Joshua P. Simon - The Accidental Author

A very underrated Judas Priest Album. The first three songs below are actually some of the heaviest stuff they’ve done. And yes, I’ve excluded Diamonds and Rust…only because I’ve featured it before on my blog.

Dissident Aggressor


Starbreaker


Sinner


Here Comes the Tears

When I was a kid, I unfortunately didn’t ready much fantasy. This is because I really didn’t know the genre existed as no one I knew read it. Therefore, most of my fantasy consumption resulted from films (i.e. the Conan movies, etc) which later drove me to find Robert E. Howard as an adult and finally be exposed to something I had always been looking for.

With that being said, I did read the fantastical as a kid. However, this mostly revolved around mythologies such as King Arthur and Merlin (loved these stories) and the ancient myths of the Greek, Roman, and Norse pantheons. When you think about it, isn’t the story of Jason and the Argonauts really just a Sword and Sorcery tale?

Anyway, the stories I loved the most involved Hercules. I read anything and everything I could find about him. I also watched every movie about the character from as far back as the Steve Reeves and Reg Park films (pretty good for their time) to the Lou Ferrigno atrocities and the Arnold Schwarzenegger B movie that is worth watching if only for a good laugh.

The problem I had with most of these movies was that they never really focused on the stories already there. Well, finally it seems that Hollywood is going to get it right. The new Hercules trailer (starring The Rock) came out the other day and I’m as giddy as the 6th grader who read the same novelization of the twelve labors four times in one school year.

Finally, we get the twelve labors (or at least part of them in a flashback), and finally we’re going to see the troubled character I remember and felt connected to as a kid.

I haven’t been this excited about a movie in a long time. Hopefully, it doesn’t fall flat.

When a Hard Rock band puts the word “rock” in the title of their song, it automatically gets classified in the rock anthem category in my mind. Most of the time it works (You Can’t Stop Rock and Roll, Let there be Rock, etc.).

However, occasionally this falls flat.

April Wine wrote a song that has some pretty good music. However, they gave it one of the worst names I’ve ever heard. I Like to Rock.

That’s it. Replace the word “like” and it would be alright, but the word “like” lacks the passion it seemed they were going for. The lack of passion is even more prominent when the chorus isn’t belted out so much as it is sung in a slightly higher volume than someone’s speaking voice. Just listen for yourself.

April Wine - I Like to Rock

To make matters worse, the actual lyrics for the song are awful. It reads like someone making things up on the fly. No coherency, no flow, no story. Just blah. See below.


See? Awful.

So, here’s my stab at writing the lyrics to a song with the title “I Like to Rock.” It is far more amusing if you imagine it sung by Michael Caine as I keep doing. Ha.


By the way, that took me like 10 minutes. Admit it, that was far more entertaining than the original lyrics.

Though I don’t own anything by Crosby Stills Nash, I’ve always liked the band (even more with Neil Young). Anyway, a good friend of mine invited me to one of their concerts this weekend which I’m pretty excited about it.

And yes, despite the crowd I will be sporting a metal shirt (even if I’m the only one doing so). \m/

Here are a few of my favorites:

Southern Cross


Suite Judy Blue Eyes


And my top choice . . .
Carry On/Questions

Today I sold my 10,000th book. That’s a milestone I honestly never thought I’d reach when I began publishing my work a couple years ago.

What makes this even more special is that after a fairly slow start, most of that number has occurred in the last 6-7 months. Even more strikingly, is that about 85% of my sales have been in the UK which I also wouldn’t have expected.

With four to five books in the pipeline for this year, I’m hoping to continue building my brand and maybe if I’m lucky some of that success in the UK will spill over into other countries. Maybe, even my own! Ha.

I think this reiterates a point made by many authors: publishing is a marathon, not a sprint.

Thanks to everyone who has supported me thus far! It’s been awesome.

Today’s Music Monday is the new Iced Earth album.

Overall, it’s a pretty good release (their best since Framing Armageddon part 1, in my opinion) and a step up over Dystopia for me. I wasn’t a huge fan of that particular album. The songwriting is much stronger here and I think Stu is really finding his own voice within the band.

If I Could See You


The Culling


Cthulu


Peacemaker (Live)

The Cult of Sutek, The Epic of Andrasta and Rondel, Vol. 1 (target release date of May 2014) officially has a cover!





I decided to go with a different look for these books than what I used for the Blood and Tears series. I hired a very talented illustrator named Alex Wakefield to paint the scenes for each cover in this series. (Notice the brush strokes!) You can reach Alex through his website at www.motorart27.com.

Once we got the finalized version from him, my wife Leah took care of the graphics and layout. The image above is the Amazon cover. The covers for other retailers will be cropped differently based on their dimensional requirements.

I’m very happy with the final product. Preliminary work on the cover for The City of Pillars, The Epic of Andrasta and Rondel, Vol. 2 has already begun.

For those interested, below is the full piece of artwork before we began cropping for the Amazon cover.



I can’t wait to get these books released. Thoughts on the cover?

Led Zeppelin rightfully gets a lot of credit for their catalog. However, their third album is almost always grossly underrated. It has some of my favorite Zeppelin tunes.

Tangerine


Out on the Tiles


Gallows Pole