I sometimes just sit back and watch the screaming that goes on about marriage, but it’s not too hard to understand what love means, especially when you come across a gem like this.
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We have a WINNER!!
Congratulations!!!
Congratulations to Nicole Hanson for winning a signed copy of Listening To Dust from my first Goodreads giveaway.
And thank you to the 500+ people that signed up for it!
Giveaway- Free Autographed copy
I’m giving away an autographed copy of Listening to Dust to one US resident. Enter on Goodreads from May 1st to May4th. I’ll be adding in giveaways for other countries in the very near future. Watch for them!
And while your on Goodreads you can read the excerpt chapter that one book blogger dared her followers to read and not cry.
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Listening To Dust
by Brandon Shire
Giveaway ends May 04, 2012.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
Enter to win
On the Whimsy
So when I started this out I was being convinced by friends that I ‘just had to publish.’
It won’t be much, new book tech, kindle, nook and all that… Yeah, right. I had to figure out a whole new language, find book marketing bloggers that weren’t trying to pedal me some bullshit scheme about how they were going to make me the next NYT bestseller, and then there were all those querky tech problems that I still have no clue about. [Read more…] about On the Whimsy
Stephen Dobbins – Guest Post
Dad was a diplomat, or so I was told. Honestly I was too young to understand or care. He might have been MI5 for all I knew. The only thing I understood was that he was gone a good bit, and that when he was home we were an inseparable lot; me, my mum and him.
My parents loved me a great deal and I always felt loved even when I thought that I was different from other boys. But they loved each other even more and I could see it each time their eyes met. Maybe that was why their death hurt me so much, because their love for each other was the spark in my small world that told me how much I was loved.
When my dad left in the mornings my mum’s last touch was just a light whisper of her fingertips, as if enticing him to hurry through the day and come back home again. And when he did return there was always a small cuddle in the foyer, or the kitchen, or wherever he caught Mum unawares. I use to watch them when he snuck in and winked at me, a conspirator’s nod before he ambushed Mum with his simple affections. It always made me smile. [Read more…] about Stephen Dobbins – Guest Post
Day of Silence
When I asked for someone to speak for me
there was silence
When I buckled and fell under the weight of words
there was silence
An army of likeminded people appeared behind me
but stood in silence
And so my hunger for love became so great
that it was silence.
For those we have lost~ B. Shire
On Writing: Beginning with the End
The hook in music is the riff that captures the listener and pulls them into the song, the beat and the experience of the music. It’s what gets you humming the tune days later and what brings listeners back to the artist and the memories they experienced when that particular song was playing. It’s one of the things I love about music.
In writing it’s a little different, but no less important. Creating a hook is built on sentences, one leads to another, and another, and another. From my perspective, it’s more like a maze, the further a writer can get you into the maze, the harder it is for you to get out until you reach the end. [Read more…] about On Writing: Beginning with the End
Questions from readers
I’m getting more and more questions from readers so I thought I would create a blog post that answered some of the most common. If you have a question, please feel free to contact me via my website or one of my social media sites. I may answer you personally, or make a blog post about it, or both.
You stated in an interview that some of the characters in The Value of Rain were based on real people, can you tell me which ones?
Many of the characters were based on real people, the character Snow was one of them and the real person he was based on had a literal pelt of scars from his shoulders down to his wrist. Snow was a stark, beautiful young man whose voice haunted me until I gave him a voice in Rain.
Poetry Month – Poetry and Prejudice
As many of my reader’s already know, I’m a great fan of poetry. I even dabble in a bit of it myself, though I will be the first to say that my own poetry sucks. I need to stretch my fingers a bit more when I put words on paper, which is why I have such great respect for a wordsmith that can do in ten words what it takes me in ten thousand.
I read all kinds of prose and poetry and it doesn’t have to be a specifically oriented in gender, ethnicity or race. It just has to be good; it has to touch me and evoke something from within myself that makes me stop and wonder why I have not noticed this before.
But honestly, there are many times when I think that the words we commit ourselves to, both in our writing and our reading, are hindered by the labels we put on it. Or should we blame marketers and publishers who value easily labelled societal segments for being neat little cubbyholes of potential sales and profit? That would be a bit too easy, wouldn’t it? It would be all their fault, and not our own ingrained prejudices and petty bigotries that we don’t let out to the world or, often, comprehend within ourselves.
Poetry exposes those gilded crimes, like good prose. It opens us to new possibilities and worlds, new ways of thinking, it keeps us breathless, pent up, internalized until we can stand it no more. Save with our tears and our sorrow and our joy. It shows us the chair in the forest of words.
Poetry has that effect. Because that’s what its for. For change and progress and evolution.
For the soul; the one that beats, the one to come, and the one that has passed.
Photo credit: H. Keller
Helping LGBT Youth – March 2012
Every month I try to post about the two LGBT Youth organizations that I help (in a small way) with the proceeds from The Value Of Rain. Both organizations are trying to meet increasing demands with very little funding. So if you can see it in your heart to help out these groups, which work directly to take homeless LGBT kids off the street, you will do so knowing that your small contribution helped take a kid off the streets and showed him that someone cared enough to say YES, you are worthy of being loved.
GLBTAYS – DONATE
In a state that ranks as #1 for being the worst place for homeless youth, this organization fights against innumerable social, religious and monetary odds to help provide LGBT Youth with a safe place to interact, converse, learn and, if need be, helps them find a safe place to stay. Recently they launched a multimedia project called “From Behind The Mask” which shows real people and real struggles in the LGBT Youth community. It is definitely something you’ll want to check out.
Saint Lost & Found – DONATE
Taking 25 kids off the street and ‘graduating’ two to near self independence is not an easy task. Ask the guys and girls over at St. Lost and Found and what you’ll hear isn’t about how hard it is, but how rewarding it is when something as simple as a “glad to meet you” changes a kid’s perspective from one of desolation to one of hope for their future. But they’ve done much more than that and continue to help those that need our help the most.