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My Fabulous RT Review!

Tuesday, June 26th, 2007

I received a great review from Romantic Times BOOK Reviews for In the Midnight Hour!

O’Shea ratchets up the paranormal thrills with this inventive and clever new tale. In book after book, she’s has been proving why she’s destined to be a significant player in the paranormal genre. Rich with action, drama and passion, this is pure paranormal pleasure!

How cool is this???

My favorite parts are where Midnight Hour was called “inventive and clever” and the line where it says that I’m “destined to be a significant player in the paranormal genre.”

The only downside is that something was revealed in the review that I wish wasn’t. I knew it would happen and that it will probably occur in most of the reviews the book gets because the event happens in the first three chapters. Reviewers generally consider anything in that area as fair game to be mentioned.

When I was writing this book, I didn’t give my writing buddy any warning about what I had planned, and her reaction when she read the scene that revealed the information was priceless. I was hoping all the readers would be able to have that kind of delighted surprise, but I knew the odds were against it. Ah, well.

In other news, revisions went well yesterday and I made really good progress. Of course, I still have a couple of the bigger changes left to handle, but I’m cruising through the littler ones. Yea!

I talked to a woman at work about my poor flowers being sheared off and she thought it might be a cut worm. She recommended some powder stuff that won’t hurt the plants or any animals, yet keeps the bugs away. I now have a bag of it and my dad volunteered to put it on for me this morning. Hopefully, the protection will save the rest of my flowers.

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Stubborn Darn Characters

Thursday, June 14th, 2007

I’m still reading my book on Polynesian mythology. I’m finding some of the information very interesting, but my heroine (and her hero) still aren’t talking to me. It’s very frustrating because I can sense them there and I want to know what their story is, but I get nothing. I’m wondering if this is payback because I made her go away while I was writing In the Midnight Hour?

It’s very frustrating because until one of my characters tells me or shows me what’s going on, I’m clueless. Right now, I’m wishing I was one of those writers who was able to come up with the story, but it’s never worked that way for me.

I might have mentioned this before, but take Midnight Hour as an example. I had the premise behind Deke’s curse years ago, but I had nothing beyond that. It was a cool idea and one I wanted to write, but not only couldn’t I hear Deke, I had no clue who his heroine was. Fast forward to Ryne’s appearance. When she came in, she told me about her people. Lots and lots of information about her people. I didn’t know for a long time that she was Deke’s heroine. As soon as I realized that was who she was, the story started coming together.

So here I sit, reading the mythology book and waiting for this heroine to give me more than the fact that she’s half Tahitian. I guess it doesn’t much matter, though, since I have revisions coming and that would shunt her aside again anyway. It’s just that my curiosity is driving me crazy!

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First Review for Midnight Hour

Thursday, June 7th, 2007

I have my first review in now for In the Midnight Hour. It received 4.5 stars and this great quote:

IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR was a wonderful book! Full of action, intrigue, magic, and romance, it has everything I could possibly want in a romance novel.

~Kelley Hartsell – CK2S Kwips and Kritiques

This book is a little edgy in some ways and it’s also a story that meant a lot to me, one I really wanted to tell, so it’s hugely exciting to get the first review in and have it be a good one. And to make it even better, Kelley wanted to know if I was going to do Maia’s story since she wanted more. Since the book I just turned in was Maia’s, this was way cool. :-)

Other than this, yesterday was not a ten on the excitement scale. I had my taxes done. I was so deep in deadline hell when April 15th neared, that I had to file an extension–my first ever–and now it was time to take care of it. That’s done now for another ten months.

When I got home, I took care of some emails that had been backing up (why aren’t there enough hours in the day?), and worked on getting myself organized. I didn’t do real well with the organization thing. I did another check on my plants–all looks well except for the pathetic plant which is about what I expected.

Like I said, yesterday was not the most exciting day I’ve had in my life, but it was nice to be off from the EDJ.

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I’m ba-ack!

Monday, April 30th, 2007

I’ve spent the last 9 days writing 10-12 hours all day, every day, so I don’t want to talk about writing at all. :-/ Instead, I’m going to hit some of the non-writing stuff that happened this week.

