Before they were Famous

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend. It's always hard to get back into the normal routine after a long weekend. But Christmas is fast approaching, and it will be nice to have a few more days off. This is my second year since high school that I've been out of retail and can actually enjoy the holidays. I can't express how good that feels. I love Christmas again!

I ran across this video while internet surfing a few weeks ago and found it really interesting. It is Guns N' Roses in May of 1986, playing a small club in Hollywood. This a year before Appetite for Destruction came out. Nearly two years before they exploded into the mainstream, pop culture, and rock n' roll history.

I found this video interesting for two reasons (other than just being a big GN'R fan). One, Don't Cry was released in 1991 on Use Your Illusion 1. I never knew that it was written so much earlier, and it seems like this acoustic version would have been a great additional track on GN'R Lies. And two, listening to all the people in the bar talking over the music. In about 2 years, this band will be one of the biggest bands in the world, and very few people in the bar seem to care. Everyone's not mesmerized because they're not yet famous. This isn't one of GN'R's early songs that has since been forgotten like Reckless Life and Move to the City. This is a song that will be one of their major hits, the first of their trilogy of big production videos (followed by November Rain and Estranged) and played regularly before stadiums of people.

Even Guns N' Roses wasn't noticed immediately.

 

Oh, How I Miss You Blogfest

I want to thank Capt. Alex, Andrew, and Matthew for hosting this blogfest. The title says it all.

As soon as I saw Alex's announcement for this blogfest, I knew who I wanted to highlight. I miss my friend Rane. She is a fellow young adult writer and had created a successful blog called The Lit Express last year. She is the one who got me started blogging--after discussing it for about six months. I was really nervous to jump into the blogosphere. But I finally did it, and Rane helped me get started. She was even my first follower!

Soon after my blog launched, life got it the way of Rane's blogging and writing (which I can totally relate to). She stopped posting and began revamping the site. But never finished. It's been sitting lonely and under construction for most of the year. I check it regularly with the hope of seeing a glorious relaunch. Maybe in 2013.

Thank you, Rane, for pushing me into starting my blog. I've learned a lot and met great people along the way. Life has been getting in my way recently, too, but that's just how if goes sometimes. I can't do everything, only my best at this moment in time.

Thank you for reading.

Thank you for commenting.

Thank you for your continued support.

Thank you!!!

Oculus by Michael Offutt Released!

I am proud to help spread the word of the release of Michael Offutt's second book, Oculus. It is the second book in his A Crisis of Two Worlds series. Michael announced on his blog that it came out yesterday.

Blurb for Oculus from Goodreads

Autumn has arrived in New York, and Jordan Pendragon is a freshman at Cornell University. Gifted in mathematics, he balances life as a research assistant with that of a student athlete.

But Jordan also has a quest. He must find the Black Tower, a monolithic edifice housing a thing that defines the very structure of the universe. Jordan believes it is buried somewhere in Antarctica under miles of prehistoric ice.

October finds Jordan earning a starting position with the Cornell hockey team. But a dark cloud gathers over his rookie season. Unexplained deaths, whispers of a cannibal cult, a prophecy, and a stone known only as the Oculus, cast a shadow over his athletic ambitions. It is the start of a terrifying journey down a path of mystery, murder, and to a confrontation with an Evil more ancient than the stars.

Be sure to add Oculus to your Goodreads TBR list, if you have not done so already.

Oculus is currently available at:

AMAZON KINDLE - $4.79 on sale 

AMAZON UK - £3.08

KOBO- $4.99

DOUBLE DRAGON PUBLISHING - $5.09

I've picked up my copy, have you picked up yours?


Visit Michael Offutt on his blog HERE.




And if you haven't yet read Book 1 in A Crisis of Two Worlds, Slipstream, then you best start there. Click HERE to find all the places Slipstream is currently available.

IWSG Wednesday: Off to the Editor!

Happy Insecure Writer's Support Group Wednesday. Thank you again to Alex J. Cavanaugh, the creator of the group. The first Wednesday of every month is dedicated to this group of supportive writers. If it's something you're not familiar with, then please click on Alex's link above for more information and to sign up!

I haven’t been online much in the past few weeks, but that was due to powering through my editing of SUSY Asylum. And I can emphatically say: I did it! Okay, well it’s not done, but I sent the manuscript to my editor this weekend so he can finally work his magic. It is out of my hands for a few weeks so I can try to think about other things for a change. SUSY Asylum, the second book in The Lorne Family Vault, has been my obsession for most of the year. And now it’s time to start the third book. I’ve been in full editing mode for the past three months. It will feel good to start writing again.

So far I have about a fourth of my outline for the third book complete. I’ll start writing before I’m completely done because I change the story throughout the writing process anyway. Why wait until the very end? Getting back into the heads of my characters while they sprint through their continued adventure will help my ideas develop. When I try to set aside time for outlining, I usually come up blank. The big ideas emerge while I’m working on other things, forcing me to jot down notes to save for later. And then I plot out the next leg of the adventure and work through the inevitable holes.

It’s exciting to start thinking about and planning a new project, but I’m also plagued by a great fear of the unknown. Will my ideas run out with this one? Is SUSY Asylum the best I can do? I love the story, but I hope not. I hope my best story is yet to be written. Time will tell and all I can really do is keep writing.

How has your writing (or editing) been going over the past month? The holidays are nearly upon us. Any fun plans to share? As always, thank you for reading!