Sorry, no blog today. I’m still feeling miserable.
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Archive for February, 2010
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Sunday, February 28th, 2010
RT Book Reviews
Thursday, February 25th, 2010Romantic Times Book Reviews says about In the Darkest Night:
O’Shea has another winner. Equal parts passion and horror blend to create one great read.
This is on the heels of my starred Publishers Weekly review where this book was called “a riveting thrill ride.”
I’m excited that this book is being so well received! Kel is very special to me and he just grabbed me hard and wouldn’t let go.
And I’m sick right now, so I hope you’ll forgive the short blog post. I can’t focus well enough to write much of anything.
A Few Too Many People
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010Yesterday I cut a 6 page scene from the Work In Progress (WIP). It hurt to do it, but the feedback was right on the money.
This scene was in the Point of View (POV) of a character who wouldn’t appear again until the third (and final) book of the series and I doubt he’d have another POV scene. The comment I received was that I was verging on the cast of thousands and that I’m giving this character a lot of importance by giving him a scene like this.
The first comment was dead-on. I’d been worrying about that myself, but ignored that little voice in my head. So far in not that many pages, I’d introduced my heroine and a friend of hers. I’d introduced the hero, one of his friends, some of his coworkers, and the hero from the third book. The coworkers were more of a hey, hi kind of thing, so they weren’t too overwhelming, I hope. But using this very minor character’s POV tipped it over the edge.
The second comment about it making him seem like a major character is also accurate. I’ve done POV from minor characters before, but they’ve always been reoccurring throughout the book, as in if you had Seth’s POV once, you got it four, five, six more times. I also dropped the first of those scenes deeper into the story, after the major characters are established. Not so in this case. This would have been very early in the book and it gave the character importance that he doesn’t hold. He’s a catalyst for book 3, but doesn’t need a scene in his head for this role.
I also had another problem that my friend didn’t mention–I felt like some of the information given in the scene was repetitive. The cut pages were necessary before I added the prologue that set up the world, but after I revamped where the book opened, it became superfluous.
So there were very valid and sound reasons for cutting and I couldn’t come up with a single strong reason to keep the scene. Aside from the fact that I didn’t want to lose 6 pages off my total. 
Yes, a very weak reason. I cut the scene and the pages. It hurt. I’ll recoup them, though–as soon as I figure out what happens next.
A Little Cam Part 3
Sunday, February 21st, 2010I added another page to the Cam and Damon scene I posted last week. I’ve included the original pages so that if you didn’t read it, there’s no need to search backward. Also, so that anyone who wants to read it in one fell swoop has it all in one place. I will try to post more next Sunday.
Warning: This is rough first draft and only part of the scene.
This story is copyright 2010 by Patti O’Shea. Please link to the story if you like, but do not copy.
* * *
Cameron Brody leaned back, propping both elbows on the deck railing, and looked inside the house. His parents were in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner and he could see them talking with each other. There was a lot of smiling, frequent laughter, and he felt something around his heart ease.
Coming home on leave had been the right decision.
He’d almost stayed on post. Cam knew he’d changed a lot since the last time he’d seen his family, but then battle did that to a man.
His brothers had taken off hours ago. It was Friday night and they had things to do, places to be. He’d never been all that close to them, but the age difference made it hard to relate. Cam was twenty-four–he’d been through West Point and fought in the war. His brothers were six and eight years younger–still in high school and more worried about the brand of jeans they wore than about things that really mattered.
As he watched, his dad danced his mom around the kitchen, and with a faint smile, Cam turned, resting his forearms on the railing. He stared off into the woods that surrounded the property and allowed himself to enjoy the warmth of the summer evening. All his life he’d had his parents’ love for each other and their love for him as a bulwark against the world. It steadied something inside him to see nothing had changed, that their feelings continued to run deeply. He wanted that, too. Some day.
Cam sighed and watched the birds flit around the trees. His dad had been in combat, he’d been part of Special Operations, and if he could make it through war, so could Cam. But damn, he thought he’d been prepared. His dad had told him what it was like, had been brutally frank about the ugliness of battle, and between that and the simulation training he’d taken, Cam had thought he’d be able to handle it easily.
He couldn’t.
