Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 160

The Simpsons IRL

This is a television promo for The Simpsons. What a fun way to do it.

Facebook

I've been thinking about this for a while and I think it's time to talk about Facebook. I don't spend much time there any longer. I used to. In fact I'd check it first thing in the morning and the last thing at night and everywhere in between. I don't now.

There are a couple of reasons. The first is the amount of authors I friended.

I'm sorry, but too many authors are plain obnoxious on Facebook. Maybe if someone follows only a few, it's not too bad, but I made the mistake of "networking" with my fellow writers and I have hundreds and hundreds of them bombarding me with promo crap. Keep in mind that they sent me the friend request; I've rarely friended another author with the exception of a few.

Because of other authors, I've had to lock down my FB wall and ban posting of anything except replies. I got tired of having people coming on my page and pimping their book/FB page/website on my page. That's like going to someone's home and putting graffiti on their walls. This should be a no-brainer.

Doing this, though, didn't stop those determined to be obnoxious. They would comment on my posts on my wall pimping their book/FB page/website.

The next thing I did was stop reading my FB messages. Yes, not to be deterred, the obnoxious would send me (and many, many others) FB mail pimping their book/FB page/website/book signing. There are no words for how much I hate this because every reply is also sent to my inbox. Ugh! You don't even want to know how much of this I get. Not every message gets lost. If someone sends a legitimate FB note on a day where I don't have much promo crap, I probably will see it.

But my fellow authors weren't done finding obnoxious things to do on Facebook. There are event requests. Every single day I have to wade through event invitations. FB doesn't give me a way to disable this feature across the board. I have to go in and block event invites on a person by person basis. And I do. I don't even read what the event is about anymore. FB makes me click decline before it gives me the option of blocking invitations from someone, so I do it over and over again. Decline and block.

It's so frustrating to have to waste time doing this, but if someone is inviting me to a book signing a thousand miles away from my home, they'll no doubt bug me again. And again. And again. If they'd use lists and some common sense... Unfortunately, most writers aren't tech savvy enough to use lists. They might not even know they exist and so event invites roll in by the dozens every week.

The obnoxious authors aren't done yet. FB introduced a new kind of hell a while back called Groups. Now, anyone I've friended can add me to a group without my permission and I will get an email for every post in that group. When I was up in MN this last time--without internet access--I opened my email to discover I'd been added to three or four new groups and I had hundreds of notes from each one to delete. It was ridiculous! And the thing is this was an improvement. When I was up in MN in April without internet access, I logged on to find I'd been added to almost a dozen groups.

A dozen!

WTH is wrong with people? Why would you ever think that it's okay to mass add people to any group?

I want to tell these authors that 1) I don't know them 2) I only accepted their friend request because of networking 3) I've never read them and 4) after being added to their group, I never will read them. I don't. Instead, I unfriend anyone who does this to me. I used to give them a second chance, but this became far too prevalent to not go to one strike and you're out.

I know that I could switch to a page and then I wouldn't have to deal with this stuff, but when I first got on FB, pages weren't an option. By the time they were, I had too many friends to get everyone to move, so I didn't.

So reason one why I'm not on FB much anymore is other authors. Reason number two is Facebook itself.

When I first signed up, I liked it, but with every technical/feature upgrade they did, I liked it a little less. It wasn't a matter of getting used to it. I got used to it and I still didn't like the new version most of the time. This kept adding up and I kept spending less and less time on FB.

And then FB went to Timeline.

There are no words for how much I hate this. I tried getting used to it--heck, I am used to it by now since I was forced over in an early wave--but I still loathe it. My FB use went from decline to flat line. There are days I totally forget to check in...until someone tags me in a promotional post for their book. Grrr.

Where do I hangout online? Twitter. I love Twitter. I don't auto-follow--and thank goodness I didn't or authors and "SEO experts" would have ruined this platform for me, too--but I love chatting on Twitter. Send me an @reply and I'll respond. Sometimes it might not be immediately because I have a day job, but I will answer when I see your tweet.

You can also find me on Pinterest. I love pictures when I write and this allows me to save images I see online without putting them on my hard drive. I have quite a collection of clothes, shoes, and men. Lots of hot men. :-) Come visit me and see.

