Patti O'Shea's Blog

It rained yesterday, about 3/4 of an inch, and we needed it desperately. Of course, we’re still hurting–the weather people say we need about 4 inches to fix our deficit–but this helps. Yes, I know. Weather again. Unfortunately, rain has become noteworthy.

In other news, BN.com has Eternal Nights shipping in 2-3 days. I nearly choked when I saw that. The book is an August 1 release and this is early. Not a surprise since BN always does this, but man! Now if they’d only get Ravyn’s Flight back in stock and available. It’s printed.

Yesterday was one of those crazy days at work, one where I seemed to be running from the time I got in until just minutes before I left. I had a project that was looking as if it would be impossible to do, but we finally found a way; a staff meeting–I hate those things–and then I had to hunt down some paperwork. I’m hoping for a nice, quiet day today.

I’m starting to think about my stories again. Not for long and certainly not with the intention of doing anything just yet, but I’m taking it as a sign of recovery. I’ve never been as exhausted in as many different ways as I was when I finished this last book.

One final thing this morning. I need a theme song for Kimi and Nic’s story. Usually, I get those while I’m working on the book, but I wrote this so fast and plunged right back into my book that I never had time to consider this. Kimi is human, Nic is a demon. Anyone have any suggestions?

I just realized it’s thirteen days until release day for Eternal Nights! Am I the only one who thinks this summer has gone by much too fast? I can’t believe August is that close. And I don’t want summer to be over. I love going barefoot and not needing a jacket.

I finished reading EN last night, picked up some stuff missed on the galleys. Sigh. I went through that thing two or three times, I asked my mom to go through it, the publisher had a proofreader go through it and we still all missed a few things. That’s so frustrating! I want my book to be free of errors when it comes out and that never happens.

I realized something else as I was reading. My tendonitis has gotten a lot worse in my left arm. It really hurt to hold the book. I kept trying to switch to my right hand, but that just felt unnatural. I’ve always read with the book primarily on my left and used my right to turn pages. I’ve got some ebooks to read, so maybe I’ll do that for a while, although I know I aggravated the tendonitis by all my computer time–both writing and at the day job.

Yesterday, I posted on Star-Crossed Romance about what I thought made a good hero. We’re also discussing the cover art on my books and my future books, what I think about being part of a series and how long it takes me to write a story. Come on over and join the fun. If you want to post questions of your own, feel free.

There hasn’t been much going on, but I’m still trying to recover from June. I don’t even want to think about RWA National yet, although I leave in less than a week.

Gotta go get ready for the day job.

I’d passed on a review to my editor last week from Eternal Nights, the same one I posted here, and as we were talking, she mentioned that EN had arrived hot off the press the night before. That, of course, got me all excited because the story is real! As we were talking, I mentioned that I always reread my books when they came out because it allowed me to spend time with the characters and enjoy them since no work was involved anymore.

Do you know what she did? My wonderful, fabulous, incredibly sweet editor sent me a copy of EN!

So I spent all yesterday afternoon and evening reading. Of course, there were a hundred other things I should have been doing, but I wasn’t not going to read. Wyatt and Kendall are cute together. I thought that before, but now I can really appreciate it.

Of course, this also brought on the nerves/anxiety of having a book about to be released. So far the reviews for EN have been overwhelmingly positive, but I still worry about readers’ reactions to the story. I guess I’ll be stressing about that until the book actually comes out and I get some feedback.

I posted my first guest blogger installment over at Star-Crossed Romance this morning. I talked about why I like futuristic romance so much. Stop on over if you have the time.

Yesterday was a lazy day for me. I have half a gazillion boxes that still need to be unpacked and a host of other things to do, but I watched baseball and worked on my blog entry. Oh, and I joined Library Thing! It’s like social networking for people who love books! You can see my profile and some of the books from my collection at my Library Thing Profile. I think this page is open to the public.

