CYNDI LAUPER: A Memoir by Cyndi Lauper

Cyndi Lauper: A Memoir by Cyndi Lauper
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Cyndi Lauper is an artist that I loved when I was a kid. I never forgot the first time I heard/saw the music video for Girls Just Want to Have Fun, because I loved the catchy tune and cool video. I loved her style and how different she was to other singers. And of course she was involved with wrestling, so it mixed two of my favourite things. Not to mention that she also did the song for The Goonies.

So yeah, she was a big part of my childhood in the 80s, and I still listen to her now.

I wanted to read her memoir because she's always seemed interesting. Plus, I wanted to hear all about her life directly from her. Cyndi's voice shines through every experience she shares. She doesn't hold back.

Another thing I really enjoyed was how her story follows a linear timeline, but at the same time goes off in little tangents that reveal insightful, inspirational, funny, and even sad experiences.

She's quirky and zany, and very creative. I love how much she appreciates art, music and fashion, how she's always combined all of these to make beautiful music and fun, bright visuals. In everything she does.

Her narrative voice is also very interesting and kept me glued all the way through. I remembered a lot of the stuff she covered, but was also surprised by so much of what she revealed. I would've liked to know more about Kinky Boots, but I guess she ran out of room. It's quite a hefty book already. ☺️

Anyway, if you're a Cyndi Lauper fan, you'll definitely enjoy this memoir. It's inspiring because of her creative process and activism, full of surprises, and includes some of the sadder things in her life.

 

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DAISY JONES & THE SIX by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've been meaning to read this for AGES! And I'm really glad that I finally decided to get stuck into it because I couldn't put it down.

Well, what can I say about this fantastic book that hasn't already been said? This is a fictional rock documentary that dragged me in from the very beginning and wouldn't let me go until I reached the end.

I can definitely see how Fleetwood Mac inspired this amazing rock story, but everything about what happens to this band and what they all go through together (and individually) is very much their own.

I feel like, in its own way, Daisy Jones & the Six fit perfectly into the 1970s music scene and their rise and fall survives on its own.

Yeah, I loved everything about this book! Including that little unexpected twist at the end.

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This week, I have a plan!

So. A new week is here.

After a super busy weekend, which included lining up early in the morning for Free Comic Book Day, this week I've decided to tackle the third draft revision of my 1980s YA novel. Yep. And I started yesterday.

I managed to revise 33/289 pages. That's actually quite good, considering that when I tackled the second draft in March I only managed 9 pages on the first day. Ouch! 

Of course, that draft turned out to be more of a rewrite than a revision. O.o

I've set myself the goal of getting this draft done by next Friday. That's two weeks to get the third draft done before passing it off to my daughter. This will be the second YA book I've written in the last few years. And yes, my daughter read that one too. She loved it, and also happens to be the only person who's read that dystopian YA.

So, what is this 1980's WIP I've mentioned before? Well, it's a story that hit me while listening to one of my favourite songs from my teens: HEAVEN by Warrant. I've always loved this song and even had the cassingle. LOL. Anyway, it's set in the late 80's and is the story of a teenager who is dealing with first love and strong friendships, while going through a lot of other changes. It's pretty much a contemporary story, but would be considered a historical because of the year/setting.

I'm really excited about working on this draft. I wrote the first draft during NaNoWriMo in a frenzy of words, hairspray, leather and loud music. :P I had a blast telling this story and reconnecting with my actual teenage years. Here's a fun fact: I was the same age as the narrator during the year it was set, and share a lot of interests with her. Plus, she's the same age as my daughter is right now! Fun, right? ;)

Another thing that makes this story stand out for me is that it happens to be the book that got me out of my horrible writing slump last year. Letting several publishing issues affect my output was awful, and getting lost in this book helped me find my way back to writing.

Well, that's my writing goals for this month. Asides from that, I'm still going to keep reading as much as I can and doing all the other daily odd jobs that come hand in hand with working from home. It's amazing just HOW MUCH you do in a day when you're at home most of the day!

