Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 45

Out of Sync

If you've read Wicked Intention , you know that the second to last chapter in the book introduces Griff's story. If you read the preview after Finn's story, you also know that the first chapter of Wicked Salvation is this scene from Finn's book, just told from Griff's Point of View.

I wish now that I'd never done this.

It's been exceedingly difficult to keep the two versions in sync.

First, as I revised Finn's story before it was released, things kept changing and I continually had to update the preview to match it. Second, as I wrote Griff's story, the first chapter was tweaked. And third, now that I'm doing revisions with my editor for Wicked Salvation, there have been more changes. This means I'm going to have to go back to Finn's book and fix it there, too.

It was easier when I teased Finn's story because it was the guys talking about Finn heading to Los Angeles because of a woman--who might or might not shoot him on sight.

Of course, there really was no other way to do Griff's story. It needed to start where it did and to hint at it, the opening needed to be at the end of Finn's book. So, yes. Here we are with syncing issues.

Once Griff's book is finished and for sale and I have Finn's book updated to match, everything should settle down and the syncing will stop, but it's reaching this point that's a pain.

Lost and Bought

I think I mentioned we've been forced to return to the office. :-( This makes me very sad. Making me even sadder is I lost one of my wireless earbuds when I was at the office. I thought I had both of them in the case, but when I went to take them out, one of them was missing!

This, my friends, is why I don't buy expensive earbuds.

I've looked around my desk at work. I had a coworker look around, but neither one of us found the missing earbud. I've been using just the one, but that's super annoying because of all the talking in the office. (This is a rant for another day.)

I checked out replacing the earbuds, but saw that Amazon Prime Days were coming. I decided to wait and it turned out to be a good choice.

The earbuds in the picture are my new pair and I love them better than the ones I lost! The sound is better, they're easier to get in and out of the case (which might help me not lose one), and I can clearly see if one is missing. The missing earbud wasn't noticeable as being gone because of how small it was and the case design. I think this pair is going to work out really well for me.

They were easy to sync to my phone and they auto synced to each other. My other earbuds, well, I had to search online for instructions on how to pair them because they frequently unpaired.

The one thing that's interesting is they have a different charging cord than all the previous earbuds I've head. Now it's the same cord that works in my iPad. Is this the new standard? Seriously, can we just pick one charging cord for every brand, every device? It's such a pain hunting for the correct cord.

Finding the Voice

I always get thrown off my stride when it's time to switch to writing a new book. Griff is with my editor as I write this, so he's not done, but while I wait, it's time to work on Kyle. I've actually been trying to start Kyle's book when it was with my editor for round one of revisions, but I ended up deleting everything I wrote then.

This time, I have the right kick off, but I lost Kyle's personality. I think I might have blogged about how he was a blank for me until he worked with Griff in Wicked Salvation.

I had him while I was writing scenes with him in Griff's book, but it's been a while since I wrote his scenes. Or at least scenes where he had the space to show his personality.

So at the moment, I'm rereading the parts of Griff's book where Kyle is being Kyle, trying to get his voice back in my head. I'm having limited success, but this happens on every transition between books. It always has. That's why the beginning of a book takes so long for me to write. I need the characters' voices to be them.

But I've got my opening. I'm torturing Kyle. So far so good.

Knitting Revelation

I picked up knitting needles in April 2017. Since that time, I've made a lot of shawls (which I never use), but they had one thing in common. They taught me different stitches. I learned how to knit lace, make cables, slip stitches--a whole variety of things.

The picture on the left is a shawl I'm knitting right now. I maybe get in a couple of rows a day because I'm busy writing or reading or too tired, but I keep plugging away.

Again, this shawl has a lot of different stitches and it's a completely different construction than anything I've knitted before this.

Today, one of my favorite designers released a new shawl pattern that was so cute! I wanted to buy it, but then I looked at it and I'm like: Lace. Picot bind off. No. I don't wanna.

If you're not a knitter, lace knitting is beautiful and airy, but it's also extremely easy to make a mistake and I've used life lines (yarn threaded through a row so I don't have to rip back to the beginning) to make it through some of the patterns. I decided I'm done with patterns with a lot of lace. It's too stressful. Picot? Not my favorite either. It's a futzy bind off, IMO.

I feel confident enough in my knowledge of knitting that I no longer feel a great need to find projects with new elements. I never thought I'd reach this point. Until recently, I would have called myself an adventurous beginner, but now I think I'd call myself an adventurous intermediate knitter. Do I dare say close to being an experienced knitter?

