February « 2007 « Patti O'Shea's Blog

Archive for February, 2007

How Many Clones Does It Take….

Monday, February 19th, 2007

It was one of those crazy weekends where every time I turned around, I had another email, message or comment I needed to answer. That’s not a complaint. I love getting notes that say: I love your books! Or: Thanks for friending me, I’m going to try your books. But I seriously needed to write without distraction this weekend. I finally ended up just ignoring everything until Sunday evening. I like to be timely, but I have characters who need to torture me some more. It took like an hour and a half, but I finally answered all the email about my books and I got caught up on MySpace. I think. I still have friends’ emails to answer, but they’re used to my slow responses. :-/

It was a busy weekend in other respects too. I had to make a decision on moving my newsletter from Yahoo Groups. (Yes, I’m moving it.) And I had to decide where to move it to. (Did that too.) I’m guessing Yahoo doesn’t have a handy feature where I can transfer my list in one easy click and now I’m sorry I went with them originally.

I also looked at the countdown clock on my MySpace page and realized there’s only a little over 5 months until In the Midnight Hour is released. Gah! That means I have to make time to send some more emails about what I want to do/plan to do about promotion. You know, sometimes I enjoy promotion, but sometimes I just wish that all I had to do was write. I had no clue–none–how much time promotion takes from my schedule. Most of the published authors I knew before I sold were category authors who didn’t do anything for promo. In fact, none of them even had websites until recently. It left me completely unprepared for the time it takes to do bookmarks or the website or mail out copies of a book for review.

Anyway, if I could clone myself, I’d like to add a clone that did nothing but promote my (our?) books. How many clones am I up to now?

Despite the craziness, I did get a good amount of writing done. Sometimes I wonder how I manage to find time to write in between the other stuff. Heck, sometimes I wonder how any author manages to write in between the other stuff.

Tags: busy, life, promo, writing
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Moulin Rouge!

Sunday, February 18th, 2007

This week’s movie is Moulin Rouge! starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor. It’s from 2001 and I’m sure everyone’s seen it already, which is probably a good thing since I’m not sure how to review this movie.

___Warning: Spoiler Alert___

There will be spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the movie and plan to, stop here.

The basic storyline is that a penniless poet, Christian (McGregor), goes to France, meets up with a group of performers and becomes their playwright. They go to the Moulin Rouge to encourage Satine (Kidman) to star in their play. Satine is a cabaret performer and a courtesan. Because of a mix-up, she believes that Christian is the duke she’s supposed to have an assignation with. They fall in love. The duke is wildly jealous. They pretend it’s part of a play which the duke bankrolls. He’s still wildly jealous. Etc.

TBH, I’m not sure what to think of this movie or how to review it. I was mulling over what to say here from the time the disk ended. When the film started, my first thought was what the hell is this? By the time I reached the end, I’d decided I liked it and that it had charm and wit. It’s not something I’d like to see again, but it was an entertaining show.

Normally, I try to give thoughtful reasons about what did and didn’t work for me, but I can’t really do that this time. I did like the way the music was used and that modern music was in a movie set in 1900.

I thought the duke’s obsession with Satine was overblown and that her death was conveniently timed, but I’m not sure any of this mattered. I think the plot was merely there to hang the songs on and that it was kind of beside the point. And I believe this is why I have trouble coming up with a cogent review.

I’m rating this on the Netflix scale on which 3=Liked it and 4=Really liked it.

3.5 stars

Tags: movies, reviews
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

What Ifs

Saturday, February 17th, 2007

I found out yesterday that Eternal Nights was nominated for a 2006 Single Titles Reviewers’ Choice Award! Yea! That was a great surprise!

Second announcement. The Crimson team drew the winner of the Super-Deluxe Crimson City Action Pack Contest and the winner was Kevin T. from NC. Congrats to Kevin and thank you to everyone who entered!

Now on to my topic of the day. Last Saturday, I watched (and reviewed) Sliding Doors, a movie starring Gwyneth Paltrow. This morning, I’ve been thinking about it and wondering what if? about my own life. Nothing as small as missing a train, of course. There’s no way to consider how different your life would be on something as minuscule as that. I’ve been thinking more about what if I’d made other decisions at certain turning points in my life.

What if that ad agency in Chicago had called before I accepted the job at NWA? There’s no doubt I’d be making a lot more money now, probably a ton of it, and I’d be living in Chicago instead of Minneapolis, but I don’t think I’d be writing. Advertising is a fast-paced and demanding profession. There’d be no energy left at the end of the day to tell stories. Would I be wearing suits to work? Would I be a creative director, meeting with clients and interacting with movers and shakers in industry? Would I miss writing or would I find a different type of fulfillment?

