Tag Archive: collaboration


New Audio Project For the Holiday Season

Filed under: Coming Soon, Uncategorized — 3 Comments
November 1, 2020

It’s been a busy month for me, which is why I haven’t been posting anything lately. Between editing “The Pass”, my long-distance collaboration with my old friend Rich Caminiti and recording and editing Helen’s 2nd book in her “Forever Detective Series”, it’s been hectic for me. On top of all that, I have been working on a new short story for our other site:

“The Vampyre Blogs – Private Edition” (link: https://www.thevampyreblogs.com/)

The story will be a Christmas ghost story (an old English tradition), which I hope you will decide to check out when it is posted. (I promise to let you all know when that happens).

Finally, as the title of this entry indicates, I’ve also started a new audio project that I hope to post on YouTube in December. What is it? Well, I’ll be reading Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol”. 

Now I suspect some of you are already thinking “Oh great… ANOTHER production of that old story.” So why am I doing it? Simple, there have been many movies and animations done of course, but not a single one has ever been a complete rendition of the story. I always thought I knew the story myself for a very long time, until I actually got a copy of the book. There are many passages and even scenes that have been left out of a number of the incarnations that have been produced. If you mainly know the story from movies and animations, you’ll no doubt have noticed certain versions include or leave out certain scenes between such as one old animation from 1970 has a horse-drawn hearse driving up the stairs inside Scrooge’s home itself freaking him out. That always puzzled me until I read the story myself and found that it does happen. 

There are also some impressive speeches by both Marley’s ghost as well as the Ghost of Christmas Present that almost always get left out. Why does this happen? Well, we’re talking television or the big screen where there are always time constraints so a number of things get left out or are filmed and then wind up on the cutting room floor.

So, I decided to take it upon myself to create an “unabridged” version for people to enjoy for free. Mind you it will not just be an audio, I am gathering Public Domain images to accompany the tale, along with an opening and closings for each chapter or “Stave” as Mr. Dickens called them. 

Why he used that term instead of calling them chapters? Well, as I’ve learned, since the title of the story is “A Christmas Carol”, and ‘carols’ are songs, he chose a term that was associated with music. A “Stave” in music has its own mood and theme. This is also true for each of the five sections of Mr. Dickens story, so he titled his chapters accordingly.

I have already recorded the first of the 5 staves “Marley’s Ghost”, which has clocked in at about 45 minutes. For your enjoyment I’ve decided to give you all a brief sample here, so you can get an idea of what you can expect from my little performance, although you might want to lower the volume as the ghost gets a bit loud at the beginning and can be quite startling:

As you can hear, I’m not just reading the story, but am actually performing it by giving each character their own voice. I’ll also be supplying some sound effects for certain scenes where I feel it helps enhance the experience.

My hope to have 5 videos altogether, which I will release over the course of several days or weeks, depending on what you all would like to see happen. Please let me know by leaving your wishes in the comments section below. I want this to be enjoyable for everyone, especially during this unusual year with the pandemic keeping most of us at home instead of being able to travel. I am also considering making CD/DVD’s upon request for those who would like a complete copy for themselves or family members who do not have (or feel comfortable) computers and YouTube.

So that’s what’s been happening and what I’ll be focusing on for the next two months. Please note, I’m also working on more Para-Earth novels. I have both “The Door” and “The Vampyre Blogs – Family Ties” well under way, with hopes of releasing one or both sometime next year. So until next time (which I hope will be sooner rather than later), stay safe and keep writing my friends.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Comment

2019 In Review and What’s Coming In 2020

Filed under: About Writing, Coming Soon, Uncategorized — 2 Comments
January 3, 2020

New Year’s is a time for reflection and looking ahead… or so I’ve been told. My first thought was “I didn’t really get that much done this year. I don’t have much to say or show for it.” Then at the urging of Helen I pulled out a pen and paper and started making a list. The results surprised me.

                   

I created not one but three book covers. This is the most art I’ve done in one year in I don’t know how long. Two of them were of course for Helen’s new The Forever Detective Series. The other was a new cover for “The Vampyre Blogs – Coming Home” which we re-released as the first Young Adult (YA) installment of our Para-Earth Series.

Speaking of Helen’s new series, we created not one but two book trailers, one for each book.

