Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 36

Jumping In With Both Feet

Why am I like this?

I can barely sew. I've done a few projects, mostly simple things, and I jump in with both feet. This isn't like knitting where all you need is some needles and yarn. Sewing requires a ton of supplies and a lot of them are expensive. So of course, I continue to jump in with both feet.

Like joining a sewing club that is far beyond my abilities.

My latest folly? I signed up for an online beginner's sewing class which includes three beginner level patterns. This isn't bad, right? I've been through the beginner's sewing class on Craftsy and I needed more than what was there. And while they do have a ton of sewing classes, I'm unsure which ones would be smart to try next. That's why this other class seemed like such a good idea.

And maybe it was? I'm only three classes in and a lot of what I've seen so far covers things I already know because I have made a few items--some more successfully than others. But one of the things I really appreciated about this class was the list of items that you need to sew. With links!

Of course, I bought a few things. I did rein myself in. If there was a decent substitute or if I could put off the purchase, I did. Because I went fabric shopping.

That's right. I went fabric shopping for the first two projects for the class. Fabric shopping is always overwhelming for me, especially since I'm never sure if I'm buying the right thing and I'm doing it online where there's really not much help and no ability to touch anything.

It gets better. The skirt needed buttons. I don't know why it's so difficult to find cute buttons that aren't $2 each, but it is. I finally found some stuff that was a little different on Etsy (outside of the boycott week!) that I bought. And of course, there were other cute buttons there that would be cool for other (theoretical) projects that I also bought.

I'm still trying to figure out why I got like this, jumping in with both feet instead of wading in, but here we go again.

Say What?

When I'm writing a first draft, I don't spend a lot of time re-reading what I've already written. Oh, I might look at the last few pages to refresh my memory, but reading whole chapters? Not any longer. It's too easy to spend the day revising instead of adding new words.

But back when I was drafting Wicked Deception, I needed to go back and refresh my memory on an entire scene because it played into the scene I was writing that day.

Most of it was okay. I could see where it needed to be fleshed out or trimmed down, but that's for the second draft. Right now, all I needed was some information.

And then I saw it. Er, maybe I should say then I read it.

Or tried to read it.

Somehow this sentence made sense to me when I wrote it. The second part of it still made sense, but as I read and re-read and read again the beginning portion, for the life of me, I had no clue what I was trying to write. I still have no clue what I was trying to say after multiple re-reads and mulling time.

I left it and will doubtlessly end up cutting it as I revise the story, but I wanted to hang on to it until I had a hint of what I was trying to convey.

I'd like to blame it on fast drafting, but I don't write like that, so it was just, um, something I guess I understood when I wrote it, but wasn't clear (even a little bit) later, even to me. First drafts can be horrifying. This is a case in point.

Neighboorhood Weirdness

There are some things that happen in my neighborhood that I find really strange. Not like paranormal, but like why do people think this is okay kinds of things.

For example, there are two neighbors who think it's appropriate to let their young, grade-school-age children drive motorized vehicles on the street. We're not talking 12-year-old kids, I mean little, like maybe seven years old. It must be illegal, right?

It's for damn sure dangerous, especially as fast as people drive in Georgia.

I grew up when your parents told you to go outside and play and they didn't have a clue where you were or what you were doing, so it's not as if I grew up with parents hovering, but even as a free-range kid, I would never let my kids drive ATVs on the street, not at such a young age.

Then there's the neighbors who put their dog outside, leave it outside for extended stretches of time, and don't do anything when it barks. And barks. And barks.

Literally, I've never seen anything like this. When I had dogs, if they were outside and wouldn't stop barking even after I told them to be quiet, they were brought inside the house. My neighbor at my other house down here, even said after I moved in to just let her know if the dogs were annoying me. They never did because she did the same thing I did. Brought them in if they wouldn't be quiet.

I only moved a couple of blocks from my old neighborhood in this subdivision and this one neighbor does nothing to quiet the dog. Nothing. Which is totally uncool, especially when I'm trying to write.

Then there's all the vehicles that need new mufflers. Apparently this is a thing for young men down here? I don't know if they're in their teens or early twenties, but OMG! Doesn't that noise make them crazy?

This isn't so much my neighborhood as my how things have changed. A while back, the bus driver stopped to drop these grade-school-age kids off in the afternoon. Their house is right on the corner. The kids would cross the street and be in their yard, that's how close it was. The mother wasn't outside standing on the corner and the bus driver wouldn't let the kids off. In fact, the driver honked to get the mother outside. Only then were the kids allowed off the bus.

Is this normal? I mean, when I was a kid, like eight or nine, I walked to school winter, spring or fall. It had to be at least a mile and we took shortcuts through people's yards and stuff. Even when I did take the bus, I walked down the street about half a block because our bus didn't stop in front of every kid's house like they do down here. Not only that, but my mom only walked me down the first day of school. After that, I was on my own. No one thought this was strange.

Now, apparently, kids can't walk across the street without their mom standing there? Wow, have things ever changed.

I think I'll save the Home Owner's Association because this blog post is long enough. :-)

Easter Island--Check!

