Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 174

Cover for Dark Awakening

Dark Awakening never had its own cover because it was part of an anthology called Shards of Crimson, which had four Crimson City stories. Now that Team Crimson City is working to publish our stories in electronic format, Kimi and Nic finally get a cover. As I blogged earlier, finding stock photos with multicultural characters was very difficult. Nic doesn't look very much like the Nic I saw when I wrote the story, but I think the cover turned out awesome anyway.

I'd written the cover copy for this story back in 2006 because I wanted a description of my story for my website even if the back cover copy on the actual anthology was more specific to Crimson City as a whole.

Kimi Noguchi is working as an intern for an advertising agency in Crimson City and she's discovered that she's a kijo or witch. She thinks having talent is cool, but her magic attracts the attention of a power-hungry Bak-Faru demon and she's forced to call on another demon, Nicodemus, for help.

Nic made a promise to stay away from Kimi for her own good, but now that she's summoned him, all bets are off. She's his vishtau mate, a bond held in reverence by all demons, and he's not about to let this opportunity pass him by. Nic plans to protect, woo and win his woman.

This was the first time I'd ever written anything short. I tend to go over the word count numbers in my contracts by a pretty good amount. What can I say? Bonus story for readers, right? Sometimes it just takes a while for a story to unfold, and despite my attempts to prod them along, I can't get my characters to move faster than they do.

The first ever cover for Dark Awakening...drum roll, please:

[image error]
Stay tuned for more on when Team Crimson City will have the series available in ebook.

New Cover for Through a Crimson Veil!

When I blogged a couple of weeks ago about having so much trouble finding stock photos to use on covers, it was because I was in the middle of having covers made for Through a Crimson Veil and Dark Awakening. For those of you who are going Dark Awakening, huh? This is my Crimson City novella that was in the Shards of Crimson anthology.

Well, Through a Crimson Veil is finally available electronically! I'm still waiting on Amazon, but if you have a Nook, it's up at BN.com. The story is also up in EPUB and Mobipocket PRC format at ARebooks and in a variety of formats at Smashwords.



Here's the new cover copy I wrote for the book:

When a sexy half demon asks Conor McCabe for protection, he can't say no and he doesn't understand why. He hates demons. He doesn't want to help her. He doesn't want to want her, but every minute he spends with her strengthens his need to keep her safe—and intensifies the desire burning between them.

Mika Noguchi sought out Conor to steal the key that can free all demons imprisoned in Orcus. She quickly regrets her mission—Conor is her destined mate and he'll view her theft as betrayal—but she gave her word to the council and the penalty for breaking it is severe.

Other demons are loose in Crimson City, however, and they have their own plans. They're not about to let anyone stand in the way. Not Conor. Not Mika. They'll do anything it takes to advance their agendas—even kill.

Writing cover copy is sooo hard. This totally made me appreciate my editors and anyone else at my publishers who wrote it for my books. I still have to come up with a short, one sentence blurb for Crimson Veil, but I'll get there.

And here's the cover:

[image error]
BTW, Team Crimson City is working to get our books up in electronic format. More info to come.

Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides

  [image error] I'm going to do my best not to give away any spoilers since this hasn't been available on disk for long. I was lucky enough to get some coupons to watch On Demand movies, so I took advantage of one of them to watch Pirates of the Caribbean - On Stranger Tides, the fourth in the franchise. Basically, Jack is off to find the Fountain of Youth, but there are two other groups involved in addition to the one he's working with. That's the gist of the plot, but of course, there is plenty of other stuff going on throughout the 2+ hours.

I loved the first POC movie. I thought it did a fabulous job with the characters and the story was enough to make them shine. I was bitterly disappointed with the second movie, and while I thought the third was a bit better, I didn't like it. I had a number of issues with it, including the fact that the core of the characters were sacrificed for plot expediency. And there was more special effects than the important stuff that made the first movie so special.

With this in mind, I went into On Stranger Tides with some trepidation. Overall, I liked it well enough. It wasn't as awesome as the original, but it was much better than the last two.

Johnny Depp is gorgeous and I love him as Captain Jack Sparrow. Will and Elizabeth from the first three movies aren't in this one, and I didn't miss them. I liked them, but I felt as if their story had been played out in the first three movies. It made a lot of sense to drop their characters and move forward with the pirates. I'm actually surprised Hollywood did it since it's just the slightest bit risky. I actually think, if they continue to make POC movies, that it would be smart to do arcs and drop those characters out as each arc finished, with the core players moving forward. Like Johnny Depp. :-)

Um, but I digressed. This is the kind of thing I do when I watch movies--analyze them like this.
Anyway, this time around, the movie is about more than special effects and that's part of what made it better than 2 and 3. But there still was less emphasis on character and character interaction in Stranger Tides than in the Black Pearl. I'm all about the characters. But there were some good moments. Jack Sparrow's wild escape scenes are pure fun and the first one in this movie had some particularly good moments. Actually, all the escape scenes were fun and played to the other movies and how Jack was portrayed.

