Musings of Two Creative Minds

 T oday we have the pleasure of welcoming Author Sheryl R. Hayes as our guest blogger who shares her insights about writing and tells us about her exciting debut book "Chaos Wolf".  Take it away Sheryl...   Stringing Words Together To Create A Yarn     Aside from using tools that are stick-shaped, you wouldn ’ t think that there ’ s much similarity between writing and knitting. Believe it or not, there are a lot of parallels.       I have been a knitter and crocheter for about ten years, and creating costumes for the last six. I have been writing in some form or another for over twenty years, but started my novel about six years ago. My processes for writing a book and creating a costume are strikingly similar.     I start by deciding on what I am going to make. Be it a Cruella De Vil or an urban fantasy novel about werewolves and vampires, I need that seed idea to nurture.     Next I figure out how I am go...

Running a blog can be tiring work...  and running a second one: "The Vampyre Blogs - Private Edition" link:  http://www.thevampyreblogs.com/ can be exhausting So having guest bloggers who wish to get exposed to a wider audience is a real plus, plus it gives our readers a better idea of what other books and authors are out there.  So if you're interested in doing a guest post about writing, or wish promote your work here on this blog, please let us know in the comment section below. Or you can e-mail us at: allan.krummenacker@gmail.com .  Tell us about yourself and what you'd like to share and how soon you'd like the post to run.  We'll do our best to accommodate your needs and if we can't we'll let you know.   Keep in mind NO PORNOGRAPHY.  We have readers from many age ranges and backgrounds so we need to keep things within certain limits.  Heavy romance with sexual tones is one thing, but straight out porn is a no go....

Yesterday I had an epiphany about my writing and the entire Para-Earth Series... it's been a collaboration all along.  From "The Bridge" to "The Ship" to "The Vampyre Blogs -Coming Home", the entire journey has been one gigantic collaboration with my wife/best friend Helen.  And I am planning on putting her name on the first two books.   Why didn't I do this sooner?  And how did I not realize it was a collaboration all along?  Because I thought a collaboration strictly meant two people were doing the actual writing, but that's not the only way a collaboration works.  Ideas, suggestions, helping shape characters, plot, settings, events... all of that goes into a collaboration as well.   So even though I did all the writing in "The Bridge" and "The Ship", Helen gave me so much guidance like helping shape the characters personalities, questioning their actions, being my sounding-board for ideas I had but didn't...

    I'm letting one of my co-authors take the helm here at the blog today.  So allow me to introduce one of my oldest friends and partner-in-crime Rich Caminiti, as he shares with you his own wisdom about writing on a budget.  Take it away, Rich...     Welcome my friends, and thank you to Allan for letting me write my piece for you. In his last musing, he spoke of his computer woes not only about his desktop but his laptop as well.       Well, I too seem to have shared the same fate. But wait, I'm getting to my point! I had to wait and pick up a new laptop which some of you may have seen my post about setting it up. (To a computer technician, to get this perfected to our satisfaction takes forever!)      When Allan needed Microsoft Office I surmise and Helen had told him about WPS Office which cost him nothing. A very excellent deal! Five second ad and all.      I also told my cohort th...

Sorry for the delay in posting this second section, but I’ve been having issues with the Kindle version of my first novel “The Bridge”.  Amazon has been alerted to the problem and are working hard with me to get the problem resolved.  I’ll be creating another post here sharing what happened and how we got things resolved shortly.   In the meantime, back to our discussion about working and juggling multiple stories… So where was I?  Oh yes, why finding that I could work on multiple stories was such a big deal for me.  Anyone who is creative will tell you that when you have that creative mindset going it gives them a surge of satisfaction that’s like no other.  Our minds love to be active and focused on something.  But for artists, writers, musicians, anyone who’s got a creative mind, not having the brain working on something can be frustrating.  You start to feel stale, or like you’re not doing your part somehow.  This is a b...