I can’t imagine myself as a high-powered executive too easily, but while I wouldn’t be writing in this situation (at least I don’t think I would be), I’d still have the stories in my head. I’d live near my cousins and be able to go to Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs play whenever I wanted.

Or what if I’d stayed at the University of Minnesota at Morris instead of transferring down to the U of MN in Minneapolis? Would I be married to a farmer and living in some small town in the outstate area? Actually, the thought of wrangling children and volunteering for the PTA boggles my imagination. It was easier to picture the ad executive thing. Maybe, since I’m having trouble visualizing this scenario, it’s unlikely it would have happened even if I had stayed.

What if while at the U of MN Morris I’d understood my computer science programming class? I’d started out as a computer minor, but after one quarter of being completely at sea, I dropped that idea. What if I’d pursued it instead?

What if I’d gotten more involved in extracurricular activities in high school? What if I’d realized how stupid the cliques were when I was a teenager? What if I’d quit NWA before my four month probation was up? I almost did that because I hated the job I had then so much. What if I hadn’t broken my leg–twice– when I was in grade school? What if I’d gone to college in Colorado like I’d thought about when I was fifteen?

Anyway, it goes on and on. I don’t think there’s a person who, if they looked at their life, couldn’t come up with their own list of what ifs. I think it’s kind of fun to imagine how different we might be if only for a moment or two.

But I also believe that everything happens for a reason and that we’re where we’re supposed to be when we’re supposed to be there. I can also look back at my life and pick out the decisions that made writing an almost inevitable part of my life. I was interested in so many creative areas–not just writing–but it was as if the door was shut on them one by one. Or in some cases, my personality shut the door.

An example is art. I always wanted to draw. Always. And I have very little talent this way–or do I? What if I’d continued to draw and worked at it as hard as I worked at improving my writing? Would I still be a bad artist? Or would I have achieved some level of competence? I’ll never know because I didn’t feel passionately enough about drawing to accept being less than perfect while I learned. I wanted to sit down and create exactly what I wanted to create without putting in the work.

But it was never like that with writing. I worked and worked and worked at it even though it never really seemed like work, if that makes sense. I think it’s because it is my passion. I could accept not producing perfect stories because I knew I’d continue to improve and I could fix them later.

I don’t know, but this whole thing about destiny and fate is interesting to think about. There’s a great quote from Jawaharlal Nehru:

Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play it is free will.

Tags: awards, dreams, Eternal_Nights, life
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Dealing With a Glamor Girl

Friday, February 16th, 2007

There’s nothing like starting out the day by oversleeping. I know I heard the alarm, but I must have hit the off button instead of the snooze. I woke up at 4:40 and had to run. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, I go to the computer in my office while I’m waiting for coffee and a spider crawls down the center of my screen! Ugh! I hate spiders!

I looked around, found something to kill him with, and squished him–or I tried to anyway. I kind of missed and then I worried that he was on me, like maybe he got on my sleeve or something. I stand up and I’m shaking out my clothes, trying to find him. Then I slid the keyboard forward on the tray and there he was. He didn’t stay there long.

I think I would have been more panicked if I’d been awake, but I was still pretty groggy at that point. That spider was some weird color, though, and moving pretty sluggishly. I wonder what was up with that?

This–fortunately–is only the second spider I’ve had to kill in my house since I moved in. Or maybe the third. They’ve been few and far between, though, and that’s a good thing. The office is one of two rooms I haven’t had a chance to finish unpacking yet, but now I want to. I’m sure if everything were put away, there’d be no spiders.

BTW, I did make it to work on time–barely–and now I’m counting the minutes till I can go home again.

Now that that’s out of the way, I can talk about what I’d planned to blog on this morning. My heroine, Maia, is into clothes. Sigh. I should have had an inkling from the first scene I wrote, but I didn’t figure it out that fast.

Despite what Stacy and Clinton say on What Not To Wear, I firmly believe that comfort is more important than style and I’ve been fortunate enough to have heroines who really didn’t focus on their clothes. Until now.

Maia is one of those casually elegant women, someone who could put on shorts and a T-shirt and still look as if she could attend the opera. One of my cousins is like this. When I was in my early teens, I tried to emulate her, but unfortunately, I’m one of those people who can take forever getting dressed up for some fancy do and ten minutes later look as if I’m going to a baseball game. I’ve learned to accept this, it’s just who I am, but now I need a crash course on clothes.

