Musings of Two Creative Minds

Sorry for the lack of posts lately.  After lining up my Beta-Readers, the allergy season kicked into unbelievably high gear and knocked the breath out of me literally!  What energies I've had have been dedicated to working on The Vampyre Blogs novel itself and formatting "THE SHIP" to be ready to go to Smashwords, Kindle and Createspace once I hear back from my beta-readers and make a few changes to the manuscript. This brings me to today's topic.  Formatting your book to go to press through these three outlets can be trying at times.  I've only had to go through it once so far and that was a little over a year ago when I published "THE BRIDGE".  Luckily, I did remember a lot of what I learned back then for dealing with Kindle and Createspace.  Smashwords is taking a little more effort and I will address that topic in another entry very soon. Today, I want to focus on a shortcut I've discovered that has made my formatting efforts for Creates...

This week I got 8 people lined up as "Beta-Readers" for my second novel "THE SHIP". For those not familiar with beta-readers, they are basically test readers for you book.  They will read the story and give you feedback on what they thought of it.  But what kind of feedback am I talking about? Well this may vary from writer to writer.  For me I'm looking for the following feedback: 1-Did they like the story? (this is a given, I have to know whether or not the story is even working for my readers in the first place) 2-How was the pacing?  Did the story drag a lot, or was it too-fast paced and hard to keep up with? 3-Were the characters likable and did you come to care about them?  Did they intrigue you?  Did you want to see more of them in the future?  (I'm working on an ongoing series where I will rotate some of the cast from time to time) 4-Spelling errors?  (I've done my best but some things will still slip past me so a few mo...

"Welcome to Pointer, West Virginia" For those who have never heard of this place, do not fret. It doesn't exist.  I made it up to be the setting for "The Vampyre Blogs".  A good setting is extremely important to any story.  Your story's setting can shape your character's personality depending on how long they've lived there.  For instance, if they've been there a short time there's the getting to know the place and the people.  Certain action sequences may take place in particular areas.  The town's history may come into play.  If they've lived there all their lives, they should know a lot of people, have a reputation (are they considered cool, friendly, or weird by the other people?  Etc., etc...)  Already you can see the importance of your setting and you should know the place at least in your own mind, so you can convey it to the readers.  I don't care if it's a real place here on Earth or another world.  You need ...

As most of you know by now, I've started work on my third novel.  What makes this book different though is the fact that I'm writing in the first person instead of the third person.  In the third person one tends to do a lot of "he said," "She smiled", etc.  Whereas the first person is a bit more personal in my opinion.   Just about all writers like to let the audience inside their characters heads.  Some will do it in the "omniscient" style, where they let  reader see inside every characters head in the same scene all at once.  We're allowed to know what they're thinking, even if they don't share their thoughts with the other characters.  Or  the author will let you inside one character's head at a time.  This is called 'limited perspective' which is what I use a lot, where I only let you inside one character's mind at a time, even within the same scene.  But I'll indicate the 'change' of who's head...

Over on "The Vampyre Blogs--Private Edition" young Marisa is back with a new entry.  Today she's talking about her Dad.  A simple everyday guy who is not a fireman, not a policeman, or an EMT.  He's just an ordinary fellow who manages to save a life.  Come on over and find out how he did it by clicking on the link below.  You'll be glad you did. http://thevampyreblogs.blogspot.com/2014/03/marisas-musings-my-dad-hero-october.html

I know, I know, I haven't even put out "The Ship" yet, and I'm already working on another book?  Well, I'm waiting for feedback from some of my beta-readers who are going over "The Ship" so there's not much I can do on that front at the moment.  And it felt so darn weird, sitting at my computer and not working on something, other than doing Facebook and games. Besides, I've been getting a lot more views on "The Vampyre Blogs--Private Edition" blog sites that have been looking very encouraging.  I really hope my creating those sites will lead to me having a really good sized audience clamoring for the book when it finally comes out in December.  In this day and age of Indie Authors and self-publishing, one has to try and be inventive to build an audience for your work.  And I keep hearing over and over again about how important it is to get the word out about your works (both finished and in progress). But what I really want to ...

I changed the name of my vampyre blog, because the name would be exactly the same as the book's title.  I wanted to keep the two similar but not identical.  Some people might get confused, so I decided to add the words "Private Edition" which is actually appropriate.  Since none of the entries appearing on that blog will be showing up in the actual novel, it seemed appropriate. Readers just wind up getting a bit of free background info on the characters, as well as scenes that can be considered free short-stories.   I've already decided that since that blog has already had over 400 views in the month and a half that it was put up, I will continue to keep it going even after the novel comes out in December of this year.  I find I enjoy doing these little shorts about my vampyre and the people who's lives touch his. I also plan on doing more novels with him, if the first one does well.   So in the meantime, come see what's been happening at his dance ...