Patti O'Shea's Blog

Yesterday ended up being a very long day. I did make it to my writing chapter meeting, I voted for the new board and stayed for the business meeting, but I ducked out before the speaker arrived. My dad was going to come with me to the lighting store, but when I stopped by his house to get him, he wasn’t there. You see, the lodge needed him.

We did–eventually–get to the lighting store and I picked out a new fixture to replace the one dropping glass sheaths like a tree dropping leaves in fall. It didn’t take too long to pick out something new. I’m very into contemporary style and so much is traditional. There was one fixture that I just thought was the coolest thing ever, but I couldn’t figure out how to get the glass off of it to change the bulb and it looked inconvenient. This is the one I didn’t get, but liked:

I did find a couple of others I liked, and once I narrowed it down to two, it was fairly easy to pick. I couldn’t find the exact lighting fixture I picked, but this one is close:

My lights face down instead of up, but they’re similar.

When I got home, I had to put my curtains and drapes up. The drapes took forever, but now I have drapes that actually draw open and closed. Yea! And despite working till 8pm last night, I still didn’t accomplish everything I set out to do yesterday. I couldn’t believe it, especially since I had my parents helping me.

I also had a conversation with a writing buddy last night. I’ve been having horrible trouble making my bad guy demon bad. I know I did it in Crimson Veil and in the novella, but I also had a demon or half demons as the h/h. I kept softening the bad guy in my mind, finding excuses for him and that just wasn’t going to fly here. So my friend said, why don’t you make him a warlock. Hmm. A human with powers who wants more power. That solves my problem of wanting to soften him.

Today needs to be a heavy writing day, so I better get going. Lots to do again.

I almost forgot to post here this morning because I thought I already had. My mind becomes more and more like a sieve with each deadline.

Just a reminder, the Super-Deluxe Crimson City Action Pack Contest continues. For information on the prizes and how to enter, visit My Website.

Today is going to be a busy one. I want to go to my chapter meeting (writing) because I didn’t make it the previous couple of times. I meant to go last month, but I ran late and didn’t feel like rushing since I do that every day of the week. But today we’re electing new officers for 2007 and I probably won’t be able to make a meeting after this until after the WIP is finished and turned in.

I also have to go out to the lighting store where I bought the bathroom fixture and pick out a new one. I had a little problem with the glass sheaths around the bulbs falling out and shattering. The manager said he could send someone out to fix it or I could pick out a new one. I opted to go with the new one, because even with the light fixture repaired, I’d always be wondering if this was the day they were going to fall out again. Plus, every time I changed a bulb, I’d have to reinstall the sheaths, which pretty much guarantees they’d fall eventually. Better to go with a new light, one I can trust won’t be a hazard.

The patio panel I ordered for my window arrived yesterday. It’s thermal so it’ll keep out some of the cold over the winter. I want to get the pins in there and hang that today too so that my windows will be basically done–at least until summer when I’ll want a sheer patio panel. I also want to iron and put up the scarf valance in my bedroom so I can move the bed back against the wall. I’ve had it out for months waiting for the blinds to be installed, then the curtain rods. Now I have to find instructions somewhere on how to drape the valance. This isn’t an area I have much talent in.

I better get going or I’ll find myself running late for the meeting again. Where does the morning go?

Readers and writers might find this fun!

Your Vocabulary Score: A+

Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary! You must be quite an erudite person.

I’m almost finished with my character sketch for Creed. There are a few questions I skipped and I might not go back to them. I created a form with nearly 90 questions on it, but not all of them are pertinent. Some of the items I borrowed from character sketches I’ve found in writing books and others come from job interview books. Trying to get these things filled out, though, can be interesting because I seldom have cooperative characters and some of their answers… I’d ask what I did to deserve smart ass characters, but I know–like attracts like, as the saying goes.

TBH, I’m not sure how much help the character sketch was/will be, but I have learned some more about my hero and I guess that’s the bottom line. Creed’s really, really contained. This should be…interesting to write. :-/ How do I get across his personality when he has himself so locked down? I felt so disconnected from him that I had to do the character sketch to figure him out, so I’m struggling with how I get the reader to connect to him.

I’ve had contained heroes before. Conor for one, but Mika immediately knocked him off balance and kept him reeling during Through a Crimson Veil, so I didn’t have to deal with this problem. Even Alex from Ravyn’s Flight and Eternal Nights wasn’t a problem. He was a hard ass and while his men didn’t necessarily appreciate him, I knew him. Alex cared too deeply and had lost too many people in his life, that’s why he was the way he was.

