Sandy Lender
GENRE: Entertainment
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!
Excerpt:
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.
Interview with Sandy Lender
Does writing energize or exhaust you?
Depending on the type of story and what the characters have done, the writing could either energize or destroy me. I like to participate in the International 3-Day Novel Contest, and that thing will physically exhaust me, but it always leaves me with this renewed, invigorated sense of I CAN DO ALL THE THINGS. If the characters are going off-script and doing surprising things, it’s definitely energizing. Definitely makes me excited to get back to the keyboard.
What is the first book that made you cry?
Probably Charlotte’s Web…
How did publishing your first book change your process of writing?
I think getting that first contract with ArcheBooks Publishing made my process more urgent. Bob Gelinas lit a fire that meant, “Hey, yes, this is a dream you can keep doing.” Suddenly, I had legitimacy behind me. A publisher had said, “Yes, you may play in this sandbox.” I didn’t want to lose that traction.
What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters?
First, I must stress that I don’t base any characters on any real people. Many people inspire characters in the stories I write. I’ve taken traits and characteristics from multiple people I’ve met—or observed at the airport—over the years and blended those into new creations to develop characters in many instances.
Now, having said that, I think I owe a huge thanks to John Taylor and Roger Taylor of Duran Duran—as well as the rest of the band—because, let’s face it, they have inspired visions, places, heroes, dragons, and more. If I need to describe a hot and handsome hero, well…look no further than John Taylor circa 1987 or the entire 1990s... Dayum.
Where did your love of books/storytelling/reading/writing/etc. come from?
I think I owe the love of reading to my great grandmother and my Aunt B. The writing? I think that was in me always, and those same two family members supported the writing bug in me!
What do you like to read in your free time?
Fantasy. If it has a dragon in it, I’m intrigued. Bring it on and take me away from the real world. Please. I review books on my BookTube channel (SandySaysRead) and I’ve noticed a bigger joy when talking about fantasy books as opposed to other genres.
Can you share some stories about people you met while researching this book?
Considering I’ve been researching this book for the past 40 years as a Duranie, I think everyone I’ve met has been part of the research for “100 Things Duran Duran Fans Should Know & Do During This Life.” My best friend is a Duranie and we’ve traveled all over the place together to see the band. We drove in my electric blue Sundance from Kansas City to Denver to see the band play in 1993. This was before cars had CD players in them, right? We set my boombox on the back seat, and played Duran Duran CDs. We listened to all the different remixes of “Come Undone” for about 13 hours on that trip…
Why did you choose to write in your particular field or genre? If you write more than one, how do you balance them?
My first and main genre is fantasy. Epic, to be exact. And I think it chose me. The main character of my CHOICES series, Amanda Chariss, appeared to me when I was in junior high. Instead of listening to the teacher during chemistry class, I was daydreaming, and I saw Chariss. She was beautiful and I knew I had to write her story. Well, her story was in a medieval fantasy setting. She had a wizard guardian. She was running from a sorcerer. It had to be epic fantasy. I had no choice.
And I’m glad she made the choice for me.
It’s comical to think I have balance…
How do you begin writing a new book? What challenges come with it?
I think writing a new book begins with a character or a kernel of an idea that a character is whispering to me. All I have to do is grab a notebook or open a new document on the laptop and start writing, writing, writing.
The challenge is time. Always time. I have multiple stories ongoing right now. There will be stories ongoing when I die…
Share a place that inspires you to write
This is a difficult one because everything inspires me. I have a spot in the kitchen where I set up to do the writing marathons. But I can write anywhere (car, airport, airplane, doctor’s office, bed). There was a section of Bonita Beach that I patrolled on Saturday mornings for a group called Turtle Time (it’s a sea turtle thing) and at one end of the section there were these fantastic boulders and rocks jutting out into the Gulf. They reminded me of the shore of Arcana in my CHOICES series, and you can bet they inspired a short story in that world.
Back in 2005 (or 2006?), John Taylor had a mini tour near Christmastime for his Juicy Couture line of men’s clothing and a new bass guitar he was launching. I drove up to Atlanta to see him at the Macy’s up there and that was incredibly inspirational. I wrote “May Your Heart Be Light” after that excursion. It might not have been the place so much as the experience of being with other Duranies and meeting John amid the festive atmosphere.
One place I wish I could get to more often is renaissance festivals. I love to go to those and take a new, empty notebook with me. There are scents and sounds along with the costumes and cosplayers that speak to the fantasy writer in me. I don’t think I’ve ever been to one where I didn’t come away with an idea or a way to advance a story. I’ve taken random pictures of sconces and weaponry at these festivals. I have a really nice arrowhead knife next to me on the table right now that I picked up at a festival. These things spur ideas and are inspirational during writing sessions. I think I want to say it’s not just the “place” that inspires the writing, but the elements from the place, too.
AUTHOR Bio and 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.
Connect with Sandy Lender
Amazon ~ Website ~ Newsletter
5 comments:
Good morning and thank you for sharing news about my new Duran Duran book and info about my writing process. It's a joy to be on the blog today! I've got to hit the day job, but I'll stop back in to answer any questions your visitors have here in the comments tonight!
I enjoyed the interview. I think Charlotte's Web was probably my first too.
Thank you so much for hosting today.
Sounds like a good story.
I loved that band when I was younger.
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