It's release day!

Finally, after all this waiting, In the Midnight Hour is available in bookstores everywhere!

I think I have to do a quick happy dog dance. :-) I keep saying this, but it's true--Midnight Hour is a very special book for me. I love all my books and all my heroes and heroines, but there's just something about this one... I can't put it into words.

The story has magic, suspense, action, adventure, and the sexual tension between Ryne and Deke is pretty darn explosive. There's even humor since Deke has such a smart mouth. They strike sparks off each other and yet Ryne and Deke complement each other beautifully.

For those of you new to the blog, here's a little blurb about the book:

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 IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR.

I've also had some great responses to the book:

"Patti O'Shea is a voice and talent to be reckoned with. IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR is gripping and wonderful, everything a paranormal should be." ~Sherrilyn Kenyon - NY Times Bestselling Author

"O'Shea ratchets up the paranormal thrills with this inventive and clever new tale." ~Romantic Times Book Reviews

"Dramatic, funny, and exciting, IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR is a story not to be missed." ~Romance Reviews Today

"[T]his book just blew me away." ~The Best Reviews

I even have a super cool fabulous video for Midnight Hour! COS Productions did an absolutely incredible job. You can check it out at In the Midnight Hour Video.

Find Out More About MIDNIGHT HOUR

I hope y'all will give this book a try.

That ends my commercial for this Tuesday. :-)

When I watered my flowers on Friday evening, all was well. When I went out to water them on Saturday evening, the vicious killer rabbit had struck again! Adding insult to injury, he was standing less than ten feet from my tree ring when I walked out of the house and he didn't move! He just sat there even as I walked down to the flowers with the hose in my hand. Finally, as I neared firing range, he hopped away. It was only then that I saw the damage he'd caused to my sole remaining Sumatra Lily. Yes, the heartless fiend had eaten nearly every leaf off the plant!

I was enraged. I swore at the rabbit, called him all kinds of names, but none of it made me feel better. Once again, the monster had bypassed the free flowers and chomped on the ones I'd had to pay for! There was only one thing to do. When I got back to the house, I picked up the Bat Phone and called my dad.

My tree ring is now surrounded by chicken wire and my peony tree has tall plastic fencing around it. The next move is yours, evil rabbit. Let's see you bypass the fence.

In other news, I managed to cross three items off my To Do List! Hurrah! I'm feeling so much better. Of course, a couple of the items still on there will take a lot of work, but the important thing is the numbers are going lower. :-)

Yes, it's movie review time again! I've been watching baseball lately so the movies have been sitting, but yesterday the Cubs weren't televised and I had no desire to watch the Twins.

Last night's film was Deja Vu starring Denzel Washington. Summing this one up without giving away some spoilers is going to be difficult, but I'll try.

Denzel is an ATF agent investigating a ferry that was blown up on the Mississippi River near New Orleans. It was a terrorist act and there's an alphabet soup full of agencies trying to find out who was responsible. One of these agencies recruits Denzel to work with them because they need someone who can study a crime scene quickly. But they're not always telling him the truth and the secrets they're keeping are mind blowing.

Not a great summary, but it's the best I can do without giving away spoilers.

Anyway, my thoughts on this movie. Denzel Washington was looking fine and he played a very likable character that the audience could root for. He's by far the best part of the film and the main reason why I stuck through it until the end.

The plot sounded promising and interesting, but while it had potential, I don't think it was realized. When it was advertised on television, it sounded as if there'd be a fairly strong romance going on, but that's not true. There's pretty much no romance at all between Denzel's character and Claire. I could live with that. The biggest problem was that for a movie that was supposed to a taut thriller, I thought there was very little suspense.

Another problem was that the only character I cared about was Doug (Denzel). I didn't know his partner, so I didn't give a rip what happened to him and I didn't care about Claire. Although we were given peeks into her life and that was supposed to make her real, there was simply very little depth to what we were seeing, and consequently, she came across as two-dimensional.

Bottom line: I can't recommend this movie.
2.5 stars and that's only because of Denzel

I guest blogged today at Magical Musings about a couple of my Pre-Book writing rituals. If you're interested, head on over and check it out. :-)

One of my rituals involves finding a theme song for the book. The song for In the Midnight Hour is Here I Go Again by Whitesnake. This was the one that popped up almost from the beginning as I wrote the story and it stuck all the way through. It didn't work that way for In Twilight's Shadow, my June 2008 book. I thought the theme was Carry On Wayward Son by Kansas, but by the time I was 3/4 of the way through writing the story, I knew that wasn't right. I think, and I'm still not 100% positive, that the song is going to end up being On the Dark Side by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band.

I've been trying to come up with Logan and Shona's theme (and also a title for their darn story), but I haven't had any luck. I do have Kel's, however. (Kel, BTW, is Logan's twin.) The working song is If Everyone Cared by Nickelback, but since I have no heroine or story for Kel yet (and I shouldn't since Logan is first), it'll be a while and who knows if it will stick? I've got Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls going through my head, so maybe that's Logan's song. Or maybe I just heard it on the radio recently. ;-)

Some day, I'm going to burn a CD with all my theme songs on it and just sing along with it in the car or something.

Anyway, I crossed another item off my To Do List yesterday and I hope to finish a few more this weekend. I love crossing things off. It makes me feel sooo good. :-) Things will definitely lighten up after Tuesday when In the Midnight Hour is released. I just need to have about 90% of my list completed before the 31st. Gah!

