Today is the first day of five days of #Free for Lucky’s Last Chance (#Kindle), part of the “Viva Las Vegas” series. It was originally released as The Tom Jones Club, but when I got my publishing rights back, I changed the name/cover.
Click now to go to download page.
Also, check out the video I made for Lucky’s Last Chance using, accompanied by my EDM track I created during #50/90, ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody” – the perfect song to represent this Pandemic year, as one person said.
For this week’s #WriterWednesday, I’ve created a marriage between Cougars in Cabo, my anthology of short stories, with “Catch the Moment,” an EDM song I created during #50/90, and footage from cruising into Cabo on one of our cruises to Mexico.
That was so much fun! I’m starting to get into this. And I realize how much I love doing all 3: writing stories, creating music, and capturing video from our travels.
I so appreciate you stopping by the blog. And, If you like today’s post, please also like and subscribe on my YouTube channel. Thank you!
My plan was to wait for October to do a blocktober/vlogtober deal, but I couldn’t wait. So last week I posted a video/blog post for “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” for #Writer #WineWednesday and today I’m kicking off my first #MusicMonday with a video highlighting my 50/90 kickoff song, “Keep it Movin.”
I started off 50/90 with that song because the song prompt was about introducing yourself and I think “Keep it Movin” is a great introduction to me because (a) I love a dance club beat and (b) We need to keep moving forward no matter what life throws at you.
Of course it’s accompanied by some biker video from Mount Charleston (one hour from the #LasVegas Strip) and I couldn’t help but mention my two novels that feature a Las Vegas setting, “French Martini” and “Lucky’s Last Chance.”
It’s a lot to take in, but I’m hoping you will find something there that you like.
Have a good Monday!
Keep it Movin’
Ever since CruiseTipsTV mentioned they were doing “Vlogtoberfest” again this October, I started thinking about whether I should do it, too, to promote my music. I have never done a “vlogtoberfest” – only a “blogtoberfest.” But during this pandemic, my original travel channel started getting noticed and one video in particular – Oasis of the Seas now has over 75K views! That’s humongous for me!
The photo below shows the views, as of today, for video created in March (beginning of Pandemic):
So, I created a video featuring the rerelease of Lucky’s Last Chance (previously known as The Tom Jones Club) with “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” a Screamie Birds EDM song created during 50/90. And I uploaded it to my original travel channel now revamped as Screamie Birds, as well as my Kathy Holmes youtube channel, which had absolutely no videos whatsoever.
I’m curious to see how the song will perform – one on a more established site (albeit, pretty small) with varied content or a brand new site with targeted content. Or will it matter at all? (PS – It performed better on the already established channel so I deleted the “new” one.
Link to Lucky’s Last Chance/I Wanna Dance with Somebody Collab:
Novels set in interesting locations have always appealed to me. In fact, they’ve influenced where I’ve traveled. When I was in junior high (don’t go all Karen on me now), Gone With the Wind was the romantic read – the film was big back then. It was all about Rhett and Scarlett and that climb up those stairs. So, as a Southern California girl, I *had* to see the Antebellum South for myself. Maybe because I’m not only a reader/writer, but a history buff. (Don’t go all “that was marital rape” because it clearly wasn’t – check out this explanation.)
(On a side note: the wisest thing my mother ever said was, “Don’t judge the past by the present.” If you didn’t live it, you don’t understand it.)
In my adulthood, I read Oriental Hotel, and I *had* to visit the three places the book took place: Hong Kong, Singapore, and Bangkok. And, yes, as a history buff (not political), I was quite intrigued by the British Colonial period. There are numerous other books and movies that have also influenced my travels, or intrigued me, like Elephant Walk and Passage to India and, of course, The Love Boat, which started me cruising – lol!
Anyway, to get to my point, I like to write novels set on cruise ships and Las Vegas and other beach locales. I’ve uploaded a video featuring the Real Women Wear Red and Real Women Sing the Blues, both books set on cruise ships, on my Travel channel and will share here. That was so much fun, I’m thinking of creating videos for my other books, too.
But I’m not just reading fiction. I recently read The Tenth Island by Diana Marcum. It takes place in the Azores, featuring expats now living in Fresno, which is where my father lived so there’s that connection, too.
Travel is quite difficult, if not practically impossible right now. The cruise industry keeps canceling/delaying their ships. Understandable. Cruising is complicated. So reading and writing about far-away or fun locales is on my mind. I say I’ve been playing at working on the third novel in the “Real Women” series, but maybe it’s time to get serious about having fun.
You will go nuts if you spend too much time on social media, or media, in general, especially in times like these. So what’s an artist to do? Create. Write. Paint, Sing. Cook. Produce Music. That’s where sanity lies.
So I thought I’d share a couple of my recent projects. Although I am not a painter or that kind of artist, I am a bit of a visual artist. My background is in book layout and production. Therefore, I’ve been dabbling a bit with videos on YouTube. Mostly posting some of our cruise and Disney videos, our time in Florida, Las Vegas, and some even feature my novels. That was so fun.
I’d created a book trailer when my first book was published but later when Google bought YouTube, they messed it all up. So I reimagined it with real video but kept the same tune. Makes me smile, taking me back to those heady days of getting an agent and publishing for the first time when we first moved to Florida. Check it out:
One time in Florida was not enough so we moved back not twice but three times in all. Here’s the video of our last time when we had the great privilege of building a new house in a Central Florida beach town.
And here’s a link to a video that seems to be growing in views every day. Unlike most of my videos that may get a dozen views, this incredibly short video of Oasis of the Seas has climbed to almost 65,000. Go figure! Now if those viewers would buy my cruise books – lol!
To find out more about my novels, click here.
If you’d just like to subscribe to my Travel Channel on YouTube, click on this link.
Thanks for stopping by. Happy creating!
