Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 98
September 13, 2016
Wandering into New Territory
I've been stagnate for a while with my musical choices, so I decided to shake things up a little bit. I started by using the curated playlists available on Amazon Music. (I received absolutely no compensation for this article. I'm a Prime member had can stream a lot of music for free.) After listening, changing to a different playlist, and skipping a bunch of songs, I tried stations. This is seeded with one artist or theme. I started out with Pitbull. ;-)
The Pitbull station was interesting and I discovered that while I like some of his songs, there are more that I don't like. The station played a lot of other artists and there were some I enjoyed, but when I heard Counting Stars by One Republic, I knew I'd found a new band to listen to.
Radio in Atlanta isn't good. I'm not the only one who thinks this either. A couple of Georgia natives agree with me. Because of this, I mostly listen to my own music. The one radio station I use to wake up to plays oldies. My old wake up radio station was far enough out of range that some mornings all I'd have was static and I can sleep through white noise. That radio station was super cool, though, because it played everything. One morning I'd wake up to the Partridge Family and the next day it would be Lady Gaga. I called it radio roulette because I never knew which decade I'd be hearing.
Too bad the signal wasn't better because I was hearing new music there. It's this station that introduced me to Maroon 5 and some other bands.
It's always easier to listen to what's familiar, but I have an eclectic taste in music and I like adding to my collection. I'm all excited to have a new band to follow.
Edited to add: Two new bands! Between the time I wrote this and now, I discovered Fitz and the Tantrums. I'd actually heard one of their songs before, but didn't know the band. Now I do and I like a lot of their music.
***There was no compensation from anyone for this post. This is my opinion and Amazon Prime allows any member to stream a large selection of music for free. I also have no affiliation or ties to One Republic, Maroon 5 or anyone else for that matter.***
The Pitbull station was interesting and I discovered that while I like some of his songs, there are more that I don't like. The station played a lot of other artists and there were some I enjoyed, but when I heard Counting Stars by One Republic, I knew I'd found a new band to listen to.
Radio in Atlanta isn't good. I'm not the only one who thinks this either. A couple of Georgia natives agree with me. Because of this, I mostly listen to my own music. The one radio station I use to wake up to plays oldies. My old wake up radio station was far enough out of range that some mornings all I'd have was static and I can sleep through white noise. That radio station was super cool, though, because it played everything. One morning I'd wake up to the Partridge Family and the next day it would be Lady Gaga. I called it radio roulette because I never knew which decade I'd be hearing.
Too bad the signal wasn't better because I was hearing new music there. It's this station that introduced me to Maroon 5 and some other bands.
It's always easier to listen to what's familiar, but I have an eclectic taste in music and I like adding to my collection. I'm all excited to have a new band to follow.
Edited to add: Two new bands! Between the time I wrote this and now, I discovered Fitz and the Tantrums. I'd actually heard one of their songs before, but didn't know the band. Now I do and I like a lot of their music.
***There was no compensation from anyone for this post. This is my opinion and Amazon Prime allows any member to stream a large selection of music for free. I also have no affiliation or ties to One Republic, Maroon 5 or anyone else for that matter.***
September 11, 2016
Is It Math or Maths?
I'm American. It's math. :-)
September 8, 2016
Burning Through the Podcasts
I've mentioned it before, but I enjoy listening to podcasts. All of them are free or at least mostly/partially free. My favorite is Mysterious Universe and is hosted by two Australian men. They talk about lots of woo woo stuff like UFOs, ghosts, alternate realities, anything along those lines and they regularly have guests. A recent episode had a biologist who studies animal venom, so not all the topics are strange in nature.
Another favorite is Lexicon Valley. They talk with linguists about the English language. I totally geek out about words so this is awesome! There's Flash Forward which looks at a possible future and discusses how likely (or unlikely) it might be.
More recently, I discovered Origin Stories by the Leakey Foundation. The topics here are related to anthropology, natch!
If you're into writing podcasts, a friend of mine from when we worked together on Crimson City is podcasting with another author. The Business of Writing Romance is hosted by Carolyn Jewel and Rachael Herron. There's something for writers of all levels here and I think the information is presented in a very entertaining way.
