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

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!

In Episode 210 ofour lovely award-winning podcast⁠, we dive into the most critical phase of your book aside from its creation: the editing.

After weeks (or months or years) of writing your Great American Novel, it’s time to hand your baby to another set of eyes and hands. But who should you hand it to and what are they going to do?

For our podcast, we useLouise Harnby’s excellent post “What are the different types of novel editing?” as a guide to walk you through the editing process. 

We sprinkle in our own experiences with our excellent editors, and we offer suggestions to writers who may not have the financial resources to hire their own editors. We hope you find this information useful.

On the local front, theZOEY e-book is on pre-sale for 99¢, and I am going through CC’s VC Ghost manuscript.

Have a listen and let us know what you think. TIA LYL!

Our website is⁠www.carsonhume.com⁠

Who We are:⁠https://carsonhume.com/about/⁠

Our Books:⁠https://carsonhume.com/books-2/⁠

Our Business:⁠https://twomoorebooks.com/⁠

Book Designs:⁠https://twomoorebooks.com/two-moore-designs/⁠

(Book designs are free for now)

⁠please buy us coffee!⁠

For those who listen on the way to work, we are on these fine podcast platforms:⁠Spotify⁠⁠Apple⁠⁠Pocket Casts⁠⁠Radio Public⁠

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!

In Episode 209 of our lovely award-winning podcast⁠, we welcomed everyone to Groundhog Day, and we rolled back to the fun we had in January.

Finding Salvation Part One was released, CC finished her Virginia City Ghost manuscript and sent it to her main beta reader, and we began the process of setting up ZOEY for pre-sale. So many hours and sweat expended on those alone.

The first of the two main topics was the process of picking the covers for ZOEY, and we ended up with two wonderful covers. Mihai Costea created the “Cowboy Cover” and Mohammad Akram did the “Blue Cover.” Both artists did a fantastic job, and they were exceptionally professional and patient with our suggestions. You can reach out to them directly through 99Designs.

Important Note: If you want to read ZOEY before the release on February 28 and do me a favor at the same time, you can download an advanced reader copy through Book Sirens. Check it out!

The second topic is we opened an online bookstore! It was a comedy of errors, of course, but working on it had me thinking about living day to day versus living towards a dream. Being raised in poverty, I never had a life’s dream, but here I am, living that dream: I’m a co-owner of a small bookstore. Cool Beans.

Have a listen and let us know what you think. TIA LYL!

Our website is ⁠www.carsonhume.com⁠

Who We are: ⁠https://carsonhume.com/about/⁠

Our Books: ⁠https://carsonhume.com/books-2/⁠

Our Business: ⁠https://twomoorebooks.com/⁠

Book Designs: ⁠https://twomoorebooks.com/two-moore-designs/⁠

(Book designs are free for now)

⁠please buy us coffee!⁠

For those who listen on the way to work, we are on these fine podcast platforms: ⁠Spotify⁠ ⁠Apple⁠ ⁠Pocket Casts⁠ ⁠Radio Public⁠

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!

Welcome to Episode 208 of our lovely award-winning podcast⁠. Being a Monday, we were a day late and several brain cells short, but hey, we survived a sleepover with our young grandchild and we think we made an interesting episode.

Business first: Finding Salvation Part One is still on pre-sale for 99 cents and will be released this Friday, January 31 (yay). On Sunday, February 2, which happens to be Groundhog Day, we’ll be doing the cover reveal for ZOEY on the podcast. The reveal for two covers, that is. You’ll see.

Shameless plug: We are providing books for sale to this week’s Sierra Arts Foundation fundraiser, Brew Ha Ha. This is a worthy cause, so please check it out if you’re in the Carson/Reno/Sparks area.

Writing: CC continues to see the light at the end of the railroad tunnel as she cleans up her “Virginia City Ghost” (working title) manuscript. She might send it out to the Betas in February. She may do her own book cover, too.

Our main topic was writing in the Young Adult (YA) genre which is one of three very successful writing genres here in the Twenty-First Century (zombies and vampires being the others). CC and I happen to be reading YA books at the same time, so we’re picking up common themes:

-YA books are almost instantly relatable because we’ve all been there.

-YA epiphanies hit harder.

-There’s a freshness in experiencing “real life” for the first time that jaded adults don’t enjoy anymore.

-Fifteen year old girls/women can be dramatically different than fifteen year old boys/men.

We talk at length about these and other themes that can shape a YA novel, including poverty and religion. We use The Hunger Games and Pleasantville to illustrate our points, and we manage for the most part to avoid that boy wizard (you know who).

Have a listen and let us know what you think. TIA LYL!

Our website is ⁠www.carsonhume.com⁠

Who We are: ⁠https://carsonhume.com/about/⁠

Our Books: ⁠https://carsonhume.com/books-2/⁠

Our Business: ⁠https://twomoorebooks.com/⁠

Book Designs: ⁠https://twomoorebooks.com/two-moore-designs/⁠

(Book designs are free for now)

⁠please buy us coffee!⁠

For those who listen on the way to work, we are on these fine podcast platforms: ⁠Spotify⁠ ⁠Apple⁠ ⁠Pocket Casts⁠ ⁠Radio Public⁠

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’re caffeinated for Episode 207 of our lovely award-winning podcast⁠. Seriously, we are buzzed. We changed our coffee habits for reasons, but had a big cup during this episode. We brought a lot of energy to this podcast:

Happy Birthday to our kid (tomorrow), my grandmother, Dolly Parton, and Edgar Allen Poe!