Yesterday was my day for computer issues and this put me even farther behind on things. It started out with my antivirus software. It was on the verge of expiring so I figured I'd just take care of that real quick. What was I thinking? Quick? On whose planet?

First of all, I couldn't get in on Firefox, I had to switch to IE. Then the upgrade to the 2007 version is the same cost as the renewal fee. Hey, I have high speed internet, I might as well go to 2007. It downloaded fast enough, but installing it was another matter. That took forever and required babysitting on my part. :-(

My next challenge was updating my website. I've been trying to do it since Monday and I still couldn't get it to transfer. I emailed the company who hosts my site and he was supposed to have fixed it, only I'd get one page over and then I'd get the error message again. I was planning to email them back, but it was getting late and I was tired. I attempted the upload again this morning and everything worked. I don't know what the problem was.

Doesn't sound like too much, does it? To me either, but it ate up most of my evening. :-( Very frustrating. But as of right now, my computer is protected and my website is updated, so I guess all's well that ends well.

Yesterday was one busy day! I spent my lunch hour at the Evil Day Job and my evening once I got home from the EDJ trying to catch up with the cyber world. I didn't make it. I still have email to respond to and blog comments and other stuff. I started a triage method of dealing with life last night--what's most critical that I need to handle right now?

I felt like I was running all evening--I didn't even get to sit down and watch the Cubs game last night--yet I couldn't seem to make any progress. I'm going to try again today. :-)

One of the things I forgot to mention about waiting in the hospital emergency room was how I passed the time. At first, I was too anxious to do anything, but once they took my dad's vitals and everything was okay, I was able to relax some. I had one book in the car with me: Open Season by Linda Howard. I've already read this book a couple of times, but desperate times and all that, so I jammed it in my purse in case I needed it.

I really, really, really needed it. Like I mentioned yesterday, 6 hours. I read OS twice. Yep, twice while I waited. After the second time I read it, I looked for magazines. The only one near me was something like Home Handyman. I finished that, too. The only other reading material near me was children's books. I was debating starting on them, that's how desperate I was.

Conclusion? I must keep more books in the car with me just in case. This showed me the importance of being prepared.

In other news, I was interviewed yesterday by The Wall Street Journal! Not about my writing, which would have been totally super cool, but about my buying things from HSN and QVC, which was still cool, but not totally super cool. ;-) I'm hoping something I said makes it into the article and that--fingers crossed--the fact I'm a published author gets mentioned. Maybe it'll be enough to drive people to my website to check out my books.

I think I've mentioned before that I need to stop complaining about how boring my life is because I don't like it when it gets exciting. Yesterday was one of those times.

I stopped by my parents' house after work and my dad says that his hand is tingling, and because he hasn't heard back from his doctor's office, he's going to the emergency room. Instant stress. I drove him and my mom to the hospital and I'm worried the whole time that he's having a heart attack. He was worried he was having a stroke. And we had to wait before they took him in and checked his blood pressure, pulse, etc.

Then more waiting before they took him in for a CAT scan, then more waiting to see the doctor to get the results. Really, really, really a lot of waiting. Even when they called him back to a room, the waiting wasn't over. They wanted more tests and that took another 2 hours worth of time. In total, we spent 6 hours in the emergency room last night.

My dad is fine. They think it's just a pinched nerve, thank God. He has a follow up appointment with his own doctor next week just to be safe, but it sounds like all is well.

Because I didn't get home until late last night and then it took me quite a while to relax enough to sleep, I didn't hear the alarm this morning. :-( I woke up ten minutes before I had to be out the door. I took the fastest shower ever and I did make it to the Evil Day Job (EDJ) on time, but I didn't have a chance to check the web or read email, let alone answer anyone.

So, please bear with me. I'll get to all the notes and comments before I go to bed tonight, but I'm running behind in a lot of areas right now.

I received an email yesterday to tell me that Eternal Nights is an Aspen Gold Award finalist for Best Paranormal! Whoo hoo!!! I had to send out two more books for the final round and my dad's going to mail them for me today.

I tried to update my website last night, but I couldn't get on. That was hugely frustrating. But since I couldn't get email either or websites, I'm suspecting the problem was on my end. I'm going to try again if I have time this morning.

So I've been lamenting to anyone who stops moving long enough to be cornered that I have characters (Logan and Shona), but no story for them. I think I finally have a plot! Yea! I have a lot of details left to work out, including how the heck Logan gets himself into Shona's life to protect her, and who the bad guy (or woman) is, but at least I have the main idea. It actually came to me Sunday night while I was lying in bed, trying to fall asleep. Of course, I immediately got excited and had to get up and send an email to my friend and see what she thought. Um, even with the time difference between Minneapolis and Paris, I'm sure she was still asleep, but I couldn't wait. Besides, by writing it down, I wouldn't forget it myself. Nighttime ideas don't necessarily remain in the morning.

I'm a little frustrated by the way the information is trickling in, but I was so exhausted creatively that signs of recovery are welcome--even if I'd like the ideas to flow a little faster. My plan is not to rush anything and let the trickle continue.

Items on the To Do List accomplished: 0
Many other things that cropped up and had to be handled: Endless, but accomplished

Wouldn't it be cool to control time? Slow it down if you're running late or if it's the weekend and you don't want the work week to start up again so quickly. Or speed it up while you're stuck at the Evil Day Job (EDJ) so that you can get out of there. Writing time would be slowed down, expanded until it seemed to last forever and EDJ time would flash by in the blink of an eye.

