Musings of Two Creative Minds

*HAPPY HALLOWEEN everyone!  I decided to give you all a treat by sharing a snippet from my upcoming novel "The Vampyre Blogs", which will be coming out this Christmas.   I was careful to choose this particular entry since it involves all three of my main characters dealing with a the scene is one most of us can relate to.  Here we have Marisa a seventeen year old young lady being comforted my vampyre Nathaniel and his goddaughter Lisa.  Marisa (who has no idea what Nathaniel really is) has an intense dislike for vampires even though they don't really exist according to her.  She hates movies, books and television shows about them because in her mind they have come to embody cancer (which her father is struggling against) in a human form.   The scene takes place inside an old four story building Nathaniel owns.  He keeps a dance club downstairs, while on the top floor he has an art studio where he likes to paint at night.  Mar...

Recently, I tried to get some new reviews for my two novels on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords.  I even offered free Read-2-Review copies of the books to anyone who wanted to do a review.  The results... not a single bite. I couldn't believe it.  Giving away "FREE" copies of a book in exchange for an honest review is usually one of the very best methods known to get some reviews for a book.  But I wasn't getting any takers.  In fact I actually heard back from a few people who had read the books and loved them.  Yet when I asked if they would be kind enough to leave a review this is what I kept hearing from a number of them.. "I love to read, but I don't know what to say in if someone asks me to review their book..." Does this sound familiar to anyone else out there?  If it does, don't be embarrassed.  A lot of people feel that way.  Some don't know what to put down because they see all these other reviews that are li...

****REVIEWS NEEDED ON SMASHWORDS**** I'm looking for honest reviews of my 2nd paranormal/mystery novel "The Ship" for my Smashwords site. Recently there's been a lot of traffic over there but no sales. Part of the problem may be the fact that there's been only one review done on the book at Smashwords. Multiple reviews spurs more sales, so if anyone is interested in doing a review there, I'm willing to supply you with a free e-copy of the book from the Smashwords site. For those not familiar with the story here's the blurb from the back cover of the book: Cassandra Elliott is a billionaire heiress, who has just come out of the closet. She's also a powerful psychic who has seen incredible and terrifying things. In fact, just two weeks ago, she and her girlfriend Julie Cloudfoot, survived a horrific battle alongside their two friends Alex Hill and Veronica Ross. They faced a being from a parallel reality where evolution took a much diff...

A couple of weeks ago, I received these packages in the mail... I shared this photo on FB and teased people for a couple of days about what might be inside, before finally revealing their contents. At least one of my FB friends asked, "Wow, that's a lot of books  Are you having a special event?" My answer was no. So then someone else asked, "Well then why did you get so many?  What are you planning on doing with them?" I responded with, "Well, I'm making them available for anyone who wants a signed edition for just $15.00, plus $3.00 for shipping.  If they want a copy of each book it will be two for $25.00, plus $5.00 for shipping." Then came the inevitable question of, "What happens if you don't sell them all?" My response was this... I went to one of the local public libraries and asked if they would like some free copies of a local author's books for their shelves.  They're response was...

Go GOOGLE yourself! And I mean it folks.  Now I'm not trying to be rude or obnoxious, I'm actually being quite serious about this.  Sometimes putting your name in Google and checking out what pops up can be a real eye-opener. The other day when I was sitting in the library with my wife who was tutoring a student of hers, I pulled out her spare laptop and set it up so I could do some writing.  Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my flash-drive with me.  Which of course meant, no writing. So I just started net surfing.  I don't know what prompted me to do it, but I decided to put my own name into the Google Search to see what would happen.  The results took me ever so by surprise. Not only did I find all the usual links to my blogs and Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Goodreads, FB, Twitter, etc. but I also found a host of other book sites that were carrying my two novels "The Bridge" and "The Ship".  Naturally I was flattered, but the...

For those of you who have been reading this blog for a while, you'll remember I've mentioned a number of times about saving your work on Google Drive, or on a Memory Stick, or even a CD.  I've also suggested that when you edit your work, if you're going to cut a scene to save it in a special folder.  I say this because even though the scene, or even a character, doesn't fit in the story you're working on you might be able to recycle it for another story down the road.   The thing I forgot to mention is that occasionally you should go and look through that folder every so often.  Especially if you're looking to start a new project, or have hit a bad case of writer's block.  Something in that folder may be just the thing to help you get your scene going again. I also have another special folder that holds works in progress that are unfinished.  Or in some cases, are pretty much a complete first draft.. . (said under my breath while looking away in...