Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 162
August 28, 2012
Non-Fashion Passion
I have a cousin who can put on a pair of shorts, T-shirt, and tennis shoes, spend all day outside in July in the heat and humidity and still look polished enough to go to the opera. On the other hand, I can spend two hours getting ready to go somewhere fancy and ten minutes later look as if I were standing outside in the heat and humidity all day. Since I fail at glamor and always have, my personal style is comfort.
Luckily, the heroines I've had come in to talk to me have mostly been casual dressers themselves. And then there was Maia from In Twilight's Shadow. She had that casual elegant look down pat and she wore dresses and skirts. I ended up spending a lot of time online trying to find outfits for her.
Shona from Edge of Dawn dressed up a fair amount in her story, too, now that I think about it. Okay, so I've had two heroines that have forced me to dress them up.
In an effort to be prepared for future heroines who might want something more than jeans, I've begun pinning all kinds of gowns on Pinterest. I'm hoping to avoid any frantic searches online.
Luckily, the heroines I've had come in to talk to me have mostly been casual dressers themselves. And then there was Maia from In Twilight's Shadow. She had that casual elegant look down pat and she wore dresses and skirts. I ended up spending a lot of time online trying to find outfits for her.
Shona from Edge of Dawn dressed up a fair amount in her story, too, now that I think about it. Okay, so I've had two heroines that have forced me to dress them up.
In an effort to be prepared for future heroines who might want something more than jeans, I've begun pinning all kinds of gowns on Pinterest. I'm hoping to avoid any frantic searches online.
August 26, 2012
Mars Curiosity
This is an awesome animation that runs through what will happen when the Mars rover Curiosity is ready to land on the red planet.
August 23, 2012
Bucket Lists
Since I've joined Pinterest I've seen a lot of Bucket List posts. I started a board of my own, but as I write this, I only have two things pinned to it. The first is to visit all fifty states. I've actually done a good job on this so far.
The states in white are the ones I haven't gotten to yet. Five of them, though, are within spitting distance of Georgia (where I live now).
My other item is Join Starfleet. What can I say? I love Science Fiction Romance for a reason, right? :-) Plus, how hot is Chris Pine? heh!
I guess I've been really fortunate in my life. The Pinterest board I set up for the Bucket List items I've already completed is much fuller. And if I took the time to seek out items for it, there'd be even more pinned there.
I've done a lot of traveling, both before I went to work for the airline and afterward as well. My parents believed that traveling was educational and they scrimped and saved to send me to Germany and Austria with my German class in junior high school. They also let me go on a class trip to Washington DC and accompany the Spanish class to Mexico.
I've been to Alaska and Hawaii. I saw a humpback whale breach alongside a catamaran I was on in Alaska and I've gone whale watching in Hawaii. And the big travel bucket list item--I went to Australia and spent four weeks there. Most awesome vacation ever.
But the biggest bucket list item of all time for me was selling books to New York and having others read my stories. Getting email from readers who loved my books? Best. Thing. Ever.
Yep, I'm definitely a lucky person.
The states in white are the ones I haven't gotten to yet. Five of them, though, are within spitting distance of Georgia (where I live now).My other item is Join Starfleet. What can I say? I love Science Fiction Romance for a reason, right? :-) Plus, how hot is Chris Pine? heh!
I guess I've been really fortunate in my life. The Pinterest board I set up for the Bucket List items I've already completed is much fuller. And if I took the time to seek out items for it, there'd be even more pinned there.
I've done a lot of traveling, both before I went to work for the airline and afterward as well. My parents believed that traveling was educational and they scrimped and saved to send me to Germany and Austria with my German class in junior high school. They also let me go on a class trip to Washington DC and accompany the Spanish class to Mexico.
I've been to Alaska and Hawaii. I saw a humpback whale breach alongside a catamaran I was on in Alaska and I've gone whale watching in Hawaii. And the big travel bucket list item--I went to Australia and spent four weeks there. Most awesome vacation ever.
But the biggest bucket list item of all time for me was selling books to New York and having others read my stories. Getting email from readers who loved my books? Best. Thing. Ever.