Have a good week.

It's the Most Restless Time of the Year

Wow! It's been a long while since I actually posted an actual update post on my blog. I'm pretty sure I haven't posted anything but book reviews since October. Yikes! Time sure goes fast.

 

Anyway, because it's almost the end of the year, I thought it was about time I popped in. So, here I am! ;) 

 

The last few months have been filled with editing, reading, real life stuff, planning, thinking and writing. Yep. As you can tell by the pic I posted, I took part in NaNoWriMo 2015 and once again won. Plus, I actually finished the novel I was writing. Which means that I wrote 86k during November. Yay.

 

It's no secret that I love to take part every year because it caters perfectly to my I Must Spew Out The Story As Fast As I Can kind of first draft writing. The only thing is that I ended up writing a completely different story to the one I had planned. I always change my mind several times during the year, but this time I did the old switcheroo the month before. Until then I'd planned to write the sixth/final RECAST story. But I just wasn't feeling it. Though I was definitely feeling a YA idea that hit me earlier in the year while listening to one of my all-time favourite songs HEAVEN by Warrant.

 

So, I decided to get stuck into my YA novel set in the late 1980s and had a TOTAL blast writing it!

 

This year has been a bit of an iffy one as far as the writing goes. I took a small hiatus from it earlier because the publishing side of things affected me a lot deeper than I expected it to. These things affected me so much that I lost the motivation to write several planned projects. In the end, the time away--which I spent reading, watching TV shows, and dreaming about story ideas--helped me get my spark back. Plus, the story I wrote during NaNoWriMo was written for me. Not for any particular publisher or a certain market, I just wanted to tell a story that was so well-formed inside my head that I enjoyed the hell out of it.

 

Sometimes, you just have to write like the wind. Enjoy every second of the words that are slipping out of your head and onto the screen. And that's exactly what I did. On the plus side, I now have the first draft of a novel that I think has a LOT of potential to become SO MUCH MORE. But I'm not worried about that, I'm just excited about completing another novel.

 

Before getting stuck into this novel that has the tentative title of MIXED TAPE, I spent several months working really hard on editing HELL OF A RIDE. I'm really excited about Lavie's story and can't wait to hear what readers think of her road trip book with Saul the sexy demon. I know some people were interested in Lavie Grye after reading the Sierra Fox series, so I hope this answers any questions they had about her and gives them a deeper insight into a fun, talented demon hunter with a lot more depth than she seems to have. :)

 

We've also binged on SCREAM QUEENS! Man, that was such a GREAT show. Clever writing, insane characters, bizarre situations, and everything I love about a good thriller-slash-horror story. Now we're watching iZOMBIE. And OMG, we're totally loving it. I also watched FINAL GIRLS and absolutely loved it! It was one of the most fun movies I've seen in a while. And of course, last week we went to watch THE FORCE AWAKENS. Absolutely loved it! Felt like a real Star Wars movie, not that dribble the prequels turned out to be. LOL. We enjoyed it so much that we'll be watching it again next week. On IMAX!

 

Asides from that, I've also been reading up a storm. Plus I'm busy with further research for the YA WIP I mentioned. And I've been listening the hell out of Warrant. Okay, maybe I'm a little obsessed with them right now. Yeah, their songs were the inspiration for my novel. I used to love their music so much that while losing myself in it again to get into the right period and mood, I've fallen in love with them all over again. The clips are hilarious and the music is fun and super cool. Seriously loving this trip down hair band memory lane. :P

 

Man, it feels weird to have summarised the last few months into one blog post so easily. But hey, at least I'm blogging again.

 

Have a great day!

 

Last day of the week!

This week has become a blur of words, trouble, and constant thinking about my current WIP. Yikes! It's totally consuming my mind. Which is actually a great thing. :)

I love getting so wrapped up in a story that the characters constantly whisper inside my head, and new scenes, conversations, as well as twists keep popping into my brain when I least expect it.

Yesterday, while I was walking with MCR plugged into my ears, the end of the book played out inside my head. Awesome! 

Actually, the soundtracks for this book are: Discovery by Daft Punk and The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance. Both are absolutely perfect for the story, especially MCR's TBP, because some of the songs relate directly to some of the chapters I've been writing. :) Love that.

The Sierra Fox #2 word count has hit 40,653. That's my word count goal for today, so anything I add during my writing session when I get home from dropping my daughter off at school is extra word count. It'll put me in a good place for next week. And if hubby works tomorrow, I can squeeze in a few more too.

I'm loving every minute of writing this story, and am already thinking about the next installment...

Oh, you know what happened the other day? Just out of the blue, our LCD TV decided to play up. For some reason, there was this horrid smudge on the right side of it. Like the image was flipping. We thought it was odd, but what was odder was the fact that after a while, it would disappear and work just fine again. Yet, it did it every day after that. Yesterday, someone came in to look at it--it's under extended warranty--and we were surprised to hear him say it was a serious problem. He reckons the screen's gone.

WTF? Anyway, he took it with him and said he'd get back to us soon. Now, we've got our daughter's much smaller TV in the living room. It feels so strange, like something's missing. lol. Still, it's better than no TV at all, I suppose. Hope we hear back soon, and I'm wondering if it's something that'll be fixed, or if it'll need to be replaced. O_o

Okay. I need to get ready. It's time to head out, drop my daughter off at school, go for a walk by the river, and then get back to get stuck into some writing! Hoping for another productive run...

Have a good one!

The start of another week...

...and it's also the last week of March. Yikes!

Well. today I've taken time away from my writing/revising and instead spent it doing other stuff. You know how it is, sometimes you just gotta tackle real life stuff. I've also snuck in as much reading as I can. It's been pretty good.

I'm only giving myself today and tomorrow. Tomorrow, because I have a doctor's appointment smack-bang in the middle of the day. It's also several suburbs away, which means I'll be taking the train there.

Yesterday I popped into the Samhain blog and posted a little post. :)

Oh, and this is super cool. For me, it's like the past meeting the present. Yay.

Well... I'm going to go and read a little more, before it's time to head out to pick my daughter up from school. I'm really enjoying DESIRES OF THE DEAD.

See ya!

Just thinkin'

You guys already know about my fascination with 30STM, right? But I'm not sure if you know that I have a very similar fascination with MCR. There's just something about these two bands that gets my creative juices totally flowing! It's awesome.

So when I drop my daughter off at school, I always switch on my MP3 player and listen while I walk. The last few days I've been plugging back into The Black Parade. Before that I was listening non-stop to Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. Both albums are totally awesome, I can't get enough, but this is also a way for me to gear up for their next album. We've already pre-ordered it. And I just can't stop listening/watching Na Na Na. It totally rocks! And I love the fictional angle that Gerard Way gives his albums/songs. He's very creative, and even writes comic books.

So, there you have it. These bands are two of my biggest musical influences, and I've gotten several story ideas just from listening to their songs. Just thought I'd share. ;)

We've hit mid-week again. Yikes! Today, hubby started work super early so we got up at 4m. We'll be doing that again tomorrow. And even though I kinda feel like a lightheaded zombie waking at that time, it also gives me a lot of extra time to do stuff before my daughter wakes up. Like this morning, I wrote/proofread/scheduled my upcoming Samhain blog post. It'll go live on October 29, but I wanted to get it done a few days before. It's a little post about NaNoWriMo. I'll post the link here when it's posted.

I also received the final round of edits for my upcoming Evernight Publishing novella, THE SOUL DEALER: Redemption. Instead of throwing myself into it all day today, I'm going to tackle the beginning of it, and then plan to have it finished by tomorrow afternoon. Friday, at the very latest. I've just got a small list of other things that need doing as well, especially for my upcoming NaNoWriMo novel, which I'm now super excited about! Yay.

