Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 20

Merry Christmas, My Friends!

Wishing those who celebrate an early Merry Christmas!

Zoinks!

If you follow me on Facebook, I shared some of this story there a couple of weeks ago. This, however, is the full sequence of events.

I signed up for the postal service's Informed Delivery, so I can see what's coming in the mail the night before. Not only letters, but packages as well. The problem is that the information on the packages is rarely helpful. Instead of a person or business's name, it'll often have something like Acutane or PirateShip which are companies that do shipping (like Stamps.com).

And one day, as I'm checking packages, I see something like: eBay Pitney Bowes. Hmm, I didn't order anything from eBay. I wonder if they got into shipping?

There was a stretch where I backed a bunch of Kickstarter projects and a lot of them are shipping right now, so I thought it might be one of those. While I was curious, there was no way to get more information and it would arrive in a few days. I'd find out what it was then.

Finally, the package arrived!

It was light. So light, the wind blew it into the yard. Luckily, it wasn't in the street. I brought it in the house, looked at the label, but I didn't recognize the person's name in the from field. It must be a Kickstarter, I thought.

I open the package. It's not one of my Kickstarter rewards.

It's a Scooby Doo Christmas ornament. I look at the label on the box again. Maybe this package was mis-delivered. Nope, that's my name and address.

I pull up all my credit cards and look for weird charges. Nothing.

I remember reading about some weird scam thing when you get packages out of the blue, but I can't remember the particulars, but then I think: Scooby Doo. I love Scooby Doo. That's really a specific thing to send to me.

Maybe there's a card in the box. I take out all the newspaper that cushioned the ornament, looking for a tag of some sort. Even an invoice with a message. Nothing.

I started Googling the person who sent it and I searched for her on eBay because of the post office saying eBay Pitney Bowes. I pulled up every matching Scooby Doo ornament on the site, but I didn't find anyone from her state selling them.

Some more searching turned up the sender's FB page, but I didn't feel comfortable messaging her out of the blue. So I posted the mystery on my Facebook page and then I shared my mystery with my friends.

And that's when one of them said, hey, it was me. I sent it.

She wanted to cheer me up, which was so sweet! She also gave me a mystery I couldn't solve, but that was okay. It kept me occupied for about an hour.

Baggs

Again, I already shared this information with newsletter subscribers. If you want to subscribe, you can go here and scroll to the bottom of the page for the form.

So on Tuesday, I mentioned that I'm writing Lurch now and after Lurch is Oz. Today, I'm talking about the hero who follows these two. Baggs.

You met Baggs in Wicked Persuasion. He's the team's new medic. He replaced Griff who is in medical school when the Lost Treasure arc opens.

Baggs is who had me playing and I hate that so much. But we did settle on a first name and it's stuck for a while now, so we're good there.

While I've started getting inklings of storyline for Oz, I have pretty much nothing for Baggs at the moment. He's too far down the road to be getting information. I think this is a good thing because I'd get confused if I had to juggle Lurch and Oz and Baggs, too. Two heroes is enough!

His heroine, though, is the twin who is in trouble. Although, she got herself out of the jam before her sister could reach Puerto Jardin. At least I think she did. Like I said, things are pretty nebulous at the moment.

She's the exact opposite of her sister, but she'll be making Baggs crazy in a different way than her sister made Oz crazy.

For me, it's all about the characters. Telling their stories. Giving them their happy endings.

Oz

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I'm writing Lurch's book now. He and Nyx are the next up in the Paladin League series. There have been a few hiccups, including the fact Lurch lied to me, but I think we're (mostly) on track now.

What I plan to talk about today is the hero after Lurch. His name is Oz and his first on-screen appearance will be in Wicked Suspicion. He's been on the team for a while, but he's been undercover, working for one of the drug lords.

He's big. His hair is long. His beard is in need of a trim. And he's scary-looking.

I suspect that he's also a great, big teddy bear. ;-)

Of course, I can't swear to this. He isn't talking to me yet, and until he does, it's just guess work on my part. And even if he does talk, he might not tell me the truth. Looking at you, Lurch. But Oz has this vibe about him that makes me think he looks a lot scarier than he is.

His heroine? She doesn't belong in Puerto Jardin, but her twin is in trouble--she knows it--but it's that twin sense. It's not as if she can call up the State Department and say, "hey, you need to find my sister. I think she's in trouble. I just have this feeling."

She's going to drive Oz crazy. I love it.

Planner, Planner, Planner

These are not my planners in the picture. They're just notebooks, but there are three of them which fits my theme.

I ordered three planners for 2024. The first one I ordered because my regular planner was talking about going to an undated version only. That was a complete fail for me, and I found Planner Number One just before their pre-order. It was missing a few features, but I had workarounds ready if necessary.

Planner Number Two ended up being my usual daily planner. They did produce a version that was dated and it has all the features I like, so I pre-ordered.

Planner Number Three was a weekly planner. A weekly doesn't work for me as a primary planner, but the planner had a lot of blank pages for notes and journaling and I thought I could keep it with me in my tote bag.

The third planner was the first to arrive. I blogged about it here. FYI, I really like this planner because of all the blank pages, but it definitely wouldn't work as my primary planner.

