lot of chicken and the recipe only called for a half a cup of broth. Hmm, I thought, I think I'll add the whole can. It's not like I have anything else I'm going to use the broth for and I'd just end up throwing it away so I might as well. I also poured the entire can--liquid and all--of diced tomatoes (with oregano and rosemary) into the slow cooker. Oh, I didn't have garlic cloves either, so I used garlic powder. Without measuring any of the spices, I just shook some into the slow cooker. Yes, I like to live dangerously. Also measuring seems like such a waste of time--which is why chemistry class was such a challenge for me.
The recipe said 4-6 hours on low, so I set the slow cooker for 5 hours. That seemed like a good compromise.
By the time the chicken was done, I'd forgotten that the kalamata olives were supposed to be chopped. Oops. I also had a heck of a lot of liquid in the slow cooker. I used a ladle to lower the level although it was still a lot more than the recipe called for.
Okay, so I dumped the pitted olives in whole instead of chopping them. They definitely would have been better chopped. Lesson learned. And my substitute for the feta cheese was sharp cheddar. That actually worked out really well with the chicken and olives. If you don't like feta, this is a good option.
And people, I made rice! PERFECT rice! Rice is like a huge challenge for me. I always seem to end up with dried out fossil rice, so the fact that it came out moist is like a minor miracle.
I actually had an edible dinner! And given the fact that I had four pounds of chicken in that slow cooker, I'll be having a lot more dinners of the same thing.. Luckily it was good.
So circle it in red on your calendars. I actually cooked an edible meal with chicken and rice. Maybe I should have gone to the grocery store so that I could have bought a lottery ticket. It was my lucky day.
My biggest challenge is chicken. I love it, but I'm scared to death of cooking it. I'm always worried I'm going to under cook it, and because of this, I cook it too long and it ends up dry and horrible. Not even the slow cooker is a guarantee that it will come out moist.
Despite all this, I bought chicken and kalamata olives at the grocery store, and with a little help from a Twitter friend, had Greek Chicken recipe that sounded good.
First off, I was missing a couple of ingredients. I didn't have any tomatoes or feta cheese. Since I loathe grocery shopping with the fire of a thousands suns, you can bet I wasn't going back to the store for a second time in three days. I knew I had diced tomatoes in a can and lots of other kinds of cheeses and those would have to do.
Four pounds was a lot of chicken and the recipe only called for a half a cup of broth. Hmm, I thought, I think I'll add the whole can. It's not like I have anything else I'm going to use the broth for and I'd just end up throwing it away so I might as well. I also poured the entire can--liquid and all--of diced tomatoes (with oregano and rosemary) into the slow cooker. Oh, I didn't have garlic cloves either, so I used garlic powder. Without measuring any of the spices, I just shook some into the slow cooker. Yes, I like to live dangerously. Also measuring seems like such a waste of time--which is why chemistry class was such a challenge for me.
The recipe said 4-6 hours on low, so I set the slow cooker for 5 hours. That seemed like a good compromise.
By the time the chicken was done, I'd forgotten that the kalamata olives were supposed to be chopped. Oops. I also had a heck of a lot of liquid in the slow cooker. I used a ladle to lower the level although it was still a lot more than the recipe called for.
Okay, so I dumped the pitted olives in whole instead of chopping them. They definitely would have been better chopped. Lesson learned. And my substitute for the feta cheese was sharp cheddar. That actually worked out really well with the chicken and olives. If you don't like feta, this is a good option.
And people, I made rice! PERFECT rice! Rice is like a huge challenge for me. I always seem to end up with dried out fossil rice, so the fact that it came out moist is like a minor miracle.
I actually had an edible dinner! And given the fact that I had four pounds of chicken in that slow cooker, I'll be having a lot more dinners of the same thing.. Luckily it was good.
So circle it in red on your calendars. I actually cooked an edible meal with chicken and rice. Maybe I should have gone to the grocery store so that I could have bought a lottery ticket. It was my lucky day.