Last night, I went searching online for Maia’s next outfit. I need pictures! Not just of the clothes, but of someone wearing the clothes, and that’s where the difficulty comes in. A lot of the websites I visited–Land’s End, LL Bean, Gap, Talbot, etc–show the clothes, but most of the pictures don’t have anyone wearing them. Or if they showed a model wearing an outfit, I’d click on the picture to see the whole look in a bigger .jpg and it would zero in on only the shorts. I need to see the top with the shorts, darn it!

This story takes place during a hot, humid August time frame and that’s also playing into the type of clothes. I figure dressy shorts and casual tops that still manage to look dressy on her. Maia would never wear the short-shorts that so many of the sites were showing, not in front of another person, and since Creed has invaded her home, that rules that style out. Maia prefers classic styles, timeless, nothing that’s a fad or too trendy. She also isn’t much for bright colors, she prefers neutral, earth tones. Sigh. I like bright, so I’d see something I’d like, but she’d be unenthused.

So does anyone have any good sites to see clothes? With women wearing them? I’m sure I’ll be doing more searches for outfits as I move forward and I need resources.

Tags: adventures, clothes, websites, WIP
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Promo Stuff

Thursday, February 15th, 2007

Last night, I think I dreamt about Ryne and Deke (the h/h from In the Midnight Hour). At least I woke up with them on my mind and there was no reason to do that unless I had been dreaming about them. The Deke in my mind when I woke up looked just like the Deke on the cover of the book. The woman still doesn’t look like my Ryne, but 50% isn’t bad. I just wish I could see the final version of the cover. The book never feels real until I have that and can start using it for promotion.

Speaking of promotion, I’ve been trying to figure out how to promo this book and when everything needs to be done. I always do bookmarks and I’ll probably mail out a postcard to bookstores alerting them to the release, although I’m not sure the timing on sending that, and I’m looking at doing another book trailer for it, although a more elaborate one than what I did for Eternal Nights. It’s difficult to make decisions and I’m busy. Seriously, how far away are we from human cloning?

Since I’m a little crabby this morning, I’m going to talk about a pet peeve of mine–authors promoing themselves on Yahoo Group loops. Especially loops that are all writers. It’s bad enough that I have to hear how “excited” the author is that her tenth book received four shamrocks from St. Paddy’s Book Reviews, but then I have to scroll past all the one-line congratulations messages. If it’s a first book, yeah, I do believe they’re excited. Everything on the first book is exciting. Tenth book? I doubt it. It’s gotten to the point that on some loops, all I do is glance at the index of notes and hit delete. There are some authors that just never stop.

I just get so tired of this blatant “ME ME ME” stuff. Yeah, it’s a tough out there, and yeah, writers read, but it’s out of hand. I could vent for a while longer, but I won’t. Y’all can post thank you comments below.

Tags: dreams, promo
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Adventures With the Garage Door

Wednesday, February 14th, 2007

Monday morning, I was running late for work. Those of you who are regular readers won’t be surprised to read that since it’s an everyday occurrence, but it’s hard to get out of bed and move at 4am. Anyway, I hadn’t been out all weekend–too busy writing–and so I hadn’t pulled the SUV out of the garage since I pulled it in Friday afternoon.

To set the scene a little more, it was in the 20′s here on Sunday, and with the sun high in the sky, the snow began to melt. I enjoyed looking up from the computer, looking out my patio doors and watching the crap on my deck drip down to the ground. Of course, without the bright sunshine, everything froze up again overnight.

So here I am, running late. I’m yanking on my jacket, boots, hat, etc as fast as I can. I jerk open the door to the garage, hit the button to open the big garage door and turn out the light. Only the garage door isn’t opening all the way. It would try to go up, not make it, go down again, try again to go up, go down again and so on and so on and so on. And I’m standing there watching this going, huh? Remember, it’s only 5:30 in the morning and I’m not at my best till about 9.

The first thing that had me perplexed was why the door wouldn’t go up. The second thing was why didn’t it just try once and give up? It was like the thing was possessed as it kept trying and trying. I hit the door button again, thinking that might stop it’s wild attempts to open, but of course, that didn’t help.

