Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 63

Apps I Used to Love

Once upon a time, there were some apps I used that I really, really loved. I raved about them to friends and coworkers. I might have even blogged about them. Only a funny thing happened as I kept using them. I grew to resent them mightily.

One of the apps reminded me to stand up on a regular basis. This is definitely something I need at my day job because I get involved in what I'm doing and forget about everything else. But after a while, that incessant pinging made me grit my teeth. I kept using it, though, because I needed that reminder. I became more resentful with every ping.

And then one day I couldn't take it any longer. I deleted the app. I don't miss it.

And when I got my new Fitbit, it had a 250 step an hour challenge. With a buzz on my wrist when there was 10 minutes left in the hour and I hadn't gotten my steps in. I made it about two weeks with this before I turned that off. I'm sure I wouldn't have become annoyed so quickly if it weren't for my phone app.

Then there was the app that would wake me up when I was sleeping lightly, so it would be easier to get up. Um, yeah, that meant it might go off up to half an hour before I needed to get up. It made me angry every time it stole sleep from me. I still have this app on my phone, but I never, ever use it.

There are other apps that have come and gone, but I simply lost interest in them. The two apps I mentioned in this post? I grew to hate them. Good riddance to annoying apps!

Planner Excitement

As we get closer to the end of the year, I'm really looking forward to getting my 2020 planner. It's not because I'm in any hurry to finish the year, but because I put too many stickers in my 2019 planner and the lump is kind of a PITA.

This is a picture I took shortly after putting in all my stickers. The planner isn't supposed to look like this, but I bought a machine to cut stickers and went wild.

Because of my excessive use of stickers, it was tough to write in the planner at the beginning of the year. It was okay mid year, but now that we're getting close to the end, I'm dealing with that hump in my paper again. I've truly learned my lesson!

For 2020, I'm going to stick to mostly functional stickers with only a few decorative stickers scattered here and there. 2019 is full of deco stickers--at least one on every page, sometimes more--and that's the bulk (this word choice is intentional) of my problem.

Of course, I'm always excited to get a new planner regardless of my sticker excesses. :-) There's just so much possibility with a blank planner!

Upgrade

***I received no compensation of any kind for this post. Thoughts are all my own***

This spring, I finally bought a new iPad. It was something I'd been meaning to do for a while, but had put it off until my old iPad was so decrepit, I basically used it for reading ebooks in bed and not much else. In fact, I do so much on my phone, I wondered if I even needed another one.

But I was intrigued by the pencil function and the idea of writing notes electronically was compelling. Like I needed another place to make notes. :-( As an aside, one of my biggest problems is jumping from system to system. I know I'm missing notes for Wicked Intention that I made years ago. This realization didn't stop me from making notes in one of my new apps for the book. :-(

The other compelling reason was there were things I liked to do while I watched TV, but my laptop is 17 inches and it's heavy to sit with it on my lap. Plus the cord and the cooling pad. Yeah, if I could use the iPad as a laptop replacement for home use (Not writing) that would be worth it. So I jumped.

Seven years ago, when I bought my only other iPad, I upgraded to the top memory and paid an arm and a leg. This time, the beginning memory was (I believe) double what I had way back when. I picked up the iPad Pro, BTW. I wanted full functionality.

This new tablet made me fall in love with the iPad all over again.The magic was back!

I have an app to write notes in that I love. I have another app that converts handwritten notes to text. (It's convenient, but I prefer the first app.) I can play games while I watch television at the end of the day. I subscribed to the New York Times crossword puzzles! I blogged earlier about digital planning which failed the way I expected it to, but would have been cool if I could have made it work. I also do research for my stories in front of the television and some other writing related things. There are so many more possibilities than with my old, tired iPad.

There are some things I don't love--Face ID, for one. Although I'm not sure that the fingerprint reader would be any better. Maybe I should just go 100% to the passcode, but I'm not excited about that option either.

After the new iPad OS has been released for a while and the bugs have been worked out, I'll upgrade to that and maybe some of my peeves will go away. (Not face ID, but other things.)

Anyway, I'm glad I spent the money and I am getting my use out of the new tablet. I'm also glad I waited until the pencil charging was improved. I'm definitely getting my use out of it.

Speaking of Escalations

I can't do anything part way. It's a very frustrating trait a lot of the time. Like when I learned how to crochet and bought a ton of hooks and patterns before falling into knitting. Not that I slowed down then either. I have needles and needle cases and project bags, and sadly, got hooked on expensive yarn, so yeah, I have lots of that too. This isn't as bad because I actually do still knit. I'm just really slow because there's too much other stuff going on.

Which leads me to Tuesday's blog post about having an idea for a second trilogy in the Paladin League World. It wasn't enough to do character names, I had to create the official Paladin League 2 notebook.


As an excuse, the notebook I'm using for Paladin League 1 is pretty full and I haven't even started to make notes for the final 2 books yet and I was going to need to transition into a new notebook eventually. I just didn't need to waste time doing it right away. So of course, I wasted time making the sticker right away. :-)

Now if I can come up with a sub-title for the second trilogy, I can make a label for that and add it below the series logo.

Well That Escalated Quickly

I like pictures when I write, and as I was working on Wicked Intention, I realized I needed a picture of Finn's (and Ryder Wicked Obsession) commanding officer. And I found someone. This immediately triggered the thought, Captain Nguyen needs a story.

Of course, at this point, Captain Nguyen didn't even have a first name.

He couldn't be part of the arc with Finn because that's already planned out and has two other heroes waiting to finish the storyline. I've been living with these guys (and their heroines) for years. Also, there was no way to squeeze in another story. The captain needed his own arc and that meant I needed two more stories to make a second trilogy.

Book 1 is the captain. Book 3 was easy, too, because I'd been toying with this h/h almost as long as with Finn and his heroine. That left Book 2. After a quick review of Ryder's story, I had that hero, too.

Next I needed first names for my guys. That went quicker than expected. I don't get to choose names for my characters. They pick them, but sometimes they're a pain in the process. When I wrote In the Midnight Hour my heroine made me look for weeks before she said, "that's my name." :-( You don't want to know how many baby name books I paged through, how many websites I visited before I finally had her say that was her name.

Sometimes I get lucky and my characters tell me their names. (Mika Through a Crimson Veil) Most of the time, though, I'm left looking at names until I get an indication that I found it. This time, that went quickly.

Now I needed two heroines for the heroes of books 1 and 2. They appeared and pointed out their names quickly, too. Very unusual. Of course, I did try to talk heroine 2 out of the name she said was hers. It's too strange, I said. It has mythological baggage I said. I tried to find something similar or with the same flavor, but she refused all suggestions. I've learned to just accept and move on.

I even had a little bit of plot for the three book arc come to me. This was over a couple of hours on Sunday and a couple of hours on Monday. Boom! In less than 24 hours, solely because I needed a picture of Finn's captain, I ended up with another three books to write. That did escalate quickly.

Virtual Races

This image on the left is actually the swag from a 5K event I did live and in person, but before I did this race, I did a virtual 5K just to see if I could do it.

Since then, the company who did the first virtual race I participated in has emailed me with other races I could do on my own, but while some of them were tempting, I passed. Until I saw the one that needed to be completed by Sep 20th. I couldn't help but sign up for this event even without a coupon.

It's called Storm Area 5.1K virtual run and the swag includes a medal that has an alien face and glows in the dark! A T-shirt also with an alien face and a race bib. Honestly not too interested in a race bib, but the other two? Hell, yeah!

Link to the events Facebook Page (I receive NO compensation for this post.)

A virtual race means you do it on your own, either on a route you've measured or a treadmill, and time it. You're on the honor system. The first race I did was on a treadmill and I'll probably do this one at the gym.

The other reason I signed up for the race is that I am doing a live 5K later in the fall and this will be a good benchmark for me on how I'm doing on my training.

Okay, let's be honest, I just wanted the medal and T-shirt. :-)

Decisions, Decisions

I've been looking for a table runner. I found one I liked about a year ago or so, but sadly it was out of stock everywhere. I thought I found one on eBay only to receive a message that my order was cancelled and my money refunded. The search sort of passively continued after that.

Then Etsy sent me a promotional email and I opened it. There was a table runner that I liked. Hmmm. I popped over to the site and noticed that the maker had many more to choose from. I started browsing the patterns. I visited the maker's website so that I could see everything available.

So many patterns. Like 700+ patterns in the sub category I was interested in. Yes, sub category. I don't even want to think how many choices were available across their entire catalog.

