Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 26

Sketch It Out

I have no artistic ability...much to my disappointment. I also hear words, but am not visual. Which means when I'm writing, I look for a lot of pictures online to use for inspiration. I'm not sure at the beginning what a character looks like, but when I find their image, I know it.

However, sometimes there is no image. That's when I pick up a pen and try to make a sketch. I know it's going to be bad, but I don't need an exact rendering. I need an estimation.

The Post-it note in the image is my attempt to sketch out the market in Trujillo, Puerto Jardin. (The Paladin League series)

Shape is wrong. Orientation was wrong and I drew over the top to realign it. I didn't put the streets in that run alongside the market, but I knew they were there.

When I had the ugly, horrible, rough sketch in the condition you see in the picture, I put it in the Paladin League Notebook (I'm on number 2) and started writing.

As terrible as I am at anything drawing/sketching related, this was what I needed to write. I'll take it.

Mockingbird Daycare

In the front of my house, I have two dwarf crepe myrtle trees and one of them is home to a family of mockingbirds.

This is the third out of the last four years (that I know about) where they've made their nest in this tree. There are a lot of mockingbirds around the neighborhood, and I really didn't think too much about these until the pandemic.

While I was working from home (Paradise!!!), I heard some squeaking. I'm like what the heck is that? So I go and look and there's this bird on the porch in front of my home office window.

This didn't look like a baby. It was the size of a full-sized bird. It wasn't until a parent flew in to feed it that I realize it was a fledgling. Old enough to fly, not old enough to feed itself yet.

It's become a real pleasure to watch the birds raise their chick. Wikipedia says the clutch is three to five eggs, but I've only seen/heard one chick in all the years they've nested here. Maybe this couple only lays one egg?

Last year, my birds didn't nest in the tree and it surprised me how disappointed I was. This year they're back, and I geeked out in sheer bliss at their return. The baby fledged about 2-3 weeks ago, or so. It could be longer because I'm not home to watch them (like I should be!).

I had the coolest encounter two weeks ago. I was in the house, at the kitchen table, and I heard the squeaking. I turn to look and the baby is on the back patio! As I was watching, one of the parents flew in, fed it a bug. The baby ate it, started squeaking again, and the parent flew off to find more food. I watched for a while longer, but didn't see another feeding . Of course, the bird didn't hang around too long out there.

Wikipedia says the bird becomes independent after about 10-15 days, but again, that hasn't been my experience watching them. Could I have weirdo mockingbirds? I'm sure I have the correct bird because the tail is so long, the male and female are the same color, and they're both gray, which matches the description of the bird. The pictures match as well.

I've never been into birds, but watching this couple nest in my tree has been a delight and I hope they return next year, too.

The Series Bible Blues

With my other series, I didn't keep good information and spent time rereading them to get details straight, so when I started the Paladin League, I was determined to keep track of things. I even purchased a spreadsheet created by another author for the series bible.

I have settings, I have characters. I have a page for each hero and each heroine. I have pictures, I have eye colors, and hair colors.

I mentioned a few months ago about picking up some Notion templates to use for this, but I have all my information in Excel and OneNote and no time to transfer it all. I'm sticking with the one I've been using from the beginning.

I also blogged about how this series bible was great for the first three books, was pretty good for the fourth, but is really testing me in the fifth book. This is becoming more and more of an issue the deeper I get into Wicked Persuasion.

And since I blogged about the issues, I ran into my own lapse. I was looking at a scene with the convent and talking to a friend of mine. "The nuns must have a van," she said. "They do," I assured her. I distinctly remember them driving the heroine from Wicked Deception to seek medical help.

But I started wondering. Was it a van? What did the van look like?

None of this information was in my Series Bible. None of it. I had to reread big chunks of Wicked Deception because that wasn't the only thing I couldn't remember and hadn't recorded.

There are some people who do series bibles for authors. I might have to think about hiring one of them because clearly even with someone else's spreadsheet, I don't know what I need for future books. It's so disappointing. After I get this book through edits and copy edits and formatting and the rest, I might have to take the time to use the Notion template I blogged about.

And probably do some rereading to fill in the missing pieces. Or hire someone. Sigh.

A Day In the Life

Back in April, I was writing a scene for Wicked Persuasion and I needed to describe a tree in a park. This scene was set in my fictional country of Puerto Jardin in a central city park in Trujillo.

I like pictures of places I'm writing and I had the park picture up on my right monitor. I'm writing on the left monitor. I have Deck and Frankie walk to the bench under this tree and sit down. It's a beautiful tree. It looks vaguely familiar.