Yep, I'm definitely a lucky person.
August 21, 2012
Hippity Hoppity
So I'm having trouble writing. Still. It's weird. I'm not burned out--been there, done that--but its as if I can't get the kind of focus I need to connect fully with my characters. I'm thinking (make that hoping) it's stress. I haven't sold my house in Minnesota yet and living in two cities...well, I don't recommend it.
The lack of focus keeps my brain hopping from story to story, and just because my muse must love me beyond all bounds, new plot bunnies keep appearing. Some I don't think will ever have enough meat to them to be a story. Others intrigue me and I find myself turning them over in my mind, trying to figure out how to make them work.
My head is too full of stories right now. :-)
And this might be part of the reason I'm having trouble connecting to one set of characters, too. Unlike some writers who thrive by working on multiple stories at the same time, I need to think about one at a time.
The stories my brain is leaping around include spin-off characters from Eternal Nights. Not just Flare, but also Gravedigger and Z-Man and I find myself intrigued by a younger Troll.
Then there's a hero and heroine from my Blood Feud world. He's intriguing--a dark, wounded soul--but she was something of an enigma until recently.
Third is the couple from the proposal I was revising before I moved to Atlanta. This hero and heroine are two characters I just love to death and I'm for sure doing their story, I'm just afraid to touch it while I'm foundering.
I've also had brief appearances from characters from my post-apocalypse novella idea and the heroes and heroines from random plot bunnies have hopped (pun intended) through my brain.
Anyhow, I'm finding it all very frustrating, but my house is in my thoughts almost constantly now. That makes it tough to settle in on anything.
The lack of focus keeps my brain hopping from story to story, and just because my muse must love me beyond all bounds, new plot bunnies keep appearing. Some I don't think will ever have enough meat to them to be a story. Others intrigue me and I find myself turning them over in my mind, trying to figure out how to make them work.
My head is too full of stories right now. :-)
And this might be part of the reason I'm having trouble connecting to one set of characters, too. Unlike some writers who thrive by working on multiple stories at the same time, I need to think about one at a time.
The stories my brain is leaping around include spin-off characters from Eternal Nights. Not just Flare, but also Gravedigger and Z-Man and I find myself intrigued by a younger Troll.
Then there's a hero and heroine from my Blood Feud world. He's intriguing--a dark, wounded soul--but she was something of an enigma until recently.
Third is the couple from the proposal I was revising before I moved to Atlanta. This hero and heroine are two characters I just love to death and I'm for sure doing their story, I'm just afraid to touch it while I'm foundering.
I've also had brief appearances from characters from my post-apocalypse novella idea and the heroes and heroines from random plot bunnies have hopped (pun intended) through my brain.
Anyhow, I'm finding it all very frustrating, but my house is in my thoughts almost constantly now. That makes it tough to settle in on anything.
August 19, 2012
Kennedy Space Center Street View
This is kind of a commercial for Google's Street View, but it's got some really cool looks at the space shuttle and Kennedy Space Center.
August 16, 2012
Ideas Are Everywhere
One of the questions writers get frequently is where do we get our ideas. It leaves most of us foundering--especially at first--because story ideas are everywhere and we've always had them. I can remember when I was six and I played out elaborate story scenarios with my Barbie dolls. I've solved how to answer this question by talking about where I got the idea for one or two of my stories.
Anyway, the takeaway here is that ideas come easily for writers and the men (they always seem to be men) who come up to writers at signings and say: Hey, I have this great idea for a book. I'll let you write and you can keep 50% of the royalties: clearly think the idea is the hard part.
It's not. The hard part is taking the idea and making it work for an entire story.
The first issue a writer has to deal with is if an idea is strong enough to make a story. This is partly instinct and partly experience. As an example, I had the idea for Deke being trapped in the cartoon for ten years before I wrote In the Midnight Hour. Why? Because I knew that by itself wasn't going to make a full story. It wasn't until Ryne (his heroine) showed up and told me her story that it was something that could be written.
The second issue is whether or not the idea is marketable. If you want lots of people to read your book, you have to have a story premise they find interesting and this is true even if you self-publish. If you don't care about this, disregard this one.
