Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 4

Fiction Reading Journal Thoughts

I've discovered one big issue I'm having with my reading journal. I hate taking time to write out my thoughts/review of the books I'm reading.
I have pages of books (pages) with nothing except the book cover and a little decoration. I can't even remember my thoughts on some of the books because I read them at the beginning of May.
Oh, I meant to go back and write up what I thought. That's one of the reasons why I'm doing the journal. But I haven't actually done it.
Some of the pages are missing decor, too. The basics are there: the book cover, the sticker I have to print out the title, author, format, page numbers, dates read, etc., and the scrapbook paper I use underneath these stickers, but only a couple of the pages have all the decoration I want. I read a book where the hero plays hockey, and I thought I'd make stickers of hockey sticks and skates. I haven't done that yet. Not for that book or made stickers that represent the other books.
I'm less worried about the decorations, though.
Other issues I'm having: Remembering to write the book title in the front of the book. Remembering to look at my book bingo cards to see if I can fill them out. Remembering to fill in my Alphabet card.
Obviously, I made it too overwhelming. Next time around, I'll make it much simpler. The only thing I really need to worry about is recording my thoughts about the books I read. And doing the book covers. I like having those.

The Liminal Zone

This is one of those weird stretches of time where the book is finished (Wicked Ambition), at least from the creative side. Copy edits and inputting copy edits and formatting for release are still ongoing or waiting to happen.

But even though nothing requires the creative side of my brain, I still can't write anything new. Not yet.

I can only work on one story at a time, and in my mind, Wicked Ambition is still that book.

It's also strange because I feel like I should be working on something. I've been writing and writing and writing and now I'm not. It's bizarre.

The other thing, of course, is that I haven't had time to think about the next book (Wicked Temptation) except in a very high-level kind of way. I know my hero and heroine. It's Cal "Baggs" Baggnell and Iona Desmond. I know they had a relationship that ended, but that neither one of them have moved on. And I know who the bad guys are in this book.

That's about all I have at this point and it's definitely not enough.

Once my mind is off Oz and Ayla, I'll get out my notebook and start brainstorming, but my head isn't there. Not yet.

Read-A-Thon Results

Let's talk about the read-a-thon I did and my results. I realized I kept talking about it in general terms, but didn't give specifics.

I kicked butt! I didn't think I would get as much reading done as I did because I was working on revisions while it was going on, but I had breaks between the rounds of revisions and was able to get through a lot of awesome books. (And a few clunkers.)

But I found two books that were five-star reads for me! Both were authors I'd never read before. I love when that happens!

One was a book for the Recommendation from Someone Else prompt. It was a mystery with a strong romance in it, but I was unlikely to have read it (even with the recommendation) if it weren't for the read-a-thon. OMG, I loved it! I stayed up way too late on a Saturday night to finish it. Um, like 2am.

The other I found accidentally. It was for the Has Less than 300 Pages prompt. I originally had a book from my TBR slated for the prompt, but it was like 296 pages, so it was still long. I thought that there had to be something shorter and quicker that I could read. I started out going through more eBooks that I own, but it took so long to check them out one by one.

Somehow, I spotted something about short reads over on Amazon, clicked on the banner, and went with the first book listed. It was 101 pages. It was also so awesome that I've got more books from this author wishlisted at the library.

The read-a-thon also had me plowing through the Jayne Castle (Jayne Ann Krentz) Harmony series. I owned 7 of the books but hadn't read them. I wish I'd read them all in order, but I started with the third book. I love this series and literally couldn't read fast enough. Now I need to get my hands on the books that I don't already own.

Overall, the read-a-thon was a great experience, but it was also exhausting trying to read so many books in a month. I would maybe only do a couple of these a year. Maybe one in the spring (like this one) and one in the fall. And I know I didn't need to max out my points, but well, if you can't ace the thing, why do it?

Yes, I hit the highest level, Haunting Herbologist. Yes, I finished every book prompt. There were categories related to plants, like take a nature walk or make a vegetarian meal that I didn't complete, but anything involving reading? Nailed it!

A Conundrum of Minor Proportions

My primary planner has monthly pages, daily pages, and vertical weekly pages. I don't plan weekly because it doesn't work for me, but I use washi tape to split the page into three sections.

Section 1: The day's weather

Section 2: Weekly projects and things that need to be accomplished that week.

Section 3: Writing information. When I'm writing, I put my daily word count goal and what I actually wrote that day. When I'm revising, I just write "revisions" and keep it simple.

Section 3 is working really well for me, no changes required.

Section 2 is still a work in progress even this deep into the year. I keep trying different things. Keep in mind that I began the year with a separate weekly planner and that didn't work at all, so I pivoted quickly to this process. Having everything all in one book is the right answer, but now it's a matter of formatting.

Section 1 is where I'm confused. Not about keeping track of the high and low daily temperatures. That's easy enough. My question is the actual weather.

