So I have 15,000 bookmarks for In Twilight's Shadow. Most of them will be headed to bookstores and readers' groups, but if you'd like one for yourself--or bookmarks for any of my other books--I'll be happy to get it/them out to you.

Send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to:

Patti O'Shea
PO Box 1365
Minnetonka, MN 55345

* * *

Adventures in Photography

I might have mentioned here that I gave my parents a digital camera for Christmas. They're always so hard to buy for and this seemed like such an ideal gift. Never mind that neither my mom nor my dad can manage to turn the computer on without me--how annoying could it be to download the pictures off their camera occassionally?

As it turned out, fairly annoying.

My parents returned last Friday from visiting my brother. On Sunday evening, I uploaded the pictures off their camera to the computer for them and my dad--the man who has left film sitting undeveloped for a year or longer--wants me to immediately order him prints of the digital pictures.

Actually, his first statement was that he would print them out on his all-in-one Epson. I was like, uh, no, you don't have a photo printer. You don't want to know how long it took before he understood that he wasn't going to get a quality photo off a cheap inkjet printer. It was after this when we got into the discussion about immediately getting him prints.

So Wednesday I went over to my parents' house and this was the day I was going to take care of it all for them. First up was getting them an email account. Yep, they didn't have email. Next, I signed them up for an online photo service. Third on the list was getting them to pick out which photos they wanted printed.

"All of them," my dad said.

"You don't want to pay to print 70 shots when some of them are blurred, or have people's heads cut off, or are duplicates of other shots," I explained.

Now my real ordeal began. I set up the computer to run all 70 shots as slideshow. All they had to do was look at the picture, decide whether or not they wanted it, and write down the photo number. I might as well have asked them to build a rocket ship, so that I could visit the International Space Station. :-)

OMG! They watched the slideshow three times without reaching any decisions. I finally had to take charge. I would stop each image and ask, "Do you want this one?" Or if they said they wanted one, I would say, "Are you sure? It's out of focus." Then they'd rethink their decision. After a torturous length of time, they decided on 30 photos they wanted. (All I have to say is I don't understand why they wanted some of them, but whatever. At least we'd finished.)

Then there was more fun. Their photo software that came with the camera doesn't have editing capability! ::head-desk:: I uploaded the shots to the photo site anyway, planning to download them at my house, edit them and reload them, but as it turned out, the photo site lets people do simple editing. So I did. I cropped the pictures that needed cropping, placed their order, and booted down the machine.

Hurrah!

I ended up spending much longer at their house than I expected and most of that can be attributed to the length of time they spent dithering on which pictures they wanted. If I'd had any premonition that this is what my future would hold when I bought them that camera, I would have rethought my choice of Christmas gift. Argh! And just think, I'll have to go through this every time they take pictures. Sigh.

After giving it some consideration, I've decided I'm going to cut down my blogging from every day to three times a week and see how that goes. So on Monday-Wednesday-Friday I'll hopefully have something to say. :-)

I've been thinking about the "first meet" scenes this week, probably because a friend of mine blogged about it. (Thanks so much, T, for giving me something more to obsess over.) She mentioned she doesn't like the cliched over-the-top attractions when the h/h meet, which of course got me to worrying about my books.

I know Mika and Conor and Ryne and Deke had strong and immediate attractions to each other. But then Mika and Conor are both half demon. Kimi and Nic's first meet happened before the novella opened, so no worries there. They had time to go over the top. :-)

Then I started thinking about my other books. Do they all go this route? I decided no. Cai and Jake had fireworks when they met, but that was because she'd lied to him for so long. Wyatt and Kendall were best friends for months before their story opened, so they, too, had time to acclimate to each other.