The idea has to hold up for the entire length of the story, and if you're writing single title, we're talking 100,000 words. That's a lot of pages. I've had ideas that I knew wouldn't have the legs to go that long which is why I've written some novellas for ebook. Demon Kissed for example, had a premise I loved--A demon slayer is tried in absentia by the demons and found guilty of murder--but I also knew it wouldn't make it 100,000 or even 70,000 words. It was, however, perfect for Nocturne Bites.
The idea has to keep the writer excited for 100,000 words. Or however long the story goes. I had an idea for a Science Fiction action/adventure series, but I knew I didn't want to spend 5 years of my life working on it. I liked it, but I didn't love it. It's still sitting on my hard drive and I think this is a good thing. It's my opinion that readers can tell when an author isn't excited about her story and is just going through the motions.
To sum up, ideas are easy, making them into books is hard work.
Anyway, the takeaway here is that ideas come easily for writers and the men (they always seem to be men) who come up to writers at signings and say: Hey, I have this great idea for a book. I'll let you write and you can keep 50% of the royalties: clearly think the idea is the hard part.
It's not. The hard part is taking the idea and making it work for an entire story.
The first issue a writer has to deal with is if an idea is strong enough to make a story. This is partly instinct and partly experience. As an example, I had the idea for Deke being trapped in the cartoon for ten years before I wrote In the Midnight Hour. Why? Because I knew that by itself wasn't going to make a full story. It wasn't until Ryne (his heroine) showed up and told me her story that it was something that could be written.
The second issue is whether or not the idea is marketable. If you want lots of people to read your book, you have to have a story premise they find interesting and this is true even if you self-publish. If you don't care about this, disregard this one.
The idea has to hold up for the entire length of the story, and if you're writing single title, we're talking 100,000 words. That's a lot of pages. I've had ideas that I knew wouldn't have the legs to go that long which is why I've written some novellas for ebook. Demon Kissed for example, had a premise I loved--A demon slayer is tried in absentia by the demons and found guilty of murder--but I also knew it wouldn't make it 100,000 or even 70,000 words. It was, however, perfect for Nocturne Bites.
The idea has to keep the writer excited for 100,000 words. Or however long the story goes. I had an idea for a Science Fiction action/adventure series, but I knew I didn't want to spend 5 years of my life working on it. I liked it, but I didn't love it. It's still sitting on my hard drive and I think this is a good thing. It's my opinion that readers can tell when an author isn't excited about her story and is just going through the motions.
To sum up, ideas are easy, making them into books is hard work.
August 14, 2012
Curiosity
Another suggested topic.
I'm excited about Curiosity landing on Mars, but in a way, it's also disappointing. I remember watching the space shuttle go up as a kid and being so excited about the possibilities. Only somewhere along the way, the United States lost its commitment to space exploration.
Men landed on the moon in 1969, but here we are 43 years later and we've gone backward, not forward. Instead of returning to the moon, apparently we were content to orbit the Earth. What happened?
As a child, I imagined we'd be landing men on Mars by 2012, not a mere scientific probe. Don't get me wrong, I think the probe is cool and I'm excited to learn what it reports back, but instead of wasting money on ridiculous pork barrel projects like the bridge to nowhere, couldn't we as a nation have invested in science and outer space?
Mars happens to be an enormously fascinating planet--or at least I think it is. I wanted to watch men walk on the moon live on television and I'm beginning to doubt it will happen. My one hope is that the private sector is starting to get involved in space. I believe they're already selling tickets for space flights. Now if the private sector would focus on a Martian manned mission....
I'm excited about Curiosity landing on Mars, but in a way, it's also disappointing. I remember watching the space shuttle go up as a kid and being so excited about the possibilities. Only somewhere along the way, the United States lost its commitment to space exploration.
Men landed on the moon in 1969, but here we are 43 years later and we've gone backward, not forward. Instead of returning to the moon, apparently we were content to orbit the Earth. What happened?