Nothing could have prepared him to kill, to watch men around him fall to enemy fire. Nothing could erase what he’d seen from his memory. He leaned farther forward, dropping his head nearly to his hands.
“Are you okay?”
With a jerk, Cam straightened. He hadn’t heard his dad come up and he hadn’t thought anyone would be able to get the drop on him, not as wound up as he was from being in the field. “Fine.”
His dad looked skeptical, but instead of arguing, he invited, “Why don’t we take a walk?”
The urge to refuse was strong, but there was no good reason to say no. There were hours of daylight left, and if he declined, it would probably lead to more pointed questions. With a shrug, Cam capitulated. “Sure.”
Parkland abutted the property, isolating them from civilization, and despite his worry about his dad quizzing him, they simply walked. Early evening sunshine filtered through the leaves of the trees, dappling the path they were taking, a light breeze ruffled his hair, birds called to each other, and rabbits scurried away. Jamming his hands in the pockets of his jeans, he focused on all this and tried to ignore the presence of his dad beside him.
But the silence begin to wear on him. When was his dad going to say something? There was no doubt he would and the waiting pulled Cam’s nerves taut. Another ten minutes passed and he couldn’t take it anymore. “Aren’t you going to interrogate me?”
“Did you want me to ask questions?”
Cam felt his dad’s eyes on him, but he kept his gaze straight ahead. “No.”
“Then I won’t.”
What did that mean? Cam turned the words over in his mind, but he didn’t find any answers. Damn, his dad could be cryptic when he wanted to be. Cam lost his focus on the trees, on the birds. The quiet coming from the man beside him seemed heavy, oppressive.
He cracked. “When I close my eyes, all I see is blood. I thought I could handle this, but I can’t seem to take it in stride, not like you did.”
“You think I escaped unscathed?” His dad’s disbelief came through loud and clear. “No one leaves war unaffected, certainly not me. I still have nightmares about things that happened when I was your age.”
That stopped Cam in his tracks. “You?” he asked, looking at his dad for the first time since they left the house.
“Yeah, me.”
“But you never said anything, not about any specific incident.”
“I don’t like to talk about it, something you should understand.”
Yeah, Cam didn’t have a lot of room to complain. He didn’t want to discuss the stuff that he’d seen either. “How much does Mom know?”
“Everything.”
He tried to wrap his mind around that. “You told Mom?”
“We don’t have secrets, not about anything important.”
Yeah, he could see how close they were, but to share war stories? “But Mom is delicate.”
Throwing his head back, his dad laughed. “Damn, Cam,” he said when he had the amusement under control, “I thought you were more observant than that.”
Cam scowled. “Mom’s tiny.”
“Compared to us, yes, she’s tiny, but she’s not delicate. Your mom is as tough as they come, she’s had to be.”
Tough? His mom? “But you’re so protective of her.”
“Because she’s my world.”
The words were simple, but held so much emotion that Cam became uncomfortable and he had to look away. He pulled his hands out of his pockets, found a broad tree trunk just off the path, and leaned against it.
“Sure, maybe Mom’s tough when it comes to facing down a teacher who’s been treating one of her kids unfairly, but no way is she tough enough to deal with the kinds of things we’ve seen.”
For a long moment, his dad stared at him and Cam wondered what he was thinking. He didn’t have too long to wait.
“You know, your mom was on a Colonization Assessment Team. They don’t send people who aren’t tough to planets light years away from Earth. She was one of twenty on Jarved Nine–it takes a special kind of courage to be part of that.”
To Be Continued at some point if y’all like it and think I should keep on writing it.
Copyright 2010 by Patti O’Shea – All Rights Reserved.
I’m Not a Historical Writer
Thursday, February 18th, 2010I don’t write historical romance. I have no interest in writing historical romance. I don’t even read historical romance any longer, not after I realized I read all the contemporary set books (whether they were paranormal or not) and the historicals sat on the TBR month after month. The pile became hugely unwieldy and I had to stop buying them because I wasn’t reading them. Ever. I didn’t even have a vague desire to pick one up–with the exception of Julie Garwood. I’ll still reread her historical romances.