Many thanks to Jacci Turner for ⁠⁠her half-book review⁠⁠ of “From Tundra to Tiara.” Related: please check out her books. 

We said goodbye to TikTok which may be back this week. (Edit: it's back)

Finding Salvation is still on 99¢ Presale and will be released on January 31.

My books Sheriff and Downfall (books page) will be available for sale at this year’s Brew HaHa. The Sierra Arts Foundation's big fundraiser of the year will feature books from local authors, plus some of the local authors themselves. Please check it out and spend a lot of money for a great cause.

CC had the wonderful experience this week of completing her “VC romance” manuscript. Finishing your first draft is a heady experience. 

The meat of the podcast was the various stages of editing. Writers have a love/hate relationship with the process. Some of us are blessed to have excellent editors (Hi, Teri and Red Adept!) which makes our lives easier. We’re also blessed to have awesome Beta Readers. But it’s still a nerve-racking experience as we watch our “babies” (manuscripts) get changed at the hands of a third party. We talk about the strengths and weaknesses of self-editing versus paying someone with their fresh set of eyes.

As we say: “Writing is deeply personal experience done in the bright public light.”

Have a listen and let us know what you think. TIA LYL!

YouTube: https://youtu.be/8geKI4TFAqc

Our website is ⁠www.carsonhume.com⁠

Who We are: ⁠https://carsonhume.com/about/⁠

Our Books: ⁠https://carsonhume.com/books-2/⁠

Our Business: ⁠https://twomoorebooks.com/⁠

Book Designs: ⁠https://twomoorebooks.com/two-moore-designs/⁠

(Book designs are free for now)

⁠please buy us coffee!⁠

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!

Our last podcast audio track got corrupted, so this is the real Episode 206 of our lovely award-winning podcast⁠.

I made the mistake of reading a popular piece of fiction that sold millions of copies and was made into a movie, earning hundreds of millions. 

The mistake was thinking, “Why am I writing what I’m writing and not what this writer is writing?”

The differences between us in style and voice are extensive, and I like what I’m doing, yet this writer is sipping cocktails on the French Riviera while I’m drinking Jack in the Box coffee in Carson City.

Does every published writer struggle with this comparison? CC and I talk about this.

Other happenings:

-We had a LOT of fun In Virginia City.

-Finding Salvation is still on sale for 99 cents. Please grab it, especially if you have Amazon credits.

-You can get advanced reader copies on Finding Salvation and ZOEY on Book Sirens.

-Our LLC is real! Huzzah!

-Two Moore Designs is out there if you want the interior of your manuscript designed for free!

-Our books will be on more shelves in Carson City soon, and we’ll be a State of Nevada vendor.

-We might have an interesting road trip to chat about in the future.

That’s enough for now. Have a listen and let us know what you think. TIA LYL!

Our website is ⁠www.carsonhume.com⁠

Who We are: ⁠https://carsonhume.com/about/⁠

Our Books: ⁠https://carsonhume.com/books-2/⁠

Our Business: ⁠https://twomoorebooks.com/⁠

Book Designs: ⁠https://twomoorebooks.com/two-moore-designs/⁠

(Book designs are free for now)

⁠please buy us coffee!⁠

For those who listen on the way to work, we are on these fine podcast platforms: ⁠Spotify⁠ ⁠Apple⁠ ⁠Pocket Casts⁠ ⁠Radio Public⁠

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!

For Episode 205 of our lovely award-winning podcast, we look forward to 2025 and how we had to hit the ground running!

We were retired slackers for much of December 2024, though we did get organized and got Finding Salvation Part One out the door. Our plan was to relax in December 2024 and get to work in January 2025.

January must have heard us because everything that can happen to a writer happened to us in the first two days of the month, including manuscripts returned by our editors, LLC paperwork back from our lawyer, and a half dozen other things that keep writers busy. Whew.

We again plug the Sierra Arts Foundation and their fantastic support of Nevada writers. Through them, we are getting out of the house and getting our Nevada-centric novels on bookshelves. We are grateful.

One thing we inflicted on ourselves is our trip to Virginia City where we will spend the night in one of VC’s most haunted hotels (so they say). CC is working on a paranormal romance set on the Comstock Lode in 1875 at the height of Nevada’s Silver Rush, so we’re doing the hotel for literary ambiance. We’re suffering for our art, and our readers, because we care.

We’ll probably travel outside of Nevada once or twice this year. We’ve done almost every US state together, and we’ve seen Canada, France, Ireland, Japan, and Scotland. Will we discover new lands or go back to old haunts? You’ll probably know when we know.

The new years will see us releasing more books:
Finding Salvation Part One on January 31 (99 cents!)