Weekends. Ah, weekends, they'd be eternal. Bliss. Joy. Happiness.

And suddenly I'm struck by how very sad it is that I totally live for the weekends and can't wait to get away from the EDJ. Part of it is the worst coworker in the history of the world. My attitude would probably improve greatly if he wasn't there. But the only thing that would make me completely happy is to write full time. (Although, I'll confess, while I was working on the book from hell, the EDJ wasn't looking quite so bad. ;-)

But I digress, back to controlling time. Plane trips would be over in a flash. I used to love flying, but those days are long gone. Vacations would last long enough to relax and yet still have enough time to see/do everything I wanted to see/do.

Summers would never end. Winter would last a day. If that. Oh, wow, I want to control the weather, too, and the sun! It would always be Summer Solstice--I love the long days. Sorry Southern hemisphere. :-) Minnesota would be 75 and sunny every day.

I guess I better quit here. I'm depressing myself because I can't control time, the weather or the sun. Yet. There's always hope, right? ;-)

Sorry. I just felt like being kind of silly today and thinking about how to avoid going back to the EDJ and having longer weekends was on my mind.

I think I maybe might have found a coffee table! It's round, which I'm not 100% thrilled about, and at 28" wide, it's slightly bigger than I'd like, but overall, I like it. I have to go to the store and look at it in person, though. It was in an advertisement my parents received, and while it was on sale, it's still more than I wanted to spend and it's not a decision I'm making from a picture. :-) But it has the shelf and the drawer that I wanted, plus it's on casters for easy sliding around while I vacuum, which is a definite asset. The end tables that go with it are much too big, (and outrageously expensive, more so than the coffee table) so I'd still have to search for those, but the coffee table is the critical piece of furniture I need. The end tables can wait.

It's crowded in my head right now. Not only do I have the characters for the proposals I'm sort of working on, but I have characters for stories I don't plan to write hanging around as well. It's actually kind of cool since I haven't had this in years and I take it as a good sign. I really wish, though, that I could figure out what Logan and Shona's story is and who their bad guy is so that I could move forward with that proposal. I've got the first chapter in my head--mostly--but that's about it.

I think that's all I have to say today. =8-O No one is more shocked than me. :-) Enjoy your Sunday, y'all.

I've already been outside doing some weeding and helping my dad put down more rock in the area by my house. While I was outside, I also took some pictures of my flowers and garden so I could share them here.

Carnage: Rabbit Attack

Carnage: Rabbit Attack 2

Toad Lily:

Toad Lily with picture of what it should look like:

Peony Tree:

I do have some success. Here's one of my tiger lilies:

And another:

The Deck with Wind Spinner:

And the front porch flowers are doing well too:


The white stuff you see in some of the pictures are the mothballs to hopefully rabbit-proof the garden. My dad is talking about using chicken fencing to protect the peony tree, so it might find itself boxed in shortly.

I didn't take any pictures of the rock in front of the house. Rock is rock and it's not too terribly interesting. I'm hoping, though, that these 8 extra bags will keep the weeds down. Still could have used another 2 or 3 bags, but my dad is talking about driving out to Home Depot later, so we might get more then.

I'm sure this is more than you ever wanted to know, but I've invested so much time and energy in my plants and flowers, that I have to share somewhere.

I went down to water and weed my flower bed yesterday afternoon and between Wednesday evening when I watered and Thursday afternoon, that damn rabbit returned. This time she wasn't content to merely chomp on my lily leafs. Oh, no, this time she gnawed off some of the flower buds as well. And left them on the ground!

That rabbit is so lucky I would never dream of deliberately harming any living thing, because if I wasn't such an animal lover, I would have gone hunting wabbit. :-) I was not happy.

When I finished weeding, I put out the SOS call to my dad. He came over with mothballs and strew them around the inside of the tree ring and near my peony tree. This is supposed to be better at keeping rabbits away than fencing, but if it doesn't work, he has some of that ready to go if we need to fall back to Plan B.

I swear, who would have guessed that plants were in such danger? First a cut worm, now a rabbit. It's a jungle out in suburbia and I've been oblivious.

I used my new handy, dandy garden tool and it worked fine. It's my only garden tool, so that's a good thing. :-) While I was weeding, I dug up a couple of the bulbs to see if they were mushy or okay. Both were solid, so I'm guessing the rest are fine as well and that next year they'll grown and bloom and be wonderful. If that's the case, it means there was only one fatality in my garden--a toad lily. Those weren't bulbs, so there are no second chances for them. Three are up and small, but at least that's something.

My editor emailed me yesterday asking me to provide some input for back cover copy. Despite my college training to be an advertising copywriter, I totally stink at this. I came up with something that wasn't totally horrible, but I reread it this evening (hours after I sent it) and realized I'd totally left out everything about the romance. It's all about the action and story. Picture me slapping my forehead.

I'm actually doing better at the one line to describe the book thing. I came up with something for In the Midnight Hour that I really loved and I think what I came up with for In Twilight's Shadow is pretty good too. Not as good as Midnight, but hey, lightning doesn't usually strike twice. :-)

And last bit of news, Barnes & Noble put up a link to my book video on the page for Midnight Hour. It's on the sidebar and I'm not sure how easily seen it is, although I spotted it immediately. :-)

I started writing again last night. It was just a little over a page, so not too much and I have no idea if I'll keep what I have or not, but I'm looking at this as exploring my characters. So Logan is at a family barbecue. It turns out he has four younger sisters in addition to his twin brother. His parents live in Naperville, IL (The Gineal Company is based out of Chicago), but Logan lives in the Seattle area because he's a troubleshooter and that's his territory. He's also worried about his brother, which I knew, but there was also a recognition that he wasn't going to be able to force Kel to talk. Which I'm taking to mean that whatever happened to Kel happened long enough ago for Logan to reach that realization.

I learned that neither of his parents are troubleshooters, but that one or more of his sisters might be. I already knew Kel was a troubleshooter too, so that wasn't news. Logan is close with his family--that I suspected--and his parents worry. I saw it focused on Logan since he's the one who received the call-out, but it encompasses all their children. Everyone in the family is worried about Kel. Well, maybe not the two youngest since they have the oblivion of teenagers, but everyone else is although they conceal it.

A lot of discovery for one page, but then I didn't write all this. More information came to me as I did write though and that's why I like this process of discovery.

Gotta run!

I like to use theme songs for my books. I've mentioned this before, including that it started by accident. I'd been finishing up Ravyn's Flight while listening to a DEVO CD and Girl U Want just fit the story so perfectly, I adopted it as the theme. Ever since then, I've always picked a song for each book.

You'd think that since In the Midnight Hour was titled because of the lyrics in a Billy Idol song that Rebel Yell would be its theme, but it's not. As much was I wanted to use that, it didn't fit nearly as well as Here I Go Again by Whitesnake. "Like a drifter I was born to walk alone." Those lyrics fit Ryne (the heroine) as she was in the beginning of the story.

Then there's In Twilight's Shadow, my 2008 book. I was positive that book's theme was Carry On Wayward Son by Kansas. It fit Creed (the hero) to a tee. Only as I was writing the book and the story became less about Creed and more about Maia, the song changed in my mind too. When I list the theme song on the trivia page of this book, I think it's going to be On the Dark Side by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. It came on the radio one day while I was still writing this story and I was like, yeah!

I really, really want to use Wicked Game by Chris Isaak as a theme song, but it doesn't work for the story I want to use it on and I can't force it. I don't have a song for this one yet. Actually, I don't have a story for this one yet, just two characters who are kind of talking to me and getting me interested in sharing their story. Or maybe stories since the hero has this brother.... :-)

Maybe I'll get a chance to use Wicked Game yet. ;-)

I went out to water my lilies yesterday evening and I noticed something seemed a little off on one of the plants. It took me a second to realize that all the leafs except for three at the very top had been chomped off to the stalk!

Rabbits!

Specifically one fat rabbit I've seen hopping in my backyard. Grrr!

This necessitated picking up the bat phone and calling in my parents. :-) My dad didn't have the right fencing to keep the rabbit out, but he thought mothballs would do the trick. He's going to get some and put them out for me today.

I can't believe my plants survived cutworms only to face the destructive force of a hungry rabbit. It's a jungle in suburbia--no one realizes just how much peril my plants are facing! The rabbit had also munched on my toad lily, but apparently didn't like those leafs since she left most of that alone. Either that or she'd gorged on my starfighter lily and was too full to eat the toad lily.

This is war!

I had to turn the air conditioning on again last night. We've had really nice weather for the past week or so with dew points in the 40s or low 50s, but yesterday it became humid again. I know. Southerners would be laughing at me over this humidity level, but hey, after the nice, dry air we have been having, this was sticky.

Anyway, I was sorry that it was back to the AC at home. I get something I call an air conditioner cough and it was just going away. :-(

I read a really interesting article yesterday on one of the critical battles of the American Revolution and of the general who led it. Greene (his first name slips my mind) has apparently been largely forgotten throughout history, but if it weren't for him, we probably wouldn't be the US.

I also read an article about the Casbah in Algiers. I learned all kinds of stuff I'd never known before. There were two pictures side by side of the same place inside the city. One was taken about the turn of the century and the other was taken while the writer was there. It was amazing how little had changed.

Does anyone get that new Heineken commercial? You know the one where they beer can turns slightly from side to side while a masculine voice says, "I want it like that." And the feminine voice responds, "You got it like that." Every time it comes on, I try to figure out what the lyrics have to do with the beer and I've yet to come up with any answer. I don't find the "singing" annoying, although with the repeated lyrics, you'd think I would. It's the meaning that's been making me nuts. :-)

It turned out I was right about Logan being the hard one to find a picture of. I thought I had a guy that would work, but I wasn't 100% happy with him so I decided I'd keep looking while I searched for Shona. I ended up finding a model pretty quickly after I blogged yesterday that works for her, but I never did find anyone for Logan. All the male models were either too old, too young, too girly, their hair was wrong, their faces were wrong, etc. Usually, though, I can come up with someone. I might just have to go with the guy I originally thought was okay.

It was also baseball heaven yesterday. All three of my teams were on television and all three of them swept the teams they were playing. Yea!

I used to be able to write without finding pictures of my hero and heroine. I'd start the story and then at some point along the way, I'd look for some images of them. Now, though, I've somehow reached a place where I need the pictures of them before I begin. Maybe it's because shots of the hero and heroine jump start the flow on who they are.

Take the shots of Ryne and Deke for example. As soon as I saw these models, I went "that's them!" The attitudes... Wow. I knew Ryne was edgy before I began searching for pictures because with this story I wrote the first chapter or two prior to looking for the photos, and when I saw this model, I knew it was my Ryne. Same thing with Deke. I didn't have to look very far or very hard to find him, but I hadn't written a word with him yet and didn't know what his personality was. Until I saw the picture. There was something on the model's face that said "smart ass." And that's when Deke finally started to talk.

Last night, I began my search for Logan and Shona. (Hey, the RWA website was down--probably crashed from all us non-conference goers--and I couldn't check up on the awards show so I had to do something.) I'm still searching for them this morning. I have a sense of Logan already. He's affable, a good guy, a good brother, son, etc, but he's a troubleshooter, which means he's also tough. Very tough. It's been difficult to find anyone who fits my image of him, but I think I finally have a possibility. I'll have to look at the pictures I saved more closely and see if he holds up.

I actually thought Shona would be the easier of the two to find, but it's looking like I was wrong about that. I don't know exactly what she looks like, but I'm sure I'll know her when I see her and that hasn't happened yet.

This is also reminding me that I really need to get my house networked. My high speed connection is on the desktop and it's not comfortable to sit in that chair for very long. I'd much rather be in the living room using my laptop to surf while I watched baseball, but trying to look at a lot of pictures while on a dial up connection would make me insane.

It still feels weird not to be at the RWA conference. I'm seeing pictures, hearing stories and it just seems surreal. I miss not being able to see my friends, my agent, and my editors, but man, I don't miss the traveling, and I used to love flying, too.

The other thing I won't miss is how the conference left me drained--physically, emotionally and creatively. Some people come back from National feeling all fired up to write, but I never did. It usually took me a week or longer to feel like writing again. I've been to a couple of smaller conferences--one in Minneapolis and two in Eugene, OR--and after those I was excited to write. Must be the size of RWA and the constant go, go, go that makes the difference.

The other thing I'm going to miss is the award show tonight. Sometimes they go on too long (Reno anyone?), but sometimes they're great fun and I always have friends or at least acquaintances up for the Rita. It's huge fun to cheer them on. The RWA website is supposed to post the winners tonight as they happen and I'm going to check in and see who won. I can't wait!

I think Logan and I have settled on a last name. Finally. I'm vowing to never again complain about characters who come in and tell me who they are. I used to envy authors who were able to choose their hero and heroine's names, but after going through The Great Surname Hunt with Logan, I've changed my mind. It's much easier when they come in and say: My name is Ryne Frasier. :-)

Okay, it isn't quite that simple. With the exceptions of Cai and Mika who did tell me their names, I usually get something along the lines of, "My name starts with an R." And of course, Ryne is not a common name to begin with and only one of my baby books had it under girls' names since it's mostly used for boys.

Speaking of Ryne, In the Midnight Hour comes out in just over two weeks and I'm getting nervous every time I think about it. I totally want this story to do well for a lot of reasons. I also get anxious when I think of all the things I have to do around the time the book comes out. I'm guest blogging at several places, which means writing different posts for each blog. I'm speaking about the book to my local writing chapter and to a local readers group, which means working out some kind of outline of what I want to talk about for each place. The stuff I'd say to my writers group wouldn't interest readers and vice versa--probably. I have a newsletter to send out, which means I have to write that. And my To Do List is on my desk at the EDJ (Evil Day Job) and I can't remember what else is on it. Too much. :-(

I'm stressing myself out thinking of all the things I have to do, including regular household stuff like cleaning, laundry and weeding the flowers, so I think I'm going to stop here before I really put myself on edge. :-) My writing chapter meeting is today, so I need to get going anyway.

I absolutely love Friday the 13th because I always have a great day. The skeptics will say that this date is no different from any other, that people just remember bad things that happen and say, 'it's Friday the 13th' and ignore anything that contradicts their beliefs. For me, they'd say the opposite. I think these skeptics are wrong.

I've honestly never had a Friday the 13th that was bad. Not all of them have been stellar, of course, but nothing I perceived as negative has ever happened. This morning started out tremendously and I just expect on it staying this good all day.

So far I've had two great reviews show up for In the Midnight Hour! The first is from Romance Junkies. They gave the book 5 Ribbons and said:

IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR is certainly a book you will not be able to put down until you have read the final word.

Romance Reader at Heart gave Midnight Hour a Top Pick and said:

Patti O'Shea delivers a gripping, tale full of suspense, danger, and attraction. IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR is a true enjoyment to read.

A pair of great reviews for a fabulous Friday the 13th. :-)

Last night, QVC had a scrapbooking show on. I missed the beginning of it, but saw the last 45 minutes. They had some interesting stuff including some glitter chip board letters and colored paper with adhesive already on the back. Just to make it a little tougher, the One Time Only was a collection of paper. I have a huge weakness for paper.

I am proud to announce that I didn't order anything! Yes, it's true. I was strong. Yea!

I overslept again. By the same length of time I did on the day from heck. This time, however, I did make it to work on time.

One of the first things I saw when I checked online is that an author who used to write for Leisure/Love Swept had died. Since I haven't seen anything from a firsthand source, I'm not going to give her name even though I've seen the report in multiple locations.

Reading this was like taking a kick in the chest. This woman was someone who was very gracious and welcoming and helpful when I first came on the loop. My first release was also out in the same month as one of her books and she was kind enough to read Ravyn's Flight and compliment me on it. I did buy her book, but it's still sitting TBR. I always meant to read it, it's just that I've read so few books in the last five years. Now it's too late.