 

 

This was the first time I’d ever made a book trailer and it was a blast. Helen wrote a short script for each and also found a bunch of images she wanted used in them. I not only supplied the expertise in turning it all into a video, but also the voice-over.

Now all this voice-over work, as brief as it was, led to yet another new project. At the urging of many others, I started looking into creating audiobooks. I spent a couple of months researching equipment and software and how to use it all. Eventually, I finally started recording a couple of our short stories from our anthology “The Vampyre Blogs – One Day At a Time” and got some seriously positive feedback, as well as some solid tips.

Here’s one of them:

I’ve recorded several more in the meantime, with the hopes of eventually having the entire anthology recorded in the coming months.

This leads me back to my efforts to get into creating full-scale audiobooks. In spite of all my research and blogging about all the technical aspects of creating an audiobook (there are seven entries in this blog already with a few more to come) I still wasn’t sure I was ready to fully go for it. Then in early November I went to a class about voice-over work and got the reassurance I needed from a pro. As she told me in an e-mail “You’ve got the chords for this…”

With this in mind I’ve been fully throwing myself into completing the audio recordings of Helen’s first solo book “Forever’s Too Long”. To date 20 of the 22 chapters are recorded and edited. I have re-record two more and get them edited. Once their done and meet with her approval (I had recorded them earlier but neither of us were happy with the results hence the do-over) we will be submitting the entire set to Audible. We’re hoping this will happen no later than the end of this month (January 2020). From there I intend to continue recording more stories from the anthology as well as begin turning her second book “Forever Haunted” into an audio, as well as “The Vampyre Blogs – Coming Home” in which Helen will be lending her vocal talents to bringing those characters more to life.

Some of you may be wondering why I haven’t started turning “The Bridge” or “The Ship” into audiobooks, instead of jumping to “The Vampyre Blogs – Coming Home” and “TVB – One Day At a Time”. The answer is simple, length. Both “The Bridge” and “The Ship” are much longer than any of the other books I’m tackling and will take a great deal more time to record. Plus, I still have to come up with voices for all the various characters in those two books. So until I’ve nailed down voices for everyone, those are on the slow track for now, but they will be happening.

But getting back to 2019, with all this artwork and recording, did I get ANY writing done? The answer is of course I did. Some of it was on the long-awaited sequel to “The Bridge” and “The Ship”.

“The Door” is fully under way, and will hopefully finally see the light of day by the end of this year if not sooner. As this book is a major turning point in the Para-Earth Series, I really want to get this book completed as much as people want to read it. However, some of it’s progress will depend on another writing project with my other collaborator Rich Caminiti.

“The Pass” has been one of the most ambitious projects I’ve worked on to date. It is also the only book I’ve worked on as a long-distance collaboration, which has involved trading off chapters and as well many, MANY Skype sessions. But Rich and I are closing in on a finished 1st draft and then the process of creating a 2nd cleaner draft will begin in another month or so. So I will have much to do on that front. After the 2nd draft, it will be sent to beta-readers and an editor for further clean-up. Our hopes is to have the book out by the end of the year, but we will see what happens. We refuse to rush the book without getting it as clean and exciting as possible. And on a side note, the 2nd installment of that tale is also under way as I write. So more on that will be coming in future blog posts.

Also on the writing front I completed 3 brand new short stories for our other site “The Vampyre Blogs – Private Edition”. Two of those tales were rather lengthy and took several months apiece to complete. Yet in spite of their length, they are still considered short stories and not novelettes or novellas.

So that covers most of 2019.

What’s in store for 2020?

Well, I’ve already covered the fact that I’m close to releasing a complete audiobook, which I hope to follow with at least 2 more before year’s end. As I mentioned earlier, one will be “The Vampyre Blogs – One Day At a Time” anthology, the other will be Helen’s 2nd book “Forever Haunted”. I’ve got voices prepared for both titles and depending on how things go I may get “The Vampyre Blogs – Coming Home” under way as well.

When it comes to my own writing getting “The Pass” into a finished 2nd draft and sent to beta-readers and an editor are the top demands. Rich and I would like to see it reach readers by the end of the year, but I know from experience that there’s still so much to do before that can happen. But we will see.