Planner two arrived next. I've started to set it up, but I need to print out my holiday stickers and a few others before I can finish that project.

And planner three. Sigh. First ordered, last delivered. It came the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and my ribbon charm was missing.

This is a small planner company and they apparently had a few issues which delayed delivery, but OMG, after Thanksgiving??? There was also very little communication about the issues until nearly the day the planner was shipped to me. I would have preferred updates along the way. Luckily, this isn't my primary planner because the end of November is late.

Next year, they promise to start earlier in case of production issues. Sounds like a plan to me.

Lie to Me

My characters can and have lied to me.

Usually, they simply go with lies of omission. They won't tell me something major about themselves. I'll be writing happily away, and the boom! They drop a truth bomb on me. This means I need to go back and edit the previous pages of the story to foreshadow what's coming.

Case, my latest hero, just plain lied to me.

I wasn't writing his book when he fabricated things that were completely untrue about his past, so maybe I can't blame him? I wasn't completely plugged into him because I was focused on a different hero. If it had been his book, maybe I would have sensed he wasn't being honest with me.

Maybe, but maybe not. Maybe he would have lied anyway and maybe I wouldn't have realized it.

What did he lie about?

His family. He led me to believe he had a relatively normal upbringing in a single parent household. He led me to believe he had siblings. Neither is true.

Case is an only child and his upbringing wasn't uneventful. He was dealing with some major issues.

His upbringing shaped him in a lot of ways and he had this reinforced by an unfortunate romantic entanglement. If you've been reading the series, you might remember that Lurch brought Hannah to a team dinner, and that later, she dumped him. This turns out to be true, but with circumstances.

And Nyx, Case's heroine, is going to inadvertently step right in the middle of his issues even though her motivations are good.

Let the fun begin!

Tags

It seems like all the shirts I buy now have an information stamp at the nape instead of tags. In theory, I think this is a brilliant idea because you don't have to worry about having a tag sticking up or about having your nape scratched by said tag.

Theory is awesome. Practice? Not quite so awesome.

Because there is still a tag. Usually on the left side seam. For me, this is worse than the tag at the neck because my side is more sensitive than my nape. The tags scratch horribly and I'm constantly reaching for that tag and tugging at it.

I'm trying to figure out how to remove them. It's sewn into the side and I'm worried that if I try to take the tag out, I'll open the seam too. Or at least weaken the seam enough for it to open at some inconvenient time and place. I have a story about an underwire bra that was high on the embarrassment scale.

So I continue to be irritated by the side tag and wish it was in the neck. When they were in the neck and bothered me, I'd just grab and pull. Can't do that with the side seam tag.

So A for originality and F for execution. At least for me.

Writing Books I Like: The Monster Novel Structure Workbook

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The second writing book I recommend with a caveat--I am a cross between a pantser and a plotter, but fall more on the pantser side of the spectrum. If you're a plotter, or more of a pantser than I am, this book might not be for you.

The Monster Novel Structure Workbook: How to Plot Without Getting Stuck by R.B. Fleetwood 

As per my disclaimer above, I write more by the seat of my pants, but I keep reading books on how to plot on the off chance one of them will work for me. I tried one that is specifically directed at pantsers and it left me feeling meh. I tried others that left me confused. Monster Novel Structure made sense to my brain.

I ended up at the dining room table with an artist sketchbook drawing out my story following this book. Is this something I do for every story? No, although maybe I should. The author, though, explained three-act structure in a way that actually clicked for me.

Some of the things I liked was that Fleetwood suggests twenty-one story beats. She breaks things down farther than the other plotting books do and provides examples. There are also downloads she offers that come with purchasing the book. The extra material was nice to have and I appreciated it.

This wasn't exactly a light bulb book for me, but by the time I read it, I'd been published for more than fifteen years. I guess I'd label this more a now-that-makes-sense book. I still consider it a valuable read.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

For my American friends, Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Writing Books I Like: GMC

This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something, I'll earn a small commission. There is no cost to you.

I was trying to come up with a top ten or top five list of writing books I could recommend, but I have so many that I got overwhelmed. Instead, I decided I'd focus one book at a time and do blog posts whenever a new one popped into my mind. This first week, though, I have two--one today and one for next week.

This first book is one I read in the 1990s, but it's every bit as valid today was it was when I read it. 

GMC: Goal, Motivation, and Conflict by Debra Dixon

GMC is my light bulb moment book. My writing was professional enough to be published, but my characters didn't have strong goals or motivations. Maybe not even a strong enough conflict to carry a full story. Because of these issues, I received rejections from the NYC publishers I submitted to.

I'm not even sure how I stumbled onto this book, but I'm grateful that I did. After reading it, I created my own GMC grid and printed it out. I sat down and filled it in before writing my next book. This also happened to be the first book I sold. Not that it was easy. Not that I didn't have to work through some major revisions. Not that my characters didn't throw surprises at me.

All of the above happened on Ravyn's Flight. The difference was that I had a much better idea of how my characters would react to the events of the story.

I still have my copy of GMC on the shelf, and when I met Debra Dixon at a writer's conference, I swooned all over her. Not only because of GMC, but also because she wrote one of my favorite category romances. Bad to the Bone was released by Loveswept in the 1990s, but is available as an ebook now.

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