Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 198

Revelations Come In All Sizes

Sometime between when I went to bed last night and when I woke up this morning, my subconscious had a revelation about my next Work In Progress (WIP). At first, as I was thinking about this, I wasn't sure I should call it a revelation. It's a pretty small thing. Then I decided that while it's small in scope for everyone else, it had a major impact in how I'm thinking about this series.

My major revelation? My heroes interact with humans even when they don't have a specific job.

See? I told ...

Garden View

Here are the latest shots of my garden. When I sit out on my deck, I can enjoy the riot of color and I love this.



Tree lilies full view



A closer view of a couple of tree lilies. The amount of blooms is amazing!



Close up of two flowers from two different tree lily plants.



The tiger lilies are in bloom, too. Some of the plants are taller than I am.



Close up of the tiger lilies.

More Than Just Books

I'd been talking about getting a bookshelf or small bookcase to nicely display my books (as in the ones I've written) since I moved into my house four years ago. But like a lot of things, it was a "that would be nice" not a necessity and so I put it off over and over. Then over the weekend, I glanced down and noticed most of my books were heaped on the floor of my office. Yeah.

Technically, they belonged in the box on the shelf behind where they rested, but I'd needed to find something in o...

The Social Networks

I'm on far too many social networks, but being signed up for them and actually using them are two different things. I have a very different level of participation.

Twitter - This is my favorite and where you're most likely to find me. I love chatting with people here and wish more of my followers would start conversations. Sometimes it takes me a while to answer, especially if I'm writing or at the day job, but I do reply most of the time. (There are occasions when I can't think of anything...

Out of Order

I've got a nice list of projects I want to work on in the order I plan to write them. I've finished a couple and sent them to my agent, and after some downtime to research and focus my thoughts a new direction, I was going to move on to the next one.

Only a funny thing happened. The hero and heroine from a different project came in and have taken over my thoughts. The characters from the project I want to work on next aren't talking. More than that, they've remained elusive, refusing to gi...

Fighting the Dragon Part 2

Previously, I posted about Dragon Naturally Speaking (DNS) refusing to learn the F word no matter how many times I trained it. It was a frustrating experience that solidified my belief that this wouldn't be a good tool for writing actual books. There are other reasons, too, of course, but this kind of put the idea to rest permanently. I did think, though, that this would be a great tool for transcribing my writing notes since I don't swear in those. :-)

I was wrong.

I have one full notebook and...

Music Hunt

One really great thing about the internet is the ability to track down information quickly and easily. As a writer, being able to get an answer to a research point for a book almost instantly and being able to get right back to the story is a blessing. It's proven to be handy, though, in other ways.

There has been some really great use of music in television commercials lately. It started with Geico using Let Me Be Myself by 3 Doors Down. Geico nicely put the name of the group and the song...

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day!
I'm taking a holiday from blogging today. Back on Tuesday evening!

Fighting the Dragon

I picked up Dragon Naturally Speaking because I got a great deal on it. I'd guessed it wouldn't be something I'd write my stories in because there's something about the act of typing that spurs my creativity, but I figured it would come in useful on other things. Maybe. Did I mention it was a great deal?

It came with a headset and microphone, lucky for me, so I could immediately use it. The first thing to do was train it. I'd heard from other people who had the program that getting it to ...

Kindle Upgrade Thoughts

I've been waiting and waiting for my Kindle to get the 2.5 update that allows books to be filed/organized. The one thing I haven't loved about my Kindle was the fact I couldn't sort anything. I could look by author or by title or by download date, but that didn't help me find a particular book. This weekend I decided I couldn't wait for Amazon to push the update and I installed it manually.

First off, this was much simpler than I expected it to be. The directions on the website were clear ...