I’m already planning several new short stories for “The Vampyre Blogs – Private Edition” as well as beginning preparations to put together and 2nd anthology with several never before seen stories included.

“The Door” of course is another priority for me. I’d really like to see that finished and prepped for release this year. With luck, and patience, I hope to make that actually happen.

And of course, I’ll be making new book trailers as well as helping format Helen’s next two books in her Forever Detective series.

So that’s what’s been and what is coming. There’s a lot on our plates, but we’ll keep bringing you new posts regarding all these projects and more so stay tuned. Please accept this late wish for a HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all and as always keep writing.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

THE PARA-EARTH SERIES… WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?

Filed under: Uncategorized — 5 Comments
July 2, 2017

 

Pondering the future

In the last two years, so much has been changing for me when it comes to writing.  For starts, I completed my first collaborative work with my wife Helen, which became “The Vampyre Blogs – Coming Home”.  As I’ve said in previous entries, she has been my sounding board, my adviser on both science and science fiction, my rock, and my inspiration.

1ccf3-helen

Shortly before work was completed on the “The Vampyre Blogs – Coming Home”, a friend from high school days, Rich Caminiti, asked me to look at a piece he’d been working on for a number of years.  I read what he had done and quickly saw he was in the same boat I had been back in 2009-2011.  A story idea which needed some serious direction, scene cutting/editing, a little more cohesive connection between ideas… but a SOLID concept.  As we talked more, he asked me to help be his mentor and after having read my first two books he wished to know if we could work on a project together and I agreed.  Like Helen, Rich is a huge knowledge of science fiction as well as computers and actual science, so I found the idea very appealing.  After a few sessions of kicking around ideas a joke was made about vampires in the old west.  But not just any old vampires, oh no.  We started thinking about Chiangshi, or Chinese “Hopping” vampires.  We had some serious laughs, but for me history repeated itself.

Taking a few steps back to four years ago, I had sworn I would never do a vampire story unless I could introduce a whole new angle to the idea, that also allowed my creation to be highly recognizable as such a creature.  Furthermore, any vampire of mine would have to be science fiction based and be able to fit into my Para-Earth series.  Yet at the same time such a being needed to have typical vampire powers such as being able to shape-shift, turn to mist, and be strong.  But it would also have many of the usual limitations and needs such as avoiding sunlight for extended periods, sleep in the ground and of course drink blood.

Clearly this was a tall order and probably out of my league.  Yet no sooner had I said this to myself, when the beginnings of an idea began to germinate in the back of my mind and soon Nathaniel Eoghan Steward was born.  But even then I had to consult with my wife Helen to help me decide on what kind of life-form could turn an ordinary man into such a being.  But she quickly thought up several possibilities based on actual life-forms that actually exist in today’s world that would suit the purpose and we were off and running.

3681e-20150816_1859422b252822529

Now we fast-forward to two years ago with me and Rich joking about Chinese vampires in the old west and once more the seeds of an idea began to take root.  Drawing upon his knowledge of history and the Civil War, we soon came up with a working idea of espionage and the seemingly supernatural working together towards the last year and a half of the Civil War.  We were even able to pull in some Native American lore and actual historic events to create “The Pass”, which is still under construction at the writing of this entry.

At first, in spite of Rich’s hopefulness that this could become part of the Para-Earth series, I hesitated.  Not because I was possessive of the series, but I simply was unable to see how the story could be incorporated into the overall concept.  The tale we were creating seemed so much more fantasy/horror, and I could not see how it could be incorporated into the Science Fiction aspect of the series.  Then about a week ago, while taking my usual hour long drive to work (which is when I do a lot of ‘braining’ for various story ideas) a thought struck me that made the entire story itself come together in a way I hadn’t seen before.  This brainstorm also allowed it to fit perfectly into the Para-Earth series, allowing me to take a step I had planned long ago for the series.  Adding another new writer to it.

You see, long ago I had been inspired by HP Lovecraft who of course created the Cthulhu Mythos which continues to grow to this day long after his passing.  While still alive, Mr. Lovecraft allowed and even invited other authors to build upon his mythos and help expand it.  Some of those who joined in were August Derleth, Robert Bloch, and others.  And as I mentioned before, modern day writers, including Stephen King, have continued adding to the mythos and bringing new life to it.