My latest medal is ready to go on my medal hanger--if I could come up with a location inside my house to put the medal hanger. I thought I had an good idea, but it's above a light switch that controls the lights and a ceiling fan. I figured with my luck, I'd hit some wiring and cause a problem, so it's back to the drawing board.

But I did a walk around part of Easter Island! This was a short course, so it didn't take very long to finish it. I think I blogged about this already, but I wanted to share the picture of the medal (left).

BTW, I received no compensation of any kind for this post. The website is on the card that the medal comes on and I'm too lazy to crop the picture. :-)

The Easter Island medal is cool, but the course itself wasn't as awesome as most of the other ones I did. You see, most of the courses include Google Street View and part of the fun of these races is going into Street View every day and looking around. Sort of like I'd actually stopped to rest in real life, you know?

Easter Island had no Street Views available. That I'm aware of at least. I stopped checking about halfway through the course because there was never anything there. Disappointing, but now I'm on to my next challenge, The Great Ocean Road. This is a walk along the southern coast of Australia and it does have Street View. :-)

I've actually been to Australia, but while we did the east coast and some of the interior (Ayres Rock, Alice Springs, etc), I've never been to the southern part of the country. I'm finding myself wanting to go back and visit that part of the country.

Some day, I guess. For now, it's only virtual.

The First Sweater (Maybe)

One of my favorite knitting designers created a sweater pattern geared toward knitters who've never made a sweater before. This would be me. I've started one, but ran into trouble and gave up. I started a second one for a knit along and got the neckband done before I gave up.

I wanted to try it, but the yarn weight isn't one I own much of. (yarn comes in different thicknesses from something close to thread all the way to super bulky/chunky). This pattern called for a weight called DK and while I had a few skeins here and there, I didn't have enough of one color to even come close to making a sweater.

I browsed some yarn stores, trying to find something inexpensive that also had colors that I liked, but didn't find anything that didn't (at minimum!) make it a $150 sweater. Way more than I was prepared to spend. Way more.

Then I found some yarn in the right weight on close out online! And OMG, one of the brands had all kinds of colors I loved!

I ended up buying enough yarn to make three sweaters because I didn't have any DK stash and this seemed like such a good opportunity to fix this error. Factor in taxes and shipping because close out yarn doesn't qualify for free shipping and ouch!

But I got a bright pink shade, purple, and orange and will try (again) to complete my first sweater. Third time is the charm, right?

Work, Write, Repeat

As I'm writing this blog post, I've been hard (and I do mean HARD!) at work on Wicked Deception . My goal is to finish it by the end of April. This might roll a little bit, but hopefully not too far.

I'm doing something a little different in this book. At least different from the other Paladin League books. I'm adding a few scenes from one of the villain's Points of View (POV). I've done this at least once before in one of my paranormal romances, but it's something I don't do often.

After talking it over with one of my writing buddies, I decided to add this POV in this book because it's pretty much impossible for the plot to make sense without it.

The thing that's spinning my brain right now is that his POV is biased. He thinks he's the brains behind the organization, that his boss would be nowhere without him. And while he has made a large number of contributions, he's selling the man he reports to very short. Far too short. So if a reader takes his thoughts as accurate, they're misled.

This is one of the big drawbacks with staying true to POV. It's happened in other books where I was dinged in reviews for characters who had a less than accurate view of a situation.

The one that comes immediately to mind is when Ryne tells Deke she never was abused. (In the Midnight Hour) She clearly was. I know she was, the reader who wrote the review knew she was, but Ryne doesn't see it that way. If she had told Deke what had happened, he would have pointed out she was wrong, she had been abused, but she never shares what occurred during the book. I like to think she told him later, but I wasn't given a view of that, so I don't know if she did or not.

There were other books where staying true to POV and not drifting into an omniscient view of the story also left an incorrect impression. The thing is the characters believe what they're thinking and/or saying. It's not as if I can jump in and in parentheses say: "Warning, character is wrong. She was abused and maybe some day she'll realize it."

So when I'm in Silva's head and he thinks his boss, Senor Torres would not be an international arms dealer without him, he's not correct. It might have taken longer, but it would have happened.

Ultimately, though, there's no choice except stay true to the character and what they believe. So wrong impression of Jorge Torres coming up. :-)

The Medal Dilemma

I've shared pictures of the medals I've earned here in the past. More than once. The one I'm most proud of is the one I did in person. There's something extra special about that in-person, race-day experience, but I'm loving the different virtual races, too.

I mean really loving the virtual medals.

It's a nice little mood boost that makes all the time spent in the gym seem a little easier. A little more fun. Before the pandemic, I only knew of one virtual race company. Since then, I've found many more and I've tried more than one of them.

And now my medals are becoming a problem.

I'd been looping them around the corners of the mirror attached to one of the dressers in my bedroom, but I'm running out of room and I can't see some of them because they're piled on top of each other.

And then I saw a medal holder advertised. I didn't know they made them! I searched on Amazon, but saw complaints about a lot them bending because they weren't made strong enough. (These were all made of metal.) Then I thought of Etsy. Surely someone in the US was making strong medal holders, right?

