Musings of Two Creative Minds

****GOING ON NOW AND LASTING UNTIL MIDNIGHT MONDAY**** All e-copies of my 5-star paranormal/mystery books will be available for just $0.99 cents Whether you have a Kindle, a Nook, a smartphone, or even just a laptop or desktop, there will be a format available for you. "The Bridge" Book 1 in the Para-Earth Series Alex Hill buried his psychic talents for eighteen year. But with with scream of tires and twisting metal, all this changes. When his girlfriend, Police Sergeant Veronica Ross , is nearly run down by two teens he becomes concerned. But upon learning that both the driver and passenger of the vehicle in question, had been dead for almost twelve hours before the incident, he knows what he must do... "THE SHIP" Book 2 in the Para-Earth Series Cassandra Elliott is a billionaire heiress, who has just come out of the closet. She's also a powerful psychic who has seen incredible and terrifying things. In fact just two weeks ago she and her gir...

For just about all writers, the choice of voice or perspective to use is always a challenge.  Although many write in the third person voice, there are two options.  Do you do 'limited' where we only know what's going through one characters mind, or do you use the 'omniscient' version where the readers get to know what's going through everyone's mind at the same time, even if the characters are not sharing all their thoughts with each other. I did the 'limited' third person point of view in my first two novels.  However I kept changing who's head we were inside with each chapter, giving a nice build up and differing points of view.  So in the new novel I'm working on  "The Vampyre Blogs - Coming Home" I wanted to try 1st person perspective, but still do multiple points of view.  So, with my wife's advice, I chose the same method Bram Stoker used to write "Dracula".  He did 1st person from many different points of...

My thoughts on … Did you know that the phrase “Happy Holidays” was started by Christians?  Yes, that’s right folks, it was.  In fact it dates back to the 1600’s in England.  People were acknowledging the fact that there were more than one holiday.  Like the fact that after Christmas, there was the celebration of the New Year.  Plus there was the season of Advent, another very Christian custom, that this year begins on November 30 th  and ends December 24 th .  So right there we have more than one Christian holiday in December.  And do you know what?  Nobody has ever wished me a “Happy Advent”.  How annoying is that? Furthermore, let us remember that Christ was born a Jew.  How many of us really believe he never celebrated Chanukah with his family?  The tradition of Chanukah started over a hundred and fifty years before he was born, so I'm pretty sure he celebrated it more than once. I’d also like to poi...

 I n case you hadn't heard, I started attending the California State University at Monterey Bay in August and the workload had been fairly manageable, until recently.  Things are heating up and I have less and less time to work on my novels, including "The Vampyre Blogs".  I had planned on getting the latest draft finished, edited, beta-read, etc. so I could have it out in time for Christmas.   Unfortunately, that is not going to happen.  I've said before I will not release a book until it's had all those things done to it.  Currently, I'm still trying to finish the 2nd draft and I'm still not entirely happy with the piece.  Plus I haven't even started on a cover for the book.  I have one that I made with the computer. However, I'm not totally sold on this version really.  I'd prefer to try and do a soft pastel piece and then super-impose this image on top of the scene I create with the pastel. Furthermore, with ...

*HAPPY HALLOWEEN everyone!  I decided to give you all a treat by sharing a snippet from my upcoming novel "The Vampyre Blogs", which will be coming out this Christmas.   I was careful to choose this particular entry since it involves all three of my main characters dealing with a the scene is one most of us can relate to.  Here we have Marisa a seventeen year old young lady being comforted my vampyre Nathaniel and his goddaughter Lisa.  Marisa (who has no idea what Nathaniel really is) has an intense dislike for vampires even though they don't really exist according to her.  She hates movies, books and television shows about them because in her mind they have come to embody cancer (which her father is struggling against) in a human form.   The scene takes place inside an old four story building Nathaniel owns.  He keeps a dance club downstairs, while on the top floor he has an art studio where he likes to paint at night.  Mar...

Recently, I tried to get some new reviews for my two novels on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords.  I even offered free Read-2-Review copies of the books to anyone who wanted to do a review.  The results... not a single bite. I couldn't believe it.  Giving away "FREE" copies of a book in exchange for an honest review is usually one of the very best methods known to get some reviews for a book.  But I wasn't getting any takers.  In fact I actually heard back from a few people who had read the books and loved them.  Yet when I asked if they would be kind enough to leave a review this is what I kept hearing from a number of them.. "I love to read, but I don't know what to say in if someone asks me to review their book..." Does this sound familiar to anyone else out there?  If it does, don't be embarrassed.  A lot of people feel that way.  Some don't know what to put down because they see all these other reviews that are li...

****REVIEWS NEEDED ON SMASHWORDS**** I'm looking for honest reviews of my 2nd paranormal/mystery novel "The Ship" for my Smashwords site. Recently there's been a lot of traffic over there but no sales. Part of the problem may be the fact that there's been only one review done on the book at Smashwords. Multiple reviews spurs more sales, so if anyone is interested in doing a review there, I'm willing to supply you with a free e-copy of the book from the Smashwords site. For those not familiar with the story here's the blurb from the back cover of the book: Cassandra Elliott is a billionaire heiress, who has just come out of the closet. She's also a powerful psychic who has seen incredible and terrifying things. In fact, just two weeks ago, she and her girlfriend Julie Cloudfoot, survived a horrific battle alongside their two friends Alex Hill and Veronica Ross. They faced a being from a parallel reality where evolution took a much diff...