100 Things Duran Duran Fans Should Know & Do During This Life
by Sandy Lender
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GENRE: Entertainment
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BOOK BLURB:
Best-selling, award-winning author and life-long Duranie, Sandy Lender, offers a delightful guidebook to the fun and sometimes wacky events that bring a fandom together. 100 THINGS DURAN DURAN FANS SHOULD KNOW & DO DURING THIS LIFE is a unique, positive, optimistic, totally new take on exploring nostalgia alongside your BFFs with the supergroup that continues to provide the dance track for so many people’s lives.
This non-fiction foray into Duran Duran history is unlike any biography you’ve read before. Instead of dry stats and facts, it’s a reminder of the joy and positivity that comes from obsessing over a shared musical interest. Herein you’ll find a series of random acts “to do” and trivia you might have forgotten to celebrate. To-do: Dive in and celebrate again!
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EXCERPT ONE:
Introduction
Let me admit, up front, you’re about to read a frivolous romp through a Duranie’s brain. We’re about to dance together down Memory Lane, inspired by a Star Wars book title I saw about four months ago. To prevent myself from stealing the author’s intellectual property, I didn’t open the unauthorized 100 Things Star Wars Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die.
Instead, I’ve put together a Duran-o-rama of my own making. It’s arranged exactly as the title suggests: first an item of what a Duran Duran fan should know, followed by an item a fan can do. This order proceeds from one to one hundred in a conversational tone.
The prompts of nostalgia might be numbered, but they’re not in chronological order. Most of the to-do items are geared toward sharing your insanity with others.
Basically, you’re holding amusing reminders of carefree times when a ticket to a concert cost all of eighteen dollars, when you listened to the local radio station at midnight because they were playing the entire new DD release, or when you could grab a crew of giggling girls to plop down on the couch with a six-pack of Pepsi—because that’s what John preferred over the sponsor of the Arena tour—to watch and sing along to Arena: An Absurd Notion, complete with parental advisory.
Now, let me lift the needle off the record for a second.
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GUEST POST:
What It’s Like to Share Personal Words with the World
When writing epic fantasy and genre fiction, I don’t typically have to worry about people seeing behind the author’s mask. I can hide any of my beliefs or mannerisms amid traits I’ve selected from other sources of inspiration and blended into different characters or creatures. One example is the shoulder dragons in “Move the Stars.” That’s a middle-grade fantasy novel and I based each of the shoulder dragons off a different pet bird in my life. No humans involved, but it’s easy to put my parrots’ characteristics into those smart little dragons.
Then I stepped into a non-fiction manuscript and realized I HAD to put real people and real situations into the narrative. For “100 Things Duran Duran Fans Should Know & Do During This Life,” I not only shared some of the wacky stuff my friends and I have done over the past 40 years, but I also admitted to a difficult time of “discipline” from my teen years.
It’s difficult to share personal words with the world. Picking and choosing what level of my story to share took reflection and self-inventory.
We’re taught to honor our father and mother that we may have long life and so on, right? But I think honoring our parents also teaches us humility and how to look at situations from different perspectives. When I was a teenager, struggling to understand why my parents didn’t believe I was your average kid who just happened to be obsessed with creative writing, music, and one specific band in particular, I had zero interest in the idea of “honoring parents.” I was more interested in getting through school and out of the house so I could have my own life. My own way.
Thank goodness I matured out of such angry thoughts. I can look at that teen girl’s rebelliousness now and see how both she and my parents weren’t talking to each other. We weren’t giving each other grace. We weren’t working together as a family to figure things out. We’ve grown past those fussy days, thank goodness, but finding a way to express that tumultuous time in a kind yet succinct manner for the introduction to this book wasn’t easy. It wasn’t comfortable. Yet it would have been disingenuous of me to write a Duran Duran book, suggesting to readers that I’d done all these fun, quirky activities during the ’80s, when, in fact, I missed much of the ’80s when confined to my soundless room.
Writing down and sharing personal words with the world may not be easy, but there’s something cathartic about it. I can admit—now that I’m ancient—that I was a silly teenage girl once upon a time who didn’t know how to communicate with young, worried parents. At the end of the day, I might still be silly at times, but I’m wise enough to recognize the silliness and turn it into a humorous, quirky book about a shared fandom.
This is Cricket, a green-cheek conure. In this photo, she had just taken a bath on her Sweet 16 Hatchday and was nestling in Sandy’s hand for warmth. In “Move the Stars,” the shoulder dragon named Flame is based on Cricket with tons of Cricket’s mannerisms and quirks.
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AUTHOR BIO & LINKS:
Sandy Lender is an international best-selling poet and award-winning author of fantasy, literary fiction, poetry, and short story work. She’s a construction magazine editor by day and author of #GirlPower fantasy novels by night, living in Florida to help with sea turtle conservation and parrot rescue. You can follow her author page on Amazon, check her website at SandyLenderInk.com, or subscribe to her newsletter at https://bit.ly/SSReNews.
With a four-year degree in English and thirty-year career in publishing, Sandy’s successes include traditionally and self-published novels, hundreds of magazine articles, multiple short stories in competitive anthologies, a handful of technical writing awards, a handful of creative writing awards, and the 2023 Michael Knost Wings award. Sandy’s been writing stories since she was knee-high to a grasshopper when her great-grandmother shared her odd little tales of squeaky ghost-spiders around an apartment complex in Southern Illinois. The stories have developed to include strong young ladies working with dragons to save worlds from terrible fates, but those pesky spiders still show up from time to time.
There’s always something brewing at Sandy Lender Ink headquarters where some days, you just want the dragon to win.
Amazon Author Page:
Website:
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AMAZON BUY LINKS:
Amazon US Paperback:
Amazon CA Paperback:
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GIVEAWAY INFO:
Sandy will be awarding a $20 Amazon OR Barnes and Noble Gift Card (Winner's Choice!!!) to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.
**This post contains affiliate links and if clicked and a purchase is made, I may receive a small commission to help support this blog. This does not cost you anything, it just helps pay for all those fabulous community outreach projects and awesome giveaways on here**
This contest is sponsored by a third party. Fabulous and Brunette is a registered host of Goddess Fish Promotions. Prizes are given away by the sponsors and not Fabulous and Brunette. The featured author and Goddess Fish Promotions are solely responsible for the giveaway prize.
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Thank you for sharing the new Duran Duran book and the introspective story with your visitors today, Ally! I appreciate the opportunity to delve into a tough concept--it was a great suggestion! I'll be working at the day job today but I'll stop in tonight to answer questions visitors might have...
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a very unique book that will interest many readers!
ReplyDeleteNancy
allibrary (at) aol (dot) com
Looks like an awesome read.
ReplyDeleteSandy, you are my girl. I love Duran Duran and I love that baby hatchling! I live near Folly Beach, and they do a lot to help with the sea turtles. They even have people turn off their outside lights that face the shore.
ReplyDelete