MORE EGJ FUN FACTS & PHOTOS
• Spent her formative years on her family's small ranch in rural Northern California learning the secret language of the animals and the enchantments of the land
• Had a black and white sheepdog named Sand who spoke pig Latin
• Got in trouble a lot in grade school for doodling endlessly on papers and tests & dreamed of becoming a Disney Imagineer
• Got low marks in class for "not paying attention" and was labeled a "daydreamer" (a label she is still proud of to this day)
• Has a rare form of dyslexia (not just switching letters in words, but randomly seeing entire words backwards), which she says has been "an obstacle and a blessing" all her life. She credits dyslexia for making her a writer (ask her why sometime, it's an interesting story). It is also why she loves riddles and hates crossword puzzles.
• Had to learn to walk all over again after a near-fatal car crash in her mid-40s
• Started her own graphic arts company after she retired from the theatre
• Worked as a professional photographer for 6 years
• Started writing novels at the ripened-on-the-vine-age of 38 (while working in theatre)
• Has created 14 various inventions (patents not pending)
• Has jotted literally thousands of story notes for 38 novels and typically works on 2 to 3 books simultaneously (lifetime member of Stickies Anonymous)
• Regards her dreams as the best source material for her books
• According to Nerd Tests.com, Elayne is a "High-Level Nerd" scoring 92% on the 'Science Geek' quiz
• Believes in parallel worlds and simultaneous time
• Loves the wind—her Pueblo Indian name is 'Nahtranee' which means "The wind comes."
• Calls herself a "Cloud Chaser" and has taken over 9000 photographs of the sky in the last 20 years
• Recently started her own publishing company, CLOUD CHASER BOOKS, to publish her new episodic series: The Dragonbond Books (in progress) as well as The LightBridge Series eBooks
• Suffers from O.D.D. (Obsessive Dragon Disorder). Just kidding, not suffering at all, dragons are cool
• Grew up in the sixties and seventies, but didn't become a hippie. Became a nerd before it was popular (hid it well) ⥤ played in a rock band which gave her an undeserved cool factor and insured that she didn't get picked on in high school
• Has an uncommon affinity for antique clocks that no longer tell time, and old compasses that no longer point north
• Calls herself an Elsewhere Girl
• Still believes in Santa Claus
• Had a black and white sheepdog named Sand who spoke pig Latin
• Got in trouble a lot in grade school for doodling endlessly on papers and tests & dreamed of becoming a Disney Imagineer
• Got low marks in class for "not paying attention" and was labeled a "daydreamer" (a label she is still proud of to this day)
• Has a rare form of dyslexia (not just switching letters in words, but randomly seeing entire words backwards), which she says has been "an obstacle and a blessing" all her life. She credits dyslexia for making her a writer (ask her why sometime, it's an interesting story). It is also why she loves riddles and hates crossword puzzles.
• Had to learn to walk all over again after a near-fatal car crash in her mid-40s
• Started her own graphic arts company after she retired from the theatre
• Worked as a professional photographer for 6 years
• Started writing novels at the ripened-on-the-vine-age of 38 (while working in theatre)
• Has created 14 various inventions (patents not pending)
• Has jotted literally thousands of story notes for 38 novels and typically works on 2 to 3 books simultaneously (lifetime member of Stickies Anonymous)
• Regards her dreams as the best source material for her books
• According to Nerd Tests.com, Elayne is a "High-Level Nerd" scoring 92% on the 'Science Geek' quiz
• Believes in parallel worlds and simultaneous time
• Loves the wind—her Pueblo Indian name is 'Nahtranee' which means "The wind comes."
• Calls herself a "Cloud Chaser" and has taken over 9000 photographs of the sky in the last 20 years
• Recently started her own publishing company, CLOUD CHASER BOOKS, to publish her new episodic series: The Dragonbond Books (in progress) as well as The LightBridge Series eBooks
• Suffers from O.D.D. (Obsessive Dragon Disorder). Just kidding, not suffering at all, dragons are cool
• Grew up in the sixties and seventies, but didn't become a hippie. Became a nerd before it was popular (hid it well) ⥤ played in a rock band which gave her an undeserved cool factor and insured that she didn't get picked on in high school
• Has an uncommon affinity for antique clocks that no longer tell time, and old compasses that no longer point north
• Calls herself an Elsewhere Girl
• Still believes in Santa Claus
More Photos from the Past...
