Giveaway!

To celebrate my book, I'm going to be giving away a copy of it! I have a giveaway going on Goodreads, so please head over and enter to win. Right now I'm only offering one copy, but if this giveaway goes well I'll probably be inspired to have more giveaways in the future. 

Enter Here

We each are but a grain of sand on a beach, a cog in a great time piece. We are surrounded, yet solitary, wanting to be part of the whole while aching to be individual. We search for those special connections, reaching out with hope but holding back with trepidation, our hearts wanting one thing when our minds are saying something different. Yet within this battle, despite the scars, we somehow manage to find love, hope, companionship, and purpose, ultimately without surrendering our ability to find that necessary peace within ourselves. We Walk Alone examines the journeys we take in our head. It's about the struggle to connect with people and the world around us

And my publisher is having a giveaway of another poetry collection, to be released on August 22, 2014 also. It discusses the three things we should never talk about in public, sex, politics and religion-all in verse of course. Enter to win here.

Through A Cannabis Haze and Rose-Colored Glasses
(A Twisted Look at Sex, Religion and Politics... in verse, of course) 

Anthony Weiner’s crotch-shots, Mylie’s twerking, government not working, and a boatload of stupidity fill our days and our newspapers. Perhaps it’s time to put some of that into perspective – in poetry – that makes no pretense at being delicate, politically correct or even a bit cautious. Nothing is sacred in this collection of jabs and observations… not even baseball. Of course, it's not all jabs and pokes, but it's all delivered without hesitation, and oft with a tad of sarcasm

We Walk Alone Cover Reveal!

It's here! It's FINALLY here! Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you, my beautiful cover! And my goodreads link, don't forget to add this to your TBR pile. We Walk Alone is scheduled for release 2014/2015 from Writers AMuse Me Publishing.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22464233-we-walk-alone

I'm Still Here

Hello everyone!

I really really really haven't meant to be away from this blog for so long, but the thing is, I've been spending a lot of time over on my Tumblr blog. I've also been busy submitting and writing and submitting and writing and...well, you get the idea. I've had some great successes lately. I've completed and subbed my first poetry book titled, Life is Never a Winding Road and I'm currently working on my second book of poetry, title TBA.

If you want to keep up with me on a more regular basis I suggest you follow me on Facebook or follow my tumblr, I'm the most active on those pages now.

From Poet to Playwright

Yesterday, I wrote a play. An actual two act play. Granted, the story was already there, I just changed it into the format of a play. Splitting it up into scenes was easy, formatting it was fairly easy, the thing I found the most challenging was setting the stage properly. In one scene of my play, there's quite a lot going on with one character. She moves around and touches a lot of things in the story. So, I found, while I was writing the play, she'd interact with something that I'd forgotten to put in the scene description. I had to go back to my scene description a few times and make additions and adjustments. All that back and forth taught me something. It taught me to pay attention.

I think writing plays could become a hobby of mine. I'm already working up a one act play that is loosely based on a story I started writing a few weeks ago. It was really good exercise for the old writing muscle. It forced me to carefully think about my characters surroundings. It made me be more aware of the interaction between each character and the environment, and their interaction with each other. You have to carefully consider each movement your character makes. There's no room for error because this won't be read in someone's head, this will (hopefully) be acted out in front of them.

I still have some final adjustments to make with the scene description and stage direction, but for the most part, my play is complete. I'm positive that if I continue going with this, I'll learn much more.

All Things Poetical

A poem I wrote. 

Recently, I've started using Tumblr. It's a great little platform and while I'm still trying to build a solid following there, I'm really enjoying the experience.

Truth be told, I don't know what's going to happen with this blog. I want to keep it going, but I've been thinking about moving it over to Wordpress. I've talked to quite a few different people who have used both and it seems that Wordpress is the place to be.

I feel like I've really struggled to give this blog a solid direction and I kind of want to get that figured out before I make the move to Wordpress.

Anyway, to keep you busy, I have a couple of fantastic posts about poetry over on my Tumblr. My Tumblr is going to serve as my poetry platform. All things poetry will end up there. So, if you're dying for something good to read head on over and read Who Says Poetry is Dead? When you're done with that read Three Simple Tips to Improve Your Poetry.

Lately, I've been all about poetry.

10 Minute Poems

I call them 10 minute poems. I've been having fun with them lately.

What are they?

Well, they are poems I write in roughly ten minutes, but there's a catch.

I solicit ideas from friends and strangers. These ideas come in the form of a single word or phrase that people give me. It can be an animal, an object, a thought, a feeling, anything. Their own imagination is the limit. Yesterday on my Facebook page, I asked for someone to give me a word and I'd write them a poem. I was given the word Xbox. This poem took roughly 15 minutes to write. I'm totally guessing on that. It was first thing this morning when I wrote this, and to be honest, I wasn't keeping close track of the clock, but I promise it didn't take long.

His Affair

You should be here
pressing my buttons
blazing trails of happiness
down my back
with sweet kisses.
Bliss could be ours,
we could fall
into each other
never recover.
I've waited for you
forever
and the only thing
between us now
the only thing hindering us
from falling into each other
is your unshakable addiction
to Assassins Creed.
I think you love that Xbox
more than you love me.

I plan to write more of these in the future. So, if you want to be the inspiration behind a 10 minute poem, leave your word or phrase in the comments.

Vote For The Echo Remains

My poem, The Echo Remains, is in a competition over on bestnewpoems.com It would be super duper if you'd go read it, and if you liked it, share it on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc. While your there, be sure to check out some of the other awesome works.

In other news, I've got a few more acceptances in the old inbox lately, so be sure to look at My Work. A 100 word story of mine was recently published, read that here.  Last, but not least, a story of mine, Talking to Strangers, was accepted into the exciting first issue of The Literati Quarterly.

And I may or may not have sent my poetry chapbook to a publisher this morning. *fingers crossed*