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Showing posts from May, 2013

KINDLE VERSION OF "THE BRIDGE" NOW 1/2 OFF AT AMAZON...

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ATTENTION ALL KINDLE READERS! My paranormal mystery novel "THE BRIDGE" is now on sale for $1.49 on Amazon.  Grab your copy while it's at this new low price, because I don't know how long it will last.  There are reviews here as well as a chance to sample the book.  So take advantage while you can. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B86DR9G

Working In The Vampire Genre, Plus An Anthology Review...

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Since I started work on my first vampire story, I decided to see what other stories and variations have been done on the vampire myth already.  To this end I pulled out an anthology book of vampire stories that's been in my possession for about 20 years now. Everyone is pretty familiar with the works of Anne Rice, Stephanie Meyer, and of course Bram Stoker.  But what about other authors who've tapped into this vein (I know this pun sucks... but so do vampires ba-da-bum).  This collection can be a huge help to any author with plans on attacking this famous mythos by giving them a chance to see what others have done before them.  I know I found it helpful and enlightening. THE PENGUIN BOOK OF VAMPIRE STORIES is one of the best anthologies I've ever found.  Part of the reason is that it covers authors who've touched on this subject as far back as 1816 and goes up to 1984.  There are a number of familiar names in this book like Clark Ashton Smith, Sheridan Le

Book Review: "Cat Playing Cupid" number 14 in the Joe Grey Mystery Series....

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My rating: 5 - STARS This fourteenth outing for the Joe Grey Mystery Series was fun and intriguing for me. While I haven't read the full series yet, I did read the earliest books and was quickly drawn into this wonderful world where some cats can speak and think on par with humans, while others cannot. Miss Murphy keeps each story building on this mystery either slightly or heavily.  In this case it was more heavily focused on while at the same time dealing with a classic whodunnit.  What is the connection between a body, dead 10 years, up in Oregon have to the mysterious disappearance of a local man who was going on a hike locally?  And when a second body, also dead some 10 years, is discovered in an unmarked grave the big questions arise. Could this one be the missing local man?  If not, then who is it?  And why were they buried with a book that frightens the speaking cats, because it contains hints about them? These are just a few of the questions that arise in this

Observations On Writing My Second Book...

As you all know by now, I've been working on my second and third novels for a while now.  Mostly the second one which has been taking longer than I had anticipated.  At first I wondered why this was so?  I was much more experienced since my first go-round with completing a book.  I've learned a lot of the pitfalls and mistakes that can be made by now.  So I should be able to crank this puppy out in no time right?  WRONG! Now before I proceed, remember I'm only speaking for myself and what I'm experiencing in this process.  I'm still very much on the learning curve and I would love to hear some of your experiences down in the comments section below.  You may very well wind up giving insight to other issues I haven't thought about yet, which could be very helpful. Anyway, as I said before the process is taking longer than I'd hoped.  I originally figured I'd be laying down the plot for book four by now, while having book three 2/3's of the way done

Bringing New Life To A Genre That Has Been Explored Many Times By Others...

Okay, in my last entry I disclosed I was working on a vampire novel.  Now this is a genre that has been done and redone so many times it's unbelievable.  And almost every time there are new twists and turns added to it that they barely seem to resemble the traditional vampires that Bela Legosi and Christopher Lee made legendary in Hollywood.  Today we have vampires that just totally ooze sex appeal, can sparkle in daylight instead of turning to dust, can have sex and produce offspring, are either monsters or saints, etc.  And they are still as popular as ever in spite of all the changes to the original legend. Now I'm not just talking about Bram Stoker's "Dracula".  That was not the first vampire story.  There were many others. If you ever get the opportunity check out "The Penguin Book Of Vampire Stories" and you'll see ones that predate Mr. Stoker's work by quite a few years.  But in that collection you'll also meet other kinds of vampire

Musings On The 1st Person Voice In Stories...

Yesterday, against my better judgement, I started writing a second book.  Now I'm still working on "The Ship" which is the sequel to my first novel "The Bridge".  But I was having troubles with "The Ship".  I was making progress, but it was so slow I was going crazy at times.  I would write over a 1000 words in one day and then dump about half of them because they weren't moving the plot along or really helping develop the characters as much.  I kept what did seem to be working and built on that the next day.  Sometimes this is one way of dealing with Writer's Block for me. Then yesterday, something else happened.  An idea for a different book that is part of my Para-Earth series started gelling like no one's business.  It had sat on the back-burner for so long now it was boiling over.  Scenes and characters started coming to life to such an extent I had only one of three options: A) Start writing the book B) Leave it alone and hope I