But I was caught up on all of these podcasts recently and I needed something more, so I went looking. I discovered another new podcast that I really enjoy and it's completely different from anything I've listened to before. It's called Slate's Culture Gabfest and topics include movies, television, theater, music, books/authors, and even Pokemon Go. Pretty much anything that involves entertainment in some way.
TBH, I never thought I'd enjoy what is essentially an entertainment podcast, but it's not gossip-based. I enjoy listening to the three hosts discuss their thoughts about the various topics, and while they don't always agree, they're always respectful of each other which is so refreshing in this day and age.
I have a few more podcasts cued up to try, but haven't had a chance to sample them yet, but it would be nice to listen to a wide variety of different things.
All the podcasts I mentioned are free. A few of them have additional content that requires payment, but I don't subscribe to that and I usually don't feel as if I'm missing out on anything. So if you want to try any of these podcasts, it won't cost you anything but time. :-) Because they're free, most of them have advertising, but I don't find it particularly intrusive.
Another favorite is Lexicon Valley. They talk with linguists about the English language. I totally geek out about words so this is awesome! There's Flash Forward which looks at a possible future and discusses how likely (or unlikely) it might be.
More recently, I discovered Origin Stories by the Leakey Foundation. The topics here are related to anthropology, natch!
If you're into writing podcasts, a friend of mine from when we worked together on Crimson City is podcasting with another author. The Business of Writing Romance is hosted by Carolyn Jewel and Rachael Herron. There's something for writers of all levels here and I think the information is presented in a very entertaining way.
But I was caught up on all of these podcasts recently and I needed something more, so I went looking. I discovered another new podcast that I really enjoy and it's completely different from anything I've listened to before. It's called Slate's Culture Gabfest and topics include movies, television, theater, music, books/authors, and even Pokemon Go. Pretty much anything that involves entertainment in some way.
TBH, I never thought I'd enjoy what is essentially an entertainment podcast, but it's not gossip-based. I enjoy listening to the three hosts discuss their thoughts about the various topics, and while they don't always agree, they're always respectful of each other which is so refreshing in this day and age.
I have a few more podcasts cued up to try, but haven't had a chance to sample them yet, but it would be nice to listen to a wide variety of different things.
All the podcasts I mentioned are free. A few of them have additional content that requires payment, but I don't subscribe to that and I usually don't feel as if I'm missing out on anything. So if you want to try any of these podcasts, it won't cost you anything but time. :-) Because they're free, most of them have advertising, but I don't find it particularly intrusive.
September 6, 2016
Why My Characters Make Me Nuts
Last week I blogged about character names and what kicked off the entire thing was the fact that my heroine in the idea for book 1 had a name that a TV character had messed up for me. Every time I thought of her, this other character would come in and take over. Clearly, this was a huge issue for getting to know this heroine well enough to write her.
I thought we had it all settled. Cool new name with a nickname that was also super cool and added color to her father who is also part of the three book arc. I fought my way through the issues this raised for other characters and it was all good.
My peace lasted three days. Heroine number 1 is back to her original name: Claire.
This is the stuff that makes me insane and why I say my characters insist on torturing me. This is mild compared to some of the things they've pulled on me, but still I wasted a lot of time on the name thing and I'll be wasting a lot more going forward. Why? Because I'm going to have to do a lot of extra work to get to know my heroine and obliterate TV Claire from my head.
I did think about fighting her on this, but that idea didn't last long. I've never won a fight with my characters about their names.
So Claire it is no matter how difficult it makes things for m.
I thought we had it all settled. Cool new name with a nickname that was also super cool and added color to her father who is also part of the three book arc. I fought my way through the issues this raised for other characters and it was all good.
My peace lasted three days. Heroine number 1 is back to her original name: Claire.
This is the stuff that makes me insane and why I say my characters insist on torturing me. This is mild compared to some of the things they've pulled on me, but still I wasted a lot of time on the name thing and I'll be wasting a lot more going forward. Why? Because I'm going to have to do a lot of extra work to get to know my heroine and obliterate TV Claire from my head.
I did think about fighting her on this, but that idea didn't last long. I've never won a fight with my characters about their names.
So Claire it is no matter how difficult it makes things for m.
September 4, 2016
You Are Two
This kind of freaked me out once I started thinking about it.
September 1, 2016
Name Hijinks Continues
My name issues continue. Once the heroine changed her name, her hero was like, this isn't my name either. This is unusual for me because they generally don't let up on me until I do have their names right. I've spent more than a few late nights searching because I hadn't hit on the correct moniker yet. So it was back to the name sites again.
With the first name picked, he decided he wanted the surname that the hero from the second story had. Sigh. Last names are a lot more fluid for me. It's rare for a character to protest any last name I might tag them with, so it wasn't a big deal to give hero 2 a new one.
Problem solved.
Until the next day when I start thinking about the series arc on the van ride to work and realized that hero 1 has a name far too similar to heroine 2. Close enough in sound that it would be horrible when the two of them were on the page together and since the heroine from the second story works for the hero in the first book, they would be on the page together.
Now I have to convince hero 1 that he has to change his name. Heroine 2 was the first of the characters from the three books to have a name and she didn't make me search at all. She told me. That means her name was non-negotiable.
Hero 1 resisted--like I expected. I started looking at names anyway because he had to change it. Luckily, I finally found one that he was willing to accept as his.
But then the last name that he'd appropriated suddenly became wrong again. Argh! So back to searching for surnames. I found one that had potential and hero 2 spoke up and grabbed it. ::sigh:: I searched some more and then I found it. And hero 1 agreed it was perfect. Whew! I think (hope!) that I finally have all the names in place for this three book series idea.
I tell you, I'm simply not used to this much changing and turmoil. What heroine 2 did is much more typical for me. She said: here's my name. Done. I hope next story idea has that kind of easiness again.
With the first name picked, he decided he wanted the surname that the hero from the second story had. Sigh. Last names are a lot more fluid for me. It's rare for a character to protest any last name I might tag them with, so it wasn't a big deal to give hero 2 a new one.
Problem solved.
Until the next day when I start thinking about the series arc on the van ride to work and realized that hero 1 has a name far too similar to heroine 2. Close enough in sound that it would be horrible when the two of them were on the page together and since the heroine from the second story works for the hero in the first book, they would be on the page together.
Now I have to convince hero 1 that he has to change his name. Heroine 2 was the first of the characters from the three books to have a name and she didn't make me search at all. She told me. That means her name was non-negotiable.
Hero 1 resisted--like I expected. I started looking at names anyway because he had to change it. Luckily, I finally found one that he was willing to accept as his.
But then the last name that he'd appropriated suddenly became wrong again. Argh! So back to searching for surnames. I found one that had potential and hero 2 spoke up and grabbed it. ::sigh:: I searched some more and then I found it. And hero 1 agreed it was perfect. Whew! I think (hope!) that I finally have all the names in place for this three book series idea.
I tell you, I'm simply not used to this much changing and turmoil. What heroine 2 did is much more typical for me. She said: here's my name. Done. I hope next story idea has that kind of easiness again.
August 30, 2016
Superseded
I had a character name issue crop up that was interesting because it was something I've never dealt with before. Those of you familiar with my blog know that I don't pick my characters' names. They come in and tell me what their names are and I have to deal with it. I used to argue with them and I always lost, so I decided to save the energy.
So this character comes in and her name is Claire. This is normal. It's a nice name. It's all good.
Until it wasn't good. The problem was that every time I thought of Claire, I didn't see my heroine. I saw a character from a television show I used to watch as a college student. Honestly, I couldn't get to know this heroine at all because she was eclipsed by this other fictional woman.
Finally, I had to talk to her and convince her she had to pick a different name. After working our way through quite a few lists of names, she decided on Selah. I breathed a sigh of relief.
That lasted until I updated my Word document with her name and noticed how close it was to another heroine in this series idea. Too close. The other heroine had her name first, so it was back to the website to browse names again. This time she picked a new name rapidly and it's close in sound to Claire, which makes it doubly good since that was her first choice.
She even acquired a childhood nickname in the search and she doesn't like it. :-) You know I'm going to have fun with that.
So this character comes in and her name is Claire. This is normal. It's a nice name. It's all good.
Until it wasn't good. The problem was that every time I thought of Claire, I didn't see my heroine. I saw a character from a television show I used to watch as a college student. Honestly, I couldn't get to know this heroine at all because she was eclipsed by this other fictional woman.
Finally, I had to talk to her and convince her she had to pick a different name. After working our way through quite a few lists of names, she decided on Selah. I breathed a sigh of relief.
That lasted until I updated my Word document with her name and noticed how close it was to another heroine in this series idea. Too close. The other heroine had her name first, so it was back to the website to browse names again. This time she picked a new name rapidly and it's close in sound to Claire, which makes it doubly good since that was her first choice.
She even acquired a childhood nickname in the search and she doesn't like it. :-) You know I'm going to have fun with that.
August 28, 2016
Never Believe a Map
I knew maps were skewed, but I didn't realize it was by this much.
August 25, 2016
Clutter or Treasure?
To get rid of my old eBook readers or not to get rid of my old eBook readers, that is the question. I have two early Kindles and an early Fire. I still use the Fire from time to time, but I haven't used the regular Kindles in a couple of years. I've reached a point where I prefer to read on my iPad rather than on a dedicated eBook reader.
I'm not exactly sure when it happened, but I've reached a point where it feels more natural for me to read on a back-lit screen. I'm not sure that this is a good thing, but it is what it is.
The hold up in my head is that the trade-in offer for a 2nd generation Kindle is like $5. Is this device worth more to me than that small amount of money? But if I'm not using it and it's just taking up space in my house, it's not really worth hanging on to it and $5 is better than nothing, right?
You can see how I'm going back and forth in my head.
This comes up because I have an email that I must update my Kindles and well, I'm not sure where they're at. I have some ideas, but... But I haven't used them since the last time I had an email saying I had to update my Kindle or it would stop working, so that's probably telling me something.
I'm going to mull this some more.
I'm not exactly sure when it happened, but I've reached a point where it feels more natural for me to read on a back-lit screen. I'm not sure that this is a good thing, but it is what it is.
The hold up in my head is that the trade-in offer for a 2nd generation Kindle is like $5. Is this device worth more to me than that small amount of money? But if I'm not using it and it's just taking up space in my house, it's not really worth hanging on to it and $5 is better than nothing, right?
You can see how I'm going back and forth in my head.
This comes up because I have an email that I must update my Kindles and well, I'm not sure where they're at. I have some ideas, but... But I haven't used them since the last time I had an email saying I had to update my Kindle or it would stop working, so that's probably telling me something.
I'm going to mull this some more.
August 23, 2016
Small Pleasures
It's kind of ridiculous the things that can make me happy. Case in point: I drive one of those car/SUV crossover vehicles and I have a wide open back area instead of a trunk. When I'd drive with groceries in the back, my milk would fall over and my cantaloupes, jars, and cans would roll. Thunk one direction. Thunk the other direction. Gah!
Eventually, I remembered to order one of those trunk organizers. It worked wonderfully! The only problem? I couldn't fit all my groceries in it. I'd make sure I'd get the melons, fruit, and milk in there, but my cans and jars were still rolling all over the back. Today, I ordered another organizer.
This makes me deliriously happy! See what I mean about small pleasures?
I think my household organizers fall into this category, too. I love the baskets and bins! I even ordered a canister for my onions and admire it when I walk into the kitchen. Isn't it nice, I think, not to have onions on my counter?
Sometimes I think it's kind of sad to be this excited about mundane stuff, but then I think that life is much happier if you can enjoy the small things, so this is a positive, not a negative. :-)
Eventually, I remembered to order one of those trunk organizers. It worked wonderfully! The only problem? I couldn't fit all my groceries in it. I'd make sure I'd get the melons, fruit, and milk in there, but my cans and jars were still rolling all over the back. Today, I ordered another organizer.
This makes me deliriously happy! See what I mean about small pleasures?
I think my household organizers fall into this category, too. I love the baskets and bins! I even ordered a canister for my onions and admire it when I walk into the kitchen. Isn't it nice, I think, not to have onions on my counter?
Sometimes I think it's kind of sad to be this excited about mundane stuff, but then I think that life is much happier if you can enjoy the small things, so this is a positive, not a negative. :-)
