Two Hearts and One Braincell: Cassidy Carson & JT Hume Amateur Hour

Episode 188 of our podcast for writers is a fun one for us and we hope for you.  Like everyone, we’ve lived some interesting times, so we use those days to play “Three Truths and A Lie.” The twist on our game is how the truths helped make us into the writers we are today. Here’s CC’s list: She was a mistress in high school. She fondled another man’s Oscar. She was in an adult move. She was a repor...

CC and I did our annual “Race to Wrigley” 5K this morning, and we’re happy and proud to support the chosen charity of our Chicago Cubs. As noted on their website, “Proceeds from the race will benefit Cubs Charities and its mission is to mobilize the power of sport to champion youth, families and communities. Cubs Charities will donate proceeds from personal fundraising to support Advocate Children...

Know a writer or someone who wants to be a writer? Then forward this post to them and invite them to listen to our writers podcast. Thank you! Episode 187 of our writers podcast for writers is about small wins. Independent, self-published writers understand the feeling of being in a dark room and looking for that light switch labeled “success.” We’re right there with you. Today, we’re reminding ou...

One week from today (September 4), Serving Salvation Book One will be available in e-book on the five platforms. It will also be in paperback on. Amazon. We’re excited about this big day, so not only did we do a short podcast and YouTube, we experimented with two cameras. That’s a big step for us. CC interviews me about my inspirations, homages, writing processes (spreadsheets), and how I’d like t...

Episode 186 of our writers podcast for writers is all about CC going back to school, so to speak. She attended two writing summits in August where she learned how to thrive as an author amid distractions, and how to write romances in the Twenty-First Century. She shares many of the valuable lessons she learned, with the most important of those being that we as independent writers are not alone in...

Episode 185 of our long adventure as writers/podcasters takes us on a journey through books and movies, two of our favorite subjects. This time we talk about the books that we feel translated well to the big screen, as well as some that did not transfer as well. We discuss why turning books into movies is such an incredibly difficult and expensive lift. Discussed with minimal spoilers: Lord of the...

Know a writer or someone who wants to be a writer? Then forward this post to them and invite them to listen to our writers podcast. Thank you! Episode 184 of writers’ podcast for writers is a self-examination of the genres that CC and I won’t write about. From our library and Works in Progress (WIPs), you might assume that we’ll tackle any subject, anytime. You wouldn’t be far wrong, but we each m...

Episode 183 of writers podcast for writers is a pep talk for our colleagues. We know there are days when you feel like the rock you’re pushing is the biggest, heaviest boulder in the world, but you are not alone. We’re pushing, too. Hopefully our words and experience will give your strength. CC is still nominated for a Women’s in Podcasting Award , and we ask for your vote. Serving Salvation Book...

Know a writer or someone who wants to be a writer? Then forward this post to them and invite them to listen to our writers podcast. Thank you! It’s already episode 182 of our writers podcast for writers. We’re back from the Mini-Me Big *** Trip to Canada, and we have experiences and swag. We chat about the highs and lows, with the biggest high being the natural (almost overwhelming) beauty of Vanc...

Hello from Portland, Oregon, our second Portland this year after our trip to Maine. Episode 181 is a shorter podcast (with no video) as we are on yet another road trip, this time up the northern leg of Interstate 5 with the ultimate destination of someplace in British Columbia, Canada. Our destinations today include the Portland Art Museum and Powell’s City of Books.  Today's podcast touches o...

Know a writer or someone who wants to be a writer? Then forward this post to them and invite them to listen to our writers podcast. Thank you! Here we are, living the dream. Be careful what you wish for. Episode 180 is busy! CC is nominated in the inaugural “Women in Podcasting” awards in the “Authors and Books” category (so proud!), and we’re are prepping for another road trip and a book release...

Episode 179 of our writers’ podcast for writers is about the evolution from science fiction to science fact in our lifetimes. CC and I grew up in what some may call a “golden age” when we watched how technologies dreamt about on TV and in books became reality. We only have to look at our phones and watches as proof. We discuss how the technological evolution affected our own books, notably my in-p...

Know a writer or someone who wants to be a writer? Then forward this post to them and invite them to listen to our writers podcast. Thank you! Episode 178 is another look in the sausage-making art of writing a book. This podcast touches on the things that writers do to get words on a page, tasks that “normal” people might find weird or at least a tad abnormal. The key words spoken are “plotter” an...

