Koriana Brackson's Blog, page 8

Disney Tips, Tidbits & Trivia #3: Fantasmic

Disney!

What is Disney Tips, Trivia & Tidbits? Whatever I, and you, want it to be. What have YOU always wanted to know about Disney? I'm most familiar with WDW, but I have been to Disneyland and California Adventures, although it's been many years. We visited 4 or 5 times.

So, my Disney days will just be any bit of information that pops into my head, and if any of you want to hit me up on Twitter, email, or leave a comment here, I'll be glad to answer questions.

Previous Disney Tips, Tidbits & Trivia:
Disney Tidbits #1 - Haunted Mansion
Disney Tidbits #2 - Harnessing the Lightning


Disney Trivia #3
Fantasmic - Disneyland vs Hollywood Studios


One of the best shows in everything Disney is Fantasmic. I've been lucky enough to see both the one at Disneyland, and the one at Hollywood Studios - of which I first saw during cast member only previews. Though I only saw the Disneyland one twice, I believe, it stuck with me, and I prefer it, slightly, over the one at Hollywood Studios, though before I moved, I saw that Fantasmic probably near 100 times. I love the show.

In the shows there are slight differences and big ones.

Disneyland's show is held on the Rivers of America while WDW's is at Fantastmic on a lake they built just for it.

A big difference is between two fight scenes. Disneyland utilizes a pirate ship, while the one at Hollywood Studios is on the mountain. When I went, the Disneyland fight scenes on the pirate ship were Peter Pan and Captain Hook. Now it's Pirates of the Caribbean and it looks awesome (I watched on YT). It's one spot that's lacking for WDW's version as they have Pocahontas - not my favorite movie or theme for this fight scene. It lacks the magic that Disneyland has.

But I could say the same about everything. I love WDW, it was my backyard for over 16 years of my life, but there's something about Disneyland. It FEELS different. In the shows, in the parks, in the people there. I miss it!

If you've seen both shows, which do you prefer? And if you haven't, they are both on YouTube, give them a try. You won't be disappointed!


Too mundane of trivia for you? What do you want to know next?

Did you notice the "Hidden Mickey" in the banner above?




My Books
Natural Exposure on Amazon
Natural Exposure on Smashwords - on $$SALE$$ for $2.40
Natural Exposure on Goodreads

A Bijou Beginning on Wattpad - FREE short story
A Bijou Beginning on Goodreads

A Discovery of BDSM on Amazon
A Discovery of BDSM on Goodreads

Freaking out - A Discovery of BDSM in the Top #100!

How did this even happen?! A Discovery of BDSM is in the Top 100 of Lesbian Erotica.

I'm soooooooo freaking out right now and over the moon. Maybe many authors don't wig out til they hit the top 25 or top 10, but a year ago, I only had a first draft (of Natural Exposure) and didn't know what I'd do with it or where I'd go from there. Hell, a month ago, A Discovery of BDSM wasn't even WRITTEN. I wrote the first part of it a month ago tomorrow! (Wrote it 4/7/20 when I'd PLANNED on re-writes of Ch 7 of Book 2.) I still can't call myself an "author" without stumbling over the word. It's like I'm in a different universe!

Thrilled my novelette is doing so well. Now hopefully for it's big, older, novel to gain some traction too! :D

Thank you to anyone who grabbed and read A Discovery of BSDM to help it to this spot. I'm eager to see if it'll climb more!





My Books
Natural Exposure on Amazon
Natural Exposure on Smashwords - on $$SALE$$ for $2.40
Natural Exposure on Goodreads

A Bijou Beginning on Wattpad - FREE short story
A Bijou Beginning on Goodreads

A Discovery of BDSM on Amazon
A Discovery of BDSM on Goodreads

Book Recommendations #2: Science Fiction

Previous Recommendation Posts
Book Recommendations #1: Erotica / Erotic Romance


Science Fiction
I LOVE Science Fiction. It's probably my favorite genre, if I had to pick one, though I enjoy most, depending on the book. But I love a good Science Fiction book. My absolute FAVORITE subgenre of Sci-Fi is Time Travel. I LOOOOOOVE a great Time Travel book - so for today, I'm going to ignore Time Travel. Weird, I know. But I thought I'd focus on other kinds of Sci-Fi first, and I'll give Time Travel it's own day at some point.

The type of Sci-Fi I like otherwise varies. It's all about a well written story for me. I am a sucker for any kind of games - be it real or virtual. I love virtual reality books, and LitRPG which will probably get it's own section because some of it's not really Sci-Fi, but written more Fantasy (looking at you, The Land - which is my favorite LitRPG series - spoiler alert).

