Goodbye 2013 . . .

Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone has a great 2014. Looking back, it was a difficult year in a lot ways from a personal perspective, but a wonderful one too. And many of you are the reason! Thank you so much for your encouragement, friendship, and support. And I'm so pumped up about it being the Year of the Horse! I hope this is a good omen for my series and especially for The Glister Journals #2 which will be released this year.

A quick look back--I had a lot of things happen this year but here's a few highlights:

The most exciting event was winning the literary category for the 2013 IndieReader Discovery Awards. The winners were announced by Hugh Howey at BEA, but unfortunately I couldn't be there. It was very exciting anyway!

Bronze had a great Book Blast and Tour with great giveaways for the Kindle edition release in October. I enjoyed it immensely and made some truly wonderful new friends. I can't wait to do it again for the release of The Glister Journals #2! Highlights of the tour, including reviews, author and character interviews, and guest posts can be found on The Glister Journals website.

To kick off the tour, I announced the Bronze Soundtrack puzzle. There is a song that accompanies every chapter of Bronze. The songs will be revealed in the countdown to TGJ #2's release. The Bronze Soundtrack Contest will be open to entries in 2014 before the release of Volume 2.

There were a lot of interviews: with Goodreads' The Young Adult Book Club, with Aside From Writing, and several during the Bronze tour.

I featured a few albums: Strangeland by Keane, El Camino by The Black Keys, the Haunt EP from Bastille, In A Tidal Wave of Mystery by Capital Cities, and Last of the Great Pretenders by Matt Nathanson.

And read quite a few books, though not as many as I would have liked and far less than most of you, I'm sure. There were a few I didn't finish, for one reason or another, but the ones I did finish and enjoy were:

I'll be posting features/reviews for most if not all these in the coming year and working at getting all reviews and features organized. :)

Coming next: A look ahead for 2014 and January soundtrack clue (by the weekend...promise!)

Coming soon: A "No Strings Attached" January blog hop and giveaway!

---

---

Reviews for The Glister Journals: Bronze

More Glister Journals info and excerpts at the book's website here: theglisterjournals.com

The Glister Journals: Bronze can be purchased through any bookseller, or purchase now at Amazon.com

Note: All original text and materials by or commissioned by B. B. Shepherd are copyright 2012-2013 to China Blue Publishing.

Grammys, Writing, and Comparisons

Seems like forever since I posted anything, but there's not much going on. It is the Grammys tonight though, and I am slightly interested in that. Only slightly because I'm not at all impressed by celebrity and I don't think the people/groups that win awards in general (music or otherwise) necessarily deserve them--sometimes it seems clear that popularity or politics are more involved than any real talent or quality--but I find it interesting none-the-less and am always happy when my bands and musicians win!

This year I'm rooting (in general-whatever they're up for) for Foo Fighters, Foster the People, the Black Keys, and Radiohead. If I can find a decent livestream to watch I may, otherwise I guess I'll find out tomorrow (feel free to fill me in!)

The writing is going well, but I don't plan on giving a play-by-play on what I'm doing, tempting though it is. I will probably let you know of major 'checkpoints,' etc. For now, suffice it to say that I'm writing every day and Dave has started bugging me again. A lot. That's always a good sign.

Apart from that, there's nothing much to add; nothing new. I'm not the kind of person who likes to describe the minutiae of their day, and I'm not famous enough for anyone to be interested anyway. That leaves ranting (of which there's been plenty lately, especially the $@#%* drivers I manoeuver around everyday!) and though many of the blogs I follow have very entertaining rants which I enjoy reading--in moderation--I promised myself I would NOT use my blog for that or subject my readers to it. But I do make observations at times and here is one of them.

Lately I've been hearing very familiar sounds coming from my radio. Two songs in particular (and I just heard a third recently) have elements that I first heard in music by Hirasawa Susumu years ago. And he may not be the first to use these elements, but it's the first time that I was aware of it. You may not be familiar with him, but if you are into anime at all, you've probably heard his work. So I thought it would be interesting to do a little comparison.

The first of his works is from an anime called Paranoia Agent, a rather disturbing, mind-messing show with adult themes (2004).



I'm refering to the little voice at the beginning and end. A small thing, perhaps, but distinctive. Then there's Don't Stop (Color on the Walls) from Foster the People (Don't look to me to explain the video; I don't even...):



And I recently heard this from Coldplay:



The second element is the electronic voice (Vocaloid) employed in some of Hirasawa's music for the full-length Paprika (again, very weird, disturbing, and adult in themes--just so you know)



I'm hearing very similar sounds here in Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites from Skrillex:



My point? I don't have one...it's just a comparison and old habits die hard :P

Reviews for The Glister Journals: Bronze


More Glister info and chapters at the book's website here: theglisterjournals.com
And please "Like" us on Facebook!