Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 176

Random

I couldn't come up with a topic to blog about and so I thought, hey, I'll do a random website generator and blog about whatever turns up. The first site I ended up on sold sex toys. I decided to try again. The second attempt was a bit more conducive to blogging.

Site two was Dubtown Urban Exploring. The site is in German, and while I did take that language in high school and college, I've lost a lot of my skills, so I had to rely on Google translator. Not the most accurate thing ever, but enough so that I could understand what I was looking at. This site has some hugely interesting photos of abandoned buildings. One of them is a sanatorium that was built in 1899 and its in great disrepair. It's also hugely fascinating to me.

A lot of my stories take place in derelict buildings and warehouses. The images are wonderful for getting the imagination firing. I've also spent the past couple of days thinking about a story that I'd planned to work on months ago, but got sidetracked by other things. This site will definitely be perfect for inspiration on that front, too.

The other thing that struck me is that it would be pretty cool to take a camera and go out exploring like this person did. It just shows that anything can be art. I've bookmarked the site to return to in the future.

Into the Woods

Of all the plays and musicals I've seen, Into the Woods remains one of my all-time favorites. It's a threading together of a few different fairy tales—Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk and Little Red Riding Hood primarily although a few others get mixed in.

Since everyone knows the fairy tales, I won't go into too much detail about the play. All the different fairy tale people run into each other in the woods. The cow Jack needs to sell? He trades it to the baker for magic beans. The baker's wife ends up with Cinderella's slipper. And Rapunzel's prince and Cinderella's prince try to out-do each other with how difficult it is to woo their woman.

While the first half is all lighthearted and humorous, the second act is considerably darker. This gets into what happens after happily ever after. I have mixed emotions about the last half of the play. On the one hand, I can appreciate skewering the fairy tales, but on the other hand, I like happy endings. I did love the first act, though, without reserve.

The music and lyrics are outstanding. I love Agony, both versions of it with the two princes trying to top each other on how tough they have it. I also love the The Last Midnight when the witch talks about finding someone to blame being more important to the humans than dealing with the giantess. And I Know Things Now sung by Red Riding Hood who isn't quite as naive as she was before meeting the wolf. "Isn't it nice to know a lot...and a little bit not."

Into the Woods was recorded with the Broadway cast and is available on DVD, which means if you're interested, you can rent it/buy it and not need to wait for the play to be staged in your city. I like the DVD version, but there's always energy to watching a live performance that isn't captured on disk.

Highly recommended

Why You Won't See "What I'm Working On"

Tuesday on Twitter, people retweeted a link to what authors must have on their websites. The items I remember off the top of my head are: A printable book list. I have this. A list of all books. I have this. A coming next page and a works in progress page. I have the coming next page, but don't have the work in progress page and I'm not sure it's something I want to do.

For one thing, not every proposal for a book sells. If I talk about an idea and never write more than three chapters of it, will readers be disappointed? After all, if I talked about it, people should expect me to write it. If it doesn't sell, I'll be onto the next project.

The second thing is that I don't necessarily sell my projects in the order I work on them. In 2004, I wrote the proposal for In the Midnight Hour and In Twilight's Shadow. Then I wrote the proposal for Eternal Nights and finally the proposal for Through a Crimson Veil. I sold them in the reverse order. In fact, it took 18 months to sell Midnight Hour and by then I'd finished my Crimson story and was working on EN. It was another six months after that before I actually wrote Midnight.

In this set of circumstances, I can't see where it's beneficial to officially talk about my stories in progress. The coming next page, though, is a different case. Anything I post there is contracted work and will be released.

It was nice to know that I'm doing stuff mostly right. I do have all my books listed on one page, but with links that breaks them into either subgenre (in case someone wants paranormal romance, but not science fiction romance or vice versa) and also into series (so if you read one Light Warriors book and want more, they're all available). I also saw in the comments that publication dates with the books is a good thing. I've done that as well, at least the year, if not the month and year.

Reading the comments to the blog post highlighted something interesting to me--there are still authors without websites or authors who don't bother to update their websites for years. I knew a bunch of older authors didn't have sites because I've tried to find them after I talked about their books, but I didn't think authors publishing now didn't have sites. Wow.

Crave the Night is Available!

Crave the Night is now available! This is a paranormal romance anthology I was part of with Michele Hauf, Sharon Ashwood, and Lori Devoti.

My story is titled Enemy Embrace and it's the latest story in the Blood Feud World. Here's the description for my story:

Nicole Ruiz is an elite vampire hunter who can shadow her quarry anywhere. Daktan is an executioner assigned by the demon king to eliminate a rogue vampire who's killing humans. When Nicole discovers the rogue is stronger than she expected, she offers Dak an alliance. She'd make a deal with the devil himself if that's what it took to avenge her family.
The anthology was reviewed by Red Hot Books and here's what was said about Dak and Nicole and Enemy Embrace:

This story was HOT. I was on the edge of my seat, waiting for these two to come together. Patti O'Shea... where have you been all my life?