Howard_Phillips_Lovecraft

So when I began the Para-Earth series, I knew right off the bat I had created something with near limitless story possibilities, more than I alone could ever cover.  Therefore, I planned that as the series progressed to allow others, who proved their writing skills and ability to stick close to my vision, to help expand and build upon the series.  To date, I’ve only allowed my wife Helen and Rich to be part of the writing for the series. However, in the years to come I hope to invite more writers join us.  But that is something for another entry.  At the moment, the three of us have our hands full with several stories currently under way and more to be started, which I will cover in the next installment of this lengthy entry.

Until then, take care and keep writing my friends.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Comment

How I Chose My Collaborators – Part 2

Filed under: About Writing — 2 Comments
August 25, 2015

In the first half of this discussion I talked about collaborating with my wife Helen and how much of an impact she’s had on my writing.

Today I would like to introduce you all to my other cohort in crime, mischief, nonsense, lunacy, chaos, and other things too numerous to mention, as well as writing.

Rich Caminiti and I go back as far as Levittown Memorial High School (Go Panthers).  Mind you shortly after we graduated the school was closed.  Coincidence?  You decide.

I cannot count he number of hours Rich and I spent together both in and out of school.  We shared a number of interests such as science fiction, the paranormal, and a number of great friends.  He was also involved in the Nassau County Auxillary Police and still has his badge from those days.

But when I left Levittown, Long Island (New York State), in 1985 I lost touch with him an so many others.  So I was not there to watch him rise up through the ranks from police officer to Sergeant.  Nor was I around when he served as part of the Volunteer Fire Department as an EMT/Firefighter. I was also not around for when he began one of the most intriguing jobs he’s had, namely Paranormal Investigator (which he still does).   He’s seen and debunked a lot of things and helped to put people’s minds at rest, but he has also encountered phenomenon that is less easily explained and is a true believer in the paranormal.

So you can easily see why I felt so lucky and thrilled that thanks to FB, after 20+ years of being out of touch, to be in contact with him again.  Especially when we started to Skype and it felt like very little time had actually passed since the last time we got to sit down together.  Much had happened for each of us in those years, but the camaraderie we shared had not diminished in the slightest.  So when he asked me to take a look at a writing project he’d been working on and off for the last two decades, I was only too glad to say yes.

What I found was very much a rough first draft of a science fiction/time travel story.  There was a lot of setting the scene in the future, and technobabble, which made it a bit dry reading but there wa sa real story here.  I was able to see the story he wanted to tell and where he intended to take it.  In short, it had potential.  With a bit of reworking his story had legs and wanted to run.  So during some Skype sessions I gave him a lot of the same advice I’ve shared on this blog in the past and acted as a sounding board as he came up with new ideas and helped guide him to rework what he had.  The newer versions I and others have seen are a great improvement and he is extremely fired up to keep it going.

After seeing how far he was coming in such a short time, and because of our long friendship and shared interests, I was more than willing to agree to collaborate on a novel with him. I knew his strengths and insights, as well as how good we could work together.  And I enjoy our brainstorming sessions and how thoroughly he cares about accuracy when it comes to writing in a historical setting.  Which is what we’re doing currently.  “The Pass” will be our first joint project and will involve some interesting supernatural entities that one might not think of blending together for a piece.  But I assure you all, we’re being careful and making sure the beings we incorporate have reasons for being in this setting.  History and the supernatural will be meeting in this tale set during the waining years of the Civil War, but the battlefront will not be on fields of Gettysburg or Atlanta.  This story will be set on west coast and involve a famous pass who’s name is associated with people who tried to travel through it during a terrible winter back in the 1840’s.

We plan on keeping you all updated on our progress and I’ll be helping my partner create a blog of his own so you can all get to know him better.  He’s wealth of knowledge and is only too happy to share with others, which makes him an excellent storyteller, collaborator and very dear friend.

So there you have it folks.  Choosing to work with someone on a collaboration is not easy by any means.  But if you truly feel you can rely on the individual in question and that the two of you can really work as one, then give it a shot.

Until next time, take care and keep writing.

