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

This week is all about formatting your self-published book through Word and Atticus. CC and I spent a lot of time this week in those apps getting "From Tundra to Tiara" and "The Tucci Chronicles" ready for you. If you're getting ready to self-publish a book, or even thinking about it, we have ideas to help you avoid the challenges and minefields every indy writer encounters...

Unboxing From Tundra to Tiara - CC and I have a hardcopy of our first book which will be out on #Amazon #Kindle soon! Check us out at www.carsonhume.com. TIA LYL #writers

Hello from the CC and JT Amateur Hour, “where production values go to die,” and we talked a lot about a few things as we continue to wrestle with our video presence. Topics: -Nanowrimo -Our personal writing projects -Overnight success -The public face of our private endeavors -Meeting the public Here's the YouTube of the podcast . CC is reading Edgar Allen Poe for October ! I did a commercial...

Procrastinate. Overthink. Long walks. All are frustrating forms of writer's block. In this week's episode, we talk about our personal forms of writer's block and what we do to overcome them. TikTok Teaser ! And here's the YouTube . Have a listen and check us out at www.carsonhume.com . TIA LYL!

Another videocast & podcast for our fellow writers: it's Preptober! CC & and chat about getting ready for #nanowrimo and how it's a time of joy, not stress, if you let it. We also talk about our poor Cubs. If you're on TikTok, you can catch us here , but there's a ten-minute limit (we didn't know). The entire video is here on YouTube . Have a listen and let us know what...

Episode 134: Twitter/X is implementing new and onerous terms of service, so CC and I have "that" talk about social media. As very small business owners, we have concerns because we no longer believe in the reach and reliability of Twitter/X. We have an active conversation about social media in general, which gives you a peek inside on how CC and I talk things over. We also discuss Free S...

After a few "doom and gloom" episodes with the related drop-off in listenership, we announce the end of the podcast because we each discover a hill we will die on (kidding). But seriously, folks, we dive into the Language of Love and the culture of a relationship, and how we as writers bring all of this to our works in progress. We're talking about communication, gestures, and habits...

CC watched TED Talks by author Elizabeth Gilbert of "Eat, Pray, Love" fame as a means to break through her writer's block, and her videos inspired us to talk about the source of a writer's inspiration. We knocked down a series of dominos and ended up with the question: Are some writers divinely inspired by God to write their works, or is creativity the result of the happenstance...

Episode 131 is more free form than usual since we start with Labor Day, muddle around Burning Man, and end up talking at length about the Indiana Jones franchise. Throughout this podcast was the sense and idea of nostalgia. The movie-going experience has changed much in our lifetimes, though we wouldn't say it necessarily has evolved. We also acknowledge that we are not the target audience we...

The endless saga of our flooded basement gives us fodder for this week's podcast. Long story short: we're sore. We talk about how the natural process of aging and Life takes a physical toll on our quality of life, and how we as writers can use these experiences to shape our characters. We also discuss how we can learn more about conditions where we have no firsthand experience. Notable exa...

Episode 129 is about the authors who inspired and shaped us as adults and writers, and who happen to be women. How's this for a murderer's row: Agatha Christie (left) Louisa May Alcott (right) Jane Austen Georgette Heyer Carolyn Keene Anne McCaffery Ann Rice JK Rowling Alice Walker Harper Lee Margaret Mitchelle Madeline L'Engle Diana Gabaldon Amy Tan Audrey Niffenegger So many more we...

Episode 128 is about that great beast called "screenwriting" and how it is a different, yet similar craft to writing a book. There's the external visual representation versus the internal written word, but there's also the complex collaboration, visuals, and the outside influences (re: the studios) that change the original product into what you see on the big and small screen. It...

Is George Lucas good or lucky? Episode 127 of our writers podcast is about writers who capture lightning in a bottle. They submit books and screenplays at just the right time which capture the imagination and take the country by storm. There’s lots of examples, starting with Mr. Lucas. Some folks would point to his pop cultural phenomenon of "Star Wars," but we go to the 1973 classic cal...