The thing that's so fun about writing in this world is that the hero and heroine can come from any group—vampire, demon, human, hunter, slayer, rogue vampire. And this is the story where the wizards are first mentioned. No one, not vampire or demon, likes them very much, but I'm working on a proposal now where the hero and heroine are both wizards. Heh! But I digressed. Again.

If you'd like to read an excerpt, I have the first chapter up on my website.

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Evolutionary Biology and Such

Instead of doing a review about something specific, I thought I'd give my impressions in general about the evolutionary biology/cultural evolution books I've been listening to. I'm not quite sure how I bought so many, although the descriptions do make them sound very interesting. Some have been, some haven't, but that's the same as any book.

So what I have learned in general? That there's vast disagreement among the experts in these fields.

I'll listen to one book that throws out a theory, offers supporting data, and data that refutes the other popular theories. The next book will have a proponent of one of the refuted theories as an author and I'll get the same thing, only for that scientist's pet thesis. It's left me with my head spinning and not sure who the heck is right.

What I learned about myself is that no matter how interesting the theory might be, I want evidence to back it up and I have no patience for anecdotal or indirectly inferred conclusions. There was a book I stopped listening to because it never offered proof, just anecdotes that were supposed to be irrefutable evidence. No. I want facts. Also, none of the other books I've listened to in this field have remotely supported the book with theories and no real data. I feel safe in saying the authors were more interested in selling books than in advancing science as their controversial (and unsupported theory) was focused on sex.

There's another book I downloaded from Audible in this field that I'd love to get through, but the narrator is really boring to listen to. This author takes the opposite opinion from the selfishness theory of evolution that many other experts in the field seem to assume is true.

When these other authors talk about generosity, it's always something that animals (and people) do because they expect to be repaid later. That the person performing the act, let's say sharing food when another family has none, expects the action to reciprocated later. We've all seen and heard stories of people risking themselves to save others. People donating generously to strangers. Good Samaritans who stop to help others. I don't believe this is all done with the expectation of reciprocity at some later time. And because I feel this way, I'd love to make it through the book that sounds as if it deals with this facet of evolutionary biology and genetics. Narrators really can make or break the book.

My final thought is that I'm tired of this topic. :-) I need to use my Audible credits on a different non-fiction topic.

We Have a Winner

I'm almost afraid to write this post, but I think my hero finally has a name. I don't like it that much either, but like I said on Tuesday, I'll take anything and smile at this point. The final choice? Mason.

My poor Twitter followers have been trying to help me for at least a week, probably longer, by tweeting me links to naming sites. I swear I have them all bookmarked. Actually, I must have 50 naming sites bookmarked by now, but so many of them have the same names. I also have a pretty extensive collection of reference books on names. Nothing helped.

The frustrating thing is that the name isn't uncommon. I ran across it pretty early on and kept running across it, but my darn hero remained mute. Since I don't like the name and he didn't speak up to claim it, I continued to look. And look. And look.

I need names before I can get story/plot because what they're called affects their actions. A Mason is going to behave differently from a hero named Jack or one named Scott, so it was critically important to me to get the correct name before I moved forward. It did get frustrating because he's the third hero in a trilogy and I don't need more than a couple of paragraphs on his story, but the third book wraps up the series arc and that could impact the earlier books, too.

Now that I have this vital piece of information, I can move forward with the next problems. I need pictures of my characters--it also helps me connect to their personalities--and I need to work out the three book arc. After that is in place, then I can think about the individual stories.

I do have some information already, but it's the barest of frameworks, a patchwork of pieces that need to be sewn together to form the whole fabric of the trilogy. All I can do is hope this goes more smoothly than the name game.

It's Become an Endurance Test

The name game continues with my hero. I talked about this last week and it's ongoing. Every time I think I have the right name, I get pulled up short. The problem is the overnight test. Basically this means the name has to stick overnight. This includes some test scenes with the name as I'm lying in bed. This hero nixed one of the names I thought was his at this stage.

The second name made it through this run, but when I woke up the next day and tested it again, it failed. I knew it hadn't worked when his father wouldn't call him by that name. Not that his father provided the correct name, but I rarely get helpful characters who provide information willingly.

Stubbornly, I continued to use the second name a few more days, but I finally was forced to admit that it wasn't going to work.

It was back to the drawing board. I spent hours searching over the weekend and I have a third contender. I haven't had time yet to run too many scenes through my head with this latest name--I've been falling asleep too fast--so I'm not calling it a done deal yet, but it has made it a few days with it in place. Personally, I'm not in love with it and it's a name that strikes me as being old fashioned. Old fashioned enough to be unusual.

If it's the right one, though, I'm not going to argue with him. I'll take anything at this point so I can move forward with figuring out stories and arcs for the trilogy. I can't do anything without the right names for my characters--it actually can and does influence action/plot.

And in the few hours since I wrote this post, my hero has rejected the latest name. The search continues.

Kindle 4

No one tell my mom about this blog post! It's a secret, okay?