There's still a lot I need to learn. I've never actually finished a sweater and I'd like to make some of those. I also need to learn how to brioche because I have yarn for the cutest sweater, but the yoke has patches of brioche and I don't know how to do it yet.

But I know how to do lace and picot. I know how to do mosaic knitting and I love knitting cables. OMG, I need more cabled projects! Maybe I should look for a cabled sweater pattern. :-)

My point of this post, though, was that at some point when I wasn't paying attention, I realized I was a pretty practiced knitter and that I felt confident enough to tackle things that scared me before. I also realized that I no longer need to pick patterns with lots of different sections of learning involved because I'm confident I can pick up whatever I need to do in any pattern. Or almost anything at least. It's kind of exciting to reach this point.

Paladin League: The Musketeers

As I was finishing up the first round of edits on Wicked Salvation , Griff's story, I had a realization. The first four books could have a subtitle added. Paladin League: The Musketeers.

This wasn't planned out. I seem to have things occur to me after the fact all the time on my books, but the Musketeers thing showed up organically in Wicked Obsession. And then, as I was going through Griff's story, I realized the next book belongs to Kyle, the fourth (and newest) Musketeer. So yeah, Paladin League: The Musketeers.

I have a second four-book arc I plan to write in the Paladin League and now I want to come up with some kind of subtitle for this one, too. Nothing sounds right yet, though.

It's funny how when things crop up organically, they're just about perfect, but when I work hard to come up with something, it doesn't seem to measure up.

As you can see in the graphic above, you're getting a sneak peek at Kyle's cover. I'll do a formal reveal and talk about him later. I will say, though, that Kyle made his personality known loud and clear in Griff's book and it wasn't what I'd expected.

Timelines

One of the most important things (IMO) while writing is keeping track of the timeline.

Back in the early 2000s, maybe around 2004 or 2005 or thereabouts, I started printing out calendar pages and marking chapters on it. Like chapter one happens on Monday, so I'd write CH 1 on that square of the calendar and do this for every chapter in the book.

This idea was born of necessity when I was on tight deadlines for my publishers and didn't have time to read and re-read chapters, trying to figure out how many days had passed. I'd print out the entire book, and write days at the top of the pages. Ugh!

Clearly, the calendar made my life much easier. (I just found a reference to starting the calendar system while I was writing IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR, so that would be 2006 when I started using this system.)

But I kept thinking there must be a better way. I tried using software, some meant for project management and some specifically for writing, but I always go back to the calendar. It's quicker and easier in almost every respect.

But while I was working on The Paladin League, I ran into something I hadn't needed to deal with before--a long time span. Wicked Obsession and half of Wicked Intention take place 2 years before the main storyline in Intention. All the subsequent books in the series go forward, but now I have a huge wad of calendar pages. Held together with a clip.

I'm doing edits on Wicked Salvation and I'm starting to write the final book in this arc, but there is a second Paladin League arc I'm starting to plan out. That's going to add more calendar pages. I wish I had one of those machines that spiral binds paper so I could flip around my calendar pages more easily.

Bookending the Pandemic

In March of 2020, I had the oil changed in my car. I was a little uneasy about COVID-19 at the time, but it was a vague feeling, nothing concrete. I had the week off from work and the idea was to write a lot of words. That wasn't what happened.

As I remember things, it was the same day the NBA shut down their season. It was like the atmosphere turned on a dime. Suddenly, people were very worried. Including myself.

I have anxiety, so I worry about a lot of things most people don't think about, but this was a case of I was late to the worry party. I hadn't stocked up on things like hand sanitizer or toilet paper or Clorox wipes.

So maybe it's kind of fitting that as the pandemic more or less draws to a close in the US with over 40% of the people vaccinated, that I had my car serviced again. It felt (to use a writing term) like a grace note. A bookend on the pandemic if you will.

My day job is forcing us back into the office starting this month, so I guess for me this does officially end the pandemic portion of my life.

And yes, it really was more than a year between oil changes. I have 5000 miles allowed between changes and I only used 3000 of them in 15 months. It's a good thing I went in, though. My battery was critical and I had a transmission leak. Lots of money later, I'm set to drive back to the office. (DAMN IT!)