I honestly have no idea why I’m so averse to reading historical romance, but that’s not what I wanted to talk about. I’m writing a proposal for a contemporary set paranormal romance. Only in discussing it with a friend, she recommended a prologue to set up the basics of the world. I decided it was worth a shot and the event would not only set up the world, it would give the heroine depth from the start.
The problem? I needed to research Medieval nunneries in order to write this scene.
It didn’t take long before I was cursing as I googled.
I like history. Honest, I do. It was one of my favorite classes in high school; I even was in Advanced Placement American History and scored the highest mark possible on the test.
I like research. Mostly. When I was researching particle accelerators and M Theory, I couldn’t read enough. Now granted, I didn’t understand everything–M Theory is mind boggling, especially for someone who didn’t take math in college–but it was fascinating to me.
But I hate researching history for my book. Hate it. I feel frustrated and bored and just want the damn information so I can write my scene and be done with it. I didn’t expect to feel this way. I figured it would be just like researching any other topic and I’ve gone off on some obscure and esoteric subjects to get one piece of information for a throwaway line in a book. I’m pretty anal about accuracy and I’m not opposed to digging deeply to find what I need. I even find the Medieval period to be one of the more interesting in European history…and it doesn’t matter, I’m resenting every second I’m spending on this.
The thing that’s so puzzling is why I’m feeling this way. Why is researching history–something I can understand–an aggravation while reading M Theory–something that’s difficult for me to grasp fully–something I was excited about reading?
Part of it might be that finding the specific kind of information I’m looking for has proven to be difficult. There’s a lot more information on monks and friars than on nuns. At least that I’ve been able to find online. I did order a book that looks like it might have good information. I sure hope so because I want to finish this opening scene.
My next blog might be complaining about trying to find a historical voice for the opening. Honestly, how do historical writers convey the tone/formality of the period without bogging down? I will be blundering my way through this little problem. Sigh.
My First Starred PW Review
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010I’m sitting here, stunned and excited. In the Darkest Night was reviewed by Publishers Weekly. Favorably. Not just favorably, it earned a starred review.
For those of you who are unfamiliar, PW only reviews four mass market fiction books a week. There are separate sections for Mystery and for SF/Fantasy, but romance has to compete with all other fiction for those those four slots. Just getting reviewed at all is something big. Getting a great review is even more awesome and only the books that stood out get a star in front of their review.
This is only my second PW review. It’s my first to earn a star. To say I’m excited would be understating it.
No, most readers won’t see it, although Books a Million and some of the other online retailers have an arrangement with PW to load their reviews onto their websites for those books. But it’s still hugely, enormously exciting.
I’m so happy that In the Darkest Night garnered such a great review. I love all my books, but this one was just a little extra special to me and Kel grabbed me hard.
To give a brief snipped of the review, Publishers Weekly called the book: “a riveting thrill ride” and used the word “enthralled.”
Happy dog dancing here. Big time!
You can check out the entire review on the PW website. Also, you can find out more about IN THE DARKEST NIGHT on my website, read an excerpt, and find links to preorder if you’re interested.
A Little Cam – Part 2
Sunday, February 14th, 2010I added another page to the Cam and Damon scene I posted last week. I’ve included the original page so that if you didn’t read it, there’s no need to search backward. Also, so that anyone who wants to read it in one fell swoop has it all in one place. I will try to post more next Sunday.
Warning: This is rough first draft and only part of the scene. When I have more time, I’d like to finish it and polish it for a bonus page on my website. Do y’all think it’s worth the work it would take or is this boring for you and a waste of my time?
This story is copyright 2010 by Patti O’Shea. Please link to the story if you like, but do not copy.
* * *
Cameron Brody leaned back, propping both elbows on the deck railing, and looked inside the house. His parents were in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner and he could see them talking with each other. There was a lot of smiling, frequent laughter, and he felt something around his heart ease.
Coming home on leave had been the right decision.
He’d almost stayed on post. Cam knew he’d changed a lot since the last time he’d seen his family, but then battle did that to a man.
His brothers had taken off hours ago. It was Friday night and they had things to do, places to be. He’d never been all that close to them, but the age difference made it hard to relate. Cam was twenty-four–he’d been through West Point and fought in the war. His brothers were six and eight years younger–still in high school and more worried about the brand of jeans they wore than about things that really mattered.