As a child, I imagined we'd be landing men on Mars by 2012, not a mere scientific probe. Don't get me wrong, I think the probe is cool and I'm excited to learn what it reports back, but instead of wasting money on ridiculous pork barrel projects like the bridge to nowhere, couldn't we as a nation have invested in science and outer space?
Mars happens to be an enormously fascinating planet--or at least I think it is. I wanted to watch men walk on the moon live on television and I'm beginning to doubt it will happen. My one hope is that the private sector is starting to get involved in space. I believe they're already selling tickets for space flights. Now if the private sector would focus on a Martian manned mission....
August 12, 2012
Shark Week Prep
Shark Week starts tonight on The Discovery Channel, so to kick it off right, here's a little shark video. Major cool stuff.
August 9, 2012
It's Not the Heat
This is another blog topic suggestion. If you have something you'd like me to blog about, please let me know.
I've been living in Atlanta for seven months now. The question I've been getting a lot lately is how I'm dealing with the heat. The heat isn't really a big deal. Believe it or not, Minnesota gets just as hot and nearly as humid in the summer. The only differences are 1) Summer is much shorter in Minneapolis and 2) We get breaks in the humidity.
In Minneapolis, we might have a week or even two of high heat/high humidity, but then the dew point will plummet from high 60s or low 70s to the 50s. It only lasts for a couple of days before the dew point climbs again, but the break is nice. There hasn't been any break in Atlanta, but with air conditioning, it's really not that big a deal.
What's a big deal for me is the bugs.
I've had three palmetto bugs in the house now and they freak me out every time. They're the most enormous bug I've ever seen and they've actually managed to make centipedes seem preferable--at least in comparison.
The other thing I'm having trouble with is the time zone change. Still. I'm not tired when I should go to bed and can't wake up when I'm supposed to get up. I've been told by people who've switched time zones that it can take a year to acclimate. I personally think GA should just go to central time. ;-) I believe this is a major factor in my difficulty in writing. I'm in a perpetual state of exhaustion.
But other than those two things (and traffic/commute time) overall, I like it fine down here. I for darn sure prefer the winters here to the ones in MN and not having to wear a heavy jacket very often? Complete awesomeness.
I've been living in Atlanta for seven months now. The question I've been getting a lot lately is how I'm dealing with the heat. The heat isn't really a big deal. Believe it or not, Minnesota gets just as hot and nearly as humid in the summer. The only differences are 1) Summer is much shorter in Minneapolis and 2) We get breaks in the humidity.
In Minneapolis, we might have a week or even two of high heat/high humidity, but then the dew point will plummet from high 60s or low 70s to the 50s. It only lasts for a couple of days before the dew point climbs again, but the break is nice. There hasn't been any break in Atlanta, but with air conditioning, it's really not that big a deal.
What's a big deal for me is the bugs.
I've had three palmetto bugs in the house now and they freak me out every time. They're the most enormous bug I've ever seen and they've actually managed to make centipedes seem preferable--at least in comparison.
The other thing I'm having trouble with is the time zone change. Still. I'm not tired when I should go to bed and can't wake up when I'm supposed to get up. I've been told by people who've switched time zones that it can take a year to acclimate. I personally think GA should just go to central time. ;-) I believe this is a major factor in my difficulty in writing. I'm in a perpetual state of exhaustion.
But other than those two things (and traffic/commute time) overall, I like it fine down here. I for darn sure prefer the winters here to the ones in MN and not having to wear a heavy jacket very often? Complete awesomeness.
August 7, 2012
On Revision
This topic is a suggestion from Twitter. If you have anything you'd like me to blog about, feel free to leave a comment.
Revision is a vital part of the writing process, but it's also overwhelming to look at this 100,000 word (And in my case frequently well over 100,000 words) work and try to figure out where to start. With every single book I finish, it's as if I have to relearn how to revise my work.
The first thing I do is reread the entire story without touching anything. I have a pad of paper beside me and I make notes on what I want to fix. Depending on the project, I might print it out and read on paper, but I don't always do this. If I do have it in hard copy, I'll make small notes on the page. And by small, I mean nitpicky stuff like awkward sentences, repeated words, etc. Anything beyond this goes on the notepad.
