Wonderful news, everyone! “Rowdy” has been published and is finally available for sale! You can purchase a copy through Amazon for now. I will have copies available to order via … Continue reading Our Lady of Righteous Rage Gets “Rowdy”
Category: Writing
Preview of “Rowdy”
“Rowdy”, part three of the Our Lady of Righteous Rage series, is coming out at the end of the month. Here’s a little preview: Chapters 1-2. Enjoy!
Chapter One
Amy
I was sitting on the couch inside the recording studio at Urban Collective, scanning an article in Alternative Press magazine. If anyone had asked me what the article was about, I couldn’t have told them. I wasn’t reading it; not really. There were words and pictures on the page, but all I could see was red. I’d never been so pissed off in all my life. My friends and I had been busting our asses to make a name for our band, and my idiot ex-husband was working to destroy it all! Who the hell does that?
“Did you know Kurt Cobain died on my sixteenth birthday?”
I looked up from the magazine to see Aidan, sitting across from me on a stool, scrolling through his phone. He looked up from the screen and smiled at me. “That’s pretty trippy, right?”
I shook my head and sighed. “I’m sorry, Aidan,” I said. “I completely forgot you were here. I’m still so angry about this whole thing with David.”
“I know,” Aidan said. He slid his phone into his back pocket, and clasped his hands in his lap. “So, what are we gonna do about him?”
“I don’t know yet,” I replied. “Nick said he wanted to talk to David, one on one. And Rob…well, Rob just wants to kick his ass.” I set the magazine down on the cushion next to me. “So does Jon.”
“Well, you can add my name to that list, too,” Aidan said. “Piece of shit. What was he thinking?”
I shook my head at the idea. “To think we used to be friends,” I said. “I mean, I always believed we would still have that, you know? I believed, even if we didn’t work out as a couple, we could at least hold on to our friendship. I guess I thought wrong.”
Aidan smiled at me. “David never knew what he had when he was with you,” he said. “That’s why he’s so pissed off. He lost the greatest thing that ever happened to him.”
“Aidan?” I said, feeling my eyes becoming watery. “Dude, don’t say stuff like that! You’re gonna make me cry.”
“It’s the truth!” Aidan insisted. “Losing you fucked him up.”
At that moment, Nick walked in, and plopped down beside me. “Hey,” he said, with a sigh. “What’s up?”
“The ceiling,” Aidan replied. “What’s up with you?”
Nick smirked at him. “Trying to figure out what to do about this David situation,” he said. “I could just have him killed, you know. The Lianetti name carries a lot of weight in Sicily, and all I have to do is make a phone call and pay for a plane ticket—”
“Stop,” I said. “We’re not having anyone killed. We’re going to be rational adults about this.”
“I don’t want to be a rational adult,” Aidan said, flicking his tail. “I wanna put my foot up David’s ass.”
“So do I,” I said. “But that’s not the way to handle this.”
Nick reached up and scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “What we need to do, is keep doing what we’ve been doing. We need to keep making music.”
“We need to release another album,” Aidan said.
Nick nodded in agreement. “I’m going to start working on some songs. If you guys come up with anything, let me know, and we’ll work on it.” He paused for a moment, then added. “I did try to call David, but he wouldn’t answer his cell or return any of my calls. I know he got my voice mails.”
“Don’t worry about him,” I said. “Like you said, we need to focus on making music.”
Chapter Two
Nick
It’s always the ones you least suspect, who screw you over. If a total stranger had been behind all of our problems, I could live with that. But my cousin? My own family? How am I supposed to feel about that?
When I left the studio, I went home. Nyda wasn’t in yet, so I had the place to myself. With so much idle time on my hands, I figured I could get some writing done. We needed a new album; one that would blow all of our haters out of the water. I had a lot of work ahead of me.
Aidan is not to be messed with…
You tell David,” I began, “If he does anything to hurt Amy, I will rain down on him like a fucking biblical plague.
Yeah, you don’t want to mess with Aidan from Our Lady of Righteous Rage. I’ve had a few readers tell me he’s their favorite character from the “Our Lady” series, and it’s no wonder. He’s funny, sarcastic, and very protective of the people he cares about. Get to know Aidan and the rest of the “Our Lady” cast in “Rowdy”, the third book in the series, coming at the end of October!
Get Ready to Get Rowdy
Hello, dear readers. It’s October: one of my favorite months of the year. Fall has arrived, there’s a chill in the air, and Halloween is on its way! There’s something else on its way: Rowdy, the third installment of the Our Lady of Righteous Rage series (third, because Novocaine is a companion book).
So, I’m sure by now you’ve read the other books in the series. If you haven’t, fear not. There’s still time before I release Rowdy to the public. Plus, I will provide a very brief recap of the previous books. Of course, I still recommend reading the other two. Sort of the way you can only get so much info from Cliff’s Notes.