Copyright and Fair Use

I had a funny thing happen to me last week--and by funny, I mean strange, not humorous. I was checking email at lunch while I was at work and among the notes was a take-down notice. Yes, someone was accusing me of infringing on their copyright.

This left me puzzled because I'm very careful about this and I couldn't think of anything I'd posted recently that even touched on someone else's material. I clicked through on the link they'd included and it was a blog post I'd written nearly two years ago. Yep, it was from January 2011 and we're nearly to 2013. I read through what they were objecting to. Four sentences.

I got a take-down notice for quoting four sentences.

There's this part of copyright law called the Fair Use Doctrine. I'm linking through to the Wikipedia entry for anyone who wants to read in more detail about it, but basically it allows others to quote copyrighted material within certain circumstances.

Since four sentences can hardly be construed as too much material, I was fine there. I also fell within the category of commentary--I was fine here as well.

The take-down email also, quite frankly, pissed me off. It still pisses me off when I think of it. Some corporation is trying to quell Fair Use of material and this isn't good. Believe me, I'm a strong supporter of copyright, but I also believe that companies like this one are doing more to hurt copyright in the long run than all the pirates running loose on the internet.

Sending intimating take-down notices for instances of Fair Use does nothing but foster resentment, and ultimately, will lead to more people pirating material. Fair Use exists for a reason--so that people can talk about ideas and share thoughts. Fair Use is vital to society.

And I took the blog post down anyway, despite being assured that there were attorneys who would take on the case for free. It galled me to do this, but I did it anyway because it's just not worth the time, energy, and aggravation to fight a take-down notice on a blog post that's nearly two years old. So the bullies get away with it and no doubt will go on to bully others. I'm sorry about that.

The event was covered by Tech Dirt. They have the four sentences I quoted. They also have a screenshot of part of my blog before I took the post down.

Celebrating Your Birthday Win

This guy celebrated his birthday by doing random nice things for others.

TMI

I did spare a few thoughts for writing while I was in the midst of going through my house. To be honest, I'm not sure how this cropped up inside my brain because I can't think of anything that triggered it, but then my mind mystifies me frequently. :-)

Why do we as romance writers have to mention in the book how much experience the heroine does or doesn't have?

That was the question I pondered. My personal belief—and practice—is that it almost never needs to be mentioned. I did bring it up in my first book because it was a dynamic of the relationship between Ravyn and Damon that actually had an impact. I also brought it up in Dark Awakening because it was also a plot factor and Maia's past relationship with Seth was also a major plot point in In Twilight's Shadow. Any other mention in any other book wasn't my idea, but a request from an editor.

To be fair, I generally don't announce how much experience my heroes have either unless it's a story factor. Although you can bet safely that they're not virgins. That is one trope that I avoid like the plague as a reader and I'm for darn sure not spending six months of my life writing one. And now that I've said that, the Universe will probably ensure the next new hero that shows up is innocent. But damn I hope not.

But I digress.

Anyway, I've never seen a mystery writer or a fantasy writer mention how much sexual experience their characters have, so I'm not sure why romance writers are expected to do this. If a writer doesn't say, then the reader can picture a heroine (or hero) any way she likes. If she wants the heroine to be a virgin, she can be a virgin. If the reader prefers a more experienced heroine, there you go. And if the reader wants a heroine with a little experience, she can be that, too.

Reading is very much a collaborative exercise. Every time I open a book, I bring my preferences and biases to the table. I think most readers do this and IMO, it's one of the things that makes reading so awesome. I just think that not saying something like, Jane had slept with three guys, one of whom kept his socks on, and none of them had ever rocked her world is unnecessary unless there's a specific reason the story demands it.

Missing Memories

Another story from my time up in Minnesota while I worked on my house.

My MN home cleaning adventures continue. The vertigo finally passed and I was able to get to work. My mom and I were working in the basement and I said to her that the chaos down here was making me nuts and it was hard for me to focus on what needed to be done. So I set her up with a small job and started rearranging boxes of books on the shelves. I actually found two boxes we hadn't gone through yet and we sorted through them, getting rid of more books.

And then as my dad, mom, and I were working, it dawned on me. My high school yearbooks were missing!