First of all, having a hiatus was weird. I’ve been blogging every day (with the exception of conferences when I don’t take my laptop) for like 2 years or something. I can’t even tell you how many times I thought about something being a good blog topic.

Let’s see, I’ve been waiting and waiting for these rug runners to go on sale. One to match the area rugs and runner I already have, and an indoor/outdoor one for the laundry room. Right now, I have a carpet remnant where I want the one runner and cardboard and multiple carpet remnants where I want the indoor/outdoor one.

Last Monday, I received an email from Home Depot saying they had free shipping, and I almost caved in and ordered them even though they weren’t on sale. I’ve just been waiting and waiting! Patience isn’t my strongest personality trait. But on Friday, not only was the free shipping thing still going on, but my two rug runners were 20% off! I immediately ordered, so I made another stride forward in home decor.

I received an email to tell me that the three types of lilies I ordered are shipping. I’ve been waiting and waiting for these flowers, but of course, I don’t have time to plant them or do anything with them. Sigh.

Wasp wars have resumed. The weather finally warmed up, and both the grass-carrying wasps who like to build nests in my windows and the regular wasps have returned. I’m shooting wasp spray through my screens again. Largely missing since the 20 feet distance is less than you’d think.

My dad installed my screen door on my sliding patio door. Um, it’s not great since I really can’t open and close it. He’s going to ask someone to help him get it so I can actually go in and out, but it was nice to sit here this weekend with all the windows open and the patio door open as well and let summer inside.

I have a $100 gift card from Circuit City I need to use soon. I’m debating buying an iPod. I have an MP3 player that I like, but now the battery is starting to not hold the charge, and plus none of the accessories work since they’re all for the iPod and not for mine. I like the idea of popping it into a cradle and having music in the house. The other thing that would be cool is that the Apple iPod can carry TV shows and movies, all downloadable for a fee from iTunes. I don’t know, though. I read the reviews and some people love their iPods and some people don’t. Then I wonder will a new, cooler iPod be coming soon? After all, the current version has been out for a while now. Does anyone have thoughts on the iPod thing? Maybe I’d be better off buying a new ergonomic keyboard with my gift card.

I had bookmarks designed for In the Midnight Hour and ordered them from the printer. I got a proof on Friday and it turned out really nicely. I hope the finished product looks as good. I have no clue when I’m going to receive them, but luckily my mom will work on bundling them up for me while she watches her soaps.

I think that’s it. At least it’s all I can remember. Today, it’s back to the EDJ (Evil Day Job), and since I’ve used pretty much every day of vacation I had, I won’t be getting any time off for a while. Real time off, like to relax and do fun stuff. 10-12 hour days are not fun. :-/

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Midnight Hour Excerpt Is Up

Sunday, April 1st, 2007

The pages for In the Midnight Hour are up on my website now. The main Midnight page has the back cover copy and links to an excerpt and book trivia–including where the idea came from, how to pronounce Ryne’s name, why Deke got his nickname, etc. If you want to see a bigger image of the cover, click on the small cover on that page and it’ll take you to the larger one.

I don’t know how many more times y’all can stand hearing me say how excited I am about this book, but I really am. This story and the characters just wouldn’t leave me alone until I had it written. I guess it didn’t really help anything that the opening scene of the book takes place in the cemetery that I can see from the bathroom window at the EDJ (Evil Day Job). Ah, well, the story is written and all my work on it is finished and in just a few months, it’s going to be a book. ;-)

So yesterday morning I was in nirvana, the writing was flowing fast and furious and I could hardly wait to get back to it. I finished the chapter I was working on and…SPLAT! Did you know there’s a wall in nirvana? I didn’t either until I hit it.

I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do with the next chapter. I needed an action scene since it had been too long since the last one, but beyond that? Shrug. The idea I came up with seemed rather convoluted and I wasn’t sure it was the answer. After talking with a friend who basically said: write it and if it doesn’t work cut it. Which gave me heart palpitations since the deadline is looming and I’m going to have my back against the wall to make it. But she also pointed out that sitting there, not writing, wasn’t producing any more pages than if I wrote them and then cut them.