They were! And I saw a couple I really liked and then I spotted the wooden one. I looked at review after review, picture after picture.

It had a choice of colors, including turquoise. It had a choice of lettering fonts. It had an upgrade option to make it larger to hold more medals. It had a saying that I could get behind 100%. It seemed like a good idea at the time...

I was sold. It arrived today and I attached the hooks immediately and took a picture. I think I figured out where to hang it, so now it's just a matter of finding the time to do it. And then I can hang all my medals and enjoy looking at them. I'll probably share a picture of them when I have it up.

The Planner Saga Continues

I've blogged several times about changing to a new planner this year, about how I've had issues with the new planner. Well, guess what? The company that makes my old planner was moving locations and they were having a warehouse sale to get rid of as much merchandise as possible so they could avoid moving it.

There was a steep discount on the planner I would have bought if I'd been doing my normal planner purchase. And yes, I bought it.

The main issue I had was how much real estate they took away from the part of the page I use the most. I decided I would use it concurrently with my official 2022 planner for a week and see what I thought.

First, I was right about being squeezed for space with the new layout. There were two days out of seven where I ran out of room.

Second, I still like my old planner better than the new planner. A lot better.

This means I'll have to transfer everything over to the new 2022 planner. It's going to be a pain and take time I can't spare, but I'm so much happier in my regular planner that there are no words for it. And since this planner has always squeezed me for space on the weekends, I was able to cope.

Now I have to hope for 2023, they don't take more space away from my favorite part of the daily page because I seriously can't lose more room.

T-Shirts, Sewing, Pajamas and All That Jazz

One of the reasons why I wanted to learn to sew was T-shirts. I'm extremely fussy about the fabric and so much of what I find now is either thin, stiff, or both. True, I'm judging them against my old, soft, worn-a-thousand-times T-shirts, but still.

And it's not only T-shirts to wear to the gym or in summer. It's long-sleeve T-shirts for spring/fall and for sleeping.

I have three sleeping T-shirts. One was retired because the holes in the sleeves were too large to risk wearing it any longer. A second one needs to be retired, but hasn't been yet. And the third is going to be fine for a while, but somehow got exposed to bleach or something that put a large discoloration on it, so wearable, but ugly.

I've been trying to buy replacements, but when I say I'm picky about my T-shirts, I'm not joking. I'm very picky. So I thought why not try something different? I tried a traditional pajama top. Hated it.

Next, I tried two different shirts that were labeled as "sleeping T-shirts" and um, hey? That's not T-shirt material. It feels more like a sweater. Both of them. But they're soft and warm, so okay. Problem? The neckline is too big and so it's too low in front and in back. Also, the sleeves are far too long for me. In the past, I would have stuck them in the closet and forgotten about them, but I thought there must be a way to fix this with sewing!

There were a number of different methods I found, but I decided to try the elastic cord threaded through the neckline. I ordered it and am waiting for it to arrive. After I get the neckline adjusted, then I'll do something with the sleeves. Either roll them up and tack them down or cut of a few inches and re-sew the wrists.

But I do have a pattern for a long-sleeve T-shirt, and in my failed attempt at a short sleeve Tee, I found a soft material that feels so good. After I finish this book, I'm going to take some time and try to sew my own. Of course, by then, it'll be too hot here for long sleeves and I'll be sleeping in my short sleeve pajama tops--which I have plenty of.

Under the Radar

It's been a while since I've talked about writing here, but I don't like talking about what I'm actually working on. At least not very much. It's like if I talk about it, some of the energy gets sapped away and I never want to drain energy from a Work In Progress (WIP).

And I try not to mention future projects I'd like to write because some of the ones I've mentioned in the past are hanging out there, years later. That feels unfair to you guys.

So maybe I'll talk about a scene I've seen with the lady musketeers. I probably won't write it because there's no room for it in any of the books, but it amused me when I saw it.

As an FYI, my characters rarely provide help that's actually helpful. Guidance for the scene I'm working on or will be working on next? Nothing. Not a peep. Scenes that will never get written and don't fit in the book(s)? Those I get a ton of. I got another bedroom scene between Finn and Zo a few weeks back. This isn't the first one, BTW. Can I use them? Of course not. I'm finished with their book.

So the guys are out somewhere. I'm not clear on where they went, but it might have been a game. The four heroines are together. Langley and Zo have been with their guys for years, but Cat and Mari have a much, much shorter time with Griff and Kyle.

I'm not sure how the topic pops up, but Langley mentions how slutty the guys were before falling for them and they're asked to guess who was the sluttiest of the men.

Griff, of course, came up immediately, but he's not the correct answer.

Of the four men, Finn is the sluttiest of them, but he's more low key than Griff is and a lot of the women in his past flew under everyone's radar.

Zo knows about Finn and so did Langley. It was Cat and Mari who didn't guess the correct musketeer. :-)

Now you know. And Finn is a Capricorn, so once he met Zo, he was done. Completely, 100% faithful, so it's easy for her to be amused by it because they trust each other absolutely. I'll admit, though, that until this exchange, I would have chosen Griff, too, although there were hints in Wicked Intention.