Tags: , , , , ,
Comment

How I Chose My Collaborators – Part 1

Filed under: About Writing — Leave a comment
August 11, 2015

After my first book “The Bridge” came out and the 4 and 5 star reviews started coming in, I got a lot of congratulations and support.  I also started seeing something else coming in… requests to work on collaborations.  This was both flattering and disconcerting to me.   I was still very new at this whole publishing business and wasn’t all that confident in my skills at that point.  I knew I needed more experience and didn’t want to wind up dragging someone else’s work down if I’d simply gotten lucky my first time out.  Especially since I was hearing some concerns about the editing in the first version and wound up redoing the book with extra help getting it in better shape.

Still the requests for collaborating kept appearing every so often.  When “The Ship” (my 2nd novel) came out the requests started in again.  By this time I was more confident in my skills, I’d learned a lot after “The Bridge” and had gone out of my way to make sure “The Ship” was in even better shape.

Still I wasn’t feeling comfortable with the idea of collaborating with anyone… except possibly my wife Helen, who had been my science expert and sounding board for both books.  Furthermore, back when I was still working on “The Bridge” she had a dream and was seeing through the eyes of one of my characters Police Sergeant Veronica Ross.  In the dream Helen/Veronica had come across a murder scene and found a strange older man examining the corpse.  She got a good look at the fellow and was able to give me a good description of him; fifties, curly hair slightly graying, glasses, shortish, and just a little heavyset.  However, she knew he wasn’t a police officer but an intruder, so she drew her weapon and told him to ‘freeze’.  Instead he looked up at her and put his finger to his lips, and then did a flip out the window.  Rushing to the window Helen/Veronica saw they were on the second floor of a house and the man landed nimbly on the ground and took off with a speed and agility that belied his appearance.

Another thing she told me was the fact that she just knew this guy was not a villain, but someone who knew about the ‘Para-Earths’ and that he would be a valuable character to introduce down the road.  I readily agreed, but felt awkward about using this fellow she nicknamed ‘The Professor’.  Eventually he was given a real name of Otto Hoffstadter and I had hopes of bringing him in ‘”The Door”.  However, when I started working on “The Door” the story wasn’t coming along very well and I started working on another story with a whole new set of characters which became “The Vampyre Blogs – Coming Home” (which will be out this December).  As that story came developed, Helen asked me if it were possible that my vampyre Nathaniel might have met Otto.  I nearly jumped for joy at that point.  The personality she’d developed for Otto was the perfect match up for Nathaniel, so I established a history between the two and incorporated Otto into that book instead of “The Door”.

Even as I wrote “The Vampyre Blogs – Coming Home” and used Otto, I kept checking with her about how my interpretation of Otto, was I using him right and getting the personality down right?  She gave me honest feedback and I made changes, but as I did so it occurred to me that I might need her even more in the sequel story.  I also decided I wanted to use Otto in another book that continues the story of two secondary characters from “The Ship” (Johnny Cloudfoot and his girlfriend Michelle).  By this time, I knew I wanted to work WITH Helen on both of those stories.  Besides, being my sounding board for ideas, she’d also been acting as my science consultant.  Her knowledge of scientific facts has been a huge asset to my writing.

But most important of all, I knew we could work together quite easily.  We’ve worked in companies together in the past and always made a great team.  I know some people were like “How could you work in the same place with your spouse?  I’d go crazy.  Going to work gives me a break from mine and I need it…”  However, Helen and I actually love spending as much time together, even if it’s at a job.  So working on a collaboration actually feels like the most natural thing for us.  I still plan to work on some books and stories on my own, but I’ll also be helping her with some original tales of her own that are set in my Para-Earth Series.  She knows these realities as well as I do and has some great ideas that I want to see become a reality.  I’ll be introducing some of her work here and over on “The Vampyre Blogs – Private Edition” blog soon.

However, she is not the only person I’m working with.  The other, was a very dear friend from high school who approached me to look over a story he’d been working on for the last twenty years.  Naturally I was flattered by his request, but I was still a little unsure about my own level of skills. Doing a blog about writing was one thing and working with Helen was another.  But this was a whole new kettle of fish and I really needed to think about it…

TO BE CONTINUED IN MY NEXT ENTRY….

Tags:
Comment
%d bloggers like this: