In addition to fiction, I also write computer training manuals and software manuals to help users get up to speed quickly with whatever software they’re using. My “Up To Speed” guides are available in ebook format from Amazon, Apple iBooks, Kobo and Barnes and Noble. If you’re a PDF type of person, the PCM Courseware site carries them in PDF format.
I have just released Book 3 of the ghost oracle series entitled of “The Magician’s Secret”. The book is available on Amazon, Kobo, Apple iBooks and other online retailers. The book is also available in paperback from Amazon.
The blurb is as follows:
At a stage magic show, sixteen-year-old psychic medium Nick Michelson notices a frightening knife-wielding female ghost standing on stage watching the magician perform his act. Later, she disappears and Nick thinks he’s seen the last of her.
At the beach the next day, a strange girl runs up to Nick and asks him to help her before she is brusquely escorted away by her group leader. After she leaves, the same ghost from the previous night appears before Nick, claims her daughter is innocent and begs Nick to help her. She then vanishes.
Nick later discovers that the ghost’s daughter is accused of her mother’s brutal murder and is locked up at a psychiatric facility awaiting to be tried as an adult. After visiting the young girl at the facility, he reluctantly decides to help prove her innocence.
But why was the ghost at the magic show? And how is the magician tied to the murder of an innocent woman?
As Nick becomes more involved with the girl and her ghostly mother, things only get stranger in the coming days — and more dangerous for him, the magician and the magician’s son. When an attempt is made on Nick’s life, he vows to step away from the situation. But the ghost – and the murderer – aren’t so quick to let Nick get away.
Note: Though this book is part of the Ghost Oracle series, it can be read as a stand-alone novel.
Below is the cover for my upcoming book “The Magician’s Secret”, the third book in my Ghost Oracle series. The book will be released in ebook and in print format the beginning of January.
The story:
At a stage magic show, sixteen-year-old psychic medium Nick Michelson notices a frightening knife-wielding female ghost standing on stage watching the magician perform his act. Later, she disappears and Nick thinks he’s seen the last of her.
At the beach the next day, a strange girl runs up to Nick and asks him to help her before she is brusquely escorted away by her group leader. After she leaves, the same ghost from the previous night appears before Nick, claims her daughter is innocent and begs Nick to help her. She then vanishes.
Nick later discovers that the ghost’s daughter is accused of her mother’s brutal murder and is locked up at a psychiatric facility awaiting to be tried as an adult. After visiting the young girl at the facility, he reluctantly decides to help her.
But why was the ghost at the magic show? And how is the magician tied to the murder of an innocent woman?
As Nick becomes more involved, things only get stranger in the coming days — and more dangerous for him, the magician and the magician’s son. After an attempt is made on Nick’s life, he vows to step away from the situation. But the ghost – and the murderer – aren’t so quick to let Nick get away.
The latest book in my Ghost Oracle series -Anaconda!” is now available on Amazon, iTunes, Nook and Kobo. The series follows the adventures of sixteen year old reluctant psychic Nick Michelson, who tries to assist the various ghosts who come to him for help. Things don’t always go smoothly for our young psychic however, and he oftentimes finds himself in hot water.
In Anaconda!, Nick encounters the frightening ghost of a dead Marine while at the same time trying to figure out if a serial killer is about to go on a rampage at his school.
Here is the blurb:
Just a few short weeks ago, sixteen-year old Nick Michelson discovered that he was a psychic medium destined to help restless spirits cross over to where they belong. One evening while working after-hours at his high school, an especially frightening ghost of a bloody soldier appears to Nick and attacks him. Nick sets out on a quest to learn who the ghost is and why he is haunting Nick’s high school. Using his deck of tarot cards as a tool, he gradually begins to unravels the mystery surrounding the ghost’s death.
Meanwhile, Nick is experiencing disturbing dreams and visions during which he witnesses, through the eyes of a killer, the brutal mass murder of several of his classmates at his high school. As Nick gets drawn deeper and deeper into a web of mysteries surrounding his nightmares and the ghost of the soldier, he begins to suspect that the two are related — and that the horrific scene from his nightmares is actually a premonition of events that may — or will — come to pass.
Nick must solve the riddle of his enigmatic premonitions and race against time to somehow prevent an unknown killer from shooting up his school — and not become the shooter’s first victim in the process.
My Anaconda! page is HERE
I’m very excited today. My latest novel, “A Touch of Cedar”, is now available as an e-book on Amazon and Kobo (soon on Barnes and Noble. It is a time-travel ghost story feature gay characters. Here’s the blurb:
When Marek and Randy purchased an old house in the hopes that it would help heal their troubled relationship, neither one suspected that their lives were about to change in ways they couldn’t possibly imagine. They didn’t know their house was haunted.
