Musings of Two Creative Minds

With the coming of Halloween, I've been in a mood for scary books.  So today I decided to pull out one of my favorites and do a review on it.  This was the first novel I read by Mr. Straub, but it got me hooked.  I've read a number of his other works and he has yet to keep me entertained and enthralled.... "What's the worst thing you ever done?" "I won't tell you, but I'll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me..." These are the words that set the "The Chowder Society", four elderly men who've known each other since they were young, into telling each other ghost stories. They've all known each other since their youth, when they were wild and reckless. Friendship and loyalty binds, them along with dark secret from those past days.   They tried to bury that secret and forget it, but some things don't want to be forgotten. Sometimes, they also want... revenge! "Ghost Story" is NO...

As of today I'm already a third of the way through the 2nd draft of "The Ship".  Progress has been good and I've been pleased with how things are going.  There will probably be a 3rd draft as well.  What happens after that?  Well, that's a tale for another entry. Today I wish to discuss how I deal with a 2nd drafts.  I handle 3rd and 4th drafts the same way, so don't expect any blog entries on those.  It's the same process all over again to try catch whatever I missed on the previous draft.   Like many authors, I've been learning a lot of things on my own.  There's no exact set of rules for how to do  write and create a book, though many people have tried to explain it.  Every author is going to handle things differently, whether its how they create a story (with an outline, flying by the seat of your pants, etc.) to editing, proofreading, whatever.  Different things work for different people. In my case how I handle de...

Okay gang, I've got something different for you all today.  A writing exercise.  I did one of these a while back and it was well received.  I hope this one will also be as popular.  Sometimes when we're writing, pacing can be an issue.  We have characters who can't (or won't in some stubborn cases) leave a room or a scene which winds up becoming stagnant and boring for the reader.  As writers, it's up to us to keep things interesting with every scene.  Other times we rush through a whole bunch of events within a few pages so things become a mish-mash of actions that might have been better off being spaced out across the entire story instead of clumped together. So pacing your story becomes very important.  And I found this little exercise to be both a challenge and a lot of fun.  It's called "Keep The Engine Running".  The rules are as follows: 1 - Have two characters in a vehicle, with a destination in mind.  The driver of the ...

Sorry again for the long time between posts.  A lot has been going on since college let out.  Shortly before I finished my classes I started a new job whose hours have been fluctuating quite a bit.  Secondly, I'm still sharing my laptop with my wife until we can afford to fix hers, so even when I'm not working I still have limited access and am usually trying to write as well as use my laptop for TV viewing.  (We don't have cable or DISH or anything else right now, can't afford it).  And finally, we are in the process of slowly packing up our apartment in anticipation of moving towards the end of July.  So a lot of things have been going on and slowing down my writing and blogging.  Hopefully, after we move this will all change quickly.  Especially since after we do move, I'll only have a 5-10 minute commute instead of a 40-45 minute one and that's just one-way. Now, that I've explained all that, let's get on to today's topic.  Roadblocks i...