Patti O'Shea's Blog

Yesterday I get home from work and discover my dad has put down 8 bags of rock in the area between my house and my sidewalk. He needs more, though, because that area is huge and he needs me to drive him to Home Depot right this instant! I have an SUV which means more capacity than his car. All I’m thinking is I have revision work to do and the mss has to be printed in 8 days. Gah! But he wouldn’t wait. So I am given no choice except to haul him over there to buy 20 more bags.

I’m not sure why the outside of my house has suddenly become this hot, hot, hot project for him. I’m not sure why he can’t wait until the day after I mail in my WIP. I’ve explained to him over and over and over again that I have a lot of work to do and I can’t spend an hour here and an hour there running all over the place. He doesn’t get it.

After we get back from our foray, he starts putting down the rock. I felt really weird about him and my mom doing all that work while I was inside working on my revisions, but there was no way that I could afford to spend another couple of hours landscaping. If they could have waited another two weeks… Sigh.

So what is up with my dad? Why this sudden burning desire to do things outside my house NOW? There is no putting him off. I tried that. It’s like he’s on a mission. And I’m left scratching my head, thinking why now and not the first week in July when I can get away from the keyboard?

I guess I should be thankful I didn’t get home from work to find a trench in my backyard!

Despite my father who seems to believe I can finish my WIP in about five minutes, I managed to make it through three more chapters yesterday evening. Now, though, I’m through the relatively easy chapters and I’m into the stuff that’s going to need more work.
Please don’t let my dad start another project. :-/

Anyone who thought I was kidding yesterday about needing to finish my book so I could supervise my father was wrong. Here’s what he’s got in mind now. Help. Sigh.

He happened to be at my house on Friday when it was raining so hard and he saw the water ponding in the backyard. I mentioned this a little in Saturday’s post. The ponding was about 2/3rds of the way to the fence in back so it’s not like the house is in danger or anything. Well, my dad has decided the only way to prevent that from happening is to dig a trench. Yes, I said a trench.

If he could give me a good, solid reason for this, maybe I wouldn’t be so reluctant, but I haven’t heard anything compelling yet. We get these kinds of long, hard rains maybe once every few years so it’s not as if this ponding is ever going to be a regular problem. I’m not sure why he’s so set on this idea.

Here’s where it gets better. He talked to one of the neighbors and this man agreed, my dad should dig a trench and put a grate over it. Whimper.

I saw my first preview for the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie last night. It opens July 7th. It’ll be interesting to hear what people think of it. I really liked the first one a lot and I’m hoping this sequel is as good.

And I made it through three more chapters last night. I meant to go to bed early because I fell asleep again sitting up, but I didn’t make it and then the insomnia was back anyways. I’m contemplating taking a couple more days off from work. I have to think about it though. They’re supposed to deliver the material for my deck this week and I don’t know what day the footers are supposed to go in or when they’re going to come out and build it. If it’s on a day I’m home and trying to work, that might not be too productive for me.

(You would think this deck would keep my dad busy and out of trouble, wouldn’t you?)

It happens every book and I’m not sure why. I print the story, I read through it, I mark it up and I completely forget how to revise. It’s some weird amnesia because somehow on my other books I managed to find a way to fix things. And of course, it happened to me on this book too. I sat down on Saturday and I realized I don’t know how to revise.

After the panic subsides, I decide to tackle it chapter by chapter starting from the beginning. It’s logical. And somewhere along the way, it all comes back to me.

That was my weekend. I finished revising 7 chapters, which I didn’t think was too bad considering I had to learn how all over again. Of course, these are the chapters that didn’t need all that much work. About page 200, things are going to get much more labor intensive so I need to pick up the pace.

In the My Dad is so Funny Category: He bought an extender for my rain gutter because where the down spout was spitting out rain was no good. It was eroding the dirt under my driveway. He bought brown. Why? I have no clue. My house is tan, my trim is white. I saw it and the first thing I asked was, that’s the only color they have? It wasn’t. It came in white as well. He’s not happy about the need to exchange it and clearly it’s my fault that he chose brown. “I wish you would come with me,” he said. I’m not quite sure why he needs me there. To tell him my house isn’t brown? I kind of thought he knew that.