Either way, looks like I'll be pretty busy for the rest of the week. So, I better get started, huh? See ya later!

MCR is back & I'm lovin' it!

I absolutely, effing love this:

I can't wait to get my hands on their new album!

Awesome!

I can't believe it's already Friday!

Seriously, where has this week gone?

I think that taking this week off from most of my projects was a great idea. I mean, I've still been thinking about a bunch of them, added notes about some of them, and have been researching more info for M-YA (and its sequels) but mostly I've been trying to relax and even catch up on some YA reading. It's been great.

Last night, I picked up EVERMORE and am really enjoying it so far. I'm about 30 pages in and am totally intrigued about the story. Oh, and I love the narrator's name. Ever was a name that I wanted to use for one of my characters, which I got from the Foo Fighters song, Everlong. I remember singing to it on Rock Band and thinking how cool it would be to write about a girl called Ever. I guess someone else thought the same thing, lol.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to reading some more of the book later. I'm in a total YA-kinda mood at the moment. Which is a great thing because there are SO many awesome YA books out there, but it's not-so-good because it makes my muse itch to get back into the futuristic and odd world that M-YA takes place in. I know it sounds werid, but hey, I'm a writer. ;)

And speaking of that story, I think I've finally decided that this YA idea of mine is going to be a quartet of books. The first one's already done in first draft, the second one has a first chapter and the main plotline... I've also pretty much got the plot for the third one, and kinda know where the fourth one needs to go in order to end my heroine's journey. We'll see what happens, but for now, I'm working on the four titles. I've got the first, and possibly the last. Just need the two in the middle now.

Next week, however, I'm throwing myself into the second draft of DT. This one's definitely NOT a YA story, but it's one that I can't wait to return to.

On that note, I hope you all have an awesome weekend! Bye for now...

PS. Tomorrow, I will attempt to wear shoes on my right foot. Will let you know how it goes on Monday. Fingers crossed.

So, I started a new story last night...

... and here, we have a progress meter:

Yes, that's not a bad start. I think I wrote the first 600 words late last night, and picked it up again after my chat this morning, which was a lot of fun. :) I'd been toying with this idea for a few weeks. Of course, I've been working like crazy on one thing after another, so I decided to just start it and see where it led.

The funny thing is that after I got to the end of the first page, pretty much everything else tumbled into my head. I will never understand how that happens, but I'm so excited that it does. It's quite a blessing, very magical and it always amazes me. So, I wrote down some stuff so I wouldn't forget and am now itching to just get it all out onto the lappy.

As you can see, it's just a shortie but I'm getting a nice feel for this world and won't be surprised if I decide to write a novel set here, in the future. I like the hero and heroine. Of course, she's got a few probs that stand in the way, but hey, he's no angel. Nope, definitely not an angel. Lol.

Oh, and I also dug out six songs to have playing continously in the background. I kinda want this tale to be fast-paced, but not like the novel I wrote in Feb. That was just insane, crazy. Anyway, here are the songs I chose:

This Heart Attack: FAKER

Untouched: THE VERONICAS

I Don't Do Surprises: AXLE WHITEHEAD

Battle of One: 30 SECONDS TO MARS

Here is Gone: THE GOO GOO DOLLS

Dead!: MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE

Not a bad, little playlist. It sits nicely in the background as my fingers move quickly over the keyboard. If I didn't have so many interruptions, I could easily write this tale in a few days. But of course, real life is full of them. :/

Hope you're all having a nice week so far!

NaNo's Playlist:

All That I’m Living For: Evanescence
Shadow of the Day: Linkin Park
A Beautiful Lie: 30 Seconds to Mars
Welcome to the Universe: 30 Seconds to Mars
Little of Your Time: Maroon 5
UFO: Sneaky Sound System
Little Wonders: Rob Thomas
Something About Us: Daft Punk
I Love It: Sneaky Sound System
This Is How I Disappear: My Chemical Romance
Misery: Good Charlotte
Digital Love: Daft Punk
Bent: Matchbox Twenty
The Pretender: Foo Fighters
The Mission: 30 Seconds to Mars
I Don’t Love You: My Chemical Romance
The Kill: 30 Seconds to Mars
Spaceman: Babylon Zoo
Leave Out All The Rest: Linkin Park
Apologize: Timbaland Feat. One Republic
Into the Night: Santana Feat. Chad Kroeger

Uh... it's already Friday?