Creed, though…. Sigh. He’s burnt out. He really doesn’t feel all that much anymore and he doesn’t particularly want to feel anything. He’s cold, arrogant, contained, aloof, mercenary. His motto is: The end justifies the means. Toward the end of In the Midnight Hour he did something vindictive to a friend for no real reason other than he was pissed that Ryne had ruined his plans. Creed is dark and he’s not all that sympathetic.

But he’s also the hero. He does care about his people and he believes they’re approaching the final war with the dark forces. He’s a warrior, a troubleshooter and Creed’s been fighting for much too long. That’s what burnt him out, left him so cold. Plus there’s this dark force attachment/connection thing he has. He doesn’t realize that it’s influencing his actions and reactions, but he’s never seen anything like it before. I don’t know if any of the Gineal have.

I’ve always wanted to stretch as a writer on each book and I have. Each story has challenged me in a new and different way, but this one is killing me.

I ordered some books and they arrived yesterday. I got Jenna Black’s Watchers In the Night, a Karen Marie Moning book, and two Anne Stuart books, including Cold As Ice. (That is her newest Ice book, right? I get confused when all these titles are so close to each other. Like Nora’s In Death books–I have to remember them by plot because the titles all blend together for me.) I just wish I had time to read my haul!

That’s one of the things I really miss–reading. Before I committed myself to writing, I used to read a book a day. Actually, I think my voracious reading helped me with the writing because I internalized so much. I’m not big on consciously analyzing books because it leaves me paralyzed. This is the same reason why I avoid in-depth craft conversations because I never think I do what they’re talking about and then I can’t write because I’m worried I’m doing it wrong.

The 90s were my biggest decade for devouring books. I was on Prodigy Classic with a great group of readers and writers and I found so many great books that I would have missed without all the recommendations. Of course, these women are also responsible for the explosive growth of my TBR pile. I went from less than half a dozen books I had in the wings to read to hundreds and right now my list of books I want to read is over 1000. And it’s only getting bigger since all the times I used to read have been converted to writing time. About the only place I can sit down and just enjoy a book is when I’m on a flight.

I used to take vacation every summer and go to a cabin in Wisconsin. There was no telephone, no television and the only radio station we could get in there played polka music (not something I like). I’d bring a huge tote bag full of books down with me and I’d read and read.

It was so great! I’d get up when I felt like getting up, eat when I was hungry and go to bed when I was tired. No clocks. No schedules. I found and read some great, great stories while I was there.

I remember the planning of the trip. The biggest thing was trying to decide which books to take. I had to have a choice because I didn’t know what kind of story I’d be in the mood to read, and since I would go through 15-20 books in that week, the decisions were critical. I’d study my TBR pile. I didn’t just want to take favorite authors, I wanted to take new-to-me authors too because I wanted to discover another must-buy writer.

Hours later, I’d have my books ready to go. I spent more time packing them than I spent packing my clothes, but then I wasn’t going out while I was at the cabin, I was only there to read.

The cabin is gone, the group that owned it sold it to a developer and I’m sure the lake is surrounded with homes by now. Of course, if I went their today, it would be with my laptop to write for a solid week without interruption, not read. There’s always another short deadline up ahead or recovering from a short deadline. I have a hard time reading while I’m mentally exhausted and I usually just stare at the television in a partial vegetative state. What can I say, I burn out a lot of brain cells.

Sometimes I wonder how writers who work full time manage to squeeze any reading time in. I know some do and I figure they must be more organized than I am or maybe they’re faster writers and they don’t need as much time as I do to write a book.

This new opening is finally sticking and I think I’ll be keeping it. Considering how many times I trashed that thing, this is cause for celebration. Yesterday, I mentioned doing a character sketch for Creed and I started that. Progress has still been slower than I’d like, but I still feel as if I’m finding my way with this story.

One of the things a wiser, more experienced author told me after I sold RF was that the process will change from book to book and I found that to be true. The one constant I’ve always had was that the beginning was always clear in my mind and I’d get that vision down before things would slow up. This story, though, changed that. I hope I never have a book that’s this difficult to get started ever again. Wow. I never thought I’d have a struggle like this.

My dad came over to replace the two glass shields that fell and broke from my bathroom fixture, but when he got up there, he discovered that two of the remaining three were barely hanging in place. It seems these shields are held in place by one tiny screw pressed into the metal ring. It doesn’t even go into the shield. He didn’t like how solid they were and ended up taking down the remaining three. Then he called the lighting store, talked to the manager and it looks like I’ll be picking out a new fixture.

