Musings of Two Creative Minds

 Recently I went through another bout of Writer's Block. Actually, I hit this particular wall some months ago.  It was while I was still working on the original 1st draft of "The Door" when I encountered the block and it was a doozy.  No matter what direction I tried to take the novel in, things just seemed to get more complicated and confusing.  Too many characters, too many plot points and subplots going.   In the end I wound up working on "The Vampyre Blogs - Coming Home" story.  I had a pretty clear vision of where I wanted to go with that one so I worked on it instead.  I did this partly in the hopes of having a breakthrough with where I'd left off with "The Door", but in the end I never got past it.   Even when I completed the first draft for "The Vampyre Blogs" I wasn't any closer to getting past my block with "The Door".  Now anyone who's dealt with a severe case of Writer's Block will tell y...

This week I started a new semester of classes over at the California State University at Monterey Bay (CSUMB).  I'll be going here for at least another four semesters after this one.  I try to keep to just 12 units at a time which allows my wife and I to qualify for campus housing.  CSUMB has what they call East Campus Housing which is more like a duplex than an apartment.  Being a family we have the place to ourselves rather than having to share our space with others. The rent is reasonable and our gas, electric and cable are all included.  So you can understand my wanting to stick around here for a few more years while my wife Helen (who just earned her Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics) finds work and we can start building up our savings again.  BTW, if anyone knows any good job openings for a Mathematics wiz in California please let me know.  She's sending out resumes and applications like crazy and is eager to find more opportunities. ...

Hello everyone, today I want to give you all a little insight into how things are going with my latest novel. Some of you may know that I had started working on "The Door" some time back, but then set it aside to work on "The Vampyre Blogs - Coming Home".  I did this originally, because I'd hoped to get the vampyre book out last October, but of course that didn't happen.  My classes at CSU Monterey Bay got crazy with the workload so I couldn't finish in time.   Now, the vampyre book is set around October so I wanted to keep with the whole Halloween timing, so after finishing the 1st draft I've set it aside and gone back to "The Door".  This is actually beneficial since "The Door" will temporarily wrap things up for the heroes of my first two novels "The Bridge" and "The Ship".  So by going back to "The Door" I can have a sort of trilogy to put out as a box set come Christmastime. With thi...

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! If you're reading this I'll take it that you survived 2014 and are a glutton for punishment because you're still reading what I have to say here.  Bless your hearts. With that said, I'm going to try and start the year off on a good note here by posting the opening section of "The Door", which will be the third book in my Para-Earth Series.  This time Alex, Veronica, Cassie and Julie are back together to face threats old and new.   The white-haired man known only as Z has returned, along with the fragment of the creature our heroes helped destroy in "The Bridge".  For those who read book 2 "The Ship" we saw Z and his companion help protect Cassandra from the threat that arose from the deeps, but it wasn't out of kindness.  He has plans of his own for her and now they're about to bear fruit. But the girl is guarded by her friends Alex and Veronica, as well as her lover Julie.  Plus of cou...