Eleven books that still shape my writing.

These eleven books continue to haunt me in different ways.  This is not a list of "great" works, or the "right" books to find inspiration--but it is a list of books I found to be ground-breaking and thought provoking, which is always a good place to start if you're looking for inspiring reads.   
Not in any particular order:
1. The Dark Tower - Stephen King
2. The Stranger - Albert Camus
3. American Gods - Neil Gaiman
4. Wintersmith - Terry Pratchett
5. The Just-so Stories - Rudyard Kipling
6. Written on the Body - Jeannette Winterson
7. Hardcore Zen - Brad Warner
8. The Survivor Personality - Al Seibert
9. Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl
10. The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath
11. Smoke From This Alter - Louis L'Amour 
Please share some of your suggestions in comments.

Writing Resources for Aspiring Novelists

A friend recently asked me for resources that might help one plunge into novel writing... I'm still navigating the path myself, but I thought I'd share my list to date for all of you other writing fools. In order of usefulness to aspiring novelists:
1. nanowrimo.org
2. Chris Baty's book "No plot? No problem."
3. John Dufresne's book "A guide to writing fiction."
4. Writer's Dreamkit software (for doing the story-boarding work before writing the book, to iron out those plot holes).
5. Liquid Storybinder software (for actually doing the writing--it is more versatile and complete than Microsoft Word and exports to Word or PDF easily).

My Novel finds a Publisher

I'm proud to be publishing my novel, A Walk Away, with Affinity eBook Press NZ in May 2015.
http://affinityebooks.com/
Please stay tuned for previews and updates!

Poetry for the masses...

You can find a collection of all of my poetry for sale now on Amazon for less than it costs to buy a thimble full of coffee at your favorite coffee shop.
Buy the book here.

Details:

The Nightshade Lexicon $0.99 (Yes, that is 99 cents!)

A complete book of worthless poetry for the common hominid. Even the kids are bound to enjoy a madcap line or forty-two! Good on a rainy night or with fried goat. Please do not pickle. No harm was caused to trolls, vampires, warlocks, demons, angels, pixies, or even parasites during the production of this poetry. Thanks for reading, and welcome to the nightshade lexicon...speaking a dead tongue in tiredly hopeful ears right now at one low price!
For those of you without a Kindle device, please note that you can download a free Kindle reading app for your laptop, computer, iPhone, iPad, or Android device and read any Kindle book that way too. For those of you who wish to read in the tub or swimming pool, freezer-style zip-lock baggies are a great waterproof covering for your e-reader of choice.