Stephanie O'Brien's Blog

Fiction Fans Free Book Contest: Here Are Your Clues

29/1/2013

The contest is underway, and the guesses are starting to come in. And of course, I promised to help you out (but only a little ;) ), so since the conception of My Fugitive came in two steps, I’ll give you two clues.

1. I took an article on this wiki as a challenge and succeeded.

2. I tried to implement a law of the universe and failed.

Can you fill in the blanks?

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A fiction fans contest: win a book for yourself and a friend

25/1/2013

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Hi everyone,

I hope you’ve been enjoying the articles and updates so far. It’s been great talking to you, and now I’d like to invite some audience participation.

A while ago, I mentioned that I had a contest in mind for my fellow Fiction Fans. Now, I want to give you an opportunity to win a free copy of My Fugitive, and an additional copy for a friend of your choice.

The rules are simple: I told you that the story of how My Fugitive came to be was a strange one. And I want you to guess how it happened.

Over the next few days, I will give you a couple of clues. In the meantime, get your thinking caps on and have some fun with this – whatever wacky and wild theories you have, feel free to put them out there.

The contest runs until the end of February, and the first person to guess correctly wins. To enter, just leave a comment containing your guess – or guesses, if you have more than one. I look forward to seeing them.

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It Doesn't Bend That Way: How Many Ways Can a Writer Injure Herself on Vacation?

19/1/2013

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My sister once told me that I’m probably the most graceful person in the family. Right now, I’m laughing about that. And since I promised to entertain you with articles and short stories while my books are in progress, now I’m writing about it so you can enjoy a funny read and laugh at my expense.

You know the accident-prone character in a comedy show who keeps the laughtrack busy by injuring herself? Or the overly adventurous person who keeps doing things that require a bit more grace than she’s trained herself for? (Hey, maybe I should write a character like that sometime. I’m giving myself enough material!)

To be fair, for most of my vacation, I’d been doing good. I was behaving myself. No letting the person driving the car exceed the speed limit by 50% on a twisty road while halfway into the wrong lane. No shortcuts involving cliffs. (That was my problem during the last two vacations.) In fact, until the day after Christmas, I’d managed to avoid acquiring injuries of any sort.

Then I tried paddleboarding. And I was awesome. My balance was impeccable, except for all the wobbling. And I seriously thought I was going to get back to the dock with my hair still dry.

The next thing I knew, I was on all fours (or at least, that was the plan), but instead of being on the paddleboard, my hands were above the water. They were also still holding the paddle, which caught on the edge of the board and responded by waiting for my face to come to meet it. Teeth, meet paddle. Hard food, don’t meet teeth. No more apples for me.

So I tried boogieboarding instead. I’ve done plenty of that before, and I’d already be lying down, so how wrong could it go?

Note to self: sand beach good. Sand-and-rock beach bad, even if lots of other people are there and the rocks are well under water. Sand-and-rock beach with sharp rocks, a long walk back to the car, and only one bandage in the vehicle: worse.

But I wanted those waves so badly, and the waves on the safer beach sucked!

Still, the rock beach was obviously a no-go, so I tried a sand-only beach. Sure, the waves were smaller, but it was sand. Nice, harmless powder. Which makes me wonder if the ocean took that as a challenge, because with the precision of an expert marksman, it spat a glob of foam and grit directly into my eye.

And then it proceeded to give me larger waves, bounce me off my board, smack my upper body into the ocean floor, and try to twist my lower half up and over my prone torso.

Gorrammit, waves, if you know the human body well enough to precisely target the eyes, you know it doesn’t bend that way!

So there I was, blinking rapidly, eating soft food, and favoring one foot. And a few days later, I went straight back to the beach and got rolled in the waves again. Next year, if I can, I will do the exact same thing.

In the meantime, I’ve got books to write. And if I hadn’t seen such things go wrong for so many fictional characters, I’d say something along the lines of “Let’s see me injure myself doing THAT!”

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Freedom through fiction

15/1/2013

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I’m finally home from a month-long vacation, and settling back into my normal routine. Getting unpacked, greeting my cats, realizing just how badly the red-eye flight messed up my circadian rhythm.

As always, returning from a long time away brings a lot of mixed feelings. Contentment with life as I’m used to it... happiness at seeing my favorite cat again... a bit of dread at knowing that soon I have to start setting my alarm again...

Looking out the window, though, something else struck me with unusual force. The snow is falling, the clouds have completely closed the town in... it’s beautiful, but at the same time, it makes me feel a little trapped. The horizon is invisible, and the fog has formed a wall, making the town look like a large, gilded cage.