One of my fabulous, wonderful editors sent me copies of the Advanced Reading Copy for Shards of Crimson! That was soooo cool to open the package and find those bound ARCs. Of course, now I’m worrying about my story. The joys of being a neurotic writer.

I’m cautiously optimistic on the WIP. So far, it seems to be going well and I haven’t felt any need to trash my pages yet. I did some thinking on it, about why the story seemed to come alive (finally!) when I switched to my heroine’s POV (I did try this before, without these results). My thought is that while I know facts about Creed and his life, I don’t really know him. Certainly not at his core. Since I write by listening to the characters, this is a problem. I’m going to dig out my character sketch forms and fill one out for him. Hopefully, this will be the answer.

I don’t understand why these characters can’t cooperate more. It’s always something with them. And last night, when I went to bed, I tried to corner Creed and get some questions answered and you know what? He lied to me! He’s not the first one to do it either. I got even, though. I fell asleep on him.

In house news, I discovered the the curtains I want are referred to as patio panels. There weren’t a whole lot to choose from, but I did find one that had some thermal thing going on and will, hopefully, block the worst of the cold as we approach winter. The panel I really wanted–the thin, non-protecting, but cute sheers–were on clearance, but my free shipping promo wasn’t good on clearance items and they wanted more than $11 to ship! No way. So I found another panel that was $30 more and got free shipping. And I did realize it before I ordered, but it’s some weird mind set thing I have going on. I can’t pay for shipping, which seems to be nothing more than wasted money to me.

Today is election day. Make sure to vote!

Every writer has their favorite part of the book to write. The part where it seems as if they struggle less to get it down, the part that’s the most fun for them to work on. For me, it’s always been the first three chapters of the story. I might have to do more revision work on them after the fact than I do on other parts of the book, but at the first draft stage, the words just tumble out and I have a grand old time getting to know my characters. Not this time.

For the first time in my life, the beginning of a book has been the biggest bitch ever. I tend to mention how my writing’s going over here a lot, but I haven’t lately. That’s because I’ve trashed everything I’ve written on this story over and over and over again. I did it again this weekend–twice. And I literally mean everything I’ve written, not just a few pages or a chapter or whatever. Every single word has been cut multiple times.

I’ve been trying to figure out what the problem is, but I’m not sure I have the answer. How it usually works for me is as I’m finishing up a book, the next characters will come in and start talking to me. Then while I’m taking a break, they’ll continue giving me information and let me see some scenes. This always includes the opening of the book. That’s not what happened this time. Creed and Maia did not start talking to me as I finished up Ryne and Deke. They didn’t talk at all until a few weeks ago and they haven’t been giving me scenes from their story. Very frustrating.

Left to fly blind, I’ve been trying to come up with the start of the story on my own and it hasn’t been working. Everything I’ve tried has been boring (although my writing buddies assure me it’s not that bad, just heavy on back story). But it’s more than that. If it were just a problem of barfing on the page, I could fix that. The biggest problem has been that nothing I’d written had me emotionally engaged.

I’d tried starting from Creed’s POV over and over. I tried from Maia’s POV once, but that didn’t work either. As I was talking to a writing buddy this weekend, we both decided that starting with Creed hunting a demon wasn’t the right place because it wasn’t working for me and we both came up with a very similar idea at about the same time. Call Creed in front of the council. My brain started spinning with ideas.

While we talked, though, I also remembered way back to when I was writing the proposal for Ryne’s story. The scene I saw then that told me that Maia and Creed had a story and were a couple was in Maia’s POV and involved her opening the door and finding him standing there. We decided that if the first idea didn’t work, that I’d go back to my original view of the story.

So yesterday I started writing out the scene where Creed is facing the council. He’s in trouble, but doesn’t much care. I spent hours and hours on this scene–and around 4pm, I scrapped the whole, entire thing.

Same problem. I wasn’t engaged in any way.

I started over. I switched to Maia’s POV, but instead of her opening the door, I thought what if Creed was already inside the house, just kicking back and relaxing? What if she’d had the day from hell and just wanted to come home and relax? For the first time, I felt the emotion. I heard my character. I was engaged with the scene I was writing.

It’s too early to tell if this is going to stick. The words did come out fairly fast and furious, but I was tired from writing all day on the scene that didn’t work and I only got a few pages down. For the first time, though, I feel optimistic that I’m on the right track. I just hope I’m right.

Who Should Paint You: Salvador Dali

You’re a complex, intense creature who displays many layers. There’s no way a traditional portrait could ever capture you!