With that top of mind, I figure it must be a very well known type of tree because I'm no botanist. A quick online search and I'll have the name of the tree.

That's not the way it worked. I spent twenty minutes (maybe more) looking and never found it. I did have some other South American tree names that I could use, so I started writing again.

And when I got to my description I called it a (drum roll please) tree.

That's right. All that research and I used none of it.

But wait, it gets better. I ended up cutting the scene entirely a few hours later.

Yes, this is what it's really like to be an author.

It's Never Too Early to Obsess About Planners

I realized after writing Tuesday's post that it maybe needed a little context. In February, my usual planner company announced that they would only sell undated planners going forward. To say this didn't make me happy would be understating it.

In 2022, I tried a different planner and only made it two months before I returned to my original planner. In that other planner, I tried using stickers to replicate all the features of my usual planner, but it was a pain. Not only printing and cutting all those stickers, but the fact that I want them in the same place on every page. That meant places were bulging while others were flat. It just didn't work for me.

Decision was made at that point to hang with my usual planner forever and ever.

And then they announced 2024 and on would be undated. This company has been aggravating in a lot of ways. One of the founders--instead of focusing on the core business--flits around and tries this and that and the other thing. If she'd focused on growing the planner, and left the other stuff on the wayside, they wouldn't be in the position they are now (IMO). She blames it on the pandemic. I blame it on her lack of focus.

This planner is awesome if they'd stop messing around with it every year. There's a difference between improving something and changing things just to change them. The other aggravation is this planner is what the one founder wants. She doesn't use electronic grocery lists, so instead of having full days on Saturday and Sunday (which I need!!!!), we have to have perforated grocery list pages. So she can pull them out and shop. Sorry, this has been bothering me for a while.

Anyway, I'm not a fan of an undated planner, especially the MONTHLY layout. The days, well, I can buy a date stamp and handle that--ugly though it might be. But there's nothing to do for monthly except handwrite every date. Ugh.

I know it's early for 2024, but I've been browsing other planners. The one I thought I'd switch to doesn't have a layout available that I love. Then (for some reason) Instagram started showing me planner ads. And I found a daily planner that I liked with FULL DAYS FOR SATURDAY AND SUNDAY!

I think I found my 2024 planner. Thank goodness since Bullet Journaling is not my bag.

Okay, Maybe Not

I've been thinking about Bullet Journaling (BuJo) again. Not for my main planner. I learned my lesson on that, but I thought as an ancillary or companion to my daily planner.

I had done BuJo years ago and I knew I'd bought some stencils, so I went looking for them and for my old BuJo. I found my two Bujos. (Two?!?!) One has grid and the other is blank. I prefer grid over dot, which is how so many people buy their journals.

The stencils? Those are still MIA. I thought I had them tucked into the BuJos, but I didn't. I thought I had them in my planner tote, but I can't find them there. That search continues.

But pulling out the old BuJo were interesting. First, I can definitely tell why I gave up on using this as my main planning system. Things were all over the place. I didn't like that at all. I love my printed daily planner where I can keep myself organized each and every day.

Second, I found some good notes in there! For a while, I was keeping writing notes in the darker pink journal (pictured here) as well as notes on classes I took. The lighter pink was supposed to be my planner, but there are also notes in there from when I was listening to podcasts.

So yes, I found some cool information which has literally been lost to me since 2016/2017 when I gave up BuJo. This is a compelling reason not to do this. It's not me rethinking my companion brain idea. Maybe I should just stick to my daily planner and call it good.

Maybe Read the Description

I have this hardbound journal that I ended up really liking. It has a lot of pages in it. Much more than you'd see in a bullet journal type. I make notes in there, and when I remember, I transfer all my little personal Post-it note info into there.

I don't really use it often, but it'll be years before I fill it up. I set up an index in front, like you would for a bullet journal, and can flip right to what I need.

This got me thinking.

I have sheets of paper with writing ideas floating around my office. Lots of them. These are for things I'm not working on and haven't fleshed out enough to assign them their own notebook.

I also have two notebooks for The Paladin League because I filled up the first one.

Then my brainstorm hit. Why don't I buy another of those big, hardbound journals and just put stray writing ideas in there? I'd index it like I did with my personal journal and then I could corral the extra paper.

Two versions of the journal showed up when I did a search. They looked identical in the pictures. One was cheaper than the other, so of course that's the one I ordered. The new one arrived recently.

I found out why it was cheaper. It's much smaller than the original journal. Like the difference between A5 and B5 (if I have my sizing correct).

It's fine. It might work better to have a smaller book. It has all the same features of the original. It's just so small.

Next time, I should probably read the description and not rely on pictures. Lesson maybe learned.