I sigh. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to explain to him that I have deadlines over the past few months. So I said, Dad, I wish I could go with you too, but I can’t right now. This is a total lie because I have no interest in picking out gutter extensions, but it made him happy, so it served its purpose. He stopped complaining.

Then came installation. He’s examining the spout and I’m standing there watching him. Whoo hoo. The excitement just never stops. It’s a good thing I was there, though. He needed the extender to attach higher and he was going to CUT OFF MY SPOUT! Staying admirably calm at the thought of him wrecking my gutters, I suggested that he pull off the elbow spout that attached to the down spout rather than cutting it off. Amazing how well that worked. It got the thing he bought to the correct height and there was even a screw hole in the spout thing that matched the extender he bought.

I better hurry up and finish revising my book so I can supervise him more closely. Gah! I’m just glad this was a weekend project and not something he decided to do while I was at work.

I’ve been trying to find a picture of Ryne’s bedroom this morning and I never dreamed it would be so hard! I tried HGTV’s website, but nothing there really fit her, although I did find one bedroom that might kind of work. Ryne isn’t neutral, but neither is her bedroom ultra-bold. This place is her haven. It has to be relaxing, not fussy, but not cold or boring either. She’s not any kind of green on the walls or anything sterile. Neither is her bedroom bold red and icily modern. And she’s not dark or heavy when it comes to color or furniture. It’s been a bitch because nothing I’ve seen so far is exactly right. I wish I could find sites that had thousands of 360 degree pictures of rooms. Right now I’m doing a Google Image search and it’s not fun.

I did, however, find a design quiz at HGTV that was right on the money for me. The results weren’t any big surprise, although the questions were not what I expected when I took the quiz!

If it’s new, it’s you. No overstuffed chairs or anything that could be described as froufrou! You’re drawn to clean lines and a minimalist palette (think black, white, neutrals and a few bold colors that “pop” against that background–like orange, red or turquoise). You like your patterns graphic and your buildings industrial. The older furnishings you enjoy are mid-century modern or stark Asian or African pieces without any embellishments.

According to the results, these styles fit you best: Modern, contemporary, Asian.

If y’all have seen pictures of my great room in my New House Pictures, you’ll know that’s exactly what I did there. Everything is a neutral. Walls are off white, countertops are gray with a pattern in it, wood is stained a light honey-gold color and then I have the accent walls. A brilliant blue that pops. I don’t have the rooms pulled together yet, but I have a bright pink vase that’s about 2 feet high in the corner against the blue wall. I plan to put a bright orange silk sunflower in there. I was kind of amazed how dead-on this quiz was about my style.

Worked on revisions yesterday, but it was hard getting my head back into this story after being away from it for several weeks. I kept fighting the need to get up and wander. I’m hoping my brain finds it easier to settle in today.

I almost forgot to blog this morning. Actually, it wasn’t that I forgot, it’s more like I thought I’d already done it and then realized that I hadn’t.

The reason why I almost forgot was my quest for shampoo. My stylist got me hooked on Alterna hair care products and then the salon stopped selling them. That means a trip online to find them. The first time I ordered from a seller on Amazon, one who ended up getting really bad ratings although I didn’t have a problem with them. Of course, I also ordered a fortune in product so maybe they were extra careful with me. Now I’m almost out of shampoo and this seller is no longer on Amazon. Which I guess is just as well since they had such lousy reviews.

The quest for a new seller begins, but I wanted one that was carrying all the stuff I wanted to order and there wasn’t one. Sigh. The problem is that I don’t want to buy the 12 oz size, I want the big 32 oz size because I hate having to order constantly. Next I searched for what I wanted online and turned up a ton of sellers, none of which I could be sure of since they’re unknown to me. I even tried eBay, but the shipping costs were ridiculous! $10 plus $2 insurance and the cost was $1 cheaper than retail. I don’t think so.