As he watched, his dad danced his mom around the kitchen, and with a faint smile, Cam turned, resting his forearms on the railing. He stared off into the woods that surrounded the property and allowed himself to enjoy the warmth of the summer evening. All his life he’d had his parents’ love for each other and their love for him as a bulwark against the world. It steadied something inside him to see nothing had changed, that their feelings continued to run deeply. He wanted that, too. Some day.
Cam sighed and watched the birds flit around the trees. His dad had been in combat, he’d been part of Special Operations, and if he could make it through war, so could Cam. But damn, he thought he’d been prepared. His dad had told him what it was like, had been brutally frank about the ugliness of battle, and between that and the simulation training he’d taken, Cam had thought he’d be able to handle it easily.
He couldn’t.
Nothing could have prepared him to kill, to watch men around him fall to enemy fire. Nothing could erase what he’d seen from his memory. He leaned farther forward, dropping his head nearly to his hands.
“Are you okay?”
With a jerk, Cam straightened. He hadn’t heard his dad come up and he hadn’t thought anyone would be able to get the drop on him, not as wound up as he was from being in the field. “Fine.”
His dad looked skeptical, but instead of arguing, he invited, “Why don’t we take a walk?”
The urge to refuse was strong, but there was no good reason to say no. There were hours of daylight left, and if he declined, it would probably lead to more pointed questions. With a shrug, Cam capitulated. “Sure.”
Parkland abutted the property, isolating them from civilization, and despite his worry about his dad quizzing him, they simply walked. Early evening sunshine filtered through the leaves of the trees, dappling the path they were taking, a light breeze ruffled his hair, birds called to each other, and rabbits scurried away. Jamming his hands in the pockets of his jeans, he focused on all this and tried to ignore the presence of his dad beside him.
But the silence begin to wear on him. When was his dad going to say something? There was no doubt he would and the waiting pulled Cam’s nerves taut. Another ten minutes passed and he couldn’t take it anymore. “Aren’t you going to interrogate me?”
“Did you want me to ask questions?”
Cam felt his dad’s eyes on him, but he kept his gaze straight ahead. “No.”
“Then I won’t.”
What did that mean? Cam turned the words over in his mind, but he didn’t find any answers. Damn, his dad could be cryptic when he wanted to be. Cam lost his focus on the trees, on the birds. The quiet coming from the man beside him seemed heavy, oppressive.
He cracked. “When I close my eyes, all I see is blood. I thought I could handle this, but I can’t seem to take it in stride, not like you did.”
“You think I escaped unscathed?” His dad’s disbelief came through loud and clear. “No one leaves war unaffected, certainly not me. I still have nightmares about things that happened when I was your age.”
That stopped Cam in his tracks. “You?” he asked, looking at his dad for the first time since they left the house.
To Be Continued at some point if y’all like it and think I should keep on writing it.
Copyright 2010 by Patti O’Shea – All Rights Reserved.
I surrender
Thursday, February 11th, 2010Yesterday, I surrendered.
I’d been fighting for weeks writing a story I promised to my agent for March 1st. I only needed 50-60 pages of story and a synopsis, but all I did was write and cut, write and cut. I totally love this idea, but I was frustrated and getting nowhere fast.
And then I have this other idea I’d also talked to my agent about, but it isn’t the one I wanted to work on first even though I was nearly as excited about it as the proposal I was trying–and failing–to write. But I could see the first scene of this book fairly clearly, something that wasn’t the case with the other, and on Wednesday morning, the hero gave me information about himself. Again, not something I was getting with the other one.
I learned that Jack was divorced, that his mother was an alcoholic, and that he’d joined the LAPD after being an MP in the army. That meant he was older than the people with whom he went through the police academy. With all this information coming in, I decided to take my lunch hour and write the beginning to this story. Why not, right?
It actually went well. Wow. It’s been a while since I could say that about a writing day. By 9pm last night I had 4 pages (that’s high production for me on a weeknight) and I resented the fact that I had to quit writing and go to bed. I wanted to keep going and I believe I could have written the entire scene if I’d only had enough time and energy to make it to the end. I muttered a few curses as I booted down, that’s how much I wanted to keep going.