Eventually, though, during this noisy few minutes I figure out that the door is frozen to the ground on the right side. Great, I mutter. Okay, it might have been a slightly stronger word than that, but you get the drift. I turn on my overhead garage lights because the opener’s lights are too dim, throw my bag and purse in the front seat and go to check out the situation. Sure enough, the seal is frozen in place. Since I’ve worked with engineers and former airplane mechanics for so long, I quickly knew how to handle the situation: Give the affected area a good swift kick.

I returned to the house, gave the button another push and the door opened. And somehow, I even made it to the EDJ on time. =8-O

When I arrived home Monday afternoon, I saw in full daylight what I’d kind of seen in the dark that morning. The rubber seal at the bottom of the garage door had been pulled loose by the opener’s insistence on bringing the door up and the ice’s insistence that it wasn’t letting it go. It’s still hooked in position by the attachments on either side of it, but it’s definitely drooping in that one spot. Better yet, though, was the metal strip on the side just above the seal–it had been bent. Sigh. It was blatant in the sun.

Tags: adventures, house
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Transitions After Dark

Tuesday, February 13th, 2007

I don’t know whether to be frustrated or elated. One of the things that has been happening in the last week with the Book From Hell (TBFH) is that I’ll hit a point writing that gives me trouble when the computer is on, but as soon as I boot down, I figure out how to solve the snag I’ve run into. I’ve tried writing the book itself longhand partially because of this, but once I get going, I find it limiting and frustrating. I’m much faster on the keyboard than I am with a pen and the delay frustrates me because my brain is revving the engine, waiting and waiting to move on. It also starts picking at what I’m still trying to write and I get a lot of scratch outs.

It happened again last night, the solving of a snag after turning off the computer. I’d struggled to make the turn in the scene I’m writing, but the transitions were just not working at all. Okay, I decided, if I can’t transition, I’ll just do a paragraph sum up kind of thing and go on. So I did and then it was late enough that I logged off to go to sleep. But as I was fixing the bed, I got it. The answer to the transition.

My laptop is over two years old now; it doesn’t boot up fast. Or boot down fast for that matter. Turning it back on to write this new stuff seemed cumbersome when I wanted to sleep. Instead, I ran for a notebook and scribbled down the dialogue. I have it on paper now and it isn’t a huge amount so it won’t be a PITA to type into the file, and then I can adjust it.

I’m glad this happened, though, because with the transitional stuff, I can show a little something with my hero that calls into question whether or not he’s using black magic.

My poor heroine is not having a good day.

I guess I’ll take the answers however I can get them, but I’d rather see them while I’m actually working on the computer. Much faster and less frustrating. The other thing that I find interesting is that Maia and Creed like to work later at night too. I ran into this with my demon children, but they had the excuse of being nocturnal. I don’t know what’s up with this h/h because they don’t have that reason.

Tags: sleep, WIP, writing
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Dreaming of Spring

Monday, February 12th, 2007

Pitchers and catchers report to spring training today and the entire team will be in camp on Feb 20th, I think. Maybe I’ve got the dates wrong, but I do know it’s this week. I look forward to spring training from the minute the baseball season ends in October. It gives me hope that the snow and ice will melt, that the temperatures will warm, and that I can abandon my coat, hat and boots. Plus, there’s ball!

My favorite way to write is with baseball on the television, sound muted. When I need to think, I look up and watch for a little bit, then go back to work. Now, I usually have QVC on because TV is a habit. Only I look up, see something cool, and have to struggle not to order it. Baseball is definitely better.

Let’s see. Got a decent amount of work in this weekend on the BFH (Book From Hell). I’m still second guessing myself, but I’m trying to ignore that little voice. I need to make a turn in the scene I’m working on now and I’m debating how to do it. I fell asleep thinking about that last night, so I’ll think about it some more today.

I found a copy of Sliding Doors at Best Buy for $6.99 and I think I’m going to get it. Like I said yesterday, I totally loved this movie. It’s fate that there’s a DVD sale on at the same time I saw it.

My new scrapbooks that I ordered from QVC arrived. I love the polka dot one, the other is nice enough, but not quite my style. I’ll keep it anyway. Paper was okay, but again, not my style. Lots of flowers and I’m not a flower person. I don’t want flowers on my clothes, my curtains, upholstery or scrapbook paper. Of course, I’m a paper slut, so I have more than enough scrapbook paper that these sheets are really superfluous. And I can always slice them up and use them for matting or something.

Tags: baseball, scrapbooking, WIP
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Sliding Doors

Sunday, February 11th, 2007

Sliding Doors is a movie from 1998 starring Gwyneth Paltrow, John Hannah and John Lynch. Just a warning, there very possibly will be spoilers so if you haven’t seen the movie yet and think you might want to, don’t read any farther.