I was just thinking about her a couple of days ago, because even though she doesn't write for Leisure any longer, she stayed on our loop and posted from time to time and she hadn't done so lately. I just thought she was busy, like we all get. The last time the RWA Conference was in Dallas, she organized a get-together for all the authors, but this year--nothing. Now I know why.

We weren't friends, more like casual online acquaintances, but this author touched my life. Part of me is hoping the reports were wrong. Most of me fears it's true.

I did get my printer problem solved yesterday, although it took hours. I plugged the printer into my laptop and everything worked fine and then I plugged my other printer into the USB port that held my laser printer and that printer worked. So clearly there was no problem with either the port or the printer.

I ended up uninstalling the laser printer and all its software and then reinstalling. I had an error message, but once I got around that, the printer was back to normal.

Last night, while I was waiting for the slowest computer in the world to reboot, I looked at the clock and thought, "If I were at National, I'd be autographing books at the literacy signing right now."

There was a slight pang. The literacy signing is one of the few autographings I do, and while I enjoy it a lot, it's also torturous for me. I'm so darn shy! Plus, it takes so much of me to hold a conversation with a stranger that I have trouble signing a book at the same time. I don't know how other authors manage to chit chat and spell correctly. :-/

Yesterday was one of those days. Not a day from hell, that would have been easier because when you realize everything is going to be a disaster, you stop trying and kind of entrench until it passes.

I overslept more than my usual 10-20 minutes. Not enough to forgo coffee, but enough that I was in a huge rush. Traffic was bad, but not bad enough that I didn't think I'd make it to work on time. But I was late enough to get caught by the train, which meant I needed to hurry to punch. Then the guy in front of me couldn't get the badge reader to activate and let us in the door and by the time I made it to the time clock it was 6:00 on the nose. That means tardy.

I meant to blog when I got to my desk, but I had a project waiting for me. Again, things went just a little bit wrong, and by the time I'd gotten it all straightened out, I believed I'd already posted. It was in the afternoon that I realized I hadn't.

So I had to stay 6 minutes longer to make up for being on time instead of early, which meant two buses full of the guys who smash your bags were dropped off in my parking lot and I had to fight a huge crowd to get out of here.

Again, everything was an annoyance, but nothing really horrible, so I just kept on plugging away.

I tried to do a map of where I'd been online and when I clicked cities, nothing happened. I drove over a curb with the urban assault vehicle. The checks I ordered arrived with my old address on them.

Despite all this, I didn't realize the universe was against me. Not yet.

Right before I'd decided to go to bed, I remembered that I'd wanted to print out the two proposals I'd been working on before I started In Twilight's Shadow; it would be my lunch time project.

My printer wouldn't print.

Not out of WordPerfect, not out of Notepad, not off the internet. It had worked on Saturday--I think that was the last time I printed. I rebooted the slowest desktop computer in the world.

An eternity later--Nada.

I clicked on the troubleshooter, and a million years later when that finally came up, and I ran through suggestion after suggestion with no luck. Finally, after 10pm, I decided to save it for another time and go to bed.

That's when it finally dawned on me what kind of day I'd had. Not the day from hell, but the day from heck. :-)

Here's hoping I can fix my laser printer today.

Whatever happened to telephone etiquette?

I'm not talking about rude cell phone usage--that's a topic that could go on forever--I mean regular old telephone courtesy?

Last night, I didn't get to bed until nearly 10:30, which is late enough, but what really made things bad was the phone call I got last night. At 11:05. I was nearly asleep when I heard it ring. It was a wrong number, but the damage was done--I didn't fall back asleep until after 1am.

It used to be that you never called anyone before 9am or after 9pm. If something was important, you could push it a little, but if the phone rang after 10pm at night, the immediate thought was: OMG, someone died. Now, it seems like people call any time of the day or night, completely unconcerned with such niceties like people sleeping.

When did this change?

I'll confess, I hate the phone anyway. The proliferation of email and the ability to handle things online is something that I love because I don't have to use the phone. :-) It's possible I might be slightly biased against any phone calls.

I know my dad has received phone calls from lodge guys at all hours, too, and these are older men who you'd think would follow the unspoken, old "rules" about calling.

I miss the days where people adhered to never calling anyone, not even your best friend, after 9pm. Sigh.

Another confession: I have caller ID and I only answer phone calls if I feel like it. :-) The phone was installed for my convenience, not the convenience of the caller. Of course, it still breaks my concentration (Or my sleep) because I have to get up to check who's calling, but it's better than killing myself to get to the phone only to find out someone is trying to sell me something.

And now for something completely different. ;-) It poured here yesterday afternoon for a really long time. Lots of lightning and a little bit of hail too. My poor lilies were mostly protected from the pounding, but we got so much rain that there was standing water in the tree ring. :-( I can only hope they don't drown before it can drain off.

The severe weather drove me off the computer and the sky looked funny enough that I tried to figure out what I'd need to grab to take to the basement if the tornado sirens went off. They didn't, thank goodness, but the storms and the lightning lasted for a long time so I was off the computer for a long time. There went my plans to work on a proposal or to even answer email.

I'm not quite sure where the morning went today and I totally hate that. Weekends are too precious to lose time like this. Sigh.