What can you expect from Rowdy? More song lyrics, of course. This story will touch on some real issues, such as alcoholism and racism (didn’t see that coming from a story with a feline cast, did ya?). Some familiar faces are going to resurface, but not in a good way.
That’s all I’m going to tell you for now! I don’t want to spoil it for you. Check this blog throughout the month, along with my social media pages, for updates on Rowdy.
The Origins of the Woolaston Entertainment Books
Happy Monday, everyone! I hope your day is going well. Since it is Monday, its time for a new blog post. This week: the origins of the W.E. books. In keeping with this month’s nostalgic theme, I’ve been thinking back to how I started writing my books, years and years ago.
I wrote a lot of books for myself when I was a kid. In first grade, I’d staple several sheets of typing paper between to pages of construction paper, I create my own picture books. By the time I was in sixth grade, I began to develop stories with chapters, characters and plots. A few years later, I started collecting journals and unlined sketch books, and wrote my manuscripts in them. I created front covers for each books, spine labels, and summaries on the back covers. I didn’t have a computer at home, so hand-writing all of my books became a natural step. I wrote all of the time anyway, so I had no trouble working on two to four books at a time. To this day, I have 125 hand-written books. This may sound strange, but doing that, is what led me to publish a real book.
So, Valentine started out as a book I hand wrote inside of a journal. Fortune’s Wing and Our Lady of Righteous Rage were written in composition notebooks. When you don’t have access to certain materials, you learn to make do. I didn’t receive a computer in my house until the middle of my senior year in high school. I didn’t have access to programs such as Adobe Photoshop until several years after that.
Questions? Comments? You know how to reach me!
#TBT: Before They Were Rockstars
I like to think of some of my characters as actors and actresses: I used to move them around, from series to series, casting them in different roles. Most of the cast of Our Lady of Righteous Rage, appeared in two of my science fiction series: “Enos” and “Degenerate R”. Both series featured characters who could transform and use special powers to fight evil. I recently came across a poster I drew sixteen years ago, for the “Enos” series. Featured on the poster, are Nyda Summit, Amy Edwards, Vanessa Vance, Carmen Portez, Yvonne Vance and Delfino “Dee” Seybrook. All six appear in the Our Lady of Righteous Rage series. 
#TBT: Anatomy of a Song
Hello, everyone! Since its Throwback Thursday, I decided to upload one of my old blog posts. This one is about Our Lady of Righteous Rage. Enjoy!
Thursday, June 12, 2014: Anatomy of a Song w/ Our Lady of Righteous Rage
One of the most important elements of Our Lady is music, and by music, I mean the lyrics to the band’s songs. The first full set of lyrics to appear in the book, are the lyrics to “Wish You Well”. It’s the song Amy writes in reference to her father. In reality, it’s a song I wrote for my father. The line, “I wish you well”, sounds like she’s wishing her father luck. The truth is, she’s being sarcastic. She doesn’t wish him well at all. More or less, what she’s trying to say is, “Hey, you were never around when I needed you, but I’ll move on, so forget you”. The lyrics, “This would be so easy/ If you were just deceased”, doesn’t mean she wishes her father was dead. What Amy is referring to, is if her father was dead, at least that would be an excuse for him not spending time with her. The fact that he is alive and well and just doesn’t see her, makes the situation harder to deal with. Another important song in the book (and my personal favorite) is “Come for the Wake, Stay for the Funeral”. Amy writes this song after her mother’s aunt’s funeral. Disgusted by the way her family is acting during the wake and at the burial site, Amy begins to view the service as a sort of “Spectator Sport”. The opening lyrics to the song, “All you spectators please gather ‘round/The dearly beloved is barely in the ground” relates to the conversations Amy overhears during the service: people simply wondering if the aunt left them anything in her will. No one seems to care that she is no longer living. In reality, I wrote this song in 2009, after my mother’s Aunt Dorothy passed away. Same situation: people just wanted to know who would get her house or her money. Next, is Nick’s song, “Smoke and Glass”. The complete lyrics do not appear in the book, however, the song is a tribute to September 11th.
The lyrics that the characters write in the story run parallel with the events in their lives. But, this is what most songwriters do: use the events in their lives as inspiration for their music. I suppose this is true for writers of any sort. Charles Dickens is a good example. Some of his best work involves young men born into unfortunate circumstances, and later, their lives turn around for the better. I wrote the lyrics for all of Our Lady’s songs, and bits and pieces of my life can be found in the lyrics.
Author Interviews!
Readers like to know more about the person behind their favorite books. I’d love to interview John Steinbeck, but sadly, I don’t have a time machine (not a functioning one, anyway). Making yourself available for interviews as an author is a great way to reach out to your readers. To me, it makes you seem more human, which makes you more relatable. I have been interviewed three times as an author, and two of those interviews are available online.