Keith Richards was awesome as Jack's father. He only had a few lines and it wasn't as if they were earth shaking, but knowing that Depp based Jack Sparrow--in part--on Richards and then seeing Richards playing the character's father? It's too big a kick not to enjoy. A little like an Easter egg.

There were a few interesting things they did--like making the mermaids be vampires. Okay, I'm not sure the mermaids were supposed to really be vampires, but when they bared their fangs, that's what they looked like to me and so that's where my mind went. And I also found what they did with the ships and the bottles to be intriguing as well.

While there were a few funny moments, I found this one lacked the humor of the original and I missed that. Plenty of action and adventure, though, and lots of Johnny Depp, who is really the best thing ever about POC and the reason why I was willing to take a chance on POC4 after the debacles that were 2 and 3. And there's a character listed in IMDB as the Spaniard who was pretty good looking in the movie. The actor is Oscar Jaenada.

Overall, I give it a qualified recommendation. It wasn't great, but it was enjoyable enough.

Thanksgiving Day Showdown

There was a showdown today before Thanksgiving Day dinner. I documented it for the world to see.

[image error]
The squirrel is beneath the bird feeder and the crow is bitching him out.

[image error]
The squirrel is not impressed.

[image error]
The squirrel heads back to his place beneath the bird feeder.

[image error]
The Crow is persistent, though, and he returns to complaining.

[image error]
When he makes no progress with the squirrel, the crow brings in reinforcements.

[image error]
Rambo Squirrel is not impressed.

[image error]
The crow's buddy gets tired of it and leaves. The squirrel returns to his food.

[image error]
Rambo Squirrel gets tired of things and goes after the crow.

[image error]
And goes after him again.

[image error]
And goes after him yet again.

[image error]
Rambo Squirrel goes back to his food, but the crow isn't about to give up.

[image error]
Stare down.

[image error]
Rambo Squirrel emerges victorious!

Thanksgiving Thoughts

Sometimes I look around at the world and I despair at how people behave. But just when I think there's no redeeming humankind, something happens to hearten me.

Last week, my department at work held a fundraiser for a former employee who'd been diagnosed with liver and pancreatic cancer. He's on his fourth round of chemotherapy, and needless to say, can't work. We festooned the offices and hangars with flyers announcing a chili dog lunch and a 50/50 raffle, where the winner gets half the money and the other half goes to the person for whom we're raising money.

The turnout was incredible. Minneapolis is being closed down, the jobs moving to Atlanta in January, so it's pretty sparse around here, but we still managed to sell nearly $2000 worth of chili dogs.

It gets better. When the winner of the 50/50 raffle was drawn, we discovered whoever had bought the ticket had written the name of the man who has cancer. Instead of getting just half the money we raised selling tickets, he and his family will get the entire thing.

Maybe there's hope for humanity yet.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Into the Future

I read an article in Wired Monday about time travel. The author of the piece said that scientists are reporting that theoretically we can only travel forward, never backward, and that the idea of going into future was frightening. I skim read it at 5am, so I might have missed a few things, but what I took away was that the future was filled with horrible things like a hot planet and what goes along with that.

Call me an optimist, but that's not my view of the future. I don't see the world being a horrible place to live. Different? Yes. And different does scare a lot of people as does change. Believe me, I know. We're going through massive change at my day job and even five months later, people are fighting it.

My view of the future is one where genetic treatments have eradicated a lot of the diseases that plague us today. Genes can be turned on and off to bring about the desire result, so why not flip to give people better health? Cloning human organs so that people who need transplants can have a genetically matched liver, which will eliminate rejection issues and the drugs that current transplant recipients have to take. And flipping a few genes to get rid of the negative effects of aging? Cool! I see a world where people live longer and in better health to enjoy those years.

I can see a future where we've learned to respect the Earth. A future where we're no longer burning fossil fuels, but have found a clean, safe energy alternative. This might be farther out because we live in a petroleum-based economy and the big oil dudes are going to fight tooth and nail to hold onto their cash cow, but eventually this will change. It has to as we deplete these resources.

The future I see has more global cooperation, less nation against nation and more we are the world. Yeah, I know, call me sappy, but we're all humans and why should artificially drawn boundaries lead us into conflict? The internet has allowed us to get to know people across the globe and to realize we're more similar than different. There's a line from a song. I can't remember if it's Sting or the Police, but I hear Sting sing: if the Russians love their children, too. And that's where I think we're going--to a world where we realize people who are different still have the same basic desires. I know there will still be extremists out there who don't think this way, but I think there will be fewer of them and they'll have fewer supporters.