Helen (Paltrow) leaves her live-in boyfriend (Lynch) in bed and goes to work–late. When she arrives she’s fired. She leaves to return home. In one version, the doors to the tube (It’s in London) close just before she gets there and she misses her train. In the second version, she just makes the train. From here on out, the movie weaves between these two alternate time lines.

In version one, Helen tries to find an alternate means home. She hails a taxi, gets mugged and has to go to the hospital for stitches. When she arrives home, her boyfriend, Gerry, is in the shower alone, and while he’s acting strangely, she accepts his explanations. Helen can’t find another PR job and ends up working two jobs while her worthless boyfriend claims to be writing his novel.

In version two, Helen sits on the train next to a charming man, James, (Hannah) and arrives home in time to catch Gerry in bed with his former girlfriend. Helen goes to stay with her friend, starts her own PR business and develops a relationship with James.

I think I will stop the plot summary here. The story, though, spans something like a year and the two scenarios are intertwined, showing the possibilities and how different things can be by such a simple little thing like missing the train.

I totally loved this movie. I loved it so much, I want to buy a copy so I can watch it again whenever the mood strikes. I read some reviews after I was finished that pointed out the flaws, but quite frankly, I didn’t care. The story transported me and my author’s brain was chugging away, going, wow, what a cool idea. I love the concept of alternate realities and parallel lives.

The critics pointed out that neither story was all that strong, but the truth was, neither story needed to stand alone. The whole concept was to weave them together. The other criticism, that Gerry was a complete louse, etc is better founded. Gerry is a complete jerk, but John Lynch manages to make him come across in such a way that we can see why Helen would be prone to believe him. The woman he’s having an affair with also is a bit two-dimensional, the bitchy other woman, but that didn’t matter to me either.

I cared about Helen, I adored James and was rooting for them as a couple. There were several points where the juxtaposition of the two realities were so tight to each other, I was like, wow, this is so cool! For example, in one reality, Helen is standing on a boat with James keeping pace with a boat race–sculling, right?–and cheering them on. In the other reality, Helen is walking along the river with the boat race and James is with a buddy on the pace boat. She doesn’t notice him, just the racers, but makes a comment about how she knew there’d be a boat race.

That was another aspect I found interesting–the bleed through between the lives. The very end closes with this idea and intrigues me all the more with the story. How connected are we to our alternate realities? Are our deja vu moments something that’s come through from one of these realities?

Good romance, a likable heroine, intriguing ideas, and a hopeful ending. (I was worried about that for a moment.) Who could ask for more? I totally, completely loved this movie.

My rating: 5 stars

Tags: movies, reviews
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Shaken, Not Stirred

Saturday, February 10th, 2007

Last night, I realized something. Of all the things the Book From Hell has done to me, the worst is how it’s shaken my confidence. I used to trust myself and my characters when they showed me where I should start the next chapter. Even if it didn’t seem abundantly clear that the scene I saw propelled the story along on multiple fronts, I wrote it anyway and darned if it didn’t do more than I thought it would.

But here I am, thinking about the next scene and questioning if I shouldn’t figure something else out. That’s when I realized just how much my confidence in my writing and my process has been shaken by this book. And not only am I second guessing this next scene, I’m second guessing everything I’ve written in this story. Should I gut it again? Do I have enough conflict? Is there any sexual tension between the h/h? On and on and on it goes.

All writers are insecure (and neurotic), it’s just a matter of degree, but I’ve never been like this before about the actual story. Sure, I’ve questioned the writing, if it was good enough, strong enough, etc. But not the story.

I hate this.

Somehow, I have to lose this logical, nitpicking, self-doubt side and just immerse myself in the characters and their story like I usually do. I’m just not sure how to go about it. This is new territory and no one handed me a map when I wandered into it. :-/ And even if they had, what worked for one writer might not necessarily work for another.

There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.
~Red Smith

Yeah. What he said. BTW, I found this at The Web’s Most Humongous Collection of Writing Quotes. There were plenty of other good ones as well.

I’ve decided not to go to my chapter meeting this morning. I have too much writing to do and I won’t get much done today if I go.

And now for something completely different. Eternal Nights finished 4th in the Judge a Book By Its Cover Contest. It’s a contest where the cover art is judged by booksellers. The Paranormal winners are here.

Tags: Eternal_Nights, WIP, writing
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »