Shel Delisle's Blog, page 3

#MusicMonday American Authors

What I love about this song is how it makes me feel happy and incredibly optimistic. It reminds me of that old saying, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” Why can’t every day be the best day of our life? At the very least we should approach life like that, expecting the best, expecting to howl at the moon and dance with monsters.

But, there’s another reason I picked this song today.  I, along with six other American authors (and one Canadian), have come together to launch an e-book bundle TEXT ME: 8 Novels of First Love. I’m excited to be joining forces with Shana Norris, Amanda Brice, Elle Strauss, Juli Alexander, Cindy M. Hogan, Kate Avery Ellison, and Kat Brookes to discover and share readers!

The bundle is a mix of contemporary and paranormal YA with eight full novels. If you like mermaids or sleuths or angels or  time travel or witches or fairy tales or first kisses or cute crushes you’ll find something to like about this set. And, if you don’t like one of those things, is there something wrong with you?

Just kidding.

Anyway…

Here is a link to Amazon, so that you can go grab a copy at 99 cents.  Now, I’m going to go listen to the song one more time, and do a happy dance…or maybe the Karate Kid-move that he does in the video.

 

 

Three Wishes with Shana Norris

Today Shana Norris is calling upon the genie from My Wishful Thinking. He’s out of his bottle and helping authors to fulfill their dreams. So, let’s see what would make Shana happy…

I’ve been thinking hard about what I would wish for if I had three wishes. My first instinct is to say “I wish for world peace!” and I do, but doesn’t everyone? (Or at least most people do, I hope.) But let’s say there are rules about the wishes, such as you can’t wish for things like world peace. So what would I wish for instead?

1. A big piece of land with a little tiny house. My husband and I have been talking about this lately. We’ve been reading about the micro-housing trend–we’re talking houses less than 500 square feet–and our dream is to have one of these tiny houses on several acres where we could have chickens and goats and pigs running around. We’re very much country people!

2. Having one of my books made into a movie with a big red carpet premiere. Because it would be fun to have it happen just one time. I won’t be greedy and say I want all my books turned into huge movies, just one would be enough. Then I could show up in a limo, wearing a designer dress I can’t afford, and all the paparazzi would be shouting my name. Move over, J.K. Rowling!

3. All the Lindor Truffles I could eat. Because I love those things. I get them every year in my Christmas stocking and they are just so good. They melt in your mouth and…mmm! Love them. So my last wish would be for a whole truckload of Lindor Truffles.

Mmmmm… Lindor Truffles. And, how funny Kai Strand wished for a movie, too. Euguene is geeky, but effective and I’m sure he’s on it!

While we’re making wishes I have one for Shana, and one for me, and one for other authors.

For Shana: I’ve read quite a few of Shana’s books and my favorite so far is The Rules of You and Me. It’s an awesome read!  She’s reduced the price to 99 cents for a limited time, and, let me tell you, that is too good to pass up—shoot it’s less than Lindor Truffles. So, I think you should grab it at Amazon or Barnes and Noble while you can.  

For me: Dolphin Girl will be participating in a Kindle Countdown Deal. This is the new promotion at Amazon where the clock ticks down how much longer the book is available at the sale price. At press time of this blog, it had just started and will be available for a very limited time at 99 cents and then increase to $1.99. So if you haven’t read it yet, you might want to pick it up. Or let a friend know about the sale. Here’s where to get it. 

For other authors: You can use my genie to make three wishes. Right now I’m scheduled into December, but if you’d like to contribute a guest post that would appear on a Wednesday here’s where you can contact me.   

Three Wishes with Kai Strand

My Wishful Thinking features a good-hearted, but so-last-century genie. See, his old master never really let him out of the bottle and he’s a little behind the times.  I thought: Now that he’s out of the bottle–or in his case, the bag–maybe he could help a few other authors. Today, he’ll be granting wishes for Kai Strand.

When Shel Delisle asked what my three wishes would be, the answer was much harder than I expected. I would love to cure pediatric cancer, but I would also love to eat as much pizza as I want without gaining weight or clogging my arteries. Since I have such a wide range of wishes, I thought I’d target them to my writing career. Even if I had a genie offering me three wishes for my career, I find the possibilities too broad, but here it goes.

I’ve never wanted to be famous, but I would love for my career to be successful. There are many definitions of success, but for this purpose, we are sticking with financial. I’m a wife, and mother and I want to contribute financially to the family. I don’t want to have to eat potatoes and spaghetti because I can’t afford fresh veggies and meats. I would like to go to any movie I want without having to worry if I can afford the admission price. So Genie, I wish for my writing career to contribute to a comfortable lifestyle for me and my family. In other words, I’m not asking to be a New York Times bestseller, unless that is the only way to support a modest lifestyle (while allowing me to contribute to pediatric cancer research.)

I want to change the world. One reader at a time. Without them knowing it. My books are written to entertain first and foremost. I don’t write deep thinking books. I’m not angling to change your viewpoint on politics or prejudice or principles, but I do want to expose my readers to options. Some may be obvious, others not so much. You may never meet a gnome-elf that grants you a wish, but you may have to decide how to handle bad family members and my book, The Wishing Well, could show you how to endure. You may never invent a product that makes you a media sensation, but you might have rumors spread about you and my book, Save the Lemmings, could show you how to divert bad attention to good. So Genie, I wish for my books to find the right audience. Whether it is readers who simply want to be entertained or those who might need new options in specific situations.

Finally, a movie. I would really love a movie adaptation of the Super Villain Academy series. This is the over the top fun wish – if you couldn’t tell! I would love to see these teen villains and their counterpart heroes come to life on the big screen. To see their powers in action would be so exciting! And the good verses evil theme always makes a good story line. Especially when the viewer is conflicted about whom to route for. Ideally, I’d love to have Joss Whedon produce it. So Genie, I wish for Joss Whedon to produce the movie version of my Super Villain Academy series. Genie…? Genie…?

Those are sweet wishes, Kai, and I think Eugene is working out the details! Here are some details on Kai’s books so that you can be a part of the wish fulfillment.

Beware of the White

As is tradition, Terra learns on the Saturday past her twelfth birthday that she is a Natures Spirit. It is her legacy to serve in the peaceful underground city of Concord. Learning she is named in a prophecy and being threatened by the leader of the death tribe…that part breaks tradition.

The Trepidus are the death janitors of the Underworld, responsible for delivering fatalities with a smile and cleaning up after themselves until Blanco, recent leader of the Trepidus, decides the day of reckoning for his species is coming. He begins organizing the creatures and leads them toward an uprising. The prophecy says there is one person who can stop him. Terra.

With Spirit of Security, Frank, protecting her, Terra attempts to complete her training and discover her Spirit talents. Together, they go on a rogue investigation to learn how to defeat Blanco. In the end, it comes down to a battle of the minds. The future of Concord is at stake. Will Blanco, the older, more experienced being win? Or will Terra, the young, new Spirit earn back the peace of the city?

Buy it: Publisher, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, or look for it on iTunes. Add it to Goodreads

About the author:

When her children were young and the electricity winked out, Kai Strand gathered her family around the fireplace and they told stories, one sentence at a time. Her boys were rather fond of the ending, “And then everybody died, the end.” Now an award winning children’s author, Kai crafts fiction for kids and teens to provide an escape hatch from their reality. With a selection of novels for young adult and middle grade readers and short stories for younger children Kai entertains children of all ages, and their adults. Visit Kai’s website, www.kaistrand.com, to browse her books, download companion materials or to find all her online haunts.

Kai and her #1 bestseller, King of Bad will be on tour starting in late November. Don’t miss a stop, visit her website and subscribe to her newsletter!

One last note — I’m going to make Three Wishes guest posts a semi-regular feature on Wednesdays. If you’re an author that’s interested in contributing, please let me know. Click here to find out how you can reach me. 

#MusicMonday Sugar Ray

So this has become one of those earworm songs, because one of my sons discovered it and has to play it every time I chauffeur him somewhere.  Granted, it’s an oldie — 1997 or 1998 according to Wikipedia – but it’s still catchy. If you watch the video, you’ll be able to tell it’s old. The clothes, and especially the MySpace URL at the end are a dead giveaway. But, it’s held up. Otherwise, my kids wouldn’t be listening to it. It wouldn’t have people heading over to YouTube every day to listen to it.

This is one of my favorite thing about the digitization of music; that it no longer comes with an expiration date. Songs can be discovered and embraced by a new generation, while, surprisingly, Mom knows all the lyrics. I expect that the digitization of books will be similar. Years after a release, stories will still find their way to readers that will love them.  For a writer, that’s an encouraging thought.

I hope you enjoy this video. It’s got wall walking and some cool underwater shots. Plus, I think Grace from Winging It! and Grounded! would appreciate it. She might even pick it as a sort-of anthem.

There’s a Real Life Guardian Angel at DQ

Last week I saw an on-line article about Joey Prusak, a Dairy Queen manager from Minnesota, who earned quite a lot of attention by doing the right thing. The story reminded me of a scene in from one of the Angel in Training books, so I thought I’d share it here.

The news story explained that a visually impaired customer had come in to the store and while paying accidentally dropped a twenty dollar bill. Joey saw another customer pick up the money, and he thought they would return it. Instead, he could hardly believe it when they put the cash into their purse.

In Winging It!, Angel in Training Grace Lightbourne sees a young student drop his lunch money in the main hall before the bell. An older bully picks up the cash and pockets it. She swoops in, hoping to save the day and demands he give the money back, but he just laughs at her. It’s at this point that Grace realizes being a Guardian Angel might be harder than she initially thought.

Joey’s incident unfolded in a similar way. He asked the customer to the return the money to it’s rightful owner and when she stubbornly refused, Joey refused to serve her.

Then, he took his good deed one step further. He went over to where the visually impaired customer was enjoying his sundae and gave the man twenty dollars.

Admittedly, Grace didn’t go that extra mile in Winging It! The young student who lost his money had already disappeared into a crush of students. But this news story made me wish I’d written the scene with a slightly different outcome. Of course it might all be explained by the fact that Grace is still in training. Which, naturally, would make Joey Prusak a full Guardian Angel.

I’m thrilled to see a young person of character receive national recognition. With all the bad news that bombards us daily, it’s re-affirming to see a small good deed not go unnoticed.

If you’d like additional details about Joey Prusak, the original article I read is here.

And if you haven’t read Winging It!, you can sample the first chapter here.

 

 

#MusicMonday Lindsey Stirling – Originality Part 2

This is actually an extension of my last post about how originality calls on using and combining every experience into something unique.

The second thing about being original is that there is probably an audience for whatever “it” is. Even when “it” seems very different.

It makes me wonder if Lindsey Stirling ever said something like, “Sooo…what I’d like to do is play the violin with dub step and dance while I play. What do you think?”

And I imagine someone might have said, “Uh….really?”

And I imagine someone else said, “That’s cool, but don’t be disappointed if no one’s into it.”

What I said was, “I’d like to see that.” And after I saw it I said, “Freakin’ amazing!”

And you know what? So have a lot of other people, because this YouTube video had over 70 million views when I discovered it. Let that number sink in. Seventy million.

That’s probably not just her friends and family watching it again and again.

Here’s my take away:  be original and then share it. The world is a mighty big place and you’ll eventually find your audience. It might not be 70 million like Lindsey , but who knows?

#Music Monday: Manchester Orchestra & Originality

Manchester Orchestra is one of the most original bands in recent history and, certainly, this video isn’t typical either.  They have a distinct sound that’s easy for me to identify.

Still, they say their music was inspired by others. In something I read on the web they credit Weezer, Foo Fighters and Nirvana for their Mean Everything to Nothing album. Somewhere else they credit Bob Marley for inspiration.

This brings me to the point of today’s post, which is originality and inspiration.

Art—paintings, songs, and especially stories—are not created in a vacuum. They are the product of each person’s individual experiences and influences. If my writing was a math equation it would look like this B x M x V x S x P x E = Story.

Where:

B = books

M= movies

V = TV

S = songs

P = paintings and photos

E = every personal experience

Some people have said that my writing is fresh or original. They’re usually good friends or readers who enjoy my work. The only claim I can make about my writing is that it’s uniquely me, and that I’ve never set out to imitate someone else.