And the technology in the future! OMG, I can't wait! I'm a total gadget geek and when I think of the possibilities for where computers will be in even 50 years, I get giddy. :-) Then there's nanotechnology and what's coming on that front. The possibilities are exciting to me.

Of course, there are plenty of pitfalls along the way. Opportunities for us to blow our potential and end up in a worse place rather than better. This is where my optimism comes in. I believe that we'll avoid most of the problems, and the ones we do blunder into will be quickly identified and the path corrected. To quote Timbuk Three, the future's so bright, I gotta wear shades."

Kindle Fire: My Thoughts

My Kindle Fire arrived on Wednesday. This was later than a lot of people, but I'd waffled for a few days before deciding to order, so I wasn't at the front of the queue.

The first thing I thought as I lifted the Fire from the box was this is heavy. I have a Kindle 2, and even with the external keyboard, it's lighter than the Fire. This weight really registered later in the evening when I was using it while I sat on the couch. My case came a day later, so this was all the device. I'm putting this in the minus column.

Unlike my regular Kindle, the Fire has a glossy touch screen. I didn't have an issue with glare, although I read online that others have, but I did have some trouble with the touch part. First, when held in the normal vertical position, the onscreen keyboard is very narrow and I frequently touched the wrong keys. Secondly, sometimes I had to touch repeatedly before the Fire registered it. I don't know if it's me since this is my first touch screen or the Kindle. This touching issue became more challenging considering how tiny some website links appeared on the device. The third issue was all the fingerprints I left behind. They were really obvious when the screen was black and I hate fingerprints on computer screens. I'm giving this another minus.

Setup was easy, and as I bought it on my account and not as a gift, I didn't have to do anything with that. It automatically registered itself. Setting up one-click buying was also a snap. The interface with the Kindle store is smooth, seamless, and so awesome, it's going to be easy to spend money on eBooks. Too easy, but I'll call this a plus anyway. :-)

I authorized apps from third parties and was able to download the Barnes & Noble Nook app onto my Amazon Kindle Fire. :-) This elated me because having everything in one place is the ultimate goal, right? The only problem I have is that only a fraction of my Nook books would download onto my Fire. I haven't had time to investigate this yet. And while this is semi-annoying, I never expected I'd be able to get any Nook books on my Fire, so this is a plus.

Amazon loads the icons for a few apps on the device when it's delivered, but if you want them, you still need to download them. The ones I checked out like Pandora and IMDB were free. I also checked out the app store and found some cool stuff. Bejeweled 2 was the free app of the day last Wednesday, so I got that. I also picked up Tune-In Radio which lets me listen to radio stations from around the world. I listened to the BBC for a while and also a station in Australia. Then there was the police scanner app--I forget what it's called--I was able to listen in on the LAPD for a bit. I also downloaded the Seesmic app for Android because the Twitter site stayed completely blank in the browser. All these apps were free. I'm putting this in the plus column as well.

I streamed a movie to the Fire on Friday and this worked very well. No stuttering of the movie--it played smoothly--and the images were crisp. The movie I test ran was a free offering through the Amazon Prime membership and selecting it was easy. A couple of taps and I had launch. I think individual internet connections will affect this, but my cable company was up to the task. Plus.

But y'all want to know what it was like to read on. I liked it. The screen is backlit, unlike the regular Kindles and their e-ink, but that was actually one of the reasons I decided to buy it. I don't have enough light in my bedroom to read the regular Kindle without using a book light and I never manage to position that thing right for me. Reading on the backlit screen of the Fire was perfect. The only issue I had--again--was with the touch screen. Sometimes it wouldn't change pages, sometimes I brought up the controls on the bottom of the screen by accident. I'm guessing this is me and learning how it works. Overall, plus.

There is no HDMI port, actually no ports at all beyond a place to plug-in headphones and the power cord. I need to find out if I can use the power port with a USB cord to hook into my laptop and side load books. This is another thing I haven't had time to explore.

Turning the Fire turns the screen orientation as well. I know Apple has done this on their portable devices, but I don't have any of those things and it surprised me the first time I moved the device and had the screen adjust itself. Once I got used to it, it was cool. Plus.

Overall, I like the Kindle Fire. Despite what you've read online and in the media, it's not a competitor for Apple's iPad, at least that's my opinion. It's an ereader that has some bonus functions like streaming music and internet access if you're somewhere with WiFi. The iPad is a machine that can work as well as play, the Fire seems to mostly be an entertainment portal. If you're looking for an iPad, you'll be disappointed. If you're looking for a color ereader with a backlit screen and some additional features, the Fire is a good choice.

Qualified thumbs up.