When I started out on this writing journey, I never saw myself as someone who could a whole bunch of writing projects going at the same time.  That kind of thing was reserved for some of the great prolific authors like Isaac Asimov, who was notorious for working on multiple projects on a regular basis.  The man insisted on having a portable typewriter or two wherever he went.  And if he couldn't get his hands on a typewriter, he'd pull out a pad of paper and a bunch of pencils/pens and wrote the old fashion way, long hand. But me, I could never picture myself even thinking about working on more than one story at a time.  In fact, the very first novel I started working on was set in the early 1800's and I had gotten about 2/3's of the way through the tale when my wife pointed out that a historical piece would be harder to market.  On hearing this, I gave it some thought and put the story aside and began a whole new piece which eventually turned into my fi...

With the holidays coming fast, I thought now was the perfect time to cover a topic I'd hinted at many times: Print books vs. E-books.   I will be the first to say that when e-readers came out I was more than a little skeptical.  I really didn't think they would take off the way they had.  Online newspapers I could see, because for one thing it was a great way of lessening the amount of paper going into landfills (in spite of the fact that me and great number of people out there try to recycle).  However, I also saw it as a chance for less trees to be cut down because let's face it, a number of them were being taken down in spite of all the paper recycling (yes I'm very much into 'green' living and recycling).  But I digress.  At the time I really did not see a lot of benefit coming from making books electronically available.   Besides, I was already in love with bookstores.  They're like a magnets to me and my wife Helen.  And the ...

In spite of all the excitement of the anticipated release of "The Vampyre Blogs - Coming Home", this October, I keep hearing people ask 'Whatever happened to "The Door"?  Are you going to finish that story?  I want to know what happened next with Alex, Veronica, Julie, and Cassandra.' For those who are still wonder the answer is a resounding "YES!"  I am currently working on that story as we speak.  In fact I've been working on it for quite a while...  a really long while... like over two years... (groan) All right knock it off Roscoe!  I don't need to hear more laughs coming from the peanut gallery.  Sheesh. Now I hear the rest of you asking, "Why is it taking so long?"  Well the answer is quite simple, I've spent the last 24 months with a serious case of 'too many ideas'.  What does that look like you ask?  Here let me show you... You see one of the biggest problems I've had was that I kept g...

         Welcome back to another installment of collaborations: what do they look like and how do I make mine work?  Okay, actually, I’m continuing the discussion from last time.  After all, this is supposed to be a blog, not an ongoing saga.  I also want to apologize for any strange grammar or punctuation errors in this entry because I’m using Dragon instead of actually typing on a keyboard.  WRONG DRAGON! SORRY DIDN'T MEAN TO WAKE YOU UP, SIR.  PLEASE JUST GO BACK TO SLEEP!            Whew!  Anyway, I'll be sharing my adventures with Dragon Speaking Naturally software, and learning how to use it, in another blog entry,  For now I’m going to continue to share my experiences with collaborations            Now, last time I talked about my collaboration with my old friend Rich Caminiti, today I’m going to be discussing my other collaboration with my wife H...

As you all know by now, I've been working on not one but two different collaborations.  The first is "The Pass" a historical/fantasy piece with a fellow I went to high school with some 30 years ago, Richard Caminiti. (for the sake of privacy, I left the clipboard showing his name and arrest number from this police photo out - JUST KIDDING!)  Actually it's not really a mug shot, but I couldn't resist  using this shot because the expression on his face is so serious.  Of course I'm going to get an earful later for this, but that's what friends are for, right? The other is another installment in my Para-Earth Series, titled "The Misty Mountains", with my wife  Helen Krummenacker.  Note: DEFINITELY NOT A MUG SHOT! Okay, now that I got that bit of silliness out of my system, lets get back to today's topic namely the discussing more challenges one faces with a collaboration.  Now in Rich's case, the biggest challenge ...

When most people talk about an experiment failing, we all get a particular image in our heads... But, not all experiments take place inside a cartoon or a lab.  Some experiments take place in our writing.  Time and again writers struggle to make a scene or idea work with varying results.  Sometimes we get great results, other times we have to take a step back and have a think... In any case, it's important to realize that no matter how many times you try to write a book, scene, character, or whatever... you learn from the experience.  The piece may not work out the way you had hoped but you gained knowledge, namely what didn't work. Recently, in an effort to jump start "The Door" (which had been languishing for months in Limbo because I couldn't come up with a clear path of where to take the story next) I introduced one of up my upcoming characters from another novel which is part of my Para-Earth Series.  Specifically, I brought in Nathaniel ...