So anyways, here's a variety of Science Fiction (minus ANY hint of Time Travel) that I love:


The Martian by Andy Weir Bobiverse series by Dennis E Taylor Ready Player One by Ernest Cline Redshirts / Lock-in series / Interdependency series by John Scalzi Hover Car Racer by Matthew Reilly Nyxia trilogy by Scott Reintgen Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer The Disasters by M.K. England Erebos by Ursula Poznanski Nil trilogy by Lynn Matson Solarversia by Toby Downton Insignia trilogy by S.J. Kincaid (Better than Ender's Game IMO)Vanquished by S.E. Green Voidwitch Saga by Corey White The Loop by Ben Oliver Star Trek series (especially TNG, Voyager, & Picard)

Do you have any Science Fiction recs?

Come back in two weeks for my Mystery Recommendations!




My Books
Natural Exposure on Amazon
Natural Exposure on Smashwords - on $$SALE$$ for $2.40
Natural Exposure on Goodreads

A Bijou Beginning on Wattpad - FREE short story
A Bijou Beginning on Goodreads

A Discovery of BDSM on Amazon
A Discovery of BDSM on Goodreads

Bijou Bugle #2: Location of town within BB borders

Welcome to the Bijou Bugle, your one stop shop of all things relating to the town and characters of Bijou Basin.

If you're new here, explanations are necessary. You can find those here:
How Natural Exposure came to be
An intro to Bijou Basin (the fictional town in Natural Exposure)
Location of Bijou Basin in regards to WDW

Now that you're caught up. Today's Bijou Bugle subject:
The Town's Location
In the last issue of the Bijou Bugle, I posted two maps, showing where my fictional town of Bijou Basin is in regards to WDW. I'll leave those two maps below so you don't have to go back to that post if you prefer not to.

Today, a new map showing where the actual downtown area sits in regards to the border. It's not to scale, but you can at least start to get an idea of where places are, as I add more and more to the maps and then share my own (badly drawn) map of the Basin.



Come back in 2 weeks to see where Kenzie's studio sits in relation to the downtown area.



Shows the town's location in regards to WDW



Shows the town's acreage
Just over 6000 acres, or approximately 9.5 square miles





My Books
Natural Exposure on Amazon
Natural Exposure on Smashwords - on $$SALE$$ for $2.40
Natural Exposure on Goodreads

A Bijou Beginning on Wattpad - FREE short story
A Bijou Beginning on Goodreads

A Discovery of BDSM on Amazon
A Discovery of BDSM on Goodreads

Behind the Writer #2: Naming - people, places & things

For a writer, naming things is everything. I mean, you say Harry Potter and anyone in their right mind knows who it is. Same with places - Howgwarts, Middle Earth, Endor, and even things - Tardis, Light Saber, Enterprise.

These things weren't always iconic. First, they were a nameless vision in a writer's head.

Some writer's seem to throw out whatever comes at them first, with no thought to it. Other writers ask others for thought/opinions on names. While 3 of my names were suggested by a friend when I was stumped, for most of my people and places, I've given careful and considerable thought to.

I'm a fan of K & J names. Back when my novel was just a writing prompt (a stripped down version of Chapters 5-8) the title was "Exposed" and Ripley's character name was Kendra, and Kenzie didn't have a name. It was actually unclear if she was a man or a woman, and done on purpose at the time.

First came the character changes. When I decided to expand on Exposure, see how Natural Exposure came to be, I wanted the MC to have the K name. I'm unsure where Kenzie came from, but I'd watched a lot of Lost Girl the year before, so it might have came from there. With Jarrett, I had a lot of J names I couldn't use and wanted something unique. Though I considered Jensen for a while, I didn't want anything already known too well, so Jarrett it was. With Ripley, I wanted the reasoning behind her name to be unique, so I started thinking of her age and what movie character she could have been named for. I didn't want Leia, and I liked Ripley when I thought of it, so it stuck.

Then there was changing the title. Exposed is a title used A LOT. Go to Goodreads, type Exposed and the word is used in 8,212 titles. Geeesh!! I wanted some creativity - something different and unique. So, I started thinking.

It didn't take me long, considering I was writing about an erotic photography studio, to come up with Natural Exposure. Both words have photography meanings with natural lighting, and exposure. But both also had nude meanings - being natural and being exposed. It was perfect and I loved it right away. And, it's unique. Go onto Goodreads and type in Natural Exposure and the two words are used just 16 times in random journals - except mine. It's the ONLY fiction book and it sits right on top. That's AWESOME!! Likewise, my planned title for my 2nd book is in more fiction books, but it's still only 16 titles (oddly enough). Book 3, if I stick with it, has only 14 other titles with that name.