Self Publisher’s Showcase:
If you’re a self-published author, this website is a great resource. You can post information about yourself and your book(s). If you sign up for a membership, there is a small fee ($30 for one year, I believe) which will give you more access to the resources on the site. Readers can discover new books and new authors, and SPS will post an interview with you.
http://selfpublishersshowcase.com/
If you want to read my interview, here is the link: http://selfpublishersshowcase.com/interview-nicole-e-woolaston-author-of-our-lady-of-righteous-rage/
Ebunnygirl’s WordPress Page:
One of my readers posted an interview with me on her wordpress page! This is another fantastic idea. If you have a website (and you should) you may want to post an announcement that you’re available for interviews. Invite anyone with a blog to email questions to you (unless you want to meet in person, totally up to you), and post the conversation online. It’s a great way to engage your audience.
Here is the link to ebunnygirl’s interview with me. You should check out the rest of her page as well:
https://ebunnygirl.wordpress.com/2016/05/28/interview-with-nicole-woolaston/
Titles and Subtitles
Greetings, everyone. I’m reposting my Monday Blog here.
This week’s topic: the importance of titles, and subtitles. Titles are meant to grab your reader’s attention, as well as give them some idea as to what the book is about. Then there are subtitles, particularly important if the book is part of a series. I believe they need to be equally as interesting as the title itself.
In the Valentine series, each book (except for the first) has a subtitle. There’s The Patron Saint and Queen of Hearts. Book two’s subtitle refers to the nickname Val has been given, but is unaware of until later in the story (she’s referred to as the Patron Saint of the Weak). Book three’s subtitle relates to Kelly McCormick’s codename for Val, the Queen of Hearts. The current title for book four is War of the Saints, which will introduce some new characters whose roles are similar to Valentine’s. I am reconsidering the title, so it may change.
The subtitles in the Fortune’s Wing series are references to each journey he undertakes in the quest for the Wings. Second Flight, concerns the second journey he and his friends go on after Fortune completes the set of wings. The third and final installment, Final Flight, is a reference to exactly that: his final journey.
With Our Lady of Righteous Rage, I wanted a title that would stand out. OLORR has a punk, but almost Catholic High School sound to it, and I figured it would definitely grab people’s attention (and it has!).
FYI: an unusual tip I have picked up on as a reader, is if the title of the book is mentioned somewhere in the story, but not until close to the climax. It seems to add impact to the meaning of the title. Or, maybe that’s just me…
Naming your chapters can be tricky, but interesting. The titles of the chapters in OLORR are named after the character who narrates that particular chapter (pretty simple, yes?) The chapter titles in Allan and Mac are meant to be humorous: What’s in the Trunk?, A Good Pair of Pliers and Three’s A Crowd, to name a few. The chapter titles in Valentine are a mixed bag: some of them are humorous, some of them are serious. For example, “I’d Rather Ride Solo” or “Road Trip” is humorous, while “End Game” or “This Is What I Came For” is a little more serious.
The trouble with naming the chapter in a book that is part of a series, is consistency. If you decide to do this in the first book, you must do it in the other books as well. All of the Fortune’s Wing and Valentine books have chapters with titles, while the OLORR chapters are named after characters in the story. Because I have done this in the first two OLORR books, I need to keep it up as I write the third.
Coming up with a clever, catchy title isn’t always easy. If you’re having trouble coming up with a title for your book, or the chapters, think about what the book is really about. Consider what that particular chapter is about. Make a list of words or slogans that describe what is happening in the book or chapter itself. In Allan and Mac, the chapter, A Good Pair of Pliers is named after a line from the chapter.
B-Fest Results
Saturday was my very first book signing. The event took place at the Barnes and Noble at Bay Plaza in the Bronx. The store was kind enough to take a chance on a self-published author, and ordered 30 of my books. By the time my portion of the event was complete, 24 out of the 30 books were sold! Anyone who purchased a copy of Valentine, received a copy of Valentine 2 from me for free! It was so much fun meeting new people and making new connections, and I especially enjoyed meeting young writers. I’m looking forward to helping them get started in the self-publishing industry any way I can. Thank you again to everyone who came out to the Bronx, purchased a book, stopped by my table, or simply liked my posts online. There aren’t enough words to express what your support means to me.
Pictures from B-Fest will be posted on the Woolaston Entertainment Facebook page later today. I’m happy to announce, I have been invited to return to Bay Plaza for an upcoming event! Autographed copies of Valentine, Our Lady of Righteous Rage, and Our Lady of Righteous Rage: Extended and Uncensored are still available at Bay Plaza, or you can order unsigned copies online or through the store. Plus, you can always order copies of any of my books directly from me.
woolastonentertainment.com 