Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 14

Wherefore Art Thou Oz?

Book related, but not writing related topic today.

Oz, the hero of the book after Lurch's story, has long hair. Like really long. I didn't think much about this. My characters are in the driver's seat and I'm just along for the ride.

The long hair, though, became a huge issue while I was working with my cover designer. The photo sites she uses do not have any good options for men with long hair.

Literally none.

She asked me to see if I could find someone and I spent hours looking. Hours! And I ran into the same problem she did. There was one guy that could kind of maybe work except he didn't look hard and dangerous and Oz most definitely is both.

The other funny thing is that while I liked the heroine she put on the mock up, I wasn't excited about her hair style. I thought while I'm here, let me see if I can find a different heroine. Every image I liked for Ayla turned out to be the same model. I decided the hair wasn't an issue, not when my cover designer already found the right woman to portray the heroine.

We're still working on the cover, but the cover reveal will happen first for newsletter subscribers. If you want to join my list, you can sign up Here. Just scroll down a little to find the sign up form.

Wait Your Turn

There's always a point when I'm writing a book that the couple from the next story arrive and start talking to me. It almost always happens while I'm working on revisions to the book in progress.

This time, however, the next couple showed up and started talking when I was only slightly halfway through Wicked Suspicion.

To say this is not good timing is understating things. I'm only able to write one book at a time because my connection to the characters is so enormous, I can't fit more than one couple in my brain at the same time. I've tried to write more than one book at a time.

I've failed. And had to table one of the stories. It doesn't matter if they're in different stages of creation. My brain thinks of them the same.

So Oz and his heroine, Ayla, starting to talk was a huge problem.

I'd go to bed. They'd keep me up talking. I'd be driving. I'd listen to them talking. I'd be trying to concentrate on Lurch and Nyx. It would be Oz and Ayla talking.

The same scene over and over and over. Finally, it dawned on me to write the scene down. I just transcribed the dialogue, not the rest of the scene, It worked. I haven't heard from Oz or Ayla since I did this. I'm also confident they'll return when it is their turn to have center stage.

It was an interesting scene and it had information in it that I didn't know about beforehand, so it was good. Just the timing was less than stellar.

Logic Holes and Character Protests

I've blogged before a few times about how when I grind to screeching halt and can't get any words down, it always ends up being because I had my characters do something they wouldn't do.

The unfortunate thing is that it frequently takes me about a month to figure out why I'm not writing. I don't automatically assume I messed up.

But this time I did!

I wrote a scene in Case's Point of View (POV) and I thought it went well. The next scene was in Nyx's POV and I got nowhere. Like literally three paragraphs into the scene and I have nothing.

Frustrated, I went to bed that night and started thinking about it.

Did I immediately go eureka! I messed up in Case's scene? No.

But what I did come up with was some logic holes in the scene and once I looked at them, I was like, Case would never do that, not with Nyx's safety on the line.

That's when I said eureka! Or maybe I groaned that I didn't realize what the problem was hours earlier.

I'm not going to complain about a few hours, though, not when it usually takes weeks and weeks to work it out.

So the next day, I fixed the logic holes in Case's scene, did a little editing/revising, and boom! Next scene flowed smoothly. I'll take it.

The Instagram Algorithm

Instagram is at it again!

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about the furniture restoration reels they keep showing me. It was tempting, but I knew that would be too much hard work and that there was a steep learning curve.

This week, they started showing me card making reels, paper quilling, and (gulp) scrapbook journals. ::sobs::

The paper quilling is incredible! But I also know this not only requires a high skill level, it also requires a level of patience that I don't possess, so while I'm enjoying watching the woman do her paper quilling, the temptation to do it myself is low.

The card making was a little harder to resist. It just looked like so much fun! I was contemplating giving this a try and then I saw the scrapbook journaling. OMG! Here's a link to the journal artist that Instagram hooked me with.

I have all kinds of stuff from a previous attempt at scrapbooking. Papers, scissors, punches, chipboard, paper cutters, and assorted other tools/supplies. I never got great at it, and I gave it up after I scrapbooked all my Ravyn's Flight reviews and news and awards and stuff. I kind of meant to get back to scrapbooking some day, but since Ravyn came out in 2002 and I haven't done any scrapbooking since then, well the handwriting was on the wall.

And then I saw the Instagram reels for scrapbook journaling.

I know this one is going to have another learning curve since my scrapbook pages were...interesting. I know I don't have all the supplies I'd need even if I have a lot of them. I'm tempted anyway.

Not only do I have a ton of supplies, I also have a ton of spiral bound junk journals. I bought them to do my book notes, thinking this would work and give me enough pages to last a while, but when I tried to use one of them, it quickly became obvious that they wouldn't work for this purpose. I'd been hanging on to them, wondering what I could use them for. Instagram provided the answer.

I haven't done anything yet. I haven't attempted a page in the journal, I haven't bought anything to work with. I've been busy writing Case and Nyx. And I'll blog about that on Thursday.

Character Names

Recently, I was reading some cover copy for books I was thinking about buying. One of them stopped me cold because of the hero's name. I was like, whoa, who names their hero this?

BTW, I'm not going to say any of the names I'm talking about, but I don't think it makes a difference. Also I know someone with this name and I really like him, so....

Anyway, back to the cover copy. The hero's name was something so exceptionally nerdy that I was like, what? Who gives their hero this name?

It would be one thing if the hero is supposed to be a nerd, but in this particular story, he was most definitely not that.

Of course, maybe this author is in a similar situation as I am? I don't get to pick my characters' names. They let me know what their names are. I've talked about this on the blog lots of times. Sometimes it frustrates me. Sometimes they have names I personally do not like. The characters do not care. It's their way or they won't talk, and since I write by listening to them, I spin my wheels until I concede.

I've also seen heroine names that make me batty because they're the too little to live up to. (I wanted to link to a Nameberry list because I saw something like this in their book, Beyond Jennifer and Jason, but apparently they don't have it up on their site.) Examples are like Bambi or Bubbles (because I do not know anyone with these names, nor have I seen anyone name their heroines either name.)

Of course, I like strong heroines. The stronger the heroine, the stronger the hero can be without looking like an Alphahole. I'm not talking about heroines who argue just to show they're "strong." And not heroines who are TSTL (Too Stupid To Live) just to show the hero how strong and independent they are. I mean legitimately strong heroines.

Anyway, this is my long way of saying that names matter and the image names conjure matter, but even though I have no choice about my character names, I always assume other authors do have control. :-)

Review Time: Office Supplies

I thought I'd do a quick review of some of the office products I was excited to try.

I blogged about them when the products arrived.

These involved sticky notes/flags that were not name brand sticky notes. There's a reason why I love buying the brand name in this category of office supplies. These products reminded me why.

No matter how cute these sticky notes/flags appeared, I can not recommend them. The stick was horrible on both, although one was worse than the other.

The planets/moons sticky notes were so cool! I took one off, put it down in my notebook, and wrote something. Then I started making real book notes and realized the moon was in my way. So I moved it.

In the name brand, that would be no big deal. In these notes? The sticky note never stuck well again. It curled up where it was supposed to stick. I had the windows open, and with hardly any breeze at all, the note was blown off my notebook and onto the floor. I thought it was a moth and I was slapping at it before I identified what it was.

Epic fail.

I was really looking forward to these little sticky flags. Not only to bookmark pages in my writing notebook, but to use them to highlight important notes. I have a dedicated Paladin League notebook, but the couples are all mixed up because I write notes as they come to me.

I knew it wasn't going to be good immediately. I was right. These things hardly stick at all, even from the first time. Definitely not worth the money.

Brutally disappointed.

Me and Instagram

Instagram, for reasons I don't understand, has begun to show me furniture restoration reels. This is dangerous because I look at these videos and think I can do that! And then I think about it harder and realize these restorers have years of experience and it's not as easy as it looks.

I've also been treated to resin art, jewelry making, and glass blowing. Except for the glass blowing, which I researched for one of my paranormal romances, I'm again in the I can do that mindset.

These reels make these activities look like fun! And maybe they are fun, but again, these are people who've done this for a while.