Some people say that there are only two stories: Man Goes on a Journey and Stranger Comes to Town. That’s a bit of an over simplification, but I’d, at the very least, add Coming Home to the list. Or, maybe that’s a combination of the other two.

“Now that You’re Home” is a Coming Home song/story. This song is one of my favorites by Manchester Orchestra, and I love the line, “We’re gonna see if this bad boy can fly”.

For obvious reasons.

I hope you enjoy the video.

 

A dolphin, a girl, and some laughs

I first saw this video a couple weeks ago (thanks Google alerts) and it reminded me of the scene in Dolphin Girl when Jane tells Sam about her visit to Sea World.  Jane didn’t do cartwheels, but if I’d seen this, she might’ve.

Thought I’d post and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

 

Three Wishes with Eileen Granfors

Today I have Eileen Granfors for a guest post. I met Eileen when I did a series of author interviews conducted by Grace Lightbourne, the main character in Winging It! You can read Eileen’s interview here. 

But before you go (or go and come back), stick around and read the rest of this post because Eileen will be making three wishes, and maybe, Eugene, the nerdy genie from My Wishful Thinking,  will grant them.

Only time will tell. Before we get to the wishes, here’s a little about Eileen’s newest book, The Pinata-Maker’s Daughter:

Scholarly Carmen Principia jumps into college unprepared socially. First, there’s her weird roommate. And the men she meets! Radical protester, Franco, who shares her Hispanic heritage, or frat rat Joe, who makes her laugh? Follow her adventures, some hilarious, some heartbreaking.   Okay, take it away, Eileen!

When Shel and I talked about this blog post, I thought, “piece of cake.” Darn, a cliché already. But I did think it would be easy. After a few sleepless nights (I take things way too seriously), here’s my wish list:

Wish #1: Put reading books for pleasure back on the daily agenda.

My first wish is that we would once again become a nation of readers. Some of my friends and family members say they have no time to read anymore. They are so busy with Twitter, newsfeeds, and status updates in social media, they’ve crowded out reading for pleasure.

We’ll spend ten dollars on a movie (or more), but balk at the price of a book. Well, the movie is probably 90 minutes long. Most books provide three or more days of pleasure. And they can be shared, increasing their value.  Whether your choice is e-book, paperback, or library edition, a book is an investment in yourself and in society.

Wish #2: Best sellers for positive books that are not about extreme sex and violence. I am thinking about books like Caroline Leavitt’s Is This Tomorrow, Anita Diamont’s The Red Tent, and Laura Moriarty’s The Chaperone.

My second wish ties in with the first. I write positive books with moral choices. My characters rarely swear, they don’t kill people, and they don’t blow things up. What they do is look at themselves and think about how to change. Their internal struggles may also include conflicts with family members, but my characters are not action heroes, psychopaths, or members of the mob. They are as close to real people as I can make them with times of heartbreak and times of humor.

Wish #3: Study other cultures. Think about the eradication of disease and illiteracy. Join forces with active movements. What a wonderful world it could be.

Do I need a third wish? I have one more. Since people will be reading more and reading books that aren’t so flashy, maybe we could understand one another better. Reading about other cultures in places where we ourselves have not travelled would be my third wish. Let’s open up our eyes to the rest of the world. ABC news reported that one fourth of America’s liberal arts majors said in a survey their #1 employer would be Disneyland. The world we live in is not Disneyland. Why pretend? A generation ago, the Peace Corps was a popular choice for American college grads. Let’s learn about India (Jhumpa Lahirir) and Africa (Clive Cleave) and Afghanistan (Khaled Hosseini). We live in a global economy. It would help us to understand other cultures.

Thanks. I love those wishes, Eileen! 

You can check out Eileen’s new book,  The Pinata-Maker’s Daughter here. And here are some other places you can connect with her on-line.

Twitter  

Her Blog Word Joy:  http://www.eileengranfors.blogspot.com

YouTube

Amazon Author Page

Bio:

Eileen Granfors is a retired English teacher with a passion for reading and writing. She has published four novels, two anthologies of poetry, and an anthology of flash fiction. She loves the beach, all dogs, and the diversity of the world.

P.S.  My Wishful Thinking is on sale for 99 cents through the weekend. It’s available here.

 

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