Swept back in time to the year 1870 by an old suit that Marek finds in the attic, he finds himself torn between the love of two men: Eli, who was murdered by his own brother four days after Marek’s first visit — and Randy, his own adulterous lover in the present. Caught in the web of a one-hundred forty year old murder, Marek vows to return to 1870 to stop Eli’s murder. But time is running out. Will he succeed? And if he does, will he stay in 1870 or return to his own time — and to his own lover who is waiting for him in the present.
You can check it out HERE:
I’ve been a fan of the author Neil Gaiman for many years now and have enjoyed such books asAmerican Gods, Anansi Boys, Coraline and Stardust as well as the Sandman comic collection. So I was more than delighted when I stumbled across his 2012 commencement address to the University of the Arts Class in Philadelphia.
The talk was inspiring, motivating and a worthwhile view for anyone in the creative fields, especially novelists. Below are some of my favorite points of his talk.
Neil states that a career implies some sort of career plan and that is something he never had. I could relate to this on so many levels. Each time I tried to plan out my future career-wise, I would inevitably fail (mainly due to losing interest) and instead, I simply ended up doing what my heart directed me to do. I tried computer programming, teaching at a University, finance – “proper jobs” in other words, only to end up following my own dream at the end of it . So I kind of ended up doing what Neil did: creating a list of things I want to do and scratching them off when done. This kind of leads into his next point:
When you have no idea what you’re doing, then you don’t know that what you want to do is “impossible”; thus, you cannot be limited. If you don’t know that your idea is impossible, then it’s easier to accomplish because you don’t know it’s impossible. In the rapidly changing businees world of today – especially in publishing – there are many of us who have no idea what we’re doing. While that can be scary, it is also freeing.
In his talk, Neil said that if you have an idea of what you want to do, you need to go ahead and do it! But be prepared: you may have to do things in order to reach your goal. For example, in order to learn to be a writer, Neil spent time being a journalist. One cannot simply decide to be a doctor or dentist without obtaining proper training (you’d get arrested and/or sued). Thus, if one wants to be writer, one needs to put in the time writing and learning about the craft. I personally am always reading some book about writing or taking creative writing workshops when available. One never can be “finished” with learning.
This is advice that I’ve heard several times – Learn to be thick-skinned. That is a lot easier said than done, especially when your work is the brunt of a scathing review. But we do have to realize that not all of our projects will succeed; hell, some of them won’t even make it out the front door. I remember one author saying, “Keep putting stuff out into the world. The more you put out, the more likely one of them will be a success…and the more your put out, the better your work will become.”
I had a good chuckle when Neil talked about “The Impostor Syndrome” – the idea that others will figure out that we nothing but a fake and not really qualified to be a writer, an artist, or whatever. Once we start becoming successful, many of us feel as though we are getting away with something and that sooner or later, people will figure us out. I remember feeling this way for years when I was a French teacher at a university – I feared that someday, someone would come up to me as say, “What are you doing here? You’re not qualified to teach French. Why you cannot speak French at all!”
He also said that when we get to the point where you feel that you are exposing too much of yourself to the world, that things are getting too personal, too raw, that is is the moment where you are starting to get it right.
Get out into the world and make mistakes. While addressing the class of 2012, Neil said to them, “I hope you make mistakes. Making mistakes means you’re out there doing something.”
Don’t do it only for the money because you will end up getting bored with your project and losing your enthusiasm for it. Neil said that anytime he did something only for money, it rarely ended up being a success. Instead, do work you are proud of – and the success (and money hopefully) will follow. I have found this to be true in my life on more than one occasion.
Neil stressed the importance of finding your own voice. While copying the technique of others is okay in the beginning (many of us copy the style of others without realizing it – it’s how we learn initially), eventually, we need to find our own voice and make the kind of art of which only we are capable – or as Neil put it “Write as only YOU can.”
The best piece of advice that Neil ever received was from Stephen King who said, “Enjoy your success.” I think that this is helpful advice for many of us. Instead of worrying about the next deadline, the next project, what the reviews will be like, etc., we need to relax a bit, let go, have fun and enjoy the ride. Revel in your successes!
Neil closed by talking about how the nature of distribution is changing and how the distributions channels for creative people are in flux. As he put it, the gatekeepers are leaving their gates and now we can be as creative as we need to be to get our work seen. Today, there are new rules but nobody as of yet, is quite sure what those rules are. So we make our own rules. This can seem frightening and intimating – but also intensely liberating, as Neil states. That’s what I’m finding, is the most fun of all!
You can view Neil Gaiman’s Commencement Address in its entirety HERE