Musings of Two Creative Minds

You've just about finished writing your novel and can see the finish line coming up in the distance.  But now you have a new concern to deal with, creating a cover for it.  But what kind of art should you use?  Should it be a photograph, cartoon, an image that evokes feelings from a favorite movie like having several people walking towards the reader like in "The Right Stuff"?  Should it just show an individual who appears in the story, or should it show a scene that's right out of the book? So many questions, right?  And the answer is... I don't know.  Every author has to choose their own path or vision for their work.  It's not an easy thing to do either, I know this.  All I can say is know your audience and what captures their imagination.  Make sure the art speaks to them and makes them want to pick up your work. But this can be difficult sometimes.  Tastes in art changes over the years so I thought it might be fun to demons...

Mr. Ray Bradbury died on June 5, 2012.  It's been a year since he left us with a legacy of books and stories, some of which have been made into movies and TV episodes (check out Ray Bradbury Theater on Amazon or YouTube).  In this blog entry I'm not going to recap his life story.  Mostly I'm going to share my own thoughts and feelings on the man from what I saw of him in his works. Mr. Bradbury could capture the imagination in ways not many authors can.  I'm a huge fan of his short story anthologies, as well as his more lengthy works.  But it was those short stories that always captured my attention the most.  I've not done many myself, but I'm hoping to expand eventually.  I'm afraid I'm one of those authors who feels he has a big story to tell most of the time.  Perhaps I just haven't come up with the right character(s) to be the voice or focus of some short stories.  I've got one or two in mind but I have to learn a bit more about who th...

Recently I've been doing a lot of things at college, especially dancing.  I'm currently taking 4 different dance classes: Jazz Dance, Ballet, Latin and Improvisation.  Each of these dance-styles are unique unto themselves but also share aspects such as "Core-Building", fluid movements, music, etc.  I enjoy trying all these different styles and how my body reacts to them.  Also, I find how they make me feel emotionally and mentally quite stimulating and refreshing. Now what does all this have to do with bringing characters to life?  Simple.  To me, a person's life is the sum total of their experiences both good and bad.  How we react, what choices we make, all of these things shape who we are and who we may yet become.  So if a life is shaped by experiences and how they made you feel, how can your characters be any less human than you or me?  But a character is just that.  A made up person with no real past or experiences, EXCEPT for the...