September 27, 2015
What Causes Warts?
I've been wondering about this for a while.
September 24, 2015
Hot Kitchen Design Trends
Or OMG, you can't be serious. :-)
I saw a headline that grabbed my interest online: What's Hot Now: 7 New Trends For Today's Kitchen . I clicked through, curious as to what was hot. As I scrolled through the trends, all I could think was are they kidding?
It wasn't that the kitchens weren't lovely, but most of the ideas simply weren't practical unless you're a contractor (or married to one) or has a lot of extra money on hand and nothing to use it on.
Color was the first one up. I love color, the brighter the better. Then I realized they meant the cabinets, not the walls. Yes, just try to resell a house with green cabinets. About 90% of the buyers would be turned off. Heck, even I'm not fond of the green. If it were turquoise, I might like it more, but I wouldn't actually do it to my own house.
When I had my house built when I still lived in Minnesota, I saw this awesome boomerang Formica pattern. I knew I had to have it. Then there were four colors to choose from (there are more now), one a lovely turquoise--I didn't like the skylark or the coral--but I went with the charcoal because it was a neutral color. Now, I'd be drooling over the Retro Surf color option, but I'd still opt for the charcoal. I'd planned to live for decades in my home, then my job was relocated to Atlanta and I had to sell it and move. Can you imagine putting it on the market with turquoise counters? I have to believe that colored cabinets would be just as bad.
Colorful and/or patterned tile was another trend. Um, I don't need to repeat myself about being hard to sell, do I? The other problem? I'm easily bored, and if I went with something like this, I'd probably be ready for a change in a year or so.
Another trend was going for shelves instead of cabinets for the uppers. Sure, I want dust on my plates and bowls and glasses. Who doesn't want dust mites in their food? The other option--to wash the dishes before using them as well as after losing them? Not going to happen in my world. Plus, do I really want people to see my Disney cereal bowl? No.
The other options were fine, I guess, but not my style. I can't stand anything rustic and industrial seems really cold to me, which is one of the reasons I was less than excited by the stainless steel appliances in my new house. I've gotten used to them, but they are more industrial looking than the bisque color I chose in Minnesota.
I guess I don't like to be trendy. Fads come and go. I'd rather do classic, neutrals and then have bright red kitchen towels or a colorful throw for the couch. It's much cheaper to replace this things than to replace a floor.
I saw a headline that grabbed my interest online: What's Hot Now: 7 New Trends For Today's Kitchen . I clicked through, curious as to what was hot. As I scrolled through the trends, all I could think was are they kidding?
It wasn't that the kitchens weren't lovely, but most of the ideas simply weren't practical unless you're a contractor (or married to one) or has a lot of extra money on hand and nothing to use it on.
Color was the first one up. I love color, the brighter the better. Then I realized they meant the cabinets, not the walls. Yes, just try to resell a house with green cabinets. About 90% of the buyers would be turned off. Heck, even I'm not fond of the green. If it were turquoise, I might like it more, but I wouldn't actually do it to my own house.
When I had my house built when I still lived in Minnesota, I saw this awesome boomerang Formica pattern. I knew I had to have it. Then there were four colors to choose from (there are more now), one a lovely turquoise--I didn't like the skylark or the coral--but I went with the charcoal because it was a neutral color. Now, I'd be drooling over the Retro Surf color option, but I'd still opt for the charcoal. I'd planned to live for decades in my home, then my job was relocated to Atlanta and I had to sell it and move. Can you imagine putting it on the market with turquoise counters? I have to believe that colored cabinets would be just as bad.
Colorful and/or patterned tile was another trend. Um, I don't need to repeat myself about being hard to sell, do I? The other problem? I'm easily bored, and if I went with something like this, I'd probably be ready for a change in a year or so.
Another trend was going for shelves instead of cabinets for the uppers. Sure, I want dust on my plates and bowls and glasses. Who doesn't want dust mites in their food? The other option--to wash the dishes before using them as well as after losing them? Not going to happen in my world. Plus, do I really want people to see my Disney cereal bowl? No.