Liar, Liar Pants on Fire

A while back, I blogged about having two characters show up in my head who had the same name. They were just spelled differently.

At the time, I was surprised because I've never had two characters want the same name. Well, that's over with now. One of the characters--a secondary in the Paladin League--had to introduce himself with his real name, not his handle.

Guess what? He's not Zack with a K like he'd been telling me.

Surprise!

As far as having things sprung on me by my characters, this is minor. I didn't use his real first name in any of the books yet although he's made an appearance in the last three.

The thing that's sort of frustrating for me is what his name actually is: Ian. I had three names that I thought were him and one of them was Ian. No, no, he assures me. I'm Zack.

And then he introduces himself in Wicked Persuasion and guess what? It's Ian. Grrr.

I'm used to characters withholding information, but it's been a long time since I've had one outright lie to me. Now that I know Ian can't be trusted to tell me the truth, I'll be on guard with him. I also plan to torture him mercilessly in his book. Payback, it's real.

Car Fob Adventures: Part 2

My first adventure with the key fob and the keys attached to it can be found here. It's not directly related, but explains why this is Part 2.

I bought a new spring jacket because the old one is nearly coming apart I've worn it so long. The new jacket doesn't have a hood like the old one did. I tell you this because it's pivotal to the story which happened a few weeks ago.

So I have this new jacket without a hood and on Monday it rained. I decided to wear the old jacket so I could put the hood up and not try to manage an umbrella, a tote bag, and a rolling computer bag on my walk into the office. And I did need the hood. It wasn't pouring or anything, but it was steadily raining and it kept me dry.

When I arrive at work, I put the key fob for the car with my house keys attached into my pocket. I have this fear of accidentally locking myself out if I leave them in my tote bag while I walk around the car. You see, I put my computer bag and tote bag in the passenger side and then walk around to the driver's side.

I've done this a hundred million times. And for almost every one of those instances, I've left my keys in my pocket when I got home again because I always wear the same jacket and they'd be there the next day.

Only on Tuesday it wasn't raining. I decided I better wear the new jacket. I never thought about the keys.

You see where this is going, right?

Tuesday morning at a ridiculously early hour, I leave for work, locking the door to the house behind me. I put my stuff in the passenger side, get behind the wheel, and press the button to start the car.

No key detected.

What do you mean no key detected? It's right here (I reach into my tote bag) in the pocket. No keys. Then, like a crashing wave, it hit me. My keys are in my other jacket. Inside the locked house. Which I have no keys to get into.

On the off chance that I maybe could have forgotten to lock the door, I give it a try. No. Locked.

This leaves me one chance to get back inside--my dad. Only there are a few issues. He wears hearing aids and can't hear a thing without them. He does not sleep with his hearing aids in because the doctor told him not to. He doesn't wake up for another four hours.

I start calling the home phone on my cell while I ring the doorbell repeatedly. I'm hoping that the two together will wake him up. After fifteen minutes of this, I go back to my car and start redialing him over and over and over and over and over and over and over. And over.

One hour later and almost 90 calls, he answers. He doesn't have his hearing aids in and thought maybe he heard the phone. He can't hear what I'm saying. I'm yelling as loudly as I can and he still can't hear me. OPEN THE DOOR TO THE GARAGE. I shouted it and shouted it and finally, after a good three or four minutes, he finally does it.

I'm back inside the house. I have keys. He has coffee and cookies and goes back to bed.

So now I have a new item on the To-Do list. Get duplicate keys made and zip one inside my tote bag so I can get back inside the house.

Whimsy and Decor

I talked about this in my March newsletter, so if you've read that, apologies for the sort of repeat. I say sort of because now I have three prints picked out and framed, ready to be hung up.

With that said, I have a lot of open wall space that needs art. I haven't been able to commit to anything and the last thing I wanted to do was pay a lot of money for something and not want to keep it long term. But then I had an idea. I could print my own images and stick them in frames with mats.

It didn't take long to discover I'd probably have to send the images out to a professional service to print out. And again, I couldn't commit. Did I want flowers? Something bright? Something fun?

I'm still debating most of the house, but I did figure out the guest powder room. That came to me when I found the shop on Etsy selling prints. Lots of cool mid century modern pieces including mid century kitty. I bought three prints in shades of aqua/green.

The colors are a lot more vibrant than in these photos. I'm not a great photographer:

 

I actually could use one more maybe. The powder room has a lot of odd angles and so there are lots of short walls and one normally short wall. The kitty with the daisies is for the longer wall. The vertical prints are for the weird walls.

I might have my master bathroom figured out, too. I'm still mulling that one a little bit.