It made me glad that I’m an author. Suddenly, the idea of an imaginary world where the sky is clear, the horizon visible, and the world ever-changing just felt so freeing. It reminded me of one of the reasons why I’m blessed to have all these mental landscapes to explore and to share with others.

I’ve got so many projects on the go – ideas that I had to write down before they could escape – that sometimes I hardly know which to prioritize next. These are a few of the escapes into fictionland that I look forward to sharing with you:

The companion book to My Fugitive, title to be revealed when I choose one
A short novel whose characters live inside the mind of an author, watching the stories of their own lives evolve and waiting to be written into being
A deconstruction of the superhero genre, written ‘in medias res’ and exploring some of the oddities of that genre that the stories within it tend to leave unaddressed

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Connect with me on Twitter

12/1/2013

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In keeping with my deep dedication to being one of the last people to get onto most social bandwagons, I have waited until now to finally make a Twitter account. I'm still working on learning the ins and outs of the site, but for those of you who prefer to make their connections via Tweet, you can find me at https://twitter.com/Stepha_OBrien.

Also, if any of you know how to make a non-blurry avatar, I'd love to hear about it. (Just don't tell me it's all about making the source picture perfectly square and the same size as the avatar box, because I already tried that.)

I look forward to tweeting with you, and thank you in advance for any advice you may have about that recalcitrant square picture of my head.

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updates to the site, and a free book sample

8/1/2013

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Some of you may have noticed that a few of the pages on my site have shifted, and a new one has been added to showcase my upcoming books. More will be added as time goes by, but for now I’m excited to offer you a sneak peek at my current project: a companion book for My Fugitive, told through the Fugitive’s eyes.

Visit this page to check it out and get your free sample. Enjoy!

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The Problem With 'Strong Women' in Fiction

1/1/2013

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In a recent post, I talked about the complexities of writing ‘strong female’ characters, and how easily that label can overwhelm all the other aspects of the character in question.

I also mentioned how these fictional ladies’ hostility and competitiveness, while probably meant to show their ability to ‘hold their own’ among the men, can actually make them look weak. I thought that was a strange contradiction, and one worth exploring.

To illustrate this dichotomy, have you ever noticed the way an animal reacts when you walk onto its turf?

Think about the small dogs that run yowling up to the fence, declaring the boundaries of their yard at the top of their high-pitched lungs. They probably think they’re showing you how powerful and dangerous they are, but the fact that they’re getting so worked up over such a little thing makes them look downright impotent. (And it’s incredibly annoying.)

Now think about the girls in fiction who constantly snap at their male counterparts. “You’re doing it wrong! Yip! Nobody’s safe when you’re driving! Yap! I have to do everything myself! Bark!”

Alternately, there are their quieter but equally misdirected counterparts, the ones whose primary goal in life seems to be to surpass or at least keep up with the guys... who are on their team. Think about the kid who’s so eager to be the one who wins the game that he scores on his own team. They’re so anxious to prove themselves that it hurts their ability to do what they’re supposed to be doing.

Have you ever tried to prove that water is wet? Of course not. The only time something needs to be proven is if there’s a good reason to doubt it. So if these girls are trying to prove that they aren’t weak... I think you get it. ;)

Now think about skunks. They’re small, they’re soft, and they’re known for their confidence. They don’t pick fights because they don’t have to. They don’t attack, yammer like a small dog, or try to assert dominance, because they already know who’s the boss.

They don’t need to rule the forest, because they’re sure that they’ll get what they want and make it to wherever they’re going without needing to step on anyone in the process.

Do they stand up for themselves if threatened? Sure. But they’ll warn you gently before they waste their spray.

I remember watching an anime once, and growing more and more impressed as a young homemaker held her position and, while remaining respectful of the other party’s opinions, gently and quietly convinced the man on the other end of the phone that her point of view was correct.

The kicker? The man in question was, unbeknownst to her, an extradimensional king.

She held her ground, she got what she wanted, and she did it without making an enemy, snapping like a chihuahua, or losing any of her class.

Win.

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Fiction Fans Free Book Contest: Here Are Your Clues

A fiction fans contest: win a book for yourself and a friend

It Doesn't Bend That Way: How Many Ways Can a Writer Injure Herself on Vacation?

Freedom through fiction

Connect with me on Twitter

updates to the site, and a free book sample

The Problem With 'Strong Women' in Fiction

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