I finally found a salon in Peru, IL that carried everything I wanted in the size I wanted it in, plus had free shipping. Couldn’t find a review on them either, but I took the chance because I have relatives who live in Peru and I figured if worse came to worse, I could ask them to swing by the salon and get my money back or my product. I also–for good or for ill–tend to put more stock in the integrity of small businesses in the Midwest. We’ll see what happens in the next week or ten days.

I officially moved the pictures of Kimi and Nic from my Characters To Be Written/Working On page to my Characters Done page! Yea! I know it’s silly, but it’s kind of a tradition for me now and signifies that a book is done. Of course, there’ll be revisions, but the big work is done. Now if I could just move Ryne and Deke.

Speaking of Ryne and Deke, the second half of the WIP is as uneven as I feared. The transitions are very rough and that’s going to require work. There are also paragraphs that come out of nowhere. I know what they’re about (luckily I remember), but no reader will be able to follow my train of thought. I guess this kind of ties into transitions as well, but I don’t consider it that way because the problem is that there is NO transition. I’m almost done reading now–just another 50 pages–and I’ll start working on revisions. First half shouldn’t be too bad, second half is going to be a bitch. I’ve got a lot of work to do.

Rained like mad here yesterday, we even had hail. I had a small lake in my backyard and those helicopter seeds from the tree in my yard plugged up part of my gutter even though I have that grate on top of them. My dad wanted to go out on a ladder in the rain. Sigh. I talked him out of that. He was over working on my cabinet for the computer room. He got a lot done too.

I have to get moving since the Quest for Shampoo ended up taking much longer than I’d planned.

I’m about at the halfway mark on my read through of the WIP. So far, it’s not too bad. There’s a scene where I want to punch up the emotion and fix the fight part and a couple of paragraphs in one chapter that need to come earlier, but overall, nothing too difficult to fix. So far. I know there are at least two plot holes in the second half waiting for me.

As I was writing, I was worrying that the tone wasn’t consistent in the book, but I found that was surprisingly cohesive–at least to this point. I’m really hoping that the rest of the story continues to hold together well.

The plan for today is to finish reading the rest of the WIP so that I can spend the whole weekend just revising and not reading.

In other news, we finally got the hot water fixed at work!

I’ve got the Weather Channel on (what can I say? I’m from MN.) and they’re showing a commercial that includes footage of the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie with Johnny Depp. Does anyone know when that’s coming out? I’d like to go to a movie after I finish the WIP–I haven’t been to the theater since Titanic–and this might be the movie that compels me to break my streak.

I went to bed early last night and I slept–I feel much more human now. I had to give up watching the Cubs game (they’re hardly ever on WGN anymore so that was a hardship since it’s not like I’ll necessarily have another opportunity to see them soon.), but I decided sleep was more important than watching the Cubs lose. Which they did. Sigh. All three of my teams really are awful this year and it can make it painful to watch a game now.

We still have no hot water at work. I can’t even believe it, but they are–finally–patching the potholes in the parking lot. Or maybe I should call them craters since they’re huge.

Oh! I got stuck in the staff meeting that would not end yesterday. OMG. More than 1.5 hours. Gah! And it was mostly boring stuff from the dog and pony show upper management put on for the mid-level managers. My boss’s boss’s boss showed up too and sat in on the meeting, so that helped prolong it, I think. I deserve a medal for enduring that marathon.

So I ran over to Fed Ex yesterday and the novella is gone! I love being able to say that even though I know I still have a lot of work left to do to get the WIP out the door too. I just hope I don’t see revisions on that thing for at least a month. Fingers crossed!

The novella is revised, printed and ready to be Fed Exed today on lunch. Yea! One deadline met, one to go.