You see, I have a set of rubber stamps for Sunny, Partially Sunny, Cloudy, Rain, Thunderstorms, and Snow. The problem is what do I stamp. For example, the other day it began cloudy in the morning, then it was partially sunny, then it rained, then it was partially sunny again, and then the clouds returned.

What do I stamp? Rain? Cloudy? Partially Sunny?

I don't want to do multiple stamps. For one thing, there isn't room for it. For another, it would be overkill, and while I'm obsessive, I'm not this obsessive.

Should I do the most notable weather, which would be the rain? Should I do the vast majority of the day, which would be partially sunny? Should I do what it was like when I first woke up? That's cloudy. I'm so confused.

Everything All at Once

I'm laughing at myself. Apparently, you can't make me happy when it comes to eBook versus audiobook.

For example, during the readathon, one of the prompts was to read a book with more than 100,000 reviews. I wanted to pick something I already owned, and after checking book after book, I ended up with Inferno by Dan Brown. I already had the audio version.

The nice thing about audiobooks is I can listen to them while I do other things, like cook or do the dishes, or work out.

But the book is so suspenseful that it's giving me stress. Maybe it would be easier to read it? Then I could skim ahead and know that Robert Langdon and his co-lead will be safe. But it's long book. More than 17 hours in audio.

Which leads me to another prompt: Pick a book from the hosts' TBRs to read. It's two points if you read one book, four points for the second, and six points if you read a book from all three of the hosts' TBRs. One of the hosts had a book that my book club planned to read, so one down.

Host two had a couple of nonfiction books in with her fiction choices. I did try one of her fiction reads first, but it was too dark for me, and because it was romantasy, it doesn't wrap up on one book. I skipped ahead, read the last chapter, and was like nope, definitely too dark for me. One of her nonfiction choices was available at my library in audio and it was only about 6 hours long. I did that one.

Host Three killed me. My reading taste doesn't match hers at all. I had no interest in any of the five books she listed. I picked the one I hated least and checked it out of my library. It's long. Like really long. And I want to listen to it in audio, not read it. But since I was already not interested in the book, there was zero chance I was spending $30 for the audiobook and my library only had the eBook.

Basically, you can't make me happy unless I have both the eBook and the audiobook. Apparently, I like choices. Or something.

Reloaded the Kanban Board

Those of you who've been following this blog for a while, know my love for my kanban board. It's how I keep track of things writing related. Some of it is about things like updating a book's back matter, but I do better with that in my planner.

What works really well on my kanban board is a Post-it Note for each chapter I plan to write. I've loaded the board for my next book.

Wicked Temptation

Cal and Io's book. You've met Baggs in the Lost Treasure arc of the Paladin League. Io is the twin sister of the heroine from Wicked Ambition. No preorder up yet. I will share a link with you when it goes up.

Here's what I have right now for the blurb:

He'll risk it all to protect her. She’ll risk everythingfor love.

Special Forces Sgt. Cal “Baggs” Baggnell has spent yearsputting duty above desire. But when Iona Desmond’s life is on the line, nomission—not even bringing down arms dealer Jorge Torres—can stop him fromkeeping her safe. Their breakup doesn’t matter. She’s the one woman he’ll riskeverything for.

Iona Desmond isn’t a stranger to danger, but teaming up withCal, the man who broke her heart, is a whole new level of torment. Working sideby side with the man she never stopped loving will test her resolve—and reopen woundsthat have barely started to heal. But with ruthless mobsters, rival treasurehunters, and an arms dealer closing in, she’ll have to trust Cal to keep heralive.

Their target: Viktor Petrova, the cunning lieutenant of apowerful Russian mob boss. His obsession with finding the billion-dollarTreasure of Trujillo has made him a deadly threat—not just to Iona and hertwin, but to everyone caught in his path.

As Cal and Iona dive deeper into thehunt, they uncover a dangerous clue to the hidden treasure map—a clue thatcould alter the course of their mission. But Petrova isn’t the only one with lethalambitions. Betrayals within his own ranks threaten to unravel everything…foreveryone.

Amid chaos and danger, Cal and Iona must navigate a worldwhere loyalty is fleeting, motives are murky, and passion might be the onlything they can trust. With their rekindled love as their strongest weapon, theymust fight to overcome their past—and the ruthless man determined to destroytheir future.

The Fiction Reading Journal

I have started putting together my fiction reading journal. I was hoping that I could talk myself out of it, but it was too tempting to resist.

I used an eight-inch square journal, and I have all these decorative papers and stickers and washi tape that I've either been buying or already had for scrapbooking, so hey, free creativity.

When I put together the Nonfiction Reading Journal, I bought a large number of steampunk files on Etsy and only used a fraction of them. This time, I was determined to use only what I had.

Of course, that limited me on theme. I have an Alice in Wonderland kit, and I thought about doing that as a theme, but after some consideration, I decided to save those papers and everything else that came with it for another day.