There are a couple of television commercials I really like right now. One is for Levi jeans. This guy and girl are watching television and it’s a live shot of a police chase. The TV news helicopter shows the guy being chased stealing some jeans off the line at the back of the house and the guy watching this on TV rushes out and tackles the bad guy to the ground. He wasn’t letting anyone steal his jeans.

The second commercial I really like shows a chain of love kind of thing. This man sees a child has dropped his toy on the sidewalk, bends over and picks it up and hands it back. Someone sees this and is inspired to help someone else and this is seen and that person helps someone until it comes back full circle. I’ve only seen this ad once, but I think it was for some kind of insurance company or investment firm. I’m sure the kind of company it was started with an “i.”

I watched the Cubs look awful on national television and switched over to watch a show about modern-day pirates on The History Channel. And I think that about covers the highlights for me. Not a whole lot of excitement and now it’s back to another week of fun at the day job. Sigh.

Damn, I love Buster Poindexter. And this is the only reference I’m making to the weather today, so y’all can relax.

Yesterday ended up being a pretty busy day. I got my haircut. Not that it will look good at conference because every day is a bad hair day especially when you’re using hard hotel water and dealing with humidity, but I’ll know I tried to look presentable. I also found a travel size hair spray that isn’t in a pump. Yea! Those pumps shoot out too much spray and weigh down the hair.

Then it was a shopping expedition where I picked up a few things for the trip. Nothing particularly fun so I’ll skip the details, except to mention that they seriously need to turn up the air conditioning in stores. Gah!

Then it was on to Bed, Bath and Beyond. I had a coupon and there were a few things in the sale flyer I wanted to look at. I bought neither of them, however, I did find a curtain rod for my shower (one more item on my dad’s To Do List) and some more dish towels.

It was after four when I got home–very thirsty and cranky from the heat and the crowds out shopping. Vegged out for an hour or so and then I popped X-Men into the DVD player. I’ll give a very quick review because I’m beginning to wonder if I’m too picky about movies. I haven’t loved anything I’ve seen yet. I’m telling myself it’s because this is only my third rental from Netflix, but I’m beginning to wonder.

X-Men

Another movie based on a comic strip, and once again, there was little in the way of characterization. Come on, Hollywood, give me a reason to care! I want to root for the heroes/heroines, not indifferently watch them go through the story. The premise for those like me who live under a rock is that there’s been a mutation in humans and now powers are starting to appear among some people. I love this concept, BTW, just not the execution.

So the government of the US is trying to pass legislation to force “mutants” to register. Of course, this isn’t a good thing because like you’d expect, the humans without powers are afraid of those who have them. The movie opens with a scene from WWII and Jewish men and women being shuttled off to be killed including a boy watching both his parents whisked away. And I could see why the filmmakers drew this parallel for the “mutants;” I could easily see something like this happening.

This mutant teenage girl is hitchhiking ends up in some remote town in Canada, I believe, and finds Wolverine fighting in a cage match. She saves his butt, she hitches a ride, they’re attacked by the bad guy’s henchmen (Don’t ask me how they found these two in the middle of nowhere) and then the good guys show up and rescue the pair (Don’t ask me how they made it to the middle of nowhere in time to save anyone). Wolverine and Rogue end up at a school for the gifted (aka mutants). The rest of the movie is about trying to stop the bad guy from kidnapping the teenage girl, Rogue and rescue the US senator that he kidnaps.

First off, mutants don’t need to register. They’re the only ones who have bizarre nicknames: Wolverine, Rogue, Cyclops, Sabretooth and Magneto. (Yes, the bad guy is called Magneto. Sigh.) Humans can just pick them out by these really strange names. No need to pass legislation at all.

Second, Hugh Jackman needed a shave desperately. God, muttonchops! I felt like I was watching a movie from the 1970s.

Third, I didn’t care about any of the characters and my interest in the situation waned before the climatic conclusion. I did make it to the end of the movie, but it was more because I’d watched so much of it, I wasn’t going to cede defeat.

