CD Giveaway: ANIMAL HOURS

When I do a giveaway, they are usually books. Books I love. Books written by friends, mostly, because I want to support their work.

But the reality is that we writers are not only influenced by books, but also by music.

Like, I know jónsi is going in my novel acknowledgements. His music has accompanied the majority of my novel writing. He transports me. And helps me connect with myself and words and story. But I am always looking for new music–because there are days I need to unlock another corner of my mind for a scene, a character, setting, or new mood.

The music to which I write has to meet the above requirements.

Someone special and important in my life released his album last week. Orion Letizi’s record, DO OVER by ANIMAL HOURS, is a muse. You can download DO OVER on iTunes or cdbaby–but I’ve also decided to do a giveaway of DO OVER here on my blog.

The music is “indie-pop”–people have compared it to music by Elliott Smith and Beach House. There are days on which I’ve written to the album–and it’s produced some of the following lines in my novel revision/draft:

Migration during wartime is more push than pull. Nothing pulls you forward, nothing guides you, there is no hand outstretched towards your own. You stumble and fall and pass by orphaned children and mothers whose breasts have gone dry and who hold starving children, who cry without tears, because their bodies have no water to waste on sadness and pain and frustration. These people remind you that you are lucky, despite the blood soaking through your socks and shoes and your own stomach turning on itself in hunger, as your body eats muscle off bone.

The above is a rare peek at my novel-in-progress (I don’t usually share my work when it’s in progress) and will likely be revised further. It’s not perfect, but it came out of music. Music is inspiration.

There are some early comments on the album here and there on FB and twitter. Buzz will likely grow. And I hope you’re part of that buzz.

To that end, I’m doing a giveaway of the CD. I hope you win. If you do not, I hope you still buy and download some tracks or the album in its entirety. It’s about starting your life over. I think we can all relate to some or all of that.

Here’s how to enter:
1) Leave a comment below. (I appreciate “likes”–but that doesn’t enter you in the giveaway) You can say anything you want–e.g., you can choose to tell me why you want a copy of the album, or share an anecdote about something you had to do over…or just say you want the album because you want the album. Do fill out your email address when you fill out the fields in the comment box (it won’t be published to the world, but I will need it in order to contact you in case you win)!
2) 1 entry per person. If you tweet about this giveaway (please tag @xtinehlee in your tweet so that I can track it), you get an extra entry.
3) The giveaway is open worldwide.
4) If you win the contest, I will email you for your mailing address.
5) Winners will be chosen by a random number generator.
6) I will be announcing the contest winner on the blog. None of your personal information will be posted, aside from your first name and last initial (or the nickname you choose to list in your comment). If you see that someone else has entered the same name as you, please try to pick a different nickname to call yourself, so as to avoid confusion.

The deadline to enter a comment/tweet is Monday April 21, 2014 12:00pm EST. The winner (picked at random) will be announced Monday April 21, 2014 by 9:00pm EST.

GOOD LUCK!

UPDATE 4/21/2014:

Before we begin–just wanted to note that ANIMAL HOURS was blogged on The Bay Bridged with very flattering commentary. RAD.

Okay…now we begin.

Each entry was assigned a number (in the order comments were subbed or tweets, tweeted).

Thanks for all who publicized the giveaway!!! (I hope you find your way to a copy of the album–available on iTunes).

I had the Random Number Generator pick a number…

And then I clicked the button…

*drum roll*

*drum roll*

And the winner is Patrick!

Patrick: I’ll be contacting you for your snail mail address shortly. I hope everyone else finds their way to a copy of ANIMAL HOURS DO OVER, soon! Thank you all for participating.