That left me with dark academia, which feels like the default book journal aesthetic. I hated doing what everyone else is doing, but I had two different kits with dark academia papers, washi, etc. and I was like, might as well.

The books along the bottom are washi tape, and so is the purple and black diamond border on either side of the image. The picture of the desk with the bookcase behind it came from a craft kit I bought a while back. My plan is to put my name on this page.

This is the title page of the book journal. That open space on the left-hand side is where I plan to put "Fiction Book Journal 2025." I've actually been doing a lot of reading, so I'm hopeful that I will be able to fill it up in the year and won't be dragging into 2026. I do realize the three ladies are writing, not reading, and I've added two pens and a typewriter in addition to the book stickers, but I did not have any paper with ladies reading. I decided since I write books that this will be fine.

I found more supplies while I was looking for Halloween paper for my DNF page. I didn't actually find my Halloween paper, which I know I bought when I was scrapbooking, but I'll make do. I found scrapbook paper with stars on it for my Five-Star reads page. I'm really hard on books, and almost never give any five stars, but I've already had one this year, so I decided I'd make a page.

I'm going to do a couple of book bingo pages. I just need to find some good prompts or make my own. And of course, I'll put together a couple of spreads for the readathon. I'm going to do a spread for the book club/buddy reads and then each book will have its own page. I made stickers for the rating and format.

There's lots of work left to do, but it's fun to have a creative outlet that doesn't exhaust me like writing does.

One Little Card

I didn't realize just how much buying a new eReader and getting a library card would open up my horizons, but it has. I've read more since I've done these two things than I have in years.

Mostly, I was reading on my phone or my iPad and both are heavy to hold for long stretches--especially the iPad. I have a Kindle. Actually, my mom had a Kindle, and when she died, I began using it occasionally. But my dad wanted to read, so I gave it to him, and I lost track of what he did with it. Now that he's passed away, too, I have no idea where to look for it.

A friend of mine got a Kobo Clara Colour and really liked it, so after several months of "I always read on my phone, would I even use it?" I bought my own Clara Colour. It's so light! I love that. I did add a Popsocket to the back, though, because it's just slightly too wide for my hand to hold comfortably.

The library card was something I meant to do since I moved to Atlanta, but I had enough eBooks, that I didn't see why I would need to use the library. Oh, boy, was I wrong!

Using the library has allowed me to try new authors, ones I'd never heard of before, and because they're traditionally published, have eBooks priced at $9.00. Gah!

I know. My traditionally published books that the publisher still holds the rights on are also ridiculously priced. I wish I had them back so I could repackage them. Only one has a cover that I love. And price them at reasonable amounts for an eBook. Sigh.

Anyway, I found books I loved. I found books I liked. I found authors that I want to read all their books. It's been fun!

I've been reading a lot of contemporary romance. I tried a romantasy, but decided that's not my genre. The one I picked up had great reviews, but it was so dark and gothic, and I'm not in the mood for dark. I want light and fun, and if I laugh, it's a win.

Don't worry! I'm doing my writing! Reading comes after the words. Wicked Ambition will release in mid-July.

Cover Reveal!

If you are a subscriber to my newsletter, you got the cover reveal last month. If you'd like to subscribe and get the latest news first, go to the Coming Next page on my website and scroll down to the sign-up form.

The next book in the Paladin League series is coming out in July, which means I needed the cover for Book 8 in the series to put in the back of Wicked Ambition. Wicked Temptation will be released in 2026. When I have a preorder available, I'll share the link on the blog.

Now, without any further delay, here is the cover for Wicked Temptation!

Inky

I have yet to master the art of stamping with silicone-type stamps. The reinking stamps? I'm golden. The wood stamps with rubber? I'm fine with those, too. The clear silicone-looking stamps?

Whimper.

I've watched videos and they claim the problem is over-inking the stamp. Made sense. I've tried to be careful ever since I saw that, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. It's always a disaster. Always.

My latest disaster happened when I tried to stamp in my Nonfiction Reading Journal. You remember that one with the steampunk theme? I hadn't been reading any nonfiction, so it sat. And then when I figured out that I could knit and listen to audiobooks or drive and listen to audiobooks, I powered through a couple of short ones.

I know I have trouble stamping and worked extra hard to be careful.

I ended up with ink on my kitchen table, ink on some other papers I had nearby, ink on the two acrylic blocks I had out, and ink all over my hands. Where was there no ink? That would be on the left-hand side of the rating stars that I was trying to stamp.

It's so frustrating! I would use stickers, but then that will bulk out the journal and I'm already using stickers for the book covers.

I do have some washi sticker paper. That's thinner than regular sticker paper, but also, it's expensive. I don't want to use it just because I'm incapable of using a clear stamp on an acrylic block. This is impacting not only my book journal, but a few other craft things I wanted to use stamps for.

Why is this so hard for me?