So that’s the plan today, to get this scene down. I’ve done some mulling and managed to streamline my idea, but I guess we’ll see how successful that was when I actually start to write.

It finally stopped raining here long enough for the deck to mostly dry out. It won’t last, there’s more rain coming, but for now, it’s nice. Plus, I can see all the buds on the trees around here and it’s fab to know they’ll be getting leafs soon.

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Another Step Forward

Friday, March 30th, 2007

In the Midnight Hour is up for preorder now at Barnes & Noble.com! It’s really starting to feel real now. Four months now and counting. Wow.

I’ve mentioned it before, but this is the book that I wanted to write forever before it sold. Ryne just came in and demanded I listen to her while she talked and talked about her people.

For those of you who haven’t listened to me talk about this story half a million times already, this is a paranormal romance and the blurb I use is:

When a troubleshooter for a society of magic users rescues a private investigator from a dark spell, she finds more than an ally as she faces down her former mentor.

The official Midnight Hour pages will go up on my website April 1st, including an excerpt. I’ll post a link here on that day.

I’ve been hard at work on the spin off book this week. It hasn’t been going as fast as I’d hoped, but it is going. I finished another chapter yesterday, which is both a blessing and a curse. Blessing because I’m glad to have it done. Curse because then I have to figure out what to do next.

Let’s see. I’ve started talking to the microwave. :-) It really irritates the hell out of me, though. It keeps beeping. So there I am hollering things like, “I heard you the first time.” And “Hang on, I’ll be there in a minute.” Damn, I wish there was some way to turn off those reminder beeps. I don’t want to hear them.

My neck and shoulders are so stiff that my right thumb goes numb, so I’ve been hollering at my body too. :-) I’ve developed a stabbing pain just under the elbow of my left arm and my left thumb is aching, probably from the rain. (I injured it in a car accident about 8 years ago.) So there you have a it, a litany of my woes.

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Light Warriors

Saturday, March 24th, 2007

Since I first came up with the idea for In the Midnight Hour, I’d tried and tried to think of a name for the series. Okay, it’s only two books right now, but hey, that’s a series! And it has the potential to go on indefinitely depending on how it’s received.

I’d thought about calling it The Gineal Series after the name of Ryne’s people, but that was pretty boring and certainly not catchy. Besides, it says nothing really about the books. Then I thought The Troubleshooters because Ryne is a magical one of those. Except I think Suzanne Brockmann calls her series Troubleshooters, doesn’t she? If not her, then there’s someone. It was so frustrating. Today, though, it came to me.

The Light Warriors.

I did a search online, both on a search engine and at Amazon and the only thing I turned up was a role-playing game and a book from a vanity publisher. Hurray! The Light Warriors can be used!

I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. Ryne’s official title is laoch solas which means warrior of light in either Gaelic or the Gineal language–whichever works. :-) I’m all excited about this now. I actually have a cool series name!

And in other news, I have all the windows open in my house–the first time since the cold weather set in last fall–and it’s heavenly. I love getting some fresh air in here.

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Imagine a Catchy and Exciting Title Here

Thursday, March 22nd, 2007

I needed a high res image of my cover for In the Midnight Hour and I finally received it yesterday. There were two images attached to the email, one smaller and one big one. The big one opened without any problems, but the cover only had the image and my name and title. I was hoping for a version with my quote and with the paranormal romance graphic my publisher uses. I decided it must be on the smaller image and worked on trying to get it open. This was a jpg file, but I kept getting an unsupported file type message.

I think this might be one of those situations where being pretty good with computers isn’t a good thing. Most people would have tried a couple of things and given up, but not me. I knew I could get that damn thing open–somehow–but even my graphics program wouldn’t show the thing. After much mucking around, I did get it open, but it was just a smaller version of the same picture in the big file. So all that for nothing. Sigh. Anyway, I sent the big image off for the postcard and resized it for the website.