Another set of books, too—a Time-Life set on psychic phenomena—but those don't matter compared to the yearbooks. You see, despite all the crap I've discovered in my house, I kept very little from high school. Basically a few small things that I discovered by accident like a graduation program, my tassel from my cap, and my yearbooks.

Of these things, the yearbooks were most important to me. My friends had written in them and while I clearly hadn't looked at the in the six years since I moved, I'd be heartbroken to lose them.

As I write this, we haven't found them yet. My parents are searching their home and we've already gone through every box in mine. This is making me feel just sick. I'm hoping by the time I post this blog, I can add some good news at the end. Right now, I'm scared that isn't going to happen.

Update: Yearbooks were not found. My parents are continuing to search their house, but I've given up hope.

Pitching Blooper

This is one of my favorite baseball bloopers. It happened in 2011 when Atlanta pitcher Tim Hudson had a little miscue.

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You Spin Me Right Round

Just when you think there won't be more surprises, the universe throws a curve ball. The first Sunday I was home in MN, I leaned forward to dry my hair like I have thousands of times before only this time when I straightened, the room was spinning. Fast. Clockwise.

This led to motion sickness. I do have a tendency toward seasickness much to my disgust. And well, let's just say I did a few Technicolor yawns that I could have lived without.

Vertigo.

I'd had it once before, but a very mild case. No matter; I recognized it instantly.
There was only one position that didn't make the world spin—recumbent. I went to bed early, hoping that I'd wake up in the morning improved. I didn't. I called the doctor. My doctor wasn't in Monday and was booked the rest of the week. No other doctor at two clinics had an open appointment. WTF? It's August. Isn't this supposed to be a lighter time of the year since there's not much flu or whatever floating around?

I ended up going to urgent care Monday night. I was bad enough where I couldn't drive and my dad was tied up until later in the day.

After a long wait in the examination room and a few tests, the doctor proclaimed I had vertigo and nothing more. Which earned me a shot in the butt and two prescriptions. It was worth it, though, because the nausea stopped. That was the worst part of the whole thing.

The world is still wobbly and loopy as I type this, but I can sit upright and I don't feel the need to hurl, so I'd say things are looking up.

Update: The vertigo lasted 5 days. It cost me 2 full days of working on my house and slowed me down for three more after that. Then it left as if it had never been there, however, my balance is still off when I am sleepy.

Neutralized

I've been thinking about what people think of my house. First it was the painter coming in and seeing the aqua walls in my office (with purple curtains), the pink bedroom with the fuchsia duvet cover and lamp shade, my green bathroom with the Scooby-Doo clock, and my bright blue accent wall in the great room with the Hawaiian paintings. [image error]

To me, the house has always been full of personality and whimsy. The painter complimented the colors I'd chosen, but he also agreed with me that they needed to go in order to sell the house.
 
A few days later—the day after he painted my bedroom and bathroom to be exact—I watched a show on TLC. I think it was called Moving Up. One of the new homeowners commented on how bland and without color this house was that she'd bought. And it was! The most color in the place was some boring maroon stripped wallpaper in the bathroom.

This got me to thinking about what people would see when they came in my house when it was on the market. My blue, aqua, pink and green walls are now all a light tan color called Ladyfinger. It's a pretty boring shade, and while I wish I'd painted my bathroom this color—it really goes well with my counters and flooring—it's not a color I would have used in any other room. This is a shade very similar to the boring house on the TV show and all I could think was people coming in and thinking, wow, this person was really afraid of color.

It's totally untrue!

[image error] I love color! My house was full of bright, vibrant hues until the painting happened. I won't do it, of course, but I feel like posting a sign somewhere once it goes on sale that says this. Or maybe a sign that says something about the house being neutralized for your viewing pleasure. :-/ My house might have shortcomings in other peoples' eyes, but being blah was not one of them. Until now.

The upper shot is the great room before and the lower left is great room after the painter was done. My house has been neutralized. I'm sure home buyers will like it better than the bright colors I had, but now the house doesn't feel like me anymore. It feels like all the personality is gone. This makes me very sad.

More pictures below.

Office before. Exciting turquoise/aqua blue color.

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Mid-transformation:
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And full boring. You have to look to the sides of the bookcase. I forgot to match the after shot to the before image when I took the picture.

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Titanic Deconstructed

 Facts and figures about the Titanic.