Overall rating: 2.5 stars (I know, Netflix won’t let me rate half stars. I didn’t not like it, but I didn’t like it either. I was like totally indifferent to the movie and maybe that’s worse than anything since it elicited nothing from me.)

I have things to do today too. I’m guest blogging next week–starting tomorrow–at Star-Crossed Romance and I need to work on a couple of posts. I also have something to turn in for my local chapter. That’s mostly written, though, and just needs a little work.

I slept really late today (hence the late blog post) and feel fab! Eleven hours! Yes! Maybe I’ll actually be rested enough to survive conference.

I’m still jazzed about Ravyn’s Flight being available again. I know, it shouldn’t seem like that significant a thing, but it is. Maybe it’s because I’ve fielded so many emails since The Power of Two came out asking where they could find the book. It’s not available at BN.com or Amazon yet, but I heard RF is hot off the press and that in a week or so, it should be online at those places too.

Update: I passed the older man and his dog on my way to work yesterday, so I can take him off my worry over list. This is a huge relief.

And still no wasp! Yea! I’m continuing to keep my fingers crossed, but I’m hopeful now.

Today is a “get ready for National day.” I have an appointment for a haircut and I really need to do some shopping. I also want to stop at Bed, Bath & Beyond and look at a couple of things, maybe even buy them. I need so many things yet for the house that it’s not funny. Yesterday, my dad took the vacuum cleaner back–it was on loan. I also found some dish towels on QVC along with other handy cleaning towels. They’re not great–they have FLOWERS on them–but they’re called “Thirsty Camels” so I figured what the heck, especially since there are 8 other towels that come with them. (Just an aside, I have nothing against flowers except that they’re totally not my style.)

Notice how I’m nobly not mentioning the weather? This is really hard for a Minnesotan because we love talking about this topic. Hot, cold, in between–it doesn’t matter–it’s still good for a twenty minute conversation. (But it’s supposed to be 100 degrees here today with high humidity! (There! I got it in. I couldn’t help myself.))

I’m backed up on email again and I’m still trying to recover from my two deadlines. I think this is about the worst I’ve ever felt after turning in a book, but then I’ve never had two deadlines on top of each other like this before.

I think I’m done now. Tonight or tomorrow I’ll probably watch my next movie, X-Men. Let’s hope this is worth it since I didn’t do too good with my last comic book movie.

If you’re one of the people waiting and waiting for the reprint of Ravyn’s Flight, I have great news for you. The book is available–BRAND NEW–again! Yea!!! It’s up on the Dorchester website. Order Ravyn’s Flight.

You can read an excerpt here: RF Excerpt or on my website: pattioshea.com

Eternal Nights–out August 1–is a loosely connected spin off of Ravyn’s Flight. Both books can–and do–stand alone, but I don’t get into the information on the planet in EN like I did in RF. You can also meet secondary couple Alex and Stacey here and find out how much (or little) Alex has changed in three years.

Anyway, I’m all excited about this because RF has been out of print since early summer 2004. What a great way to start the weekend!

I’m a worrier by nature. I know this about myself and I try to alleviate it, but it’s not always easy. Okay, most of the time it isn’t easy. Right now, the list of things is growing–some more intense than others. My current worries?

There’s an older man who walks his dog every morning. We always wave as I pass him on my way to the freeway. I haven’t seen him in nearly 2 weeks. So now I’m wondering if something happened to him or if he decided to walk a different route or go at a different time or if he’s on vacation.

I’m really stressed out about the book I just turned in. What if everyone hates it? It’s darker than everything I’ve written before and darker than I expected. My agent emailed to let me know she has it now and I’m like Aack!

And of course, Eternal Nights is coming out in a couple of weeks so I can obsess/worry about readers’ reactions to this book. So far, the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive, both from reviewers who’ve read Ravyn’s Flight and reviewers who haven’t, so I’m hoping most people like the story.

Then there’s the RWA conference in Atlanta that’s fast approaching. Meeting new people and dealing with crowds totally stresses me out. I’m trying not to think too much about this, but it’s getting close.