Clearly, it would be stupid to continue fighting with the other story. It might just need more percolating time. It might need more research time. It might need something I haven’t figured out yet, but Jack and company are coming through loud and clear.
I surrendered. I will work on Jack’s story first, finish that proposal by March 1st (I hope!) and then go back to my problem children. (The heroine is just as reticent as the hero.) Maybe by then they’ll be more cooperative. I can hope at least.
Now, though, I have to figure out a few things that I hadn’t thought about because I was sure I was working on the other story and I have to do it quickly if I want to put together a proposal package by March. Come on, brain, get working!
Another Opening
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010Once upon a time, I used to love starting stories. The beginning used to be my favorite part of writing. That’s changed and I’m not sure when it happened or how. My theory is that it’s a combination of knowing I need to get the beginning right to support the rest of the story (kind of like the foundation of a house) and the fact that I know how easy it is to mess it up. And maybe a bit of over thinking, too.
I started a new proposal several weeks ago and I’m still struggling through the first chapter. It’s frustrating. Um, and I confess I’m not helping myself either by writing other things that I didn’t promise to have ready for my agent. Hopping between stories always messes me up and I’m writing a couple pages of this and few pages of that. I vowed yesterday to stop that.
It went a little better yesterday during lunch and then Monday night, I went back through it and fleshed it out. The scene takes place at Venice Beach, and thanks to Google, I was able to walk along the promenade three times (thanks, Mike, for the suggestion!). I gave my hero things to see, smell, touch and I think that helped.
But this morning I realized that I still don’t have the flavor of the beach down. I don’t have the people and the crowds and so today I’ll go back in and layer more on top of what I have. With a little luck, this scene will turn out okay and I’ll be able to move forward.
It’s a little depressing, though, to remember how much fun I used to have writing the opening of a book and how different things are now. I wonder if there’s anyway to recapture that joy?
A Little Cam
Sunday, February 7th, 2010A while back I mentioned that Cam, Ravyn and Damon’s son (Ravyn’s Flight) had come in and started talking. I’ve been writing some of it down.
Warning: This is rough first draft and only part of the scene. When I have more time, I’d like to finish it and polish it for a bonus page on my website. Do y’all think it’s worth the work it would take or is this boring for you and a waste of my time?
This story is copyright 2010 by Patti O’Shea. Please link to the story if you like, but do not copy.
* * *
Cameron Brody leaned back, propping both elbows on the deck railing, and looked inside the house. His parents were in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner and he could see them talking with each other. There was a lot of smiling, frequent laughter, and he felt something around his heart ease.
Coming home on leave had been the right decision.
He’d almost stayed on post. Cam knew he’d changed a lot since the last time he’d seen his family, but then battle did that to a man.
His brothers had taken off hours ago. It was Friday night and they had things to do, places to be. He’d never been all that close to them, but the age difference made it hard to relate. Cam was twenty-four–he’d been through West Point and fought in the war. His brothers were six and eight years younger–still in high school and more worried about the brand of jeans they wore than about things that really mattered.
As he watched, his dad danced his mom around the kitchen, and with a faint smile, Cam turned, resting his forearms on the railing. He stared off into the woods that surrounded the property and allowed himself to enjoy the warmth of the summer evening. All his life he’d had his parents’ love for each other and their love for him as a bulwark against the world. It steadied something inside him to see nothing had changed, that their feelings continued to run deeply. He wanted that, too. Some day.
Cam sighed and watched the birds flit around the trees. His dad had been in combat, he’d been part of Special Operations, and if he could make it through war, so could Cam. But damn, he thought he’d been prepared. His dad had told him what it was like, had been brutally frank about the ugliness of battle, and between that and the simulation training he’d taken, Cam had thought he’d be able to handle it easily.
He couldn’t.
Nothing could have prepared him to kill, to watch men around him fall to enemy fire. Nothing could erase what he’d seen from his memory. He leaned farther forward, dropping his head nearly to his hands.
“Are you okay?”
With a jerk, Cam straightened. He hadn’t heard his dad come up and he hadn’t thought anyone would be able to get the drop on him, not as wound up as he was from being in the field. “Fine.”
To Be Continued at some point if y’all like it and think I should keep on writing it.
Copyright 2010 by Patti O’Shea – All Rights reserved