Titles are so important. Why do you wanna stack up against some big names out there? If your book has a well known or popular title, why not think about it more and see if you can change it?


For me, my fictional town of Bijou Basin has a rich and unique history. They have a lot of homages to Disney and other Pop Culture references within it as well as just unique and fun names for the businesses. A couple of the businesses named in Natural Exposure are:

Jinks The Tasty Cow Harnessing the Lightning
More are revealed in Ripley's short story and in Book 2.

So for the last week or so, I've been trying to come up with a name for a pizza joint. When I need a name, I let it stew, usually for a day or two and it comes to me - much like my pantsing style of writing. This time, the name was alluding me, and it was more like a week. It'd been driving me so nuts I had a dream about it the other night.

Last night, right before I went to sleep, I thought "I haven't thought about a pizza joint name today" and just like that - like flicking a switch, I had the name and the history of the pizza place. It's yet another tongue-in-cheek name and so silly I was up thinking about it for a while before finally falling asleep. And that's how I finally named my pizza joint.

I thought about telling you what it is, and it's history, but I'm not sure y'all would wanna know. So I guess I'll just keep it under wraps until Book 2. Whatcha think of that? :) If there are several objections, then let me know here or on Twitter, and I'll share the story in another "Behind the Writer".




My Books
Natural Exposure on Amazon
Natural Exposure on Smashwords - on $$SALE$$ for $2.40
Natural Exposure on Goodreads

A Bijou Beginning on Wattpad - FREE short story
A Bijou Beginning on Goodreads

A Discovery of BDSM on Amazon
A Discovery of BDSM on Goodreads

Bout of Books Sign-up Post

And now it's time for Bout of Books? Where is this year going to?!

I'm joining in! I don't know how many of these I've done now. 20 or so of the 28 I think? I should look sometime, but I'll definitely be reading again. I have ZERO clue what I'll read, as always. I'll do a potential TBR the day or two before. Ever the fly-by-er, I can't make a plan!

Who else is signing up? Who else is blogging about it? Leave me links and I'll follow you!





My Books
Natural Exposure on Amazon
Natural Exposure on Smashwords - on $$SALE$$ for $2.40
Natural Exposure on Goodreads

A Bijou Beginning on Wattpad - FREE short story
A Bijou Beginning on Goodreads

A Discovery of BDSM on Amazon
A Discovery of BDSM on Goodreads

Bout of Books Sigh-up Post

And now it's time for Bout of Books? Where is this year going to?!

I'm joining in! I don't know how many of these I've done now. 20 or so of the 28 I think? I should look sometime, but I'll definitely be reading again. I have ZERO clue what I'll read, as always. I'll do a potential TBR the day or two before. Ever the fly-by-er, I can't make a plan!

Who else is signing up? Who else is blogging about it? Leave me links and I'll follow you!





My Books
Natural Exposure on Amazon
Natural Exposure on Smashwords - on $$SALE$$ for $2.40
Natural Exposure on Goodreads

A Bijou Beginning on Wattpad - FREE short story
A Bijou Beginning on Goodreads

A Discovery of BDSM on Amazon
A Discovery of BDSM on Goodreads

Immersed in Games #1

In addition to being a reader and, now, a writer, I'm also a gamer.

I've been playing video games my entire life. Unfortunately, for me, I came from a small town and lived a sheltered life, so it was only ever me gaming - I never did tabletop games, D&D or any of the like. Plus, I'm older - though I don't act or feel my age - so while many of you spent your childhood playing whatever games came out in the late 90s or, sigh, 2000s - my childhood games were on the NES with Mario, Goonies and Duck Hunt.

These days I'm still a solo gamer though I have played a few online games, but I prefer solo ones. The games I've been playing this week have been:

Spider-Man on PS4 Days Gone on PS4 Hearthstone on PC
What have you been playing lately?

Has anyone else built their own Gaming PC and would you tell me about it? Does anyone wanna hear about my Gaming PC I built? His name is Widget and he's AWESOME! Though he's 5 now, he still plays new games like a beast. I love him!


Tell me about your gaming - video or otherwise!