I had yesterday off from work, but despite sleeping in, I still kept dozing off as I tried to write. Um, something tells me I’ve been pushing my sleep deficit way beyond what my body can handle. If I was writing, I guess I’d understand, but it’s the damn insomnia once I try to go to sleep that’s the problem. Happened again last night.

Sorry. Anyway printed out the novella, wrote it to disk and forgot to do a cover letter. I’ll do that at work today then seal everything up. I also printed out the WIP–all 450 pages of that. Looked like a monster compared to the novella. Have I mentioned I love my laser printer? It’s so fast! I started printing after 7pm and I was done by around 8pm and that’s with the little tweaky things I did to the 8 chapters I already had marked up on the WIP.

I tried out WordPerfect X3 after the first draft of the novella was written, and so far, I am mostly loving it! I did a document map with select points at start of each chapter and scene. It was so fab to just click on the little markers and go right to that point. I’ve tried to use this feature in Word before, but it was such a hassle that I gave it right up and went back to my beloved WP (and I am as familiar with Word as I am with WP because of the day job). WP, however, makes document maps as easy as they make everything else. I seriously can’t believe anyone uses Word to write. That program can be a royal PITA. Anyway, I need to learn a little more about document maps because I’m sure there are better ways to do some of the things I want to do. One change between X3 and 9 which I do not like is the Quick Correct isn’t as smart anymore. For example, if I set it up to always capitalize “Nic” in 9, it would do it even if I typed “Nic’s.” X3 will not capitalize on the possessive so that means I had to set up a quick correct for that too.

I read through the novella twice yesterday, and overall, I’m happy with the way it turned out. The thing that surprised me most was how clean the first 60 pages were, then I realized that I really was revising as I went, not moving forward until I was happy with how the chapter turned out, so that’s probably why those pages needed such little work. The last 25 pages, though, aren’t too bad either. I still think the fight scene needs to be punched up a little, but it’s not hideous (like it was) and I want to see if I can strengthen the ending of the story and the ending of the epilogue some more. Right now, though, I don’t anticipate an ugly day even though I did take time off from work. Fingers crossed that I’m not having exhaustion induced delusions.

So the plan for today: Finish the novella, print it, package it up to mail tomorrow, then print out all 450+ pages of the WIP. I need to get back to work on that ASAP and I have to do a read through and make notes so I know what needs work. Besides the lame fight scenes. Getting this novella more or less done, and having it not turn out horrible, has really lifted some of the pressure off me. I actually slept last night!

While I was sitting in my chair, feet up on the ottoman, reading yesterday, my curtains in the great room fell. Sigh. I was trying to use these plastic things that get wedged between the window frame and the wall instead of drilling holes, but apparently, I am going to need to use permanent hardware. There was just no reason for this thing to collapse the way it did. I tried to put the curtains back up, but the rod was too long and I scratched up my wall so I’m going to ask my dad to help me today. It scared the hell out of me when that rod hit the floor. I think I jumped about a foot. And this is the non-writing highlight of my day. Yes, it is sad.

I’d happy dog dance.

I finished the first draft of the novella last night around 8:15. It was a long day. I started by fixing (I hope) the fight scene in chapter 7. It ended up crossing into chapter 8, which is a good thing, but I’m still worried that it’s too short and not very suspenseful. I’m sure the end of chapter 8 needs work too. The epilogue ended up being not quite as short as I’d planned and I’m not sure about the ending there either.

I printed the whole thing out and will read through it today. I realized too, that in order for me to have the thing printed out, packaged and ready to mail on Wednesday, that I have to be done revising it by Tuesday night. Gah! That gives me TWO DAYS! And if you hear an edge of hysteria in my post, that’s because there is. Guess I’ll be taking tomorrow off from work and putting in some monster hours on this.

It was cold enough that I needed to turn the heat on in the house yesterday. Sigh. I was trying to avoid that, but even socks and a long-sleeve shirt couldn’t keep me warm enough. It’s supposed to be back around 80 today. Yea! Summer is too short in MN.