Which leads me to In Twilight's Shadow. It doesn't get it's own paragraph because it's my upcoming book, it gets it because I think it's the story that answers my questions about my books. Maia does appreciate Creed's looks--let's face it, the man didn't get called "pretty boy" in Midnight Hour because he's unattractive--but she's angry that he's in her house without her permission. She isn't any more thrilled when he insists he needs to stay with her and then passes out from his injury--after making her promise not to contact a healer or take him to a doctor. Out of all my stories, this book also is probably where the h/h wait the longest (page wise) to make love. Which led to me to a conclusion that I should have known without having to think about it--I write the scenes the way the characters dictate.

Some characters do feel an immediate and strong attraction, some are more annoyed by other things to really notice how they feel. Some characters have sex earlier in books than other characters. It's just the way things are and I've learned I can't force my characters to do anything they don't want to do or I come to a grinding halt and sit there until I figure out where I strayed and go back and fix it. It's a pain, but I've long ago accepted that I'm not in charge. :-)

What's a Monday after the Oscar Awards without hearing from some author who likes to work in a pair of sweats? My favorite part of the awards show is getting to see the dresses and casting my own best and worst dressed lists.

To start out with the actual awards, I was rooting for Johnny Depp simply because he's the hottest guy in Hollywood or France, for that matter. I was very disappointed when Daniel Day Lewis won. I didn't see any of the movies up for Best Picture--actually, I don't believe I've seen any of the movies that had nominees up for the big six awards. I did see one of the pictures up for Best Special Effects. That would be Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.

Anyway, after watching the show last night, I checked out a couple of films that looked like they might be interesting, but after reading the descriptions, I decided I didn't want to sit through them. My taste in film doesn't seem to coincide with the titles nominated for Best Picture.

Now on to my take on the clothes. I didn't get to watch the pre-game, oops, I mean pre-show coverage, so I missed a lot of the dresses unless the actress was on stage either as a presenter or as a winner. So with that caveat, here is my take on the clothes.

Best dressed: Katherine Heigl. I totally loved the red dress and the simplicity of it. The dress, in my mind, portrayed the glamor that Hollywood award shows should exemplify.

Worst dressed: Without question, it was Tilda Swinton who won for Best Supporting Actress. This was one of those "OMG, someone should have helped her pick out a decent dress" moments. When I saw that dress, I stared in appalled fascination. It was just awful and her hair and makeup didn't help anything.

The other dress I didn't care for was Marion Cotillard's mermaid gown. Access Hollywood picked it as one of the best, but I disagree. It wasn't hideous like Swinton's dress, but it sure wasn't glamorous to dress like a fish-woman. ;-)

One side note, what the heck was wrong with Renee Zellweger's eyes? I know the lights are bright, but she appeared to be the only person who had her eyes closed against the glare--or something. It was distracting.

And I'll close with a link to a picture of Johnny Depp. For no other reason except that he's hot!

The more I watch Dead Like Me, the more I love it! (DLM is a television show that was on Showtime for 2 years (2003-2004, I believe) before being canceled.) I'm pretty sure I blogged about this before, but that's when I liked it, but that was about it. After watching the first 8 episodes of season 2, I can unequivocally say I'm hooked and that I can't believe it was canceled after only two seasons! I want to keep watching and watching and watching. :-)

DLM is about an 18-year-old girl who dies, and instead of proceeding into the afterlife, ends up being a grim reaper. It's her job to take the soul out of the body of someone who's about to die and hang around with them until they cross to the other side. There are other reapers that she works with as well: Rube, the boss; Daisy, the former actress who slept with everyone in old Hollywood; Mason, the addict/alcoholic; and Roxy, the meter maid turned police officer. (Rube was Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride and Roxy was Whitley on A Different World.)

I nearly quit watching after the pilot episode. Quite frankly, I wasn't impressed and I have a hard time paying attention to television anyway, but I thought I'll give it one more disk. (I'm borrowing them from Netflix.) Those next 4 episodes captured my attention, but I only liked the show, I didn't love it. Then I started season 2.

OMG, season 2 totally rocks! After watching the first 8 episodes, I've become an avid fan. The characterization is first rate, the humor is dry and sometimes dark, and the actors make the characters come to life.

The other thing I like is that it makes me think about life and what it means to be alive. Not while I'm watching, but afterward. I'm sure a lot of people simply watch it and it's nothing more than entertainment, but as the characters seek and question, it makes me question, too. George, the heroine, questions everything because she's a new reaper and because that's the kind of personality she has. Daisy seeks answers through her religion. And in one episode, Mason has stopped drinking and doing drugs--until he has to reap a father at his young daughter's birthday party. The deceased person says to him something like how can he live with himself, knowing that a little girl is always going to remember his dying on her birthday. And Mason starts drinking again.

There's all these nice little insights into character and maybe that's why I love it so much and maybe that's why I love it more the longer I watch--the characters become a little more fleshed out in each episode. I can't rave enough about the show.

I'm both eager to watch the next two disks and dreading it because once I'm done, there are no more episodes to watch. When I'm done, I'm done. Kind of. I heard they're doing a television movie of the show and if it does well, they might make it a series again. I am so hoping it does well and that DLM continues. It might even be enough to get me to subscribe to Showtime (if that's the channel that ends up showing it again) and I haven't had a paid cable station since shortly after I left college.

I don't feel as if I've done the show justice. To give an idea just how good it is, I rarely watch television unless it's some documentary/informative show on Discovery or Nat Geo or something. Most shows can't hold my interest for long. This show not only holds my interest, but it's left me so excited to see more, I can hardly stand the thought of waiting for the next Netflix shipment. It's even left me excited enough that I want to buy the series on DVD so that I'll be able to watch it whenever I want.

Anyway, I'd recommend giving this series a try and hanging in there past the first few episodes. It seriously does get better the longer I've watched it.

BTW, if you're already a fan, I saw a clip on You Tube of a sneak peek at the TV movie coming up (I think this year.) I don't have a direct link--sorry--but you can do a search for it.

I actually had an interesting topic occur to me--at least I assumed that others besides me would find it interesting--but I ran out of time this morning and now I'm at the Evil Day Job (EDJ), so I can't spend a lot of time writing a post. So I'll save this idea for when I do have time and talk about something quicker today.

The lunar eclipse last night was cool! I tried to take pictures, and while I did get some early on, once we reached totality, there wasn't enough light reflecting off the moon for the camera to see. So the viewfinder screen was completely black even though I could see the moon with my eyes. Did I ever mention that once upon a time I wanted to be an astronomer?

One of the guys at the EDJ asked me if I'd gone outside to watch the eclipse. Yeah, right. It was -2 with the wind chill yesterday when I left work--there was no way I was going outside.

Yesterday I also had the broom vac I ordered show up! I'm hugely excited about this, which I find really ironic. I used to work with a woman who bought a new vacuum cleaner and she waxed on and on about it for 45 minutes. At that time, I thought, who gets that excited about a household appliance? I get it now.

Anyway, I wanted the broom vac for quick clean-ups. It's kind of cumbersome to haul out the big vacuum all the time, but because it's winter in MN, I have all kinds of grit in my laundry room. This is where I go in and out of the house from the garage and the grit is from sand they lay down in the parking lot to help with traction. Now I'll just be able to grab the broom vac, do a quick clean up, and get that grit off my floor!

It has to charge for 24 hours, so I'll see how well it does on the clean up when I get home tonight. Fingers crossed that I love it.

Do you think people are burning out on reading blogs?

I ask this question because one of my loops is having a discussion about this very thing. I've seen and heard about a lot of blogs closing up shop in the last few months and I've thought about quitting myself. For one, it takes creative energy and I'd rather be focusing that on my books, and for another, after three years, I feel as if I've run out of things to say. I've postponed making a decision because I'm waiting to see if it's the winter blahs that make me feel talked out or if I really have said everything I want to say.

I've tried to answer the question at the top of this blog by thinking about my own habits, but I don't think I'm typical. I've never followed very many writer blogs because whenever I read about someone else's process, I freak out. I never seem to do things the same way as anyone else and I'm always worried that I'm doing something wrong. It's easier to just steer clear. There are also other things that writers post that I don't want to read, so I just fly past those as well.

The types of blogs I do follow are ones like "Overheard in the Office" or "Giveaway of the Day" or my baseball news feeds. What do they have in common? They're short. While the baseball news might point to a full article, the feed has a recap of what it's about and that tends to be all I look at. "Overheard in the Office" sometimes amuses me and "Giveaway of the Day" is not only short, but it offers me the chance to download some kind of computer program for free.
But the biggest thing they all have in common is that none of these blogs require a reply/comment from me. :-)

That's a biggie. I might be able to read a blog in a matter of minutes, but even a short comment takes time and thought, so I mostly don't bother.

The other problem I have with commenting is that I'm usually sneaking on to Bloglines at the Evil Day Job (EDJ) and if I see something I want to comment on, I'll think, "I'll have to pop over there when I get home." Of course, by then I don't remember to post or I don't remember what I wanted to say or I lose the interest in posting.

So after all that, let's return to the opening question: Are you getting burned out on all the writer blogs out there? If you are, what would it take to reignite your interest? What kind of topics are you interested in reading about?

And if you knew of a group blog with a diverse and large number of authors, what would you be looking for there? What would keep you visiting and returning?

I feel as if I should write an Ode to Coffee this morning. :-) One of the things that always tips me off as to whether or not I'm sick is my desire--or lack thereof--for coffee. Yesterday, I didn't want any and this morning I felt the same way. So despite going to bed early last night, I've been doing the head bobs here at the day job. And not just the head bobs, but I felt fuzzy brained as well. I hate that feeling.

So I debated back and forth, have a cup of coffee, don't have a cup of coffee. I decided I'd give it a try, and if it tasted icky or made me feel worse, I'd just dump out the cup. Luckily, it did neither and I was only about halfway through when my brain started firing again. :-)

In another ten minutes or so, I should (maybe) feel normal again. On the one hand, it's sad to be so addicted to caffeine that I Can't function without it. On the other hand, it is so nice to have a nice, hot cup of coffee, and when I'm done, know that I'm going to feel so much more awake and alive.

I'm terrible at poetry, but let's see. Ode to Coffee. Coffee you make my brain feel good. Coffee you make me feel awake. Coffee you are proof that there is a divine power. Coffee I love you.

Um, well, maybe I'll just stick with fiction writing and leave the odes to others.

Very Sexy Comments & Graphics

I don't write in first person--I don't even like to read first person books, although I can bear it in mysteries. Sometimes. Right now, though, I have two characters talking to me and telling me their stories this way. Neither, of course, would be the heroine in the Work In Progress (WIP). She shows me scenes instead; this is normal.

One story is an apocalyptic deal, which I'll probably never write. I mean, how many "survivors after a hideous ordeal on a future planet Earth" books do we need? The heroine in this one piped up telling me about how it was looked at as God's anger with man. Not exactly the cheeriest beginning ever, but then it's kind of a dark story. I've been given about half a dozen scenes here, which has made it intriguing for me to watch, but I seriously doubt I'm writing this even if I do know who her hero is and kind of what happens between them.

The other story is one I do plan to write. Not in first person, of course. This heroine isn't quite as dramatic. She's all about telling me her name and how people react to hearing it. I have a vague sense of her hero, but I haven't had scenes here--just the heroine talking. She hasn't bothered to share anything much, certainly no scenes that I can use later when I do write this story, but she fascinates me.

Shona is the heroine from the WIP. She's not talking in first person, which is probably a good thing, but wow, the scenes she and Logan have shared. :-) I just hope I don't forget the details by the time I reach those parts of the book.

I finished a fight scene on Sunday and read it on yesterday. As I'm going through it, I'm thinking, "wow, is this thing flat or what?" I was hoping it read that way because I was tired (if I read my stuff when I need sleep, I always think it reeks), but as I kept going forward, I realized something. It reads flat because there aren't a lot of action words. Or if they're there, they're carefully hidden amid all the passive language. :-(

I think I've mentioned here that I've been putting things like "Add fight scene here" rather than writing them, and when I finally do get one finished, it's a total yawner. I'd bang my head against the wall, but I hate to damage my house. ;-)

Project for today is to tear this thing apart and make it more interesting than a lazy summer day. :-) What amazes me is that with as many action scenes as I've written that I couldn't get it right the first time. Heck, not only couldn't get it right, but couldn't even identify what the problem was until I was about three-quarters of the way through the scene.

And I'm still reading RITA books, which is really cutting into writing time.

My parents were out of town this weekend, which meant I had to get their mail and newspaper for them. Normally, this isn't a big deal, but Minnesota plunged back into the deep freeze and hit wind chills of -40. Saturday night was the worst of it, or so they said. So of course, that's the night it happened.

It would be going to bed and wondering, "Gee, did I remember to close my parents' garage door after I dropped the mail off at their house?"

Of course I did, I told myself. If I hadn't, the neighbor across the street (who was asked to keep an eye out on the house) would have called. But what if my dad didn't give him my phone number?

There were other arguments back and forth and I was 95% certain that I'd shut the door. It was that 5% of uncertainty, though, that nagged at me. We'd had cars in our neighborhood broken into a year or so ago and my dad's snowblower is in the garage--right there in front.

Finally, at about 11:45, I couldn't take it anymore. I got in my car and drove over to make absolutely 100% certain that the door was down. It was. I could have stayed in my nice warm house and saved myself a midnight run in frigid temps.

The cold air, though, woke me up and I knew I wasn't going back to sleep any time soon, so I booted up the computer and worked for a while. I fixed all the continuity errors I made on Sunday after I'd had some sleep. :-)

My ARCs (Advanced Reading Copies) arrived today for In Twilight's Shadow. They look beautiful. :-) It's almost as good as getting actual copies of the official book. This is my first chance to see the spine and back of the cover. Actually, it's my first time I've seen the cover in anything except electronic format and that's always darn cool. I think it looks striking and (hopefully) it will stand out among the other books.

I also discovered that the back cover copy I have up on my website is missing a few words, so when I have some time, I'll have to update that and upload the new version. I can also see the font they used for the copy and it's clean and legible, and most importantly, easily readable. Yea!

Sorry, I didn't mean to run on about every facet of the ARC. My plan was to talk about how exciting it is to actually hold something like this in my hand and think, "wow, I wrote this." It doesn't matter that this is my sixth full-length book, it's still a huge thrill. And it's still surreal in a way, you know?

When I received copies of my first book, it didn't feel real. I kept thinking, this can't be my story. I kept reaching for Ravyn's Flight reading parts of it, trying to get it to sink in that hey, I wrote this. I finally just started carrying it with me everywhere I went because I constantly had to assure myself it was reality. :-) It took two weeks before it finally penetrated that it really, truly was my work. There are times I still wonder if this is real, but I think I like the wonder of it all, you know? It's just magical to hold a book I wrote in my hands and I'm glad I haven't lost that.

So now I have to figure out when to send copies out for review. Too early and the reviews get posted too far in advance of the book. Too late and the reviewer doesn't have enough time to read the book and write her review. I'm still not certain I have the timing exactly right, but eventually I'll learn. I hope.

I'm posting early for Thursday.

This slide show is some of my flower pictures. The early shots are from last summer (which I enjoyed remembering) and the later images are my amaryllis plants.