What's going on with Episode 126 of our writers' podcast? The better question is what isn't going on with this podcast. We start off with the premise that an epiphany is part of the writer's toolchest, but it's an unreliable tool. Yes, the initial idea of a book can be classified as one, but what happens after you start writing and developing characters and plot? We have ideas...

Yeah, we joined mainstream and social media in debating Barbie in our podcast, but we went in a different direction with the history of gender-based books and roles. We start in the mass market publishing in the beginning of the 20th Century ("dime store novels") through the "Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew" type books of the Fifties. We work our way into Women's Lib and ERA, and...

Episode 124 is about the writer's derivative use of other published works in their own works in progress. Where is the gray area of originality when using William Shakespeare's classic works, for example? Modern literature is full of examples of those who boldly took it upon themselves to "copy" the Bard's great works or at least use them as inspiration for their books. Where...

Episode 123 is all about the our new furry friends. More specifically, we talk at length about how we can't help but assign human emotions and actions to those in the animal kingdom (the word I can't say or spell to save my life is "anthropomorphism"). Also: - Our current WIPs & Boring Characters - Nanowrimo & Camp Nano - Setting writing goals and boundaries - Run the dis...

Writers are always told to "write what they know," but what if you don't know? This week, CC got the opportunity to fill out her life experience by going to Las Vegas' famous male revue: " Magic Mike Live ." She takes our listeners through each step of the show: from hair-and-makeup to the dancing and athleticism of the show to the post-show meet-and-greet with some of...

Episode 121 is started slow, but evolved into something interesting and complex. We talked about about our minimal efforts on our works in progress. The challenges for CC is finding the time to hit the keyboard. My challenge is I'm making things up as I go along, so I think I created a readable adventure, but not a viable ending. If you're in a similar situation, we have ideas. We put toge...

Happy Father's Day and Juneteenth to all who celebrate! Episode 120 is all about: - Our works in progress, - JT's new part-time job, - Visiting places from our youth and feeling the ghosts walking through us, - Readers' reading habits, and - Tighter plots for the shorter attentions spans of the 21st Century. Have a listen and check us out at www.carsonhume.com TIA! LYL!

Episode 119 is our examination about setting fiction in places where the writer has never traveled. CC uses a great example of space to illustrate the challenge. We talk about the tools we use to overcome this barrier. Also discussed is the Wrath of God hail storm from June 10 and our usual flailing at the keyboards on our current WIPs. Have a listen and check us out www.carsonhume.com TIA LYL!

The podcast is back after a two-week hiatus due to JT driving to the East Coast and back to see his sister. Today's episode is all about that eleven-state tour (NV, UT, WY, NE, IA, IL, IN, OH, PA, MD, DE, and back). For those scoring at home, JT drove over 5,500 miles. Also: Visiting the Gettysburg National Military Park What's the one color you'll see from coast to coast? Happy 41st A...

Happy Mother's Day to all who celebrate and should be celebrated! This week, we spent most of the podcast bragging about our kids, but we also debated a fair amount trying to crack the tough nut of Time. Question: how do you find the time to write? Even as empty nesters, CC and I struggle to set aside time to work on our WIP. We bounce around some ideas and plans. Have a listen, check us out a...

Bonjour! Today's writer's podcast is all about the City of Lights: Paris, France. We were lucky to spend more than a week discovering the wonders of Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs-Élysées, and a thousand places in between. From the Paris Metro to a famous graveyard. We walked along the Seine and took a long boat ride on the Seine, yet we barely scratch the surface of this wondero...

For Carson City's Mark Twain Days, we went to a writers' workshop on Nevada and came away with interesting perspectives and ideas. CC might even have a new story to tell. Our thanks to the Nevada Arts Council for sponsoring the workshop. We discuss our own works in progress and our upcoming trip to Europe. Here's a plug for CC's past colleague Rich Moreno who wrote a timely piece o...