Musings of Two Creative Minds

Okay, I'll admit it's been more than say two weeks. Come to think of it, it's been more like almost four weeks. But in my defense, I'd point out that hey, this makes at least 1 post per month so far this year! That's right, this isn't March, or April or even October and given my track record last year, for me,  this  is soon. So there what do you think of that, Perry the Snootypuss...  SPECIAL ALERT!!! Okay, enough with the silliness. Wait, who am I kidding? Myself? Not bloody likely. I know me too well. In fact, I've known me since the day I was born. FYI, I've recently mastered Doofenshmirtz's voice and added it to my voice library. I have NO idea, when I'll ever use it, but hey... maybe one day I'll get invited by the creators of Phineas and Ferb to stand in for Dan Povenmire. You never know. (Oh, and just in case Dan or his partner Jeff "Swampy" Marsh, happen to be reading this, I can also do the voices of several other characte...

  The GIF above was basically me last night as we welcomed in the new year. I gave 2026 a warning that we would not tolerate any of the shenanigans we've experienced in 2025 and to behave itself and straighten up right off the bat. I guess we'll all have to wait and see if it listened to me or not.  But in fairness, it wasn't just the new year that I'm being firm with. I'm also kind of cracking down on myself. Over the last few weeks, I've really been looking at myself and what I have and have not gotten done over the last couple of years. Although, in fairness to myself, a LOT went on. Between trying to adjust to my continuing fight for SSDI, my mom suffering dementia and eventually passing away in 2024, then starting 2025 with me and Helen struggling with our apartment and having to get stuff moved out of it and into a storage unit because the landlord didn't like our place having a lot of boxes in the living room. Then of course, looking for and buying a ...

 It's been several years since I released any books myself, as I've been mostly focused on voiceover work and recording the first 4 books of Helen's "Forever Detective" series (I'm currently recording the voiceover for her most recent novel "Forever Chosen" and her anthology "W. I. T. C. H. Hunters Forever"). However, this does not mean I have not been writing during that period of time. In fact I've been doing quite a bit of writing, along with editing and formatting all of Helen's books, along with my other collaboration with my old high school friend Rich Caminiti. And at long last, Rich and I are ready to present the cover of the first installment of a brand-new series of novels. And here it is... This beautiful cover was created by the very talented Gabrielle (Gabby) Callan, who in addition to being a fabulous artist, has recently added talented tattoo artist to her list of artistic talents. But in addition to creating this gor...

Back when I was 18 (many many moons ago) I received a rejection from a college I had applied to for their Commercial Arts program. I was so crushed I didn't pick up a pastel or pencil for over a decade. If anyone at that time told me I'd one day be doing book covers I'd have asked what they had been smoking and did they bring enough for everyone? Yet here I am having just finished my 8th book cover for my wife Helen (who wrote all the stories in this collection). Plus I'll soon be voicing those stories for Audible. The journey is never a straight one my friends, but you have to keep moving forward to see where it leads. PS: This collection of paranormal tales (which is a spinoff from her Forever Detective Series) is set during World War II will be arriving this September. *So now you all know where I've been and what I've been doing for the last few months. This was an very involved piece for me and I was trying be more meticulous th...

Well, after all these months of posting about making an audiobook, it's finally happened... I am now the newest voice actor over on Audible! To be honest, the reality of it is still kind of sinking in for me. We got the word on Tuesday, the day before Helen's and my 31st wedding anniversary. And it just seemed so perfect in so many ways. As you all know Helen wrote "Forever's Too Long" as her first solo novel, and she had me do the artwork for the cover. We've always been a team and we've always support each other in so many ways, so seeing this culmination of her writing skills, combined with my penchant for voices become a reality on the eve of our wedding anniversary just seemed so appropriate. To be honest, I'm still in shock over here. The idea of being the voice for an audiobook had been simmering in my mind for about a year or two before I actually tried it. A co-worker of mine who knew and loved our Para-Earth books kept tellin...

     As usual I started experimenting with a basic quick sketch of what I had in mind. I knew right from the start that I wanted to incorporate the title into the image for this one, especially since it was our more traditional two word titles. Naturally I aimed for an actual door, knowing it would be fairly easy to incorporate the word "door" into the wood grain.      From there I started testing out different color schemes for the wood grain itself. But then I started asking myself, how would a door that had been exposed to the elements for almost two centuries look? So I did some Googling, to find images to get a better idea of what such a door might look like. Here's a few of the examples I found:      So now I had a basis to build upon. Yet I also felt that whatever I created should have good strong colors that still gave that weathered yet somewhat foreboding feel. So I pulled out my soft pastels and started laying d...