I favorited the ones I wanted to consider for my final choice. And favorited and favorited. Some I liked, but thought they were too busy. Some I liked the fabric pattern, but there was too much white and I didn't want it to look dirty if someone spilled on it. Although, I suppose I could take it off the table before any holiday meals.

After a while, the number of choices became overwhelming and I shut down all my tabs without buying anything.

There was an article I read that talked about how what kind of decision maker you are impacts how you feel about choices. If you are a locomotive, you make choices quickly and having a lot of options doesn't really bother you. If you are an assessment-oriented, too many choices will paralyze you. Guess which one I am? :-)

When I was younger, I was more locomotive, but snap choices have led to enough regret over the years that I try not to do that anymore. I'm not always successful when I'm having a conversation with someone and they ask me verbally to make a choice, but when it comes to online shopping? Gah! I can't even begin to tell you how many times I ended up buying nothing because I got overwhelmed.

What would be ideal would be landing somewhere between locomotive and assessment. That way I could have the best of both worlds without locking up. I wonder if I could train my brain to be more balanced without regretting quicker choices?

Reusable Grocery Bags

My latest I can make that moment.

For those of you new to the saga of Patti, my dad moved in with me after my mom died 3 1/2 years ago. He also gave up driving, which is a good thing because they drive like lunatics in Georgia. Because of this, he doesn't get out much and going to the grocery store is one of the highlights of his week. He knows all the ladies in the deli, the butcher, the fish guy, the cashiers, and the customer service people.

It also means that I can't buy anything at the store without him knowing about it. This includes reusable grocery bags.

The plain boring bags are $.99 and the cuter bags are $1.99. He doesn't see the need to spend any money on the bags, period. We do bring the plastic bags back to the store to be recycled every week, so we're not just throwing them in the trash, but we don't need that many bags.

I did some online shopping to see if I could find cloth grocery bags cheaper, but no, I couldn't.

Here comes the "I can make that" moment. I spotted a different type of bag on Ravelry (It's a site for knitters and crocheters and other fiber people) and I had a light bulb go off. I've seen grocery bags on there. I can make the bags!

I saved a bunch of free patterns and then I started reading them.

Yes, I can make my own reusable grocery bags and it will probably cost about $4 - $5 each. Plus my time knitting something I'm not in love with. I'd be much better off convincing my dad that it isn't wasted money to buy a few bags at a dollar each.

Wicked Intention Pre-Order!

Wicked Intention is now available for pre-order on Amazon!

Before he can leave the Army, Special Forces Sergeant Finn Rowland has one last mission—bring down international arms dealer Jorge Torres. Going undercover as a mercenary and part-time gunrunner is dangerous, but it grows riskier when meets a woman he can't get out of his head. But why is she interested in Torres' second-in-command?

You'll notice that the date on the pre-order is a year from now. Ignore that. The book will be released long, long before that. The reason I did this is that Amazon penalizes authors who miss their release date. I chose the latest option available because it's fine to release early.

That said, I'm probably not going to make a fall release I'd been promising. It's looking more like January-ish time frame. I'm still writing the first draft. I'm sorry for the delay and I'll update when I have a firm idea of when Wicked Intention will be out.

Throwback Thursday: How I Became a Writer

There are a variety of ways to talk about my journey as a writer, but I think the most accurate story of how I decided to write starts when I was a teenager.

I'd always had stories in my head. When I was really young, I used them in scenarios with my Barbie dolls. As I got a little older, I used them to entertain myself when I was bored. Stuck someplace with my parents? Zone into a story.

But I never actually wrote anything down until I was in 8th grade.

A friend of mine decided to write a story and used everyone in the class as characters. She created a plot line with my character that I hated, and despite my pleas, she refused to change it. That angered me and I decided I'd write my own story. Only instead of using real people to play roles, I had fictional characters right from the start.

It was melodramatic and I never finished it, but that story for all its flaws is what hooked me on writing. I loved exploring my characters and seeing them come to life and take over the story. Unlike with drawing, which is an interest, but not a passion. Writing was clearly my passion. No matter how far short I fell from the vision I had, I was willing to keep working at it and working at it. I have folders (mostly digital) full of projects I started and never finished, but I was learning.

To this day, my characters will come in and take control, and if I write something they don't want to do, they go on strike. This can be frustrating as hell, but they're also always right. But don't tell them I said that!