Musings of Two Creative Minds

As you all know this blog has been undergoing a serious renovation for the past week. The reason for this is the fact that I recently looked over some of our past entries found that this site contained well over 350 posts, which cover a variety of subjects from thoughts on writing, tips, book reviews, updates about our own works, etc. I then thought about our readers, especially those who were new to the blog, and how difficult it would be to try and find a particular post or topic while wading through that many posts which are pretty much spread willy-nilly throughout the blog. Some semblance of order was needed to make things easier for all.  So I set about adding menu buttons and linking specific posts to each in order to make the site easier to navigate. To date, the following menu selections are up and running: "Home"  (main blog) "The Authors"   (aka an "About Us" page)  "Para-Earth Books"   (synopsis of our...

****HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL**** ​ ​ S M XL L Last year ended on a few rough notes for us, namely all our holiday plans for visiting family and friends were rudely interrupted by two very nasty cases of Flu and Bronchitis.  We are happy to report that the two of us are finally on the mend.  However, life has been throwing us some other curve balls in the meantime, such as we are looking for a new place to live since our current location requires a commute to work that can last from 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours one way, which means we spend a good 2-3 hours a day in the car going to and from our jobs.  This is of course leaves us very little time for writing, editing, correcting or even braining story ideas.   Between the commute from Hell and being sick, we've had little or no time to work on anything lately.  Thus the release of the anthology "The Vampyre Blogs - One Day At A Time" has to be pushed back at this time.  We're not sure...

Well, we're mostly settled into our new place, so the dust is slowly settling from all of that. Well mostly settled.  Still unpacking and organizing where we want things to go and how, but that's just normal  after a move.  But sometimes figuring out how to organize your story and where you want certain events or revelations to go can also be pretty tricky.  It can even lead to problems I'd never  thought about, like Writer's Block.  Or, as it was with me recently,  STEALTH WRITER'S  BLOCK! Now what I mean by that is a kind of Writer's Block you aren't even aware of.  To give you  an example, this is what happened to me.  I had finished a particular scene in my current novel  and had moved way beyond it with the rest of the story.   But for some odd reason, I kept  finding myself going back to that scene and wondering about it.  It would happen every so  often then I'd...

I'm on Spring Break this week from the university and luckily none of my instructors loaded me down with extra work.  So I have some time to myself, finally.  I'll try and get some writing done this week, but for now I wish to share some of my thoughts about the future.   First off, "No one panic!"  I'm not giving up on writing novels.  Writing is my passion and to stop doing it would be like ripping out a huge part of who I am.  Writing is not just something I do, it's who I am.   So there is no way I'll ever stop.  I'm even planning on getting some voice software like 'Dragon' so I can dictate my ideas to the computer on those days when the fibromyalgia is making it difficult to type. But as for my university studies... I just don't know anymore.  Most days it seems most of my instructors are talking about how we're being prepared to not only get a Bachelor's Degree but to pursue a Master's Degree.  In fact, mo...

For those who've followed my Vlog, you'll know about the cat my wife and I were caring for.  We called her Quincy after a character from the Japanese Anime "BLEACH".  She was very stand-offish with us at first even though she kept coming around.  And there is a character who was referred to as a "Quincy" (type of spirit slayer) who was also very stand-offish and hard to get to know in the show.  So it just seemed appropriate to give her that name. And like the character in the show she became more likable and eventually friends with us.  Unfortunately, she'd never come with us to our new place and we had to leave her behind.  We made arrangements for a neighbor to take over feeding her.  Well we finally went back a little while ago and here's what we saw.  

I created this video with the YouTube Video Editor because my cell phone will only allow me to e-mail videos only once and I accidentally lost all of them on my laptop.  So I just sent all the vids to YouTube and edited the puppy here (http://www.youtube.com/editor). Anyway, this is the finale about my setting changing.  I know you all have been supportive and maybe wondering a little bit about why I chose to do this series. Well here's the answer, setting affects people.  Especially it affects your characters.  Their drives, dreams, motivations, how they feel (excitement, boredom, anger, resentment, etc.)  And changing settings can have a huge impact on them and what choices they make with their lives and how they react to it.  You've seen me go through a range of emotions and seen some parts about me I've never revealed to you before (like saying goodbye to a place and thanking it for all it had done for us).  Can a place be sentient or aware? ...

Here is part 3 of my 4 part video series on my wife and I moving from Santa Cruz to the Monterey Bay area.  The experience itself has given me loads of ideas and I hope it's been doing the same for you.  You've seen me going through a range of emotions and hearing how I feel about leaving the place that's been home and my inspiration for the last 4 years.  But with any new experience you can find a lot of ideas if you just keep your eyes and mind open.

Just uploaded a new video on my Vlog/YouTube channel about "Setting". This is the first of a few installments about how a person's setting can affect them, whether they are a character in a story or an author in real life. Please check it out and leave a comment either here or on my YouTube channel underneath the video. Thank you.