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As the journey continues, I grow and adapt to the ever-changing world, as do you.

After two years on the road with minimal writing production, the author in me is thriving on being home and watering the seeds planted years ago.

After a successful revision launch for HBD and a Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ giveaway for Rev 1, readers are devouring the Noir Thriller. HBD is Sin City meets Patriot Games, a rough world full of heroes and psychopaths, and it's often hard to tell the difference.

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While I currently have two works available on Audible, six stories have yet to reach the listening audience. With the encouragement of friends and mentors alike and after several failed attempts with producers, I've decided to take matters into my own hands and personally record these stories. The necessary materials and software are in place, and the recordings will begin this fall. I'm told by many that I have a great voice, and I look forward to recording these stories for you.

Those that enjoy Audible can find Earned innocence and Mongers through this link:



I am developing a volume of works on the online publishing platform Medium. I find Medium a great place for my philosophy, mindset, and life lessons type of writing. Most articles are around 1,000 words each, making them easy to devour over lunch, morning coffee, or evening cocktails.

I'm at 24 articles and counting. I release two nonfiction articles weekly and one dark fiction article (think Lovecraft and Stephen King combined, with a little Poe thrown in for increased darkness).

The nonfiction articles address my thoughts about the modern-day mindsets of me and my fellow humans. I talk about common culture, what it means, and how it drives things. I also write about what it is like not to follow the crowd, to be an individual, and to seek your own path with confidence, even if you don't feel that confidence.

Here is a link to my Medium page:



Some of my articles are free, many are membership only. No matter what, make sure to clap (up to 50 times for one article) after reading. This helps move my work upward in the algorithms.

Here's hoping you all are staying cool during the dog days of summer. For me, it is a great time of the year to visit Arizona's high elevations. One of the coolest things about the state I live in is that I can drive from about sea level to over 10,000 feet in a matter of hours. Transitioning from the Sonoran desert to the fairyland of Aspens and back is a great day or two off.

Enjoy the ride,
C.M. Halstead

As the heat accumulates during this Summer season so does the number of articles on Medium. My latest is about the debate between conformity and non-conformity, which serves us better or worse?



I'm enjoying the venue for my thoughts and philosophy. I tried out Kindle Vella but that seems the realm for AI and pocket romance versus philosophy.

Like many authors I am wondering about the validity of utilizing Amazon for my works, it seems they throwout indie authors with the bathwater of success.

How many remember how Amazon got its start? Books of course! They were the first big online source for all things written. Now like Airbnb, they've moved on from their past and are working on world domination, stomping out the little people to be crowned the ultimate internet power.

I digress.

Or not.

Either way, you can catch up with my newest musings here:

On a different topic, I've heard many of you attest that you only Audible books that are spoken by their author. That being said, I am setting up a home studio to do exactly that. As soon as it is insulated from the Southwest's insesent wind, I will start recording The Tripper Series. I'm planning on scheduling the release of Book Four of the Series to release at the same times the Audible editions.

I know a few of you constantly knock on my door asking about book four. There is the update, I look forward to hearing about their adventures as well. In book four of the Tripper Series, the trippers find themselves a couple hundred years in the past on the isle of Ireland. Purpose still to be disclosed.

As my mind twirls the details of what is next for the Trippers on their time travel adventures I am stretching myself from my writing comfort zone and publishing articles for the online forum of Medium.

Click here for a free article example:

With my fiction, my philosophies of life are hidden within the protagonist's hero's journeys. On medium I step through my self imposed boundary and publish articles that encourage and elicit thought.

Articles are of my road, off-trail, and canyoneering adventures. Soon my guide life will enter the catalog as will lessons and life experiences gained therein. Some things are thoughts that seem commonsense to me and go against common culture. To me, those are the important ones.

/giveaway/sh...


If you haven't obtains HBD, a psychological thriller for grown ups, there is still time to enter the digital book giveaway.

print copies are available at your favorite online retailer. including here:

If you are anything like me you are in a constant flow of thought.

For me, it goes between regular life issues of money & time to how do I write this story, which story is next, was that a dog barking, is ups here, what time is it.... lol No joke, although humorous.

Above is a link to my latest Medium article. this one is not behind paywall, half of them are and half are free to read, devour, or ignore as you choose.

I've started what to me is the ultimate risk. publishing mindset and philosophy in a time of popular disgust for conscious thought. Or maybe I'm wrong on that....

It does happen, being wrong that is. I find it quite freeing, an opportunity to look at what decision I made and how I can make a better one in the future. Continuous improvement and all that, on me, not things I cannot control like other humans, the weather.

As my writer's cave flexes in the spring's brisk 30 mph breeze I strive to focus on my edits.

The shed shivers, sand pelts its side, the paint removes revealing the compressed wood underneath. The green hued paint dissipates into the sand as it heads North by Northwest. the sand source in the Sonoran below the Mogollon rim sends its micro trash towards the painted desert, the windswept paths detectable by plane and your neighbors trash. All head for the Great Plains before winding south through the murky waters of the Mississippi scraping its way into the Gulf before swirling towards the beaches, lapped up by waves to dry and continue its cycle Northwards again.

Such is my brain as I upload the revisions of HBD to Ingramspark and Amazon. All are now available to devour or ignore as you see fit. Not for the faint of heart this story flexes the rigid boundaries of your belief systems. Opening your eyes to the evil that is done in the gest of progress. A story for grownups only intended to disgust and thrill the reader as they root for good to do bad for the greater good of their nation.

A Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ Giveaway is imminent for a newly revised digital version of HBD by yours truly.

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The giveaway runs from May 1st-22nd. Get in while the getting is good. Make sure to read and review so that others know what they are in for,

In the meantime here is an author interview to give inside perspectives as to what makes one author tick. What works and what doesn't has they strive to create while the world throws task lists at them.

Am I the only one that gets focused on life’s actions and lose track of time? Although I am always on time, I often don’t know what day of the week it is. How is this possible?

The human mind is at its next level of evolution, some humans can think outside the box, take action for themselves or others, other people’s minds don’t wander outside themselves. Which is new evolution? or is either? Will there always be leaders and followers, will that co-dependent relationship always exist? These are some of the thoughts that wake me in the pre-dawn morning. These are the thoughts and idea that make it into my stories, whether a novella or 133,000 word novel.

Speaking of my longest novel yet, HBD is off to the printers once again. Revision one takes into account reader feedback that smooth out the story and removes things that don't move the story forward. C.M Halstead books are always packed with story, many say more than seems feasible in the word counts. Not one to waste space, depth of character and situations are included on each page.

In a week or two HBD will enter the fray of Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ Giveaways. I will message to let you know to look for it.

Meanwhile, I work on book four of The Tripper Series and do revisions on books 1-3 of the series. 10 years into my authordom has me smoothing out early published stories whilst writing new ones. I’m finally comfortable in being a creative and am embracing the gifts it brings, even though the society I live in sees more value in creating debt that art, I will create stories anyhow.

Is it spring yet..? Living off-grid in the wintertime brings unique challenges. Although I live in a developed country I choose to live on rural acres where the only electricity available is that captured from the sun or a generator. Spoiled by extreme quiet. (what is extreme quiet? Imagine no human noises, the loudest noises are from tinnitus ringing in your ears playing the tunes from back in the day, machine-gun fire's rat-tat-tat, or whatever it is that damaged the tender parts of your ears. Spoiled by said quiet, a generator's noise is heard for a mile or so. Therefore we use it as little as possible. Long periods of dark mean cold weather. And I know many of you are still wondering how to find a place free of human noise or wondering why I would want that.

Much of the dark is spent feeding woodstoves or managing propane heaters. Imagine all the stuff taken for granted in the developed world and producing it all yourself. That is winter off-grid. Am I complaining? Almost. The forced priority change does take a bit to get used to. The wait for "things to warm up" whether it be the woodstove, a propane heated room, or my computer forces me to slow my pace. Something that fights the military part of me. Somehow I am still moving on from the "go as hard as you can until you drop" mentality. I'm sure many of you can relate, military history or not, what is in motion tends to stay in motion. Regardless, the point I seem to be headed to is, a forced slow-down of pace still serves me positively by keeping me present in my day, resting my body while reading, and giving my brain time to solve world hunger or so it thinks. It is easy for me to complain about a forced change and yet this is why I choose this life. The simplifying of things and moving from overcomplicated hustle and bustle to a life that serves me more positively, even in the frustrating moments.

Coming soon to my social media, author read excerpts from HBD, Mongers, and The Tripper Series. I have a few of my works on Audible, Yet I thought it would be fun for you all to hear the author read. Since I tend to write in the cadence that I speak in, it will give you a live author voice to attach to storylines. Producing these short videos is a good stretch for this reclusive introvert. Stretches are a way of life for me, a way to help me, help me. A way to get what I say I want and grow as a human in the process.

I hope your January is treating you well, whether you are experiencing winter or summer, let it be a month of growth and acceptance. Stretch yourself in a healthy way and accept that the earth is in charge of light, dark, warm, and cold. All we can do is adapt, and that in itself is a way of life.

Tis the season for celebration and new beginnings or so the calendar says. Does anyone here do an annual resolution? Many choose the new year as an opportunity to make a personal change, join a gym, start a new job, join a yoga class. Others choose the new year as an opportunity to move on from bad habits, smoking, drinking, negative relationships for example.

I have a different outlook on life, I do not wait to make life changes or use a calendar as a reminder to do things differently, I change my mindset and habits actively. What do I mean by this? When I realize I need a change, I make it, when I need to quit something I do, I mean why wait? Why not have the new beginnings mindset every day of the year!

My biggest reason for keeping that active mindset is this, usually by the time I realize I need to move on or stop something, taking that action is way overdue. I needed to change that habit or perspective years ago, yet was too busy or lost in the habit to even consider it. As soon as I realize a change is necessary I become impatient, I need to do it now. This is best for me and many others. As soon as I decide to do something, a part of my brain works for a reason not to do it. The brain's reasoning to NOT make a change is an outdated mindset that change is a risk and risk leads to harm or death, therefore stay the same and stay safe. This contradicts the old adage, "fortune favors the brave" which is also a truism of life. Safe is alive, yet brave rules the world and creates the unknown. What do I mean by creating the unknown? Well, just about every invention ever created was at one point a new and possibly crazy idea. The Wright brothers and their flying device, a few geeks and their inter-compatible communicating computers (became the internet), I am sure you can think of a few others. If these out-of-the-box thinkers followed the part of their brain that wants to keep them safe, they never would have taken the risks.
Hesitation is a risk, a risk that the brain will decide it is too dangerous and talk yourself out of it. This is why hesitation is deadly. There is an old quote, "On the plains of hesitation lie the blackened bones of countless millions who at the dawn of victory lay down to rest, and in resting died."
Do not delay your victory, do not wait until a certain day of the year, do not wait to live, live now.