Ooh, Baby, Baby, Baby, Baby

My original thought about a blog topic was something along the lines of how much I hate it when the hero calls the heroine baby, but then I reconsidered that. It would just be my luck to riff on that for an entire post and wake up tomorrow with a hero who uses it. It was bad enough that Deke called Ryne babe during In the Midnight Hour At least that started as a way to rile her, but still I decided I'm in no position to blog about endearments.

As I thought about it some more, I realized that the two books I picked up recently that had baby used as the endearment of choice had a bigger problem. The authors of both stories had the heroes calling their heroines that in every single paragraph of dialogue--or darn close to it.

As a reader, nothing irritates me more than characters who use each other's names (or nicknames/endearments/etc) every time they open their mouths. Real people do not talk that way. Not ever. I challenge any writer who's tempted to use the character's name in dialogue to listen to others. Even in groups of five or six, it's rare to hear someone's name and it's pretty much nonexistent when only two people are talking to each other. Like the hero and heroine for example.

It's not just novice writers either. I've seen authors who've been writing for twenty years do it, too. Because I'm so aware of this, not only do I rarely use names in dialogue, I also do a search for both the hero's and heroine's names (and endearments) in my manuscript, and if I see it between a couple of quotation marks, I think about whether I really need it. Nine times out of ten, I delete it.

I pretty much never say anyone has to do anything as a writer because I was nearly driven from writing all together by plotters who insisted I had to use 3 x 5 cards and formulate everything out ahead of time. But this isn't really messing with anyone's process (I don't think) to recommend taking out the majority of name use within dialogue.

Seriously, this is not how people talk:

"Baby, I want you; you're so beautiful."

"But Biff, it's too soon."

"Don't tell me that, baby, I need you."

"I don't know, Biff, we just met ten minutes ago."

"Come on, baby, help me out here."

"Oh, Biff."

You get the drift right? And sadly this example is not an exaggeration. I picked up two books in the last week that did this exact thing.

Have you ever heard anyone in real life talk this way? Now do a search in your Work In Progress. How many times have you used your characters names in dialogue? Delete most of them. Your readers will thank you.

Stock Photos and Cover Art

For the past couple of months, the Crimson City authors have been working on getting the series up in ebook. It's been an interesting process. I'd formatted a couple of short stories for ebook, but this was a full-length book and a novella. It was more work, but I also learned a few tricks to speed the whole thing up. And just to prove I'm a geek beyond all hope, I enjoyed the formatting. Mostly. :-)

Finding stock photos for the cover artist was much more difficult.

There are so many issues with stock photos. First, pictures of men and women grinning happily are not going to work for cover art. Especially if they're wearing business suits. I haven't written a character yet who dresses up like that, although I think I have one in the wings. Maybe. We'll see if that lasts once I get into writing his story. And I write stories with suspense. Grinning people on the cover don't work. Neither do people wearing phone headsets, holding money, using a laptop or the myriad of other poses rife on the stock photo sites.

Then there's problem two--both people need to be attractive. It happened over and over again--I'd find one attractive person, but they'd be paired up with someone not so attractive. Why do so many photographers use one model that would turn heads and put him/her with a model who is plainer? Or if both the man and woman are good looking, the guy is scrawny. Muscles and looks are important for book covers.

I had an extra issue at work on the Crimson City covers. Both my heroines are of Japanese heritage. Both their heroes are of European heritage. Yeah. There was one photo that was perfect. Sexy clinch. Asian woman. European man. And I'd already used it for the Power of Two cover. (Which will be coming in ebook eventually.)

The cover artist cut off the heads of one couple so you can't see the woman isn't Japanese. This is what we're going with for Through a Crimson Veil. And I spent hours and hours (time I definitely don't have) combing the stock photo site for something, anything we could use for Dark Awakening. I did find one picture with an Asian woman, only she was paired with an Asian man. My cover artist performed a miracle, but he was replaced.

Is it seriously too much to ask for stock photographers to put a good looking, muscular man with a good looking woman together in a pose that's sexy without being Erotica sexy? A pose that doesn't involve grins or any piece of business equipment? Is it too much to ask that some of the couples come from two different ethnic backgrounds?

I love writing multicultural characters, but getting covers made for those books is excruciating. I never found any picture that could even remotely work for Troll in my story, The Troll Bridge. Troll is multi, multi, multicultural. His heritage is part European, part Filipino, and part African-Caribbean. Yeah. You'll notice that cover only has a woman on it. She at least looks something like his heroine.

As I contemplate future stories that I have in mind, I'm already dreading what their covers will look like. It's not only authors publishing on their own or republishing their backlist who comb the stock photo sites. New York publishers are using stock photos now, too. What kind of cover will I end up with for my hero who's Eurasian? What about my Polynesian/European hero and heroine? I have a couple of Latina heroines and one hero (all in different stories). Changing their backgrounds won't work. My characters are who they are, but cover images...::shudder::

- Posted using Mobypicture.com

- Posted using Mobypicture.com