I could come up with more, but I think this is enough for now. This is part of my personality as much as my impatience is and I know it’s something I’m not going to overcome, certainly not easily or any time soon.

Yep, you guessed it, I didn’t do much that makes an interesting blog entry and I have to run and get ready for work.

Eternal Nights received another great review yesterday! Yea! Romance Junkies gave the book 4.5 ribbons and said:

ETERNAL NIGHTS took off from page one and was an exciting, breathless race to the end! Patti O’Shea does an excellent job of showing readers Jarved Nine as it was, through Kendall’s memories, and how it is now, still full of mystery, magic, and secrets. Exciting sub-plots and returning characters (from RAVYN’S FLIGHT) make this a futuristic romance I can’t wait to reread!

Call me paranoid, but I continually check all the windows in my house for that wasp queen. I’m not ready to declare victory yet, but all the crank-outs are clear. Yea! Of course, I can’t open my kitchen windows, but since my dad sprayed them with wasp killer from the outside, I’m reasonably confident that if she’s there, she’s dead. If I make it another week without seeing her again, I’ll probably relax. I hate wasps.

Yesterday, I started reading an article about Pompeii and discovered that I’d missed an exhibition at Chicago’s Field Museum! That broke my heart. I really need to get on the museum mailing list because it’s not a big deal to pop down there when a cool exhibit comes in. Right now, I have tickets for early this fall for King Tut.

I wish the museums in Minneapolis would get some cool shows like Pompeii or Tut, but we never do. The only interesting thing I remember rolling through here was an exhibit of Viking artifacts at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

And yeah, geekdom continued. Not only did I start reading that article on Pompeii, but I watched a show about Pirate technology on the History Channel and caught part of the show about string theory on PBS.

I didn’t do much yesterday, I didn’t feel like it. I did have another writer geek afternoon for a little while. I read an article in Smithsonian Magazine about genetic health issues among the Amish community and about a doctor who opened a clinic and is working to identify the issues this population is prone to. It was very interesting.

I wasn’t going to link to these articles, but then I thought, what the heck. Maybe someone else is interested.

One of the genetic illnesses was GA-1, which is a protein issue. The thing that’s weird is that I was talking to someone about genetic protein deficiency recently. I’d never heard of it before our conversation, now I find an article. (Susan, I hope you’re enjoying Hawaii!)

There was also an article from the NY Times that I read titled Rogue Giants at Sea. I confess, I thought it was about whales or something, but the Rogue Giants actually refer to huge waves, many over 90 feet in height. The experts thought it was all a bunch of crap, like mermaids and sea monsters until the 1990s. They found one place they can predict them accurately and believe they’re about 10 years away from being able to predict world wide.

The final article I read had to do with genius. It’s from Wired and it talks about how there is genius that appears at a young age and a second kind of genius where the person does their best work later in life. Again, very fascinating reading. The research, believe it or not, was done by an economist. He mainly focuses on the art world, but he also cites some examples from literature.

For instance, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The economist said that Gatsby was the star work, and that while Fitzgerald went on to write a couple of other books, nothing measured up to the first work–which he wrote at 29. The other type of genius, as cited in this article, happens later in life. Here he mentions Mark Twain wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when he was 50.

Then I vegged out in front of the television and watched the All Star Game. I’m a National League fan because I prefer that style of baseball over the American League. I like the strategy that comes from the pitcher having to bat, something that’s sadly lacking with the designated hitter.

I stayed up later than I meant to, but I wanted to see MN Twins catcher Joe Mauer bat. I did. He struck out. I should have gone to bed earlier. Although, the National League needed me! When I quit watching, it was after the American League batted in the 8th inning. The NL was winning 2-1 and the AL hadn’t had much of a threat going all night. I figured I could safely sleep without more runs being scored. Silly me. The NL ended up losing. Sigh. That makes them 0-9-1 in the last 10 years.