Well, yesterday was a bit of a bust. Though I did get a bunch of emailing and some blogging done.

I had a specialist appointment yesterday. Yeah, that whole nose thing that I've been struggling with for about a year now. The good news is that there is no more inflammation. It's all good internally, but I need to keep taking my medicine (in the form of a nasal spray) until at least next March. The dose is down to three times a week now, so that's cool.

Considering I've only had one sleepless, shitty night since the last time I went to see the specialist, I think it's good. This is just something that I'll have to live with for the rest of my life. As long as I've got some handy sprays nearby, I should be okay. So that was good news.

I planned to get some reading done on the train, but I took my daughter's MP3 player with this album, and this one, as well as this one... and just couldn't switch off. ;) Some awesome tunes, that's for sure.

Anyway, I got the Horror/X-mas story finished on Wednesday afternoon. I added a scene and fixed up a lot of the writing. The story is pretty much the same as it was, I just cleaned it up a lot. Now I think I'll just read it one last time and sub it away. Yay. I'll probably do that sometime next week.

As for today... I plan to get the final draft of that little Tryst finished. It's just over 10k, so it's definitely a short story. Still, I think it's got a lot of emotion and detail, sadness and happiness, and of course a little lovin'. Other than that, don't think I'll get a chance to do much else.

It's my daughter's last day of Term 3 today. :/ Oh gosh. I hope it doesn't bring the writing to a stand-still. There are plenty of things I want to accomplish within October.

Oh, and on another note, I thought this article was interesting. I don't think there's enough going on as far as outer space is concerned.

Have a good one!

Don't forget, I'll be the featured author over at Mandy M Roth's blog this Friday.

Let's talk about music...

The other day we got Hinder's album - Extreme Behavior. Thanks for recommending it Samantha! I finally had enough time to put it on today, and boy it's just my kind of music. I love it. Lips of an Angel and Better than Me are especially great. ;) I know this album's going to be responsible for a bunch of ideas.

Speaking of cool songs, we also got a bunch of singles. And I absolutely love Welcome to the Black Parade by My Chemical Romance.
Love their sound, the way the music changes so many times during the one song. What about that creepy cover? Lol. This is their only song I've heard. Well, except for the other song on the single, which is also excellent. Might have to check out their album too.

The other song I'm really into at the moment is by the Aussie band Silverchair. You guys heard of them? I know they've had stuff released in the US. Anyway, instead of trying to explain it or finding a pic of the cover, here's the filmclip. Now you can watch the clip, listen to the song and see who the boys are:

The quality isn't the best, but the clip's on their MySpace page too if you want to see it properly.

Also got George Michael's latest album called Twenty Five. This one's packed with songs. A lot of his great old songs, and even some new ones. :)

The hubby showed me this last night. If you're a Spiderman fan and you're looking forward to the new movie, then check it out. There's about 7 minutes of footage, different bits. An action scene, a romantic one and a very touching one. It's worth checking out. I personally can't wait for the movie. It looks like quite a ride!

Well, today I took it easier than I have all week.

On my walk home after dropping my daughter off at school I had a new idea pop into my head. It was a pretty good one, I think. It involves a black cat, since a very friendly little cat I see every morning was the one that sparked off the idea. Gotta write the snippets down before I forget. I've got so much in there at the moment...

I also put in my first proposal and had it accepted! Yay. Very exciting stuff. Since I'm a pantser, I hardly do this kind of thing but this idea just grew and grew until there was the proposal. Okay, do you get I'm excited? ;)

Anyway, I better get going now.

Have a fantastic weekend everyone!