The other options were fine, I guess, but not my style. I can't stand anything rustic and industrial seems really cold to me, which is one of the reasons I was less than excited by the stainless steel appliances in my new house. I've gotten used to them, but they are more industrial looking than the bisque color I chose in Minnesota.
I guess I don't like to be trendy. Fads come and go. I'd rather do classic, neutrals and then have bright red kitchen towels or a colorful throw for the couch. It's much cheaper to replace this things than to replace a floor.
September 22, 2015
8 Things I Wish I'd Known Before House Hunting
I really like my house in Atlanta, but there were a few things I wish I'd thought about as I was house hunting.
Proximity of the garage to the kitchen. My garage and kitchen are about as far apart as they can get and still be in the same house. I only have to say two words to explain why this isn't cool: Grocery shopping. Hauling bags and bags in from the car is a royal pain. It's not any shorter to haul them in through the front door. At least not enough to make a difference.
Hard wood floors in the kitchen. They look so pretty, but are so impractical. Drop a can? Dent in the floor. I also have a long scratch in the coating over the wood that looks hideous and I have a few other shallower, shorter scratches in the coating. The kitchen is just too high traffic/high impact for hard wood.
No utility sink in the house. I honestly didn't think I used my utility sink that much, but I've wished for one a few too many times to take this for granted again.
No closet in the laundry/mud room. My garage enters into the laundry room. In my Minnesota house, I had the same setup, but I had a nice large closet (and a utility sink!) in there. It was the perfect place for jackets and brooms, mops, etc.
No counter tops in the laundry room. While I'm complaining about my laundry room, I do not have a counter of any kind. A counter makes it so much easier to fold clothes. I have the front loaders with pedestals and folding on top of either appliance is a strain. I usually end up hauling laundry to fold in the kitchen. :-(
No cabinets in my laundry room. I have a wire shelf over the washer/dryer and it doesn't give me much room for stuff. In Minnesota, my laundry room had actual cabinets--uppers and lowers--to store things in. I'm also tired of looking at everything sitting out in the open every time I leave my house.
The BIG hill. I did think about the hill before I bought my house. The driveway is steep, and since I'm from Minnesota, my first thought was getting up or down it with the car in winter. I decided it wasn't a problem in Georgia because there wasn't much snow here. What I didn't consider was getting the garbage can and recycling up and down that hill each week. I'm always scared if I let go of my grip, the thing is going to go sailing down the driveway and across the street.
The furnace in the attic. This might not be a problem for most everyone else, but I'm afraid of heights and climbing that pull down ladder to the attic...well, I won't. Which means my furnace filter only gets changed when my parents are visiting or the handyman is here for other jobs.Even if I had thought about these things, the odds are pretty good that I would have bought this house anyway. It had all of my has-to-have items and most of my I'd-really-like-this items. I almost did buy another house instead of this one, but as I discussed the offer, I began to panic and I decided that meant it wasn't supposed to be my house. This house? It seriously felt right and I was calm when I did the paperwork. But that doesn't mean I won't continue to mutter every time I have to schlep groceries across the entire house.
Proximity of the garage to the kitchen. My garage and kitchen are about as far apart as they can get and still be in the same house. I only have to say two words to explain why this isn't cool: Grocery shopping. Hauling bags and bags in from the car is a royal pain. It's not any shorter to haul them in through the front door. At least not enough to make a difference.
Hard wood floors in the kitchen. They look so pretty, but are so impractical. Drop a can? Dent in the floor. I also have a long scratch in the coating over the wood that looks hideous and I have a few other shallower, shorter scratches in the coating. The kitchen is just too high traffic/high impact for hard wood.
No utility sink in the house. I honestly didn't think I used my utility sink that much, but I've wished for one a few too many times to take this for granted again.