ZOEY in February or March

Serving Salvation Book Two in 2025

CC’s Virginia City ghost book in mid-2025

If you want to see advanced copies, check out Book Sirens where you can become an advanced review copy (ARC) reader and leave reviews. Writers love reviews, even bad ones!

Here we are, five days into 2025, and it’s already shaping up to be an exciting time for the CEO and her Chief Minion here at Two Moore Books, LLC. Follow along and enjoy the podcast. TIA LYL!

Our website is www.carsonhume.com

Who We are: https://carsonhume.com/about/

Our Books: https://carsonhume.com/books-2/

Our Business: https://twomoorebooks.com/

Book Designs: https://twomoorebooks.com/two-moore-designs/

(Book designs are free for now)

please buy us coffee!

For those who listen on the way to work, we are on these fine podcast platforms:
Spotify
Apple
Pocket Casts
Radio Public

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!

For Episode 204 of our lovely award-winning podcast, we do our 2024 rewind and hit these high points:

CC received international recognition from the Women in Podcasting team by winning the best podcast in the Books and Writing category. That was a fantastic accomplishment!

We traveled the breadth and width of the United States by car, along with trips along the length of California. We also traveled to Vancouver Island and took two voyages on the BC ferry. That was fun.

On the writing side, we somehow only published the one book: Serving Salvation Part One. We had plans to publish more, but real life got in the way (nothing bad; just complicated).

Thanks to our membership in the Sierra Arts Foundation, we placed the Sheriff books on the shelves on the Depot Gallery and Bookstore in Sparks, Nevada. Thanks to Teri in Fallon, Nevada, the same books found a home in the Churchill County Library. They can also be found in Nevada State Library and through their Talking Books Program.

So why did we do this public rewind? The less important reason is to remind CC and me that we’re getting things done. Life moves fast, and sometimes we get caught up in the trees and forget to look at the forest.

The more important reason is we want to show our colleagues, the self-published writers, is that you can achieve success once you believe in yourself and give yourself permission to do great things. If you feel it’s necessary, her’s your permission and here’s your sign.

Go out and do great things!

We believe in you. TIA LYL.

Our website is www.carsonhume.com

Who We are: https://carsonhume.com/about/

Our Books: https://carsonhume.com/books-2/

Our Business: https://twomoorebooks.com/

Book Designs: https://twomoorebooks.com/two-moore-designs/

(Book designs are free for now)

please buy us coffee!

For those who listen on the way to work, we are on these fine podcast platforms:
Spotify
Apple
Pocket Casts
Radio Public

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!

For Episode 202 of our lovely award-winning podcast, we dive into our holiday tradition of watching Christmas movies. We did our regular rotation of Christmas Vacation, Love Actually, and Die Hard. We auditioned three movies for possible inclusion: Scrooged, Batman Returns, and Red One.

Minor spoilage on all of these movies.

We ended the podcast with our memories of our first Christmas together (in 1981!) and how it led to me proposing to CC on New Year’s Day 1982. Like everything in our lives, it’s a tale of comedy and romance.

Also: updates on our respective works in progress and news about a surprise Cover Reveal!

Have a listen and let us know what you think. TIA LYL!

And Merry Christmas!

Our website is www.carsonhume.com

Who We are: https://carsonhume.com/about/

Our Books: https://carsonhume.com/books-2/

Our Business: https://twomoorebooks.com/

Book Designs: https://twomoorebooks.com/two-moore-designs/

(Book designs are free for now)

please buy us coffee!

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!

For Episode 202 of our lovely award-winning podcast, we chat about our mistakes and bad habits. Every writer has them, which is why we have awesome editors and beta readers. For CC and me, we hold our writing challenges up to the light, and we provide some solutions.

As always, we talk about our current works in progress and about how excited we are for the new year. Have a listen to today’s episode and let us know what you think. TIA LYL!

Our website is www.carsonhume.com

Who We are: https://carsonhume.com/about/

Our Books: https://carsonhume.com/books-2/

Our Business: https://twomoorebooks.com/

Book Designs: https://twomoorebooks.com/two-moore-designs/

(Book designs are free for now)

please buy us coffee!

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 Episode 201 of our silly little podcast, so we discuss a significant movie from our youth: 2001: A Space Odyssey.

We thoroughly spoil this fifty-six year old movie, but it’s for a good cause because it is one of the greatest movies of our lifetime. This Clarke/Kubrick masterpiece is complex, visual, mind bending, and hopeful. From the opening sequence to the war for the waterhole to the Starchild looking down on Earth, we describe how this movie shows how far Humanity has evolved, but in some ways, hasn’t evolved at all.

We had a great discussion, and we do our best to discuss the impact of the writing and production values, but I’m not sure we did it justice.

We're having a lot of fun on our award-winning podcast. Have a listen to today’s episode and let us know what you think. TIA LYL!

Our website is www.carsonhume.com

Who We are: https://carsonhume.com/about/

Our Books: https://carsonhume.com/books-2/

Our Business: https://twomoorebooks.com/

Book Designs: https://twomoorebooks.com/two-moore-designs/

(Book designs are free for now)