Know a writer or someone who wants to be a writer? Then forward this post to them and invite them to listen to our writers podcast. Thank you! What’s fun about Episode 177? Escapism and Free Stuff! For the escapism part, CC goes back in time with her two favorite movies that take her out of the moment and into a time where she felt younger and free.  For JT, the old rule about being a writer is tr...

If you’re a writer, what do you love about being a writer? We get it. Many of us play the role of being a victim to our literary art, yet somehow, the books manage to get written and published. In this podcast, CC and I express why we do the thing we love so much. We also talk about getting our business off the ground, and we chat about the writers’ seminar we’re attending and our current projects...

Know a writer or someone who wants to be a writer? Then forward this post to them and invite them to listen to our writers podcast. Thank you! We recently celebrated our 42nd anniversary, so Episode 175 of our podcast for writers is about the challenge of familiarity. We love to watch and read about new romances, and as writers, those books are relatively easy to write. Think Romeo and Juliet and...

Know a writer or someone who wants to be a writer? Then forward this post to them and invite them to listen to our writers podcast. Thank you! Episode 174 of our writers’ podcast for writers is all about using nature as a character or background for your work. We’ve all encountered nature on some level of our existence, and it serves as a point of commonality around the world, be it a heavy rainst...

Episode 173 of our writers podcast has us talking about ingenuity and grit of travelers along the 19th Century road known as the California Trail. CC is writing a historical novel, and it was our good luck when we stumbled upon the California Trail Interpretive Center on the first day of our Big A** Trip across America. This Harry Reid project sits along Interstate 80 (exit 292, to be exact) west...

Episode 172 takes us back to our Big A** Trip and what we learned from having our “boots on the ground.” For this podcast, we talk about the surviving remnants of an American-built extreme clipper ship, the Snow Squall. Clippers were cargo ships built for speed over capacity, and extreme clipper ships were especially fast, though their construction era in America was relatively short (1845 to 1855...

Episode 171 has us home after twenty days and 7500+ miles on the road. We’re doing a bonus podcast to give our quick impressions of our writers research trip: -What we expected versus what we saw. -What we saw on each side of the Continental Divide. -The number of states we traveled through (plus one province). -What we learned in Green River, Utah. Really, there’s too much here to unpack in a thi...

Episode 170 : Yes, you read that right. This is both Episode 170 of our writers podcast and Day 17 of the Big A** Trip. Happy Mother's Day from Oak Grove, Missouri to all who celebrate. This is a quick and short podcast because we're getting on the road. Again. We share some quick impressions about how different and common things are across America, and we talk about the people we are vers...

Episode 169 of our writers’ podcast has us bouncing between the Maine cities of Bath and Portland to do boots-on-the-ground research for future books. We did stops at the Maine Maritime Museum, the Maine Historical Society, the Golden Lotus restaurant (yum!), and my paternal grandparents’ house. We traveled 3300 miles to do this research and we were not disappointed. A reminder that you can follow...

This is the Day 6 update of the #ccandjt #bat2024. You can access the rest of the updates at https://jthume.tumblr.com/ Episode 168: Hello from Canada, and the CC and JT Amateur Hour is now an international podcast. Woo. We're giving our loyal listeners an update from the ninth floor of the Holiday Inn in London, Ontario, Canada. We talk about our journey and, because this is a writers podcast...

This is the Day Three update of the CC and JT BAT. Here are the Day One and Day Two updates . Episode 167 is from our hotel room in Fort Pierre, South Dakota, and we are bushed. Day Three of the BAT was yesterday, all eleven hours, and we started north from Casper, Wyoming. When we lived in Nebraska in the Stone Age, the phrase was “nothing between here and Canada except for barbed wire.” They wer...

Episode 166 of the Amateur Hour is filled with fun as we announce the “CC and JT 2024 Big Ass Trip” (BAT). Before the end of April, we’re heading to all points east, with stops across two countries, with our destination being the State of Maine. We’ll swing by my sister’s place in Delaware, the Baseball Hall of Fame, and the historic battlefield of Gettysburg (not in that order, obviously). The us...