No closet in the laundry/mud room. My garage enters into the laundry room. In my Minnesota house, I had the same setup, but I had a nice large closet (and a utility sink!) in there. It was the perfect place for jackets and brooms, mops, etc.
No counter tops in the laundry room. While I'm complaining about my laundry room, I do not have a counter of any kind. A counter makes it so much easier to fold clothes. I have the front loaders with pedestals and folding on top of either appliance is a strain. I usually end up hauling laundry to fold in the kitchen. :-(
No cabinets in my laundry room. I have a wire shelf over the washer/dryer and it doesn't give me much room for stuff. In Minnesota, my laundry room had actual cabinets--uppers and lowers--to store things in. I'm also tired of looking at everything sitting out in the open every time I leave my house.
The BIG hill. I did think about the hill before I bought my house. The driveway is steep, and since I'm from Minnesota, my first thought was getting up or down it with the car in winter. I decided it wasn't a problem in Georgia because there wasn't much snow here. What I didn't consider was getting the garbage can and recycling up and down that hill each week. I'm always scared if I let go of my grip, the thing is going to go sailing down the driveway and across the street.
The furnace in the attic. This might not be a problem for most everyone else, but I'm afraid of heights and climbing that pull down ladder to the attic...well, I won't. Which means my furnace filter only gets changed when my parents are visiting or the handyman is here for other jobs.Even if I had thought about these things, the odds are pretty good that I would have bought this house anyway. It had all of my has-to-have items and most of my I'd-really-like-this items. I almost did buy another house instead of this one, but as I discussed the offer, I began to panic and I decided that meant it wasn't supposed to be my house. This house? It seriously felt right and I was calm when I did the paperwork. But that doesn't mean I won't continue to mutter every time I have to schlep groceries across the entire house.
September 20, 2015
Things Americans Are Doing Bloody Wrong
I wish the video had spent more time on the differences between the UK and the US, but some of these were good. Who knew the British called crepes pancakes? (At least they looked like crepes to me.)
September 17, 2015
Lexicon Valley Review
This is not a paid endorsement and no money, gifts, or favors exchanged hands. This is my opinion, unswayed by any outside influences.
I'm a word geek--a lot of writers are. I particularly enjoy linguistics and even took an entry level course while I was in college. I'm fascinated particularly be regionalisms. The most well known one is pop vs soda vs Coke vs something else. There's even a website showing this (I'm firmly in the "pop" camp). And the New York Times had a great quiz that pinpointed my Minnesota roots easily.
I was listening to an audio book about where words come from and the lecturer mentioned a podcast called Lexicon Valley which talked about related topics. I knew I had to check it out.
It is largely an enjoyable show, although I haven't loved all the episodes. I downloaded every episode and they've had a lot of gaps that lasted for a while--not something I particularly like because once I get caught up, I'm going to want a new episode every week.
They've talked about R dropping (like in Boston/NYC) and it's going away. They talked about swearing and the use of "dude," and if it's okay to end a sentence with a preposition (it is), and languages going extinct. I'm not even halfway through all the episodes yet and look at all the word-geek topics I've listened to!
Most interesting of all, though, was when they talked about language changes that we don't really notice (like the progressive tense). Yes, changes can be that subtle, but once it was discussed on the show, it was so obvious.
The podcast is free to listen to--it's supported by advertising--and the topics are usually interesting, although the joy of podcasts is that you can skip anything that isn't good or stop and delete episodes you don't like.
I'm a word geek--a lot of writers are. I particularly enjoy linguistics and even took an entry level course while I was in college. I'm fascinated particularly be regionalisms. The most well known one is pop vs soda vs Coke vs something else. There's even a website showing this (I'm firmly in the "pop" camp). And the New York Times had a great quiz that pinpointed my Minnesota roots easily.
I was listening to an audio book about where words come from and the lecturer mentioned a podcast called Lexicon Valley which talked about related topics. I knew I had to check it out.