It's really hot and humid here this weekend. I know, Southerners are probably laughing their butts off about now. But we've had a pretty moderate summer this year, and compared to what we've had so far, it is hot and humid. You're probably thinking, "oh God, no! She's going to talk about the weather again." Don't worry, I'm just setting the scene for the story to follow.

So my parents came over to beat the heat. They don't have air and I do. My dad was downstairs, putting together bookcases for me. At least for a while. He comes upstairs and tells me that my furnace (which also runs the air) is leaking water. I go downstairs and sure enough, there's water dripping out of places I didn't realize it could. He's worried it's going to short out the entire furnace unit thing and so was I. We had to turn off the AC! =8-O

He got on the phone and called some emergency number. Nope, water running like that is definitely not a good thing. The company (plumber maybe?) can't get anyone out until Monday. I picture an entire weekend in the steamy weather without air. Gulp.

But the guy tells my dad it's some piping or something that's probably clogged and my dad can probably take care of it himself. So with cell phone in hand, my dad gets walked through the process and it worked! I have air conditioning again! And it's a good thing, too. The air was off for maybe half an hour, 45 minutes at the most, and the temperature in the house had already risen 2 degrees.

As I write this, though, it's blissfully cool.

My second adventure of the day involved a bug. I was on my way to bed, glance up, and strolling across my wall near the ceiling is a big insect. I have no clue what it was, just that it was long and ugly. Thank God for the bug vac. I grabbed that, climbed up on the bed, sucked him off the wall and all was well.

No writing accomplished yesterday, but I did rip all my new CDs onto my MP3 player. Or as I like to call it, life support. Putting the headphones on and listening to tunes is the only way to tolerate Mister Congeniality. Now I have Billy Idol's Greatest Hits, Carrie Underwood, and Trace Adkins on my play list.

And to close out, this morning I'm finally getting the opening scene for Logan's story. I need his brother's name, though, darn it and no one is telling me what it is. Grrr. As I see it now, Logan's book is first and then the brother's story and something happened to him. Something serious enough that Logan is worried, which intrigues me. I'm off to go think about Logan and his family some more.

I've been up since around 7 this morning. I'm on my third load of laundry and that's about all I've managed to accomplish. :-/ Pretty sad, huh? I at least should have vacuumed or something. Oh, well, it's Saturday and I can be a slug if I want to, yes?

My parents will be coming over today. It's supposed to be really hot and humid here and I have air conditioning. I warned them to bring something to do. :-) I'm thinking I might start working on one of the proposals I promised my agent. It was sad yesterday; I didn't know what to do with myself without anything to write. :-( I did do a little reading on Tahiti and tried to come up with Logan's last name. He's still not telling me anything about that and not even giving me any hints. His brother kind of showed up in a peripheral kind of way. I didn't have a good sense of him either, just that his personality is darker than Logan's.

My lilies have itty bitty buds on them which leads me to believe that I'll have some flowers on them soon. Of course, I'll take pictures and post them here. :-) How could I not share if I manage to get blooms?

I think I'll quit here. I need to get more done than wash.

Yes, I overslept again. I think that makes every day this week? I did try to go to bed early last night, but unfortunately, about the time I was thinking that, I discovered HSN had a scrapbook festival going on. I know, normally I am a QVC girl, but hey, it's scrapbooking! Yes, I bought something. Sigh. It's called a Crop-a-Dile and it's for putting eyelets in your pages without having to bang with a hammer. I've never used eyelets before, but I'm sure that's only because I didn't have the proper tool. ;-)

Anyway, by the time I logged off the computer and everything and made it to bed, it was much later than I'd hoped. This oversleeping thing is really getting old. I'm so used to doing stuff in the morning, like blogging and answering email, and losing this time means finding other parts of the day where I can do these things. That's not always easy.

I tried to sit out on the deck yesterday afternoon when I got home from the EDJ, but that didn't work out real well for me. As I'm sitting there, a wasp came to visit. I went inside, got my handy dandy wasp-killing spray and went back out. Fortunately, he was gone. For a while. Yes, I ended up shooting my weapon. Twice.

I thought I'd finally gotten rid of him, but he paid another visit. Well, maybe it was a different wasp, it's hard to tell. I also had a visit from a big, huge bumblebee and a spider ran past me on the deck railing. Grrr! Enough was enough. I grabbed my book and the wasp spray and went back indoors where it was safe from insects.

Yesterday, I talked to the woman from my video production company and she said if I embed the trailer into my website to use You Tube or MySpace to drive the hits up and increase my visibility on the search engines. I originally had used You Tube on my website, but I didn't like how it looked after the video played. It shrunk my screen and brought up a whole bunch of other miniature images for people to click on. Veoh has a more aesthetically pleasing screen at the end and it's bigger, so I went with them. I guess maybe I'll be changing that back this afternoon. If you'd like to check out the bigger screen version, visit the Midnight Video page on my website.

Oh! Speaking of the website, I accidentally updated my Up Next page--I was going to wait till closer to the release of IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR--but decided not to take it down, so if you'd like to see what's next, take a look.

Sorry, I'm really, really, really late posting today. Overslept (again) by a longer margin and have been swamped at the Evil Day Job (EDJ) today. I was even busy during lunch today with promotional stuff for IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR.

I hope y'all had a good Fourth of July! My parents came over and we were going to have brats on the deck. The weather people on multiple stations all promised that the holiday would be rain-free and we might as well enjoy the nice evening, right?

