I don’t really know what “the wake of your smile” means, but it sounds cool and I don’t care. So this is me singing Roxette’s “Listen to Your Heart” in front of people at the most recent VocalTech student showcase.
“Listen to Your Heart”
I have fond memories of seeing Roxette in Perth so it was an honour to tackle one of their biggest hits… even though watching and listening to myself is hella embarrassing. And it definitely wasn’t perfect but hopefully Marie Fredriksson is not turning in her grave. ❤
So, I said in my previous post that my novel, Black and Blue, will be released on November 1. Well, it’s now officially available for pre-order. Huzzah!
You can find the eBook on Amazon, Apple Books, Kobo, Booktopia, Angus & Robertson, Barnes & Noble, Indigo and more.
The paperback listing has also popped up in a few places and I plan to offer direct sales of paperbacks soon. Anyone got any e-commerce tips? I mean, I could always go with some variation of “oi, message me and I’ll send you bank deets” but it would be nice to make it a little more formal. 😉
I also made a rough and ready book trailer, which might be a bit naff but whatevs.
Unfortunately, there’s no actual speech in the trailer, nor is it audio described — both of which would have required me to record some audio for it or find a super convincing synthetic voice — but in the interests of accessibility, here’s a text description of the video, presented as a list:
Trailer consists of black and white video and text with sad piano music playing in the background.
Scene: A young woman sits alone on stairs. 3 people can be seen chatting in the background.
Intertitle: ‘Jade wants to give up on life…’
Scene: Cuts back to woman on stairs. She looks off into the distance, then down to the floor.
Intertitle: ‘until she meets Rory…’
Scene: A man strums and tunes his acoustic guitar.
Intertitle: ‘but will Jade get what she needs?’
Scene: The woman clings to a net, looking out from behind.
Intertitle: A contemporary coming-of-age story about mental health, the power of music, and trying to find a place in the world.
Scene: The woman continues to look through the net at the camera, before looking off into the distance.
Video ends with an image of the front cover of Black and Blue by Lee-Ann Khoh.
Well… not long to go now. I’m excited but also really nervous.
We have locked in a release date for Black and Blue: November 1, 2021.
All Saints’ Day. The day after Halloween.
Neither of which has anything to do with why we landed on that date, but if you want to chow down some trick-or-treat candy while you read my book, I’m wholly supportive of that.
Speaking of supportive, I can’t speak highly enough of the support that VisAbility has given me over the past few years.
I have now received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and I feel awesome. 🙂
I’m also happy to have reached the “feeling awesome” stage, because I wasn’t in the days following my second shot.
I got Pfizer, and literally the only side effect I had from the first dose was a sore arm for a day. I was in the gym doing an upper body workout less than 48 hours later. I knew — and was also told by the nurse administering my vaccine — that side effects are more likely to be worse for the second dose of Pfizer. But it was still a bit of a shock to be out of commission for two days and have to call in sick to work. Then for the next few days I was functional but definitely not 100%.
But I’m all good now and I’d do it all again — short-term pain for long-term gain. And I already get the flu shot every year for work, so more jabs in the form of COVID boosters are no big deal to me.
Besides, it would be great to be able to supplement my income by offering additional services as a mobile hotspot. For the right price, I’m also open to walking past someone you don’t like in order to shed the vaccine virus at them. 😉
P.S. In case y’all missed the Hamilton reference in the blog title…