Okay, so you may have seen yesterday’s post about the audio excerpt music thingie I did on YouTube for my short story “Viva Las Vegas.”
Well, guess what? The entire Viva Las Vegas short story is available for free this weekend only (Kindle only). I hope you’ll get the free download and a review would be even more awesome. Everybody needs a lift and reviews seem to be the thing.
Remember, Saturday and Sunday only.
Oh, heck, let’s post the video here, too.
As a writer, sometimes you have those moments when a story takes on a life of its own and you’re wondering “Where did that come from?” That’s my short story “Viva Las Vegas,” published in A Shaker of Margaritas: Hot Flash Mommas by Mozark Press. Also in my anthology, Cougars in Cabo.
So, I thought I’d do an audio excerpt along with a play on the song “Viva Las Vegas” as background music in my Screamie Birds fashion. I hope you enjoy.
Counting down to the next 50/90 (the 50 songs in 90 days songwriting challenge), which starts July 4, I’m revisiting some of my favorite songs I discovered through FAWM and 50/90. And this is certainly one of my top favorite songs and I thought I would break it down as to why. Hey, I might make this a regular thing.
Go ahead, take a listen while I break it down.
The Breakdown:
There’s gotta be a thousand good reasons why
We shouldn’t do this, shouldn’t even try
There’s gotta be a thousand more reasons why
We’re both thinking this, yeah we’re both thinking this…
Let’s rip the ceiling off the bedroom baby
Lie here and look up at the stars
For the full track, see Wolf Kier on YouTube and Bandcamp.
Check out my YouTube shorts where I featured this song in my clips.
Rainy Day in the Pacific Northwest
PS – I did one more – JB’s Fish Camp
Thank you to all my readers of Letters on Balboa Island, a mid-century historical novel and my new bestseller. The response to this book has encouraged me to continue writing two more midcentury historical novels, now in progress.
In case you haven’t heard the audio excerpt or know nothing of this book, keep reading.
LETTERS ON BALBOA ISLAND, AUDIO EXCERPT
“When I was seventeen, I knew two things that were true: (1) You couldn’t help but meet a man in a military uniform in southern California in the 1950s, and (2) Sooner or later, men would leave. ” – Rosalie
When Rosalie Martin chooses to spend her life with a military man in the post Korean War era of the 1950s, she can’t forget another she met during the war. And when letters surface on Balboa Island years later, she realizes she may have chosen the wrong man. So when fate offers her the chance to make a different choice, will she? Or has she lived a life of lies for too long?
AVAILABLE NOW on Amazon.com for Kindle and in Paperback
Audio/Video Excerpt:
My biggest dream was to be an entertainer. I’d done some singing, played a couple instruments… At other times I toyed with the idea of being a writer. I wrote a few short stories about family in school and even wrote a couple of sentences for a novel but stalled when it came to description. I’ve never been a fan of that, either as a reader or writer. But, really, what did I have to write about?
After I met my father for the first time in my adult life (I may or may not met him when I was 3), and put together all the differing stories, I finally had a plot. So I started writing. Book 3 got me an agent and a publishing deal with a publisher that soon went out of business. Still, it got attention – I’d hit it toward the end of the chicklit boom and the beginning of the Indie publishing boom.
But, really, my best book, and my best seller for some years is Letters on Balboa Island. I wrote it for my dad and for me. He loved it. He told me, “Keep writing. You must fulfill your destiny.”
I love music. So when the publishing industry went wacko, I turned most of my attention towards music. But, now, I keep hearing those words of my father. And when he died 5 years ago now, I heard the song “Beyond the Sea.” I recently uploaded a YouTube short in honor of that. So how could I not combine music and writing? 🙂
So, here I am, listening to music that my father loved and opening the manuscript I’m working on. Jaclyn is its working title. I think he will love it. I just have to finish it. My mother is also the inspiration for this book. So what better day than Mother’s Day to open the manuscript?
Sinatra, Vegas, Martinis, yes, I do believe they will all be there.
Monday is my day to retreat. I’ve been interacting all weekend with little time in my studio. As much fun as I’ve had (check out the “Cinderella” #shorts), I’m now in my studio, inspired to write a little romantic fiction. Especially after listening to a clip of one of my favorite Wolf Kier songs – love that “Sweet Mary Lou” line. That will ring a bell for music lovers, especially those from a certain era.
So, of course, I had to do a little remix of my own. And now that clip has so inspired a scene, taking me back to the Pacific Northwest. Btw, “Raining Men” is also set in the Pacific Northwest.
When California girl BROOKE SLADE wins a “Red Hot Love Weekend” with blond surfer type BARRIE WITHERSPOON on a girlfriend’s weekend in Las Vegas, she’s sure he must be from Southern California, the only place she can imagine living. But when she discovers he’s from the rainy Pacific Northwest, she deems him “GU” (geographically undesirable) and turns him down.
So when she loses her job and the only new job available is in his hometown in wet, rainy Oregon, she find herself working alongside him. To make matters worse, he doesn’t seem to be quite as single as she thought. With new determination to make the best of things, she sets out to date every single man in the Northwest until either Barrie is out of her system or she finds the real Mr. Right. And so now it’s not only raining the wet stuff in the Pacific Northwest, it’s raining men, too. How lucky can a girl be?
Available for Kindle on Amazon.com.
And now I must go write!
Happy Monday!
So I’ve been working on turning another one of my poems into a song. This one started out as “Mysteries of Life” and became “Lonely Girl, Lonely Boy.” More needs to be fleshed out but it’s a start.
Screamie Birds Studios 