After I finish the read through, I might need time to think about how I'm going to fix something. If it's big enough, I'll run it past a few writing buddies to get their opinions and to find out if I'm not seeing something in my solution that will cause trouble later.
Getting to the actual revisions. Daunting. Most of my books are well over 100,000 words--some more than others. Printed out, we're talking about darn close to a ream of paper and looking at it, I can't help but panic about how I'm ever going to fix something this size. That's when I start playing mind games with myself. I think of it in scenes.
That's not to say there isn't a change that will affect the entire book or at least a large portion of it. When I revised Ravyn's Flight I had to adjust more than half the book to foreshadow my hero's big secret, something he didn't bother to tell me until a couple of days before he revealed all to the heroine. This was a big enough event in his life that it would color everything for him in the situation Damon and Ravyn were in.
Or when I revised The Power of Two and had to adjust the entire book to accommodate the heroine's younger age. In the original draft, she wasn't 21.
So yes, big changes, but I still thought about it in this way: What do I have to do in this scene to fix it?
The initial, bit overhaul revision run goes in fits and starts. I will back up and re-edit a scene if something occurs to me later. This is where the hard lifting gets done, and when it's finished, I don't want to go back to it again.
Round two revisions are for medium revisions. If I have sentences or paragraphs that need to be cut or rearranged, this is when it happens. This is also when I'll hit awkward sentences that weren't addressed in the big overhaul. Again, I think only in scenes. Anything bigger than that make my brain lock up and protest: "hey, this is too huge!"
By the time I do my third (and probably final revision run), there should be nothing but tweaking and fine tuning. Smoothing things out, replacing duplicate words, fine tuning transitions. This is actually my favorite part of revising.
Then the story is out the door and this whole cycle--including the initial panic--is repeated when I get the editorial revision letter.
Revision is a vital part of the writing process, but it's also overwhelming to look at this 100,000 word (And in my case frequently well over 100,000 words) work and try to figure out where to start. With every single book I finish, it's as if I have to relearn how to revise my work.
The first thing I do is reread the entire story without touching anything. I have a pad of paper beside me and I make notes on what I want to fix. Depending on the project, I might print it out and read on paper, but I don't always do this. If I do have it in hard copy, I'll make small notes on the page. And by small, I mean nitpicky stuff like awkward sentences, repeated words, etc. Anything beyond this goes on the notepad.
After I finish the read through, I might need time to think about how I'm going to fix something. If it's big enough, I'll run it past a few writing buddies to get their opinions and to find out if I'm not seeing something in my solution that will cause trouble later.
Getting to the actual revisions. Daunting. Most of my books are well over 100,000 words--some more than others. Printed out, we're talking about darn close to a ream of paper and looking at it, I can't help but panic about how I'm ever going to fix something this size. That's when I start playing mind games with myself. I think of it in scenes.
That's not to say there isn't a change that will affect the entire book or at least a large portion of it. When I revised Ravyn's Flight I had to adjust more than half the book to foreshadow my hero's big secret, something he didn't bother to tell me until a couple of days before he revealed all to the heroine. This was a big enough event in his life that it would color everything for him in the situation Damon and Ravyn were in.
Or when I revised The Power of Two and had to adjust the entire book to accommodate the heroine's younger age. In the original draft, she wasn't 21.
So yes, big changes, but I still thought about it in this way: What do I have to do in this scene to fix it?
The initial, bit overhaul revision run goes in fits and starts. I will back up and re-edit a scene if something occurs to me later. This is where the hard lifting gets done, and when it's finished, I don't want to go back to it again.
Round two revisions are for medium revisions. If I have sentences or paragraphs that need to be cut or rearranged, this is when it happens. This is also when I'll hit awkward sentences that weren't addressed in the big overhaul. Again, I think only in scenes. Anything bigger than that make my brain lock up and protest: "hey, this is too huge!"
By the time I do my third (and probably final revision run), there should be nothing but tweaking and fine tuning. Smoothing things out, replacing duplicate words, fine tuning transitions. This is actually my favorite part of revising.
Then the story is out the door and this whole cycle--including the initial panic--is repeated when I get the editorial revision letter.
