I used to post, quite often, about the best music deals I found on Amazon. For me, music is a big part of my creative process. I don’t always listen to music as I write (though, sometimes, I create a sort of soundtrack for a story, especially in the editing phases) but music dramatically influences everything I write. The best music moves me emotionally, sonically, and creates a moving picture in my head. Amazon has some great artists featured in their $2.99 MP3 album sale ri

I decided to combine the November specials in one place this month. As always, these links will take you to Amazon. I receive a small percentage of any sales that come from these links. You are free to find the items on Amazon on your own or buy the products from another retailer. This is just a quick way to share the items that Amazon has on deep discount. MUSIC Here’s a whole list of $5 MP3 albums. Or, you can follow the recommendations below: X&Y or A Rush of Blood To The

Thanks to some fabulous Twitter folks and the Creative Writing MFA Blog, this has been a stellar week here on the Stories I Read, Stories I Tell blog. Lot’s of great traffic and discussion focused on my post, To MFA, Or Not. I wanted to re-cap the other posts from the week, and hope to deflect a little of the spotlight on those posts as well. I tracked down some good deals at Amazon for music to write by. I offered up a combined exercise for fiction writers and legacy/persona

It’s already October! We are falling head-long into the holidays. With a new month comes a new batch of inexpensive CD offerings from Amazon. I try to pick a few of the best from the $5 album list to share with you. A little something for everyone! Here’s this month’s list: Norah Jones, Come Away With Me Huey Lewis and the News, Greatest Hits Coldplay, Parchutes Miranda Lambert, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend R.E.M, Monster Rilo Kiley, Under the Black Light 99 Must-Have Vivaldi Masterpi

I always look forward to the start of a new month, because Amazon turns over their lineup of deeply discounted mp3 music and Kindle-based ebooks. If I’m honest, I wait and buy most music this way now, and it is starting to be a larger portion of my book buying. So, let me share a couple of suggestions with you for September: MUSIC The first two are great albums on sale for $5.99…but they aren’t a part of the regular, monthly $5 sale, so I’m not sure how long they’ll be offere

Every month Amazon runs their $5 mp3 album special. 100 albums, on sale. I’ve bought a LOT of these $5 albums over the years, because they are such a good deal. (Especially some of the “best of” albums of folks who I want a sample of, but don’t want to collect every song they ever put out…) Often, I’ll tweet or post on Facebook if there is an album or two I am especially interested in, but I thought, why not just do a run down of the monthly offerings here on the blog. (Yes,

We’ve been given a finite number of breaths to breathe, and a finite number of talents to employ, and it seems to me the conundrum of life is figuring out ways to use those talents and opportunities to the fullest before those finite number of breaths run out. My cousin, Bill Becknell, died last night. Bill was a fascinating, talented, loving man and I’m glad to have spent time with him and Mary Beth, though those times were too few and far between. Bill was a generation old