A year ago, a great friend, Donna Brown, established an event called Adopt an Indie. It was a terrific event and I was privileged to be able to take part in it. Over the following year, this evolved into a really great and supportive group for independent authors called The Indie Exchange. Now, a year has passed and I’m pleased to be able to be involved in the birthday celebrations. From an event supporting dozens of authors, the Indie Exchange has grown into an 800 member strong – and growing – group.

To celebrate, this success, they are holding their best ever giveaway: The September Social Splash.

Main prize: $100 Amazon voucher

Second prize: $10 Amazon voucher

There are so many ways to win – just check out the Rafflecopter below. You can complete as many actions as you like to enter the draw and be in with a chance of winning the $100 prize.

It’s great to see so many members and visitors making The Indie Exchange such a success so far! Visit The Indie Exchange: Website ** Facebook Group ** Facebook Page ** Twitter

So let me finish with a big thank you to Donna Brown, Coral Russell, and all the other wonderful people who make the Indie Exchange such a great resource for writers everywhere. May your group continue to go from strength to strength.

Happy Birthday The Indie Exchange

I’m not totally sure what that means, but then again, I’m never quite sure what anything much means.

What I can say for sure is that at various times, I have been accused of being overly cynical.

I’ve never agreed with this assessment. I don’t think I’m overly cynical at all. I just figure that I look at things in a practical and realistic way. When you read the newspapers. When you listen to the guff that politicians spin. Ok, let’s not single out politicians unfairly. When you listen to the guff that lots of people spin, cynicism seems like a completely reasonable response.

And it’s not just the stuff that’s covered in the rarefied world of the media. Just getting through most days seems to require a healthy dose of it. Whether you’re working in the public or the private sector, there’s more than enough rubbish you need to wade through every day. I should know – I worked in universities for the better part of 20 years. Supposedly, universities are full of the smartest people in the country – god help the rest of us is all I can say.

As for being a writer, a dose of cynicism is more than required to get through the day. It was needed back when I was trying to deal with publishers, and their various prevarications for why they didn’t want to publish my stories – especially after I saw the stories that they did publish. And it’s even more necessary in the self-publishing world, where the variables that define success still often seem to have little to do with the quality of the writing.

So why the hell do I do it? Why do I put myself through all this daily torture? Because, as I said, cynicism is not the only side to me. I’m also a ridiculous, pie-in-the-sky optimist. Every day, I get up, I put all my grumbling and cynicism to the side, I look up and tell myself that there’s a bright side to all of this.

It’s a bit like one of my stories: Flidderbugs. I suppose it’s a bit of a satire about politics and all that stuff. I’ve had reviewers say it was overly-cynical. I’ve had others say the ending is too contrived and optimistic. I like to think it means I’ve somehow got a good balance of the two.

Because that’s the thing about us. We’re all a contradiction. We all have a mix of different qualities. You just have to make sure you make the best of all of them, and don’t let any take you over.

Seems to me, being a cynical optimist is the best approach to take. It means you’ll always be aiming for the sky, but you’ll also be aware of where the dark clouds are. because how else will you be able to avoid them?  

Thomas has very generously decided to share the royalties for 29 Days of Fantasy with an organisation called Reglue. You can learn more about them at their website, http://reglue.org, but in summary, they work to provide access to technology to underprivileged kids – a pretty worthy cause if you ask me.

So there’s a bunch of really great reasons why you should check this out. Even if you don’t think you’re interested in fantasy, you may find yourself swayed by some of the terrific posts captured here. And the chance to help a worthy organisation is always a good thing on top of that.

About Thomas A. Knight

Thomas A. Knight has spent most of his life either immersed in or building fantasy worlds and bringing characters to life.

From Middle Earth, to the skies of Pern and beyond, no world is too great a challenge for him to conquer. His favourite places include a pair of worlds that spawned from his own imagination, one of perpetual light, and one of perpetual darkness.

When he is not living a life in one of these worlds, he is a husband, father of two little girls, software developer, and avid role-player. He grew up and currently resides in a small town in Ontario, Canada. Holding a diploma in Network Engineering, he works as a software developer at one of the world’s leading vinyl siding manufacturers.

You can learn more about him and his writing at his webite – http://thomasaknight.com/