That’s been the other project I’ve been trying to do this week–get the Midnight Hour pages ready to go up on the website. It isn’t horribly time consuming as far as creating the design/layout goes. That’s already done for other book pages and it’s just a matter of replicating it. The place where I am running into an issue is with the excerpt. First, I had to choose a scene. With the help of a friend, I did. Then I had to find my contract and refresh my memory on how many words I’m allowed to post. 1500. Seemed like a lot when I read it, but it boils down to about 6 pages and the scene is something like 8-9 pages. I started trimming. I’m close to 1500 words now, but I’m wondering if I cut too much out. :-(

This started me thinking: Why 1500 words? Why not 2500 words? I could have gotten the entire scene up with 2500 words. Why the limit at all? Were there writers posting too much of their books?

Anyway, I’m finding this very restrictive and it’s taking up too much time. I wanted these pages up by April 1, too. :-( And I don’t think I have a 6 page scene early enough in the book to have it make any sense to someone reading it. Actually, I’m not sure I have a 6 page scene in the book. ;-) I write a little long. In fact, in Crimson Veil, I had scenes that were 26 pages long!

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Action!

Wednesday, March 21st, 2007

I love the vernal equinox. From here on out, the days keep getting longer and I love that. When I was younger, one of my friends told me that at the moment of equinox–7:07 last night to be exact–you can make an egg stand up and stay up. I tried it and it worked. Of course, I did it on berber (sp?) carpeting so maybe the ridges helped it stand, but it was still really cool. I didn’t do this last night, but I thought about it.

This morning I woke up thinking about starting a book with action. I’ve read a lot of contest entries over the years that have begun that way and I can’t think of one that worked. Quite frankly, I didn’t care what happened to the characters because I didn’t know them. This morning, though, I thought about how In the Midnight Hour starts with action. I don’t know if this was something that was working it’s way through my subconscious or what the deal was because it wasn’t anything I was actively worrying over, but I had an answer when I woke up: I don’t start immediately with action.

Yeah, the first chapter has a fight scene, but I think I begin it early enough that the reader gets to know a little bit about my heroine and there’s some interaction with another character before Ryne confronts her assignment. The first chapter contains a lot of world building and a lot of characterization, but it’s done through action and not an info dump, so that’s why I think it works.

Sometimes it amazes me what’s going on in my head–especially the stuff I don’t know about. ;-)

Is anyone else really tired still? I don’t know if I’m still adjusting to the time change or what, but I’m still exhausted. I couldn’t get out of bed this morning and now I’m typing this entry as fast as I can because I have to get ready for work in a minute. I just couldn’t move. I hit the snooze as many times as I could and still laid there, not wanting to move. It’s been this way all week and I’m getting tired of being tired. :-)

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Color Coded Chaos

Monday, March 19th, 2007

I was making all kinds of notes yesterday about the WIP. (I’m not calling it the book from hell any longer because that has negative connotations and I’m trying to think positively.) I like the legal pads, but with 8.5×11 paper. I used pink and lilac and I had a set that was supposed to be lilac, but it’s grayer than my other lilac and I realized that I need more colors. :-) I have a list of things I need to go back and fix, a list of things I need to do yet in the story, and my list of chapter goals. I was also writing down a few other things that escape my mind right now, but I was thinking, wow, I wish I had more colors of paper. Do you realize how limited colored lined paper is? If I wanted paper without lines, the sky’s the limit. With lines? Not so much.

I like the idea of color coding this way, but let’s be honest here: I probably wouldn’t remember what the color signified anyway and I’d have to glance over what I’d written. I really miss my memory. I think it was my second book that killed the most memory cells in my brain. :-/

Last night, after my brain had turned off for the day, I began working on my website. I want to load some of the pages for In the Midnight Hour on April 1. I need to find my contract and look up the word limit on excerpts. I can’t remember what it is, but I think I’m over it at about 2000 words. That’ll mean some surgical editing to bring the scene in within my contract’s specifications. I also need my cover. Not just for my website either. I have other promo things that need it and are coming due. And I also worked on my trivia page for the book. TBH, with my thoughts centered on the WIP, I’m having a hard time remembering things to list on the page. I might end up with a really abbreviated version.

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