I bought my mom a Kindle 4 as a combination birthday/Christmas present. Yes, I know I'm early, but she's so hard to buy for and this way I have time to download all kinds of books for her. I've already gotten all of my books on there for her and it's charged, wifi setup, etc.

I wanted to pass along my thoughts about the latest Kindle. First of all, this is not the touch version. I'd happily have bought her one of those if I thought she'd take advantage of it, but she's very techno-phobic and the simpler the device the better. Because this isn't the touch screen model, it means the keyboard that pulls up on the screen can only be used by using the 4-way button on the bottom. Kind of a pain, but it was usable and my mom will never type on the K4, so no worries.

The first and most noticeable thing was how much lighter and smaller the K4 is compared to my K2. That's an awesome improvement and one that's good for my mom. She won't have to work as hard to hold the device. I rested the K4 atop my K2 and there was probably an inch on the top and an inch on the left showing of my Kindle. That's how much smaller the K4 is, but with no keyboard, it can shrink.

The back of the device has a little texture to it to improve grip and prevent it from sliding when it's put down on a table or counter. I plan to buy my mom a case as part of her gift because it will be extra protection if she falls asleep while reading.

The page forward and previous page buttons are on the sides of the device more than on the top of it. There is also one of each on both sides so it's easier to go backward no matter which hand you like to use to hold your device. On the K2, the previous page button is only on the left side, the home button only on the right. The K4 has the home button on the front. There are a few other button differences, like the on/off switch is on the bottom and not that top, but this isn't a big deal.

Aside from the smaller, lighter K4 and the lack of keyboard, the reading experience was identical to the K2. This is good because I've loaned my K2 to my mom and she liked that. I need her to feel comfortable with the Kindle or she won't use it.

Next up, downloading a lot of books to my mom's Christmas K4. I need enough to keep her busy reading for a long while.

Here They Go Again

Since I wrote my posts about the characters in my Works In Progress (WIP), one of my heroes informed me that his name isn't his name. I hate when they do that. Last names aren't a very big deal because when I think of them, I rarely use their surnames, but changing the given name does throw me.

The thing that's so frustrating is that this is a character that's been around for a long time and his name has always been Michael. Until now. Now he tells me it isn't. That his name changed when he moved from a contemporary story to an alternate universe, and that in this alternate universe, he's different from who he was before and he has a different first name.

His logic made sense to me, but the problem? He's not telling me what his name is supposed to be. Oh, he's happy to tell me what it isn't. And apparently it isn't any name I've come across online or in a naming book. At least so far.

I can't even get him to give me a hint. A simple It starts with a B or whatever would help tremendously. But nope. No help from him whatsoever.

So in the meantime, I'm still thinking of him as Michael. If he doesn't like it, maybe he'll reconsider his level of cooperation.

It's All In How You Look At It

Two of the fields on my rarely used character sketch worksheets are: How does the character perceive him/herself? How do others perceive the character?

To give an example, I'm required to go through assorted training classes for my day job. One was a two day training class in Human Factors. On the second day of class, the instructor made some comment about my being an extrovert. It stopped me in my tracks and I was like, whoa! Not only am I not an extrovert, I'm also shy and tend to be nervous in situations with people I don't know well. I also tend to be quiet in those types of situations. So who's right?

Let me explain what the instructor saw. I'd been through enough other training in the recent past that I'd learned a few things. 1. when the instructor asked a question of the group, no one would answer. 2. the lack of response dragged the classes out even longer than they were already. 3. If someone gave the right answer, things moved much, much faster.

So whenever a question was thrown out to the group and no one else immediately spoke up, I would give the answer to get the class moving. I hate sitting there with crickets chirping. "Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?"

The instructor perceived my willingness to speak up when he asked a question as outgoingness. But I'm far from outgoing; I was answering questions as self-preservation. It made the class move faster. I also had some hope of getting through the course material ahead of schedule on day 2 so we could be dismissed early.

Despite my speaking up in class, it actually shocked me that he thought I was an extrovert. I had to take a mental step back to assimilate that and figure out why he could possibly believe something so false.

To bring this back to writing and characters, how your character behaves in certain situations will shape how other characters see him/her. Maybe your character answers all the questions in a training program, so one set of people see her as outgoing, but she stands in the corner at a house party. Those people will perceive her differently. Other characters act on how they perceive the hero/heroine. Maybe the instructor asks the heroine to lead the discussion on day 2 of training. He asks because he sees her as outgoing, not realizing that she's dying over the thought of being in front of the class. (This did not happen in my class. :-)

So it's not enough to just know that your character is perceived differently by his mom than by his sister. You have to have these characters behave in a way that fits their expectations of who the hero is.

I've been dealing with some of this in one of the Works In Progress (WIP). My hero has long hair, stubble, and is hanging out with secondary characters of questionable morality when he meets the heroine. My heroine isn't going to treat him the same way she'd treat a clean-cut man who worked for a charitable organization to feed starving children. There's going to be a big dose of wariness on her part. There has to be because of her perception of who and what the hero is.

Perception always colors reality. IMO, of course.