I have a cousin who’s desperate to get married and/or be in a relationship. She’s been this way since she was in her mid-20s and it’s embarrassing to watch. Heck, it’s embarrassing to be around at all. I went out with her and a few other cousins to a bar years ago, and as I watched them interact with the men, I became desperate to get out of there. If you’ve seen those Arby’s commercials where the guy has a neon hat over his head announcing that he’s thinking Arby’s, you’d have an idea what my cousin is like. She had a neon sign flashing “Desperate” over her head.

The area, though, where the desperation really seems to be most evident is writing. There are so many writers who are so desperate to be published that it leaves me stunned. I’m as insecure and neurotic as anyone, but this is one offshoot that I never experienced and that I never quite understood. In fact, when I look back at my earlier writing, I feel like sending thank you letters to the editors who rejected me.

Maybe that’s why I don’t understand the mindset. If someone sells before they’re ready and readers pick up the book and go Blech! that reader is lost forever. They might give authors they’ve enjoyed in the past several tries before writing them off, but a new author has to attract and hold a reader immediately–there is no second chance.

I do understand that all these desperate-to-be-published writers believe they are ready. I thought I was ready with my first completed manuscript and the second and the third. I wasn’t. When I look back at that stuff now, I can see it plainly. But I’m also a believer in we’re where we’re supposed to be when we’re supposed to be there. Maybe that’s why I never got that frenzied desperation. Or maybe it’s because of what happened after my first story was rejected.

I was in my mid-20s, I think. I do know I was out of college, but not for all that long. I received a rejection letter for my first completed mss, and because I had no idea that RWA or my local writing chapter existed, I didn’t realize I’d gotten the second best rejection a writer can get. (The editor wrote a very detailed letter telling me what I needed to work on.) At the time, all I knew was that I sucked, and if I was that bad, I wasn’t going to waste my time writing. After six months, though, I missed writing down my stories. So I asked myself a few questions one of which was: Even if you knew you would never, ever get published, would you still write? The answer was a resounding yes! I began working on correcting the problem areas the editor pointed out.

I still wanted to be published, that went without saying, but it was the writing itself that was important to me, the stories, the characters. Being published was a dream, a goal, but it wasn’t everything. That’s where I think the desperate people are. Being published to them is more important than the writing, than the story, than the characters. It’s a way to garner self-validation for them, a way to boost their self-confidence.

It doesn’t work.

Not in any facet of life. If you can’t find your sense of self-worth inside yourself, there is no external situation that will give it to you. Ever. I’ve seen this with a couple of women at the day job. One got her self-worth from her job (she was a clerk) and the other through items she bought. The thing is, this kind of self-esteem doesn’t last. Like an addict in need of another high, the dose needs to keep going up and up and up to give the same level of flying. The woman who needed things went from needing a bigger television to wanting to add on to her home. (with a few increments in between, of course) But they couldn’t afford to do it and she became dissatisfied that her husband wasn’t earning more.

I wonder if these writers who have such a vehement need to be published realize they have neon signs over their heads flashing Desperate? I wonder if they realize how unattractive it is and how–no matter how hard they try to hide it–probably a good 90% of the people they have contact with can see it? I wonder if these writers understand that if they’re not balanced before they sell, that it’s going to be a million times more difficult for them afterward?

It’s an emotional rollercoaster ride after selling. Some people have calmer rollercoasters than others, but everyone boards one. I don’t care how much you think you know, how much you’ve learned from authors you know who were published before you, no one is 100% prepared for what lies ahead.

I wish I could tell these people to calm down, to work on their self-worth issues and to find a balance within themselves, but the problem is that I don’t believe most of these people realize that they’re desperate. They assume it’s someone else, not them. They’re ready to be published, they’re just working toward their goal, and anyone who says something to them is jealous because they’re so close. I had one friend I talked off the ledge dozens and dozens and dozens of times. I don’t think she ever appreciated just how much I did for her. For sure I never was thanked for my efforts. But I don’t think she realized how frenzied she was and I think she still doesn’t know.

I’ve heard stories of writers cheating to get published and I just shake my head. What good does it do them? When their sell through sucks and no publisher is willing to take them on because their numbers are so bad, what have they gained? The right to hold up their book and say “I’m published”? Selling once doesn’t guarantee a second sale. Look at all the authors who’ve had one or two books out and disappeared from the face of the earth. And how satisfying can it be to get published by cheating? There can’t be any real sense of achievement because they didn’t sell because they were good enough, they sold because they’re more dishonest than the next writer. Or better at being dishonest.

Now that I’ve sermonized today (well, it is Sunday!), I’m climbing down off my soapbox and gonna go do something. I know this post won’t do any good for the people that need it, but I’ve been thinking about this since I heard about the contest thing and just wanted to point out a few things.