“We have 190 titles and 1,554 copies to give away!!  Woo hooo!”

Please follow the link below to see the huge list of YA novels in several different genres and then enter to win! Most authors are giving away multiple copies, so your chances to win something awesome are very good!

Elle Casey’s Springtime Indie Book Giveaway

Details:  The giveaway runs May 10-15 (contest closes on May 15 at 11:59pm EST)

Here’s all the books being given away. To enter the giveaway, use the link above. To find out more about these books, click the cover to go to Amazon and read the blurbs and reviews

Relationship wisdom: “If you’re not mad enough to bareknuckle box, then you’re not mad.” –Red Foreman

As someone who has played and studied (off and on) a number of guitar styles, I have a natural interest in the gear. I love guitars, amps, effects, tuners, picks, straps. I’m also wise enough to know that a guitar, by itself, won’t make me a good guitarist.

But it is a common saw that intangibles like skill, feel, and heart are the most important elements in a guitarists sound. This may even be true. Those intangibles certainly account for the difference between me and say . . . Yngwie Malmsteen, Joe Pass, or Eddie Van Halen.

That said, the tools do matter. A crappy guitar that won’t stay in tune, or which has impossible action, just causes unnecessary friction. It makes it harder to stay motivated through the monotony of practice.

The tools also provide inspiration in and of themselves. I just got a new guitar. I’ve played more hours in the past week than I have for the past six months. I’m having a blast.

As a writer, the tools also matter. I love and have used Scrivener for three novels. I just switched to something else. Why. Because it felt stale. I needed a change.

Will the new app (Ulysses, FTW) write the book for me? No. But it makes me want to write, just as the new guitar makes me want to play.

His son, Ben, was severely injured in a longboarding accident. The family has no insurance, and the bills for the hospital and treatment in this instance often exceed a million dollars.

Today I’m supporting a book bomb, in which we encourage people to purchase one of Dave’s books. In particular, I encourage you to pick up Nightingale. Not only is it an awesome (multi-award-winning) book, but David get’s 70% of the purchase price on Amazon. (for Nook links, hit up the link at the bottom of this post.) The higher up the rankings Nightingale gets, the more exposure it will get and more people will buy it.

That is how a book bomb works!

Click This Pic and Get the Book!!!!

Click through to the official site and check it out. Let’s get his multi-award-winning YA novel Nightingale waaay up on Amazon’s bestseller list.

For more information and updates about Ben’s condition. There is also a link to a fund for direct contributions if you’re so moved.

Help Ben Wolverton: Books for the Book Bomb

Here in Wisconsin this morning, it’s dreich.

For the characters in my novel . . . well, they’re on an island in the Caribbean. But inside their hearts today, it shall be very dreich indeed.

Shadow of the oak is available from the usual suspects. Amazon has it for a mere $1.99!

Though the surface may grow calm, the stone has made a longer lasting change than it seems. It has raised the level of the pond.

Your creative work is never wasted, even if it barely makes a splash.

It’s now the beginning of April and I’m still pushing at it. Bit by bit.

Thing is, I could be done by now. I could have revised and published it. The problem was that I realized it could be better. Way better.

There is always a tension between getting it done and shipping, and making it perfect and shipping. I’m trying to hit the sweet spot in between.

There have been days I’ve considered binning the whole thing (yeah, I said binning because it’s fun to say that as if I’m a Brit or something). But then my wife read the first five chapters and responded with enthusiasm.

I’m pressing forward, even while feeling quite ill for the past five days. Today I set out to murder a particularly lovely darling. The result? Two brand new chapters. I can’t speak for other creatives, but sometimes it takes time.

In the end, I don’t want to put out a novel I wouldn’t want to read. So I’m doing my best to make it awesome.

I’ve moved the progress bar to 15%!

You have two choices. Dig in and see what your tired frame of mind can produce, or you can rest up. Neither is the right choice every time.

But if you’ve got a scene in your novel or screenplay where a character is exhausted, sick or emotionally drained, maybe it’s the right choice right now.

Utter.

Sometimes a project comes to that. It’s not a fork in road, making you choose which way you’ll go. Instead, it’s a flat, empty plain, allowing you to go in any direction you want.

There are no landmarks, nothing on the horizon to suggest that one direction offers more hope than any other.

And when you’re in the middle of that novel, or song, or art installation, you have to keep going. The only alternative is paralysis. Death.

But the plain isn’t empty, is it? After all, you are there.

It’s time to draw upon your life experiences, your creative vision, your purpose. There is nothing there because you haven’t created it yet.

Utter uncertainty is the Void, and it’s challenging you to fill it up with beauty and truth.