Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 203

Right Brain Versus Left Brain

I've been sitting here, trying to think of a blog topic, but my mind keeps drifting. Today, it seems is a daydream day. All I want to do is think about one of my story ideas and watch scenes unfold.

It would be helpful if it was the book proposal I was writing, but of course, my imagination isn't that cooperative. No, it's one of my ideas in waiting--one I definitely plan to work on, but its time is not now. That doesn't matter, though. These two characters don't want to sit quietly in the ...

Research. Sigh.

Normally, I don't mind research. I want to get everything right, and with the internet at my fingertips, I can usually put my hands on the information I need and verify it's correct. Image search makes it even better because I can see places I've never been and the ground view in maps gave me a chance to trace the route my hero and heroine drove. How cool is that?

But I've run into a research issue that's going to require I actually contact someone and ask my questions. It's not that I've ne...

Still Trying to Learn

Demon Kissed is up at Amazon! This is my short story from Nocturne Bites and it's available in ebook format. Right now, Kindle owners can preorder, but it should be available in many more places, many more formats on May 1st. I'll keep you posted and if I miss an ebookstore that has my Bites, please let me know.

This week I've been listening to an Urban Fantasy (UF) story on my iPod. I'm really enjoying the story a lot (it helps that it's in third person (she/he) rather than first person) ...

National Readers Choice Finalist!

Edge of Dawn is a finalist for Best Paranormal in the National Readers Choice Awards!! Woot! I found out last Friday, but to prove how bad I am at promotion, I totally forgot to mention it. ::blush:: I am super excited about the final, though, despite my memory lapse.

* * *
Now on to your regularly scheduled blog post about world building, short stories, etc. :-)

It's funny how things go sometimes. When I was asked to write a story for The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance 2 (Blood...

I'm Easily Influenced

Originally, I had another post planned for today, but I read a post at another blog and it made me remember all the things my characters have influenced me on. Seriously.

I tweeted last week that it's Kel's fault (the hero from In the Darkest Night) that I listen to Seether. It's his choice in music, but now I'm listening to them. I regularly pick up things my characters say. I seldom used the word crap until I wrote Cai in The Power of Two. That was her word of choice.

It happens with nea...

Weirdness

I've mentioned before that I go looking for pictures of my characters. It's part of my pre-book process and one of the benefits is that it helps me keep their appearances straight all the way through the story. There have also been times when a picture has helped me discover a character trait that I might have suspected, but didn't know for sure. Like Deke. I suspected he was a smart aleck, but I didn't know just how much a part of his personality this was until I found "his" picture. Th...

Demon Kissed Cover!

Demon Kissed comes out from Nocturne Bites in May and I received my cover yesterday. I'm posting a bigger version here than I have on my website.



For those who don't know, Nocturne Bites are short stories that are released in electronic format. I discovered when I wrote my two shorts for Mammoth Books, that I had a lot of fun with the length and wanted to do more. About the same time, I read a news headline that someone posted on Twitter and I thought it was a great story idea.

The headline?...

Engimatic

With a plethora of characters yakking in my head, it can be really hard to hear the characters I'm trying to write. I've been struggling with the heroine of the proposal in progress for a while. I haven't actually sat down to do a character sketch, but it was a near thing because I didn't feel as if I knew her.

This created a huge problem because the scene in her POV was flat, boring. She was like this mannequin moving through the scene, but not feeling anything. It was frustrating and not som...

The Name Game

I blogged earlier this week about all the characters I have in my head right now. Outrageous numbers, even for me, and there have been times in the past that I thought I was overloaded. That's nothing compared to now. The couple that's talking the most, though, hadn't shared their names with me. (Like I mentioned, I don't get to chose my characters names, they tell me who they are.)

This has changed since I wrote the blog. The hero went first. Only I didn't know if his name was first, la...

Behind the Book: In the Darkest Night

I realized that it's been a week since In the Darkest Night came out (yea! go buy your copy!) and I hadn't done a post about where the idea for this book came from.

I've talked before about how different books are born in different ways. Darkest Night was all Kel, the hero. When I was writing Edge of Dawn, the first scene I saw for that book (which isn't in the book at all, but that's another story) was Logan (EOD's hero) with his brother. Logan was worried about Kel standing off by himself...