My Books
Natural Exposure on Amazon
Natural Exposure on Smashwords - on $$SALE$$ for $2.40
Natural Exposure on Goodreads

A Bijou Beginning on Wattpad - FREE short story
A Bijou Beginning on Goodreads

A Discovery of BDSM on Amazon
A Discovery of BDSM on Goodreads

Smashwords Authors Give Back Sale extended through 5/31

You still have the month of May to grab books at deep discounts on Smashwords. Authors who participate have discounted their books 30%, 60% and 100% off! Natural Exposure is 60% off - just $2.40. Click below, or the banner to the right. Check out other authors giving back during this time, and if you're so inclined, add your book to Authors Give Back at Smashwords too!



Natural Exposure on Amazon
Natural Exposure on Smashwords
Natural Exposure on Goodreads

The Blurb:
It’s business as usual for Kenzie in her boudoir studio. Every day, fascinating people of all genders stroll through and Kenzie has the privilege of making them shine. She’s photographed the gamut: sultry brides-to-be seeking a naughty gift for their spouse, the confidant trans person showing the world their true self, and triads locked in passion, each moment of their tender lovemaking on display.

Kenzie’s been a part of it all, but never has a client captivated her so completely, until she steps through the door.

Ripley never recuperated from the relationship that irrevocably changed her. Desperate to forget the past, she moves to the progressive town of Bijou Basin, pursuing a fresh start. While acquainting herself with her new life, she notices an advertisement for an erotic nude photographer. On a whim, she books a session, hoping the experience will help her reclaim her identity.

Sparks fly for both women, but Ripley discovers there’s more to Kenzie than meets the eye. Can Ripley accept Kenzie as she is and does she want to date someone so complicated? Can Kenzie prove she’s worth it?


Authors Note: This slow burn erotic romance features adult themes and language. Themes include: graphic sex, BDSM, Polyamory & LGBTQ+ Characters.

Disney Tips, Tidbits & Trivia #2: Harnessing the Lightning

Disney!

What is Disney Tips, Trivia & Tidbits? Whatever I, and you, want it to be. What have YOU always wanted to know about Disney? I'm most familiar with WDW, but I have been to Disneyland and California Adventures, although it's been many years. We visited 4 or 5 times.

So, my Disney days will just be any bit of information that pops into my head, and if any of you want to hit me up on Twitter, email, or leave a comment here, I'll be glad to answer questions.

Previous Disney Tips, Tidbits & Trivia:
Disney Tidbits #1 - Haunted Mansion


Disney Trivia #2
Harnessing the Lightning. At this point, even the most knowledgable Disney lovers may be like WTF dude, are you off your rocker? There's not been anything called Harnessing the Lightning. And you'd be right.

But there almost was.

Harnessing the Lightning was an idea of Walt's that was to go into Edison Square at Disneyland. It was a land that never came to be, set it behind Main Street on the inside of Tomorrowland.

At the center of the land was to be Harnessing the Lightning which was a precursor to The Carousel of Progress. The show was to feature a horseshoe theater and would go through four (sound familiar) scenes from Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, much as Carousel of Progress still does today. At the time, it was 1959 and he intended to showcase 1898, 1918, 1959 and some year beyond, as CoP has continued to change it's final scene.

It's unclear why Edison Square never got built (despite being in the park map for years) but one thing is certain, that the initial show had room for very few guests. Walt re-imagined the theater for the 1964 World's Fair, so it could hold more people at at time and so more could experience it. Some script revisions were done and with the change to the theater it became "The Carousel Theater Show". Now, Carousel of Progress has been a staple of the Magic Kingdom since 1974, one I hope never goes away.

There's a great, big, beautiful tomorrow
Shining at the end of every day
There's a great, big, beautiful tomorrow
And tomorrow's just a dream away
Man has a dream and that's a start
He follows his dream with mind and heart
And when it becomes a reality
It's a dream come true for you and me

(From memory - so I may have a word wrong - but I don't think so... I know my attractions even all these years later. I can recite the Haunting Mansion Stretching Room word for word too...) :D

And though I didn't love the reasons they changed it, I didn't mind the "Best Time of your Life" song.

"Now is the time, now is the best time
now is the best time of your life..."


Sources:
Skyway to Wonderland
MousePlanet


Too mundane of trivia for you? What do you want to know next?

Did you notice the "Hidden Mickey" in the banner above?




My Books
Natural Exposure on Amazon
Natural Exposure on Smashwords - on $$SALE$$ for $2.40
Natural Exposure on Goodreads

A Bijou Beginning on Wattpad - FREE short story
A Bijou Beginning on Goodreads

A Discovery of BDSM on Amazon
A Discovery of BDSM on Goodreads