I cleaned a little (the house needed it!) and got all my revision stuff and notes off the center island and my table. It looked so nice. I'm a total neat freak and hate clutter around me, but when I'm writing or revising, I like my notes handy which usually means piles on the center island and/or the kitchen table. I was very much admiring the clean and now-shining surfaces that I hadn't seen in so long. ;-)

So my parents showed up around 5pm and the sun was shining. As we're talking, the sky grew darker, and in less than ten minutes after they arrived, it was pouring! I mean coming down in buckets! So much for the weather guys.

We ended up doing our Fourth of July cookout in my kitchen and ate at my newly cleaned table. Good thing I put everything away, huh?

I kept telling everyone that when I finished this last book, I was having a drink. I rarely drink anything alcoholic--the last time was at RWA in Atlanta--and this is a big event for me. :-) My dad made me a drink called a melonball (Midori, vodka and OJ, I think) and I told him light on the Midori and vodka. He followed instructions, there was very small amounts of alcohol in there, but it still made me really, really sleepy. :-) Yep, I'm a total lightweight when it comes to drinking.

I was in bed before 9pm and didn't want to get up this morning. Either I need to drink more so that I get more accustomed to liquor or I need to have my yearly drink on a Friday or Saturday night. LOL! It's truly sad and pathetic.

Happy Fourth of July for those who celebrate! I finally have a holiday from the EDJ (Evil Day Job), my first since Christmas! Seven months is a heck of a long haul and I guess Independence Day has an extra meaning for me. :-) Finally, one day free of the EDJ! Hurrah!

Yesterday, I took care of some of the more interesting items on my To Do List. I was going to say pressing, but that would mean cleaning my house. :-) Aside from putting away all my papers related to In Twilight's Shadow, I didn't do anything like that. What I did do was update my website, www.pattioshea.com and my MySpace page. There's more I want to do on my website, but that's for later, when I have more time. I seriously either need a clone or more hours in my day. :-/

My plan for the day is to get outside and enjoy some sun. I'm so tired of being cooped up indoors and chained to the laptop. Of course, I do have things I need to handle today that involve the computer, including a backlog of email. Sigh. Something will have to give.

I think Logan and I might have settled on his last name. It's starting to feel right. Of course, I still have no story for him and Shona, but I have to trust that something will pop up. It always does.

I'm already running behind this morning. It's nearly 11am and I haven't done anything yet. Heck, I'm still blogging here! I really meant to be more productive than this.

Sorry I'm so late posting this morning. I overslept (again) and I had reports to do this morning at the EDJ, so this is the first opportunity I've had to write my blog.

So with a To-Do List a million items long, what did I do yesterday afternoon? Napped! I only meant to lie down for a short time, but it was another three hour marathon and I woke up groggy and crabby. I didn't get a thing done, and of course, after all that sleep in the afternoon, I had trouble sleeping last night. Fascinating stuff, right? ;-)

One of my writing buddies left for Paris on Sunday and I don't know what kind of email access she's going to have while she's gone. I must have started to email her half a dozen times on Monday before I remembered.

What was so critical? Well, Logan, the hero who wouldn't change his first name and tormented me with ridiculous alternatives, is being accommodating about his surname. I know, I'm shocked, too, but I've discovered it's easier when they just give me their full name and leave nothing up to me. I've been through several options with him already, which my friend has shot down for various reasons, most legitimate enough that I went back to searching. Now, though, I want to run this latest option by her and she's gone. :-(

Did I mention that Logan is a twin (not identical) and that he's one of six kids? Between him and his brother, he's the easier going of the two. Not that he's a pushover. He's just not quite as intense. I'm curious about Logan and would love to know more about him, but I'm hugely curious about his brother. What is it about intense men that I like so much? (At least in fiction. ;-)

Logan's more laid back demeanor, though, will be a nice break after working with Creed for so many months. He wore me out. :-)

I emailed the revised version of In Twilight's Shadow to my editor last night. Late last night. I didn't quite finish my final smoothing run-through, but it was after 10pm and I wanted to go to bed. :-) I was almost all the way through, so hopefully I caught the parts that needed the most smoothing.

I'm so glad to be finished and I'm hoping that I fixed everything that needed fixing. :-) I'm ready for some time off!

Aside from cleaning the house, I have a long To Do List again. Working on revisions highlighted just how badly I need a coffee table, and since I have a small space, finding one that fits is going to be a huge challenge. I found that out the first day I went out looking. Even online searches haven't turned up anything, although if anyone is looking to build their own coffee table, plans are available free. ;-)

I'm hugely tired today, and although I should run a couple of errands during lunch, I don't think I'm going to. The idea of just vegging out at my desk for a while is appealing. Mondays are always rough for me.

It took me forever to write about two pages yesterday, which was very frustrating, but at least the work on the actual scenes that needed fixing went quicker. I have a couple of comments from my writing buddy that I have to work on today, but once that's finished, it'll just be a final polishing read through.

After working for hours and hours, I went outside yesterday and sat on my deck for about an hour. Fabulous. There was a light breeze, the temperature was comfortable and I was able to watch the birds flying around. It was a nice way to unwind.

Has anyone else been getting the latest spam? The one where the note says, "I found you online and want to chat with you. I'm a 25 y.o. girl and want to show you my pictures." Or similar type words. This is lame enough, but what I find hilarious is that this 25 year old woman has first names like Jose or Carlos. Um, yeah, you might want to tweak your spam-ware so that it only uses female first names.