Actually, I'm seriously wondering about the Instagram algorithm. I get all kinds of hair cutting reels. Including for curly hair. My hair isn't stick straight, but I definitely don't have naturally curly hair. Hair styling reels, like for weddings. And hair coloring videos. Some of those have been pretty cool.

I almost wonder if I mess up the algorithm when I research different things on Instagram? I mean writers do look up some pretty strange things.

Today, the algorithm served up a reel that I was actually interested in, but I was in the middle of working with some weights. I decided to finish my leg lifts and then watch the video. And I picked up my phone afterward...and Instagram refreshed! ARGH! I scrolled and scrolled, but I couldn't find that reel again. And (of course) search was useless.

The Hair Disaster

Back when I was in college, I had a hair stylist who apparently was challenged when it came to using color. I was getting highlights in my hair at that time and (according to this stylist) the highlights pulled up too fast. She wanted to use color instead of bleach or whatever it was she used to get the streaks.

Being young, it never occurred to me not to trust her judgment. If I was going to get the same result with color, why not?

As it turned out, we didn't get the same result. The color stopped when my hair was a strange red shade. And because I was only doing highlights, they were red streaks in my hair. And to make it extra special, the color clashed with my natural shade.

What happened next was an odyssey that ended in the biggest hair disaster I have ever experienced. I ended up with super super blonde hair that was as dry as straw.

I tried all kinds of conditioners, left them in for increasingly long periods of time, but the straw-like dryness remained.

Someone at my part-time job found a solution. Slather mayonnaise on my hair, wrap it in plastic wrap and a towel, and sleep with it in. Wash it out in the morning and have soft hair again. I was desperate. I decided to try this method on a Friday night.

Everything was fine until about 5 a.m. on Saturday morning when I literally couldn't stand the smell of mayo one more second. Even though my time wasn't up yet for the hair wrap, I washed the crap out anyway.

And washed and washed. It seemed to take a really long time to get rid of the stench of the mayo.

On the plus side, I did have soft hair again. The plan worked.

The minus side? To this day, I can't stand the smell of mayonnaise.

Message Spam

Back in April, I received an email from Simple Human. They were having a sale. I decided to pop over and take a look at their kitchen garbage cans.

I found one that I liked, but it came in three sizes. I bought my current garbage can from this company, so I thought I'd login and take a look at the size I had. That would give me an idea what size in the can I was looking at.

Not that I necessarily was going to buy one, but if I was, I wanted something around the same size.

I logged in, but the site didn't respond as expected. Instead, it opened a window that demanded more information including my telephone number.

That's right. Simple Human would not allow me to login to my account without giving them my phone.

No chance in hell.

They already have my email address and my physical address since I ordered from them. They do not need the phone number too.

Oh, and along with the phone number, I had to agree to allow text messages. By providing the information they were demanding, I was granting permission for them to spam my iMessage app. Oh hell to the no times a million.

With this one change to their website, Simple Human has guaranteed that I will never buy from them directly again. They've also discouraged me from ever clicking through on their emails ever again. And I found the exact same garbage can for cheaper than the sale price at an online retailer. Another fail for Simple Human. (No, I didn't buy it.)

I don't know what the hell they think they're doing, but they really irked me. I can't be the only one who finds this ridiculous. What an epic fail.

Alternate Dimensions?

Did you ever have something so strange happen that you wonder if you jumped into a parallel universe? I did and it left me confused.

This isn't some major earthshaking event, but something so small, so inconsequential, that I couldn't understand what was going on. Or maybe that nothing was going on and my mind had stuttered.

What was this minor event that had me questioning the space-time continuum?

I turned into my driveway on there was a black piece of metal on my fence. I'd never seen it before and I would have because it stood out. 

My immediate reaction was what the hell is that?

I've pulled into my driveway literally hundreds of times and I'd never seen it before. I took a picture because what the hell?

It appears to be a black piece of metal and it's screwed into my fence. I didn't add it and I can't imagine why anyone else would attach it to the fence, but honestly, I'd never seen it before and it was the first thing I noticed when I pulled in the driveway. The first thing.

Just to verify I wasn't having a brain schism, I looked through my pictures and found one that included that same section of the fence from 2017. No piece of black metal.

What is this thing and who put it on my fence and for what reason? Argh!