Gardening

So here's my new amaryllis. I like the delicate pink and white color of the flower and these stalks are shorter than the red, which I also like. It's nice to have some color back in the house, especially since it's February. For a short month, February always seems eternal. ;-)

And I know this isn't the best picture in the world. I'll have to take more and try to get some better shots. The one thing that surprised me was how poor my camera does when I tried to get any kind of close up shot. It just totally blurred everything all up.

I'm still getting all kinds of gardening catalogs--in fact, the pace seems to have picked up. I wonder if they count on people up north being desperate for signs of summer and prey on our cabin fever? Hmm.

I caught up on the Super Bowl ads that people at work said I had to see. I enjoyed some of them (like the flying Bud Light drinker) and didn't like others (like the baby doing an e-Trade and then spitting up food. yuck!), but the Fed Ex pigeon ad remains my personal favorite. I also saw the miracle catch replayed a few times. Okay, confession, I was flipping around a lot because I did not want to see the Patriots win, so that play was one of the things I missed and it was incredible. Okay, enough football, I guess.

Right now, I'm working on a fight scene. Trying to anyway. I always have to chant a mantra while I write them. "You can come back and layer things in. Just get the action down." And that is so hard for me to do because when I read back over what I've written, it just seems flat without the emotional component. That gets me to start tinkering and slows progress and I always have to go back and add the layers in later anyway. You'd think this would get easier, but instead my compelling urge to get it right the first time seems to get worse.

I did find a really cool blade, though, and I'm going to have Logan fighting with it. This was one of those things where I was looking for something else and stumbled across this by accident. After taking one look at it, I went "perfect!" :-)

And finally, In Twilight's Shadow is up for preorder and Barnes & Noble.com. This is the last of big online booksellers to load it.

I vowed not to watch the Super Bowl. I've had trouble jinxing the football teams I'm rooting for in this year's playoffs, and since it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that the Patriots were going to win, I decided I'd spare myself the agony. (I loathe the NE Patriots.) And the ads haven't even been all that good the past few years, so what would be the point in wasting all that time?

Temptation was too much for me. I flipped over to watch the game anyway. I can, without a doubt, say the worst ad during the game was for Sales Genie. If you're going to spend millions of dollars to advertise during the Super Bowl, for heaven's sake, spend some money on the production of the actual ad. And maybe look at hiring a better ad agency. IMO, that was hideous.

Picking the best commercial is a little more difficult. There were a lot of okay ads, which was pretty sad since the Super Bowl used to be like one big reel of Clio nominees (Clios are the Oscars for the advertising industry.) I did, however, find several ads that I thought were fabulous. I loved the homing pigeon ad for Fed Ex and the Wine and Cheese ad for Bud Light. You can check out these ads and the rest of them at MySpace.

And can I just say, OMG! The Giants upset the Patriots! My jinx lifted at the right time. It's not that I like New York, I don't, but it was a matter of the lesser of two evils. And even better, the Patriots lose their "perfect" season. Ha! (Um, sorry NE fans, but I've loathed the Patriots since I started paying attention to football.)

Last night I became all excited when I saw that Animal Planet was doing a show about dragons. It was done in a pseudo-documentary style with Patrick Stewart narrating. Since the WIP (Work in Progress) involves dragons--in a way--I figured this was a prime research tool.

Unfortunately, I was wrong. Yes, the show was interesting, but they didn't talk about dragon magic at all, treating them more like dinosaurs that could breathe fire and fly. And they compared dragons to crocodiles as far as their eggs and which sex the babies end up being born as. Um, okay, but not helpful for my purposes.

Still, the show was well done and the animation was good, so I guess it wasn't a total waste of time.

Finding research material on dragon magic has not been easy and that was a surprise to me. I figured there'd be a ton of information available and there just isn't. Or if there is, I haven't found it. I'm looking for myth and lore of their magical powers, not what other fiction authors are doing, and the one time I asked on a loop, that was all the suggestions I received. Which totally shocked me--enough to blog about it at the time.

In the meantime, my search for dragon info continues.