☜ Tthis is me at Ani's age in book one of The Secret Half).
I had a series of reoccurring dreams at this age that planted the seed for The LightBridge series. In these dreams, I was given a magical device that could take me anywhere I wanted to go. I had great adventures and these dreams lasted nearly a year. This was also the year I began performing as a musician. ➸ ➸ ➸ ➸ ➸ ➸ ➸
My first experience recording my songs in a professional recording studio came at age 18 when my songwriting partner and I were "discovered" by a local talent manager-turned-producer. I discovered that I LOVE being in the studio. It was heaven! I went on to become a recording artist for many years to come, laying down tracks for my own songs and singing for commercials, etc. I also worked in Hollywood recording studios as a sound effects editor just to live and breathe in the studio environment.
PS: The white thing at the top of the mic in the photo above is a carnation. Yep. My songwriting partner (also 18) put it there because she said the massive mic looked "scary" and thought the flower made it look friendlier. Several years later (in my mid-20's) my songwriting partner and I had put together a band and were "discovered" by yet another record producer. Back into the studio we went, but this recording studio was one of the biggest and best in LA. I will never forget the experience. The "mix-man" making the magic behind the curtain was Chicago's recording engineer, and our back-up musicians were The Bruce Hornsby Band (who's fame came a year or two later).
After we recorded the demo, the producer took us to a photo studio of a renowned rockstar photographer. A Hollywood makeup artist and stylist spent two hours doing our makeup, hair, and clothes. They were branding us as the next "Heart" and wanted us to look the part. The shoot was loads of fun and the pics turned out great, but they didn't look anything like us! Here is the shot they chose for the album cover... 
➸ ➸ ➸ ➸ ➸ ➸ ➸
☟ Many years later I did another pro photo shoot and used one of the shots for the cover of a "solo album" ...a collection of songs that I recorded in my home studio...
➸ ➸ ➸ ➸ ➸ ➸ ➸
Me @ 22. I loved vintage clothing.
|
Pictured above: I loved being raised around animals but my favorites were a boarder collie named Cheyenne and a cat named Smoke. When I was 9, I read a book about seeing-eye dogs and spent 6 months training Cheyenne to be a guide dog for the blind. To test my training skills AND Cheyenne's seeing-eye dog skills, I used to blindfold myself and trot all over the city using Cheyenne as my guide and survived to tell the tale. I trusted him completely and he never failed to steer me clear of danger. ➸ ➸ ➸ ➸ ➸ ➸ ➸
My pro theatre years were some of the best times of my life!
☝After retiring from the music business, I worked in theatre as a professional lighting designer for 24 years but I started on the stage crew like everyone else. This pic is from the set of Guys and Dolls where I worked as a deck electrician and follow spot operator during my first year of theatre (in a 2000-seat road house).
☝I became a master electrician a year or two after I started working in theater, which meant that I was running the light board and managing a crew of 5 to 9 deck electricians to implement the design of the lighting designer.
Within two years I had become a lighting designer myself, and was known for lighting dance, stage plays. and musicals and the occasional opera. I became the resident light designer for The South Bay Ballet and lit their shows for over a decade (loved every second). ☟The photo below was taken on the set of my very first lighting design--a play called "Dark of the Moon"--which was nominated for a national college theatre lighting design award (I didn't win but it made me realize I had a future in theatrical lighting). 
➸ ➸ ➸ ➸ ➸ ➸ ➸
Well-known fact:
I express myself with my hands and sometimes knock things over.
➸ ➸ ➸ ➸ ➸ ➸ ➸
Me @ 16... in my messy room... crashed out after a long day at the beach. That poster on the wall is Cat Stevens, whom I gleaned a great deal from when I was learning how to play the guitar.
|