Review: Next

***WARNING: There will be spoilers. This movie was released in 2007, so I'm going to talk freely***

I started out watching baseball, but my team was losing badly and the manager wasn't pulling the pitcher, so I went looking for something else to watch. I found a movie that looked intriguing. It was titled Next.

***FYI, this movie was available on Amazon Prime and I received no compensation of any kind for this review.***

Next stars Nicholas Cage as a low-rent Las Vegas Magician named Cris Johnson who can see two minutes into the future. If he's involved in this future. He uses this in his act, but not with any great panache and he supplements his income with some gambling. Not big scores, but a lot of medium wins.

The FBI is after a group of terrorists who have a nuclear weapon in Los Angeles. They need to find it before it's detonated, and FBI Agent Callie Ferris (Julianne Moore) thinks Johnson can help them locate it. Only he uses his talents to evade her.

Johnson's Achilles heel is a woman he knows will walk into a diner at 8:09 and goes there morning and night until she arrives. Liz Cooper (Jessica Biel) affects Johnson's talent. With her, he can see farther into the future than two minutes. And he's going to need this skill to save her, himself, and stop a nuclear bomb.

I'm not sure how I never heard of Next before. This type of movie with time travel and adventure is the kind of thing I enjoy. And I did like this movie a lot!

There were plot holes. There were frustrations. There were story threads that were introduced and never picked up again. The ending left me screaming, noooooo! Despite all this, I'm thoroughly recommending Next. It was fun!

The romance was lame, but I expected this. The premise, though, was cool. Beyond cool. The Cris Johnson character is greatly flawed, yet I could see why he was the way he was. He was tested and retested as a three year old. Now, all he wants is to be left alone. But when the FBI becomes interested in him, the terrorists do, too. Their mysterious boss wants him dead.

The ending is probably the biggest problem with the movie. It's largely a cheat, but I could forgive this because of how it fit with the rest of the film. What had me frustrated was that it left me hanging. Wikipedia claims a sequel is (was?) in the works, but since it's been 14 years, I doubt it's coming out. I did try searching online, but "Next" is such a generic title and adding Nicholas Cage's name brought up Face Off and National Treasure news, so I gave up.

With all the caveats, I highly recommend this movie. It was a super fun way to spend an evening. Two thumbs up!

Reading on the Phone

Once upon a time, when I bought my first e-reader, I wondered why anyone would read on their phone when there were these glorious e-ink readers that were almost like reading a book. Not quite, but almost.

That was fine for a while, but then I got an iPad and I could do more on it than only read. And I could load apps from different booksellers so I wasn't locked in to one universe.

Jump forward to today. I read on my phone. It's actually the first thing I reach for. The iPad is heavy and the text on my phone is nice and clear, so why not?

Sometimes, when I think back to my initial reaction (why would anyone ever want to read on their phone???), I'm amazed.

Thinking back even farther, I'd rather read on my phone than read a paper book. I have quite a paperback collection that I moved with me from Minneapolis to Atlanta and I never read them. If I want to reread a title, I check to see if I can buy it in ebook form. I did that on a recent Julie Garwood reread. Luckily, I had a coupon for the books!

I try to never say never to anything and this is one of the reasons why.

The Shower Door Saga

We had a home improvement project going on. My dad wanted a walk-in shower in his bathroom instead of the tub, so we had a plumber come in and swap it out. He showed up on the days he said he would and he did a nice job.

The problem? The shower door.

He put in the order for it, got a delivery date, and nothing showed up. It was supposed to be delivered to our house. He called, got a new delivery date, but still no door.

This happened probably half a dozen times, maybe more than that, and the plumber finally said enough. I'll go to you and pick up the door myself. Keep in mind this was probably over the course of a month or more.

He got the door. He installed it. He finished the shower and it was all good.

And then the company started trying to deliver the shower door You know, the one we waited more than a month for them to deliver originally. The one the plumber called about repeatedly trying to find out where it was and why it hadn't been delivered.

The first time, my dad went out and talked to them. The second time, they came before 7am and I had to deal with them. My dad dealt with the the other times and last Thursday they actually had the door off the truck and wheeled to the front door on a skid.

On Friday morning, when I heard a backup beeper go off, I ran to the windows and opened the blinds. I was afraid they were backing a truck into our driveway with the shower door. Luckily, it was someone working at a neighbor's house and not the delivery company.

I'm not convinced the saga has ended yet. But at least my dad has his shower now and he likes it. And one day--maybe soon--they'll stop trying to deliver the shower door.