It is largely an enjoyable show, although I haven't loved all the episodes. I downloaded every episode and they've had a lot of gaps that lasted for a while--not something I particularly like because once I get caught up, I'm going to want a new episode every week.
They've talked about R dropping (like in Boston/NYC) and it's going away. They talked about swearing and the use of "dude," and if it's okay to end a sentence with a preposition (it is), and languages going extinct. I'm not even halfway through all the episodes yet and look at all the word-geek topics I've listened to!
Most interesting of all, though, was when they talked about language changes that we don't really notice (like the progressive tense). Yes, changes can be that subtle, but once it was discussed on the show, it was so obvious.
The podcast is free to listen to--it's supported by advertising--and the topics are usually interesting, although the joy of podcasts is that you can skip anything that isn't good or stop and delete episodes you don't like.
September 15, 2015
Spammed!
I've talked about my organizational challenges here in the past and have mentioned a couple of attempts to get myself on track. Well, guess what? It brought me organizer spam!
That's right, some professional organizer from Australia sent me a newsletter I did not subscribe to, and when I tried to click the unsubscribe button, I got an error message. Guess who's email I labeled as spam?
Even if I lived in Australia and was looking to hire someone to organize my home for me, this woman's name would have been crossed right off my list. The thing that's especially annoying is that she must have hired some bot to search the web for people talking about organizing. I'm guessing here, but since the email didn't come through the contact form on my website, it's a good bet some bot ferreted out my email address and sent the message.
Author spam is bad enough, and unfortunately I get a ton of it, but this is somehow worse. Maybe because I feel as if I've been spied on then marketed to against my will.
Do people seriously not get that spamming someone is not a good way to drum up business? Or do they really get enough bites to make it worth their while to do this?
That's right, some professional organizer from Australia sent me a newsletter I did not subscribe to, and when I tried to click the unsubscribe button, I got an error message. Guess who's email I labeled as spam?
Even if I lived in Australia and was looking to hire someone to organize my home for me, this woman's name would have been crossed right off my list. The thing that's especially annoying is that she must have hired some bot to search the web for people talking about organizing. I'm guessing here, but since the email didn't come through the contact form on my website, it's a good bet some bot ferreted out my email address and sent the message.
Author spam is bad enough, and unfortunately I get a ton of it, but this is somehow worse. Maybe because I feel as if I've been spied on then marketed to against my will.
Do people seriously not get that spamming someone is not a good way to drum up business? Or do they really get enough bites to make it worth their while to do this?
September 13, 2015
Why Calculator and Phone Keypads are Reversed
This was the bane of my existence at the job I did while I was in college because I went from the keypad with 789 across the top to keypads with 123 across the top. I still transpose 1 and 7 and 9 and 3, etc.
September 10, 2015
Theme
One of the questions that I sometimes get asked is what's the theme of your book? Or what theme do you write about? I guess I should know these things, but I don't. Even after a book is done, I still can't figure out what the theme is. I guess it's acceptance? I honestly don't know.
But on the Work In Progress (WIP), I actually do know the answer to this question. The theme is forgiveness! Yes, I am all proud of myself for knowing this. :-) I've been published since 2002, but I've never figured out my theme before.
My heroine needs to forgive herself for not being there when she was needed. It really wasn't her fault that she couldn't be reached, but she blames herself anyway for being absent when those she loved needed her.
My hero needs to forgive his father, and because the man is dead, accept that he'll never get an apology or a chance to mend their relationship.
So, yea! My theme in this book is Forgiveness.
But on the Work In Progress (WIP), I actually do know the answer to this question. The theme is forgiveness! Yes, I am all proud of myself for knowing this. :-) I've been published since 2002, but I've never figured out my theme before.
My heroine needs to forgive herself for not being there when she was needed. It really wasn't her fault that she couldn't be reached, but she blames herself anyway for being absent when those she loved needed her.
My hero needs to forgive his father, and because the man is dead, accept that he'll never get an apology or a chance to mend their relationship.
So, yea! My theme in this book is Forgiveness.
