Musings of Two Creative Minds

"The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” (Scottish poet Robert Burns (from his poem "To a Mouse" 1785) As most of you, if not all, are aware that I've been trying to bring to life the "Library of the Obscure" (LOTO for short here), over on YouTube. The idea behind the library has long been to introduce listeners to a whole range of authors and short stories from decades or even a hundred years or more ago. Now some of you might be asking yourselves, why? What's so fascinating about tales that were written so long ago, when we've got authors galore coming out with stories and books these days? Well, the answer is actually quite simple. You ask just about any well-known author what prompted them to write in their most well-known genres, and most will tell you they were inspired by pieces written by other authors. Take Stephen King, he'll tell you about some of his favorite authors like H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, and others whose...

  It's finally coming... on HALLOWEEN Stay tuned everyone.

" 'Cause, nothing ever goes as planned It's a hell of a notion Even Pharaohs turn to sand Like a drop in the ocean..." This is a snippet from the Styx song "Nothing Ever Goes as Planned", from their Paradise Theater album (one of my favorites albums I'll admit). Anyway, what does a Styx song have to do with today's topic for this blog entry? EVERYTHING! When we were still house hunting and came across what would become our new home, One of the things that really attracted us was the basement. It was set up almost like an old 1980's arcade, complete with black lights, an arcade game, a projector, and a black light carpet. See image below It was so wild when we had the black lights on, we started joking about holding 80's parties down in it. But of course... (cue the Styx song) That's right! You guessed it. Things didn't quite go the way we had been hoping. While we were in contract and had a home inspection done, it was discovered that...

This year has been 'difficult' for me on a number of fronts, some of which I've already shared with you. Still there are others, that are still ongoing and taking up a lot of my time and brain power. I have actually done a number of audio short stories which are perfect for this time of year, I just haven't had the time to really gather and piece together videos to present on YouTube for my "Library of the Obscure" channel. However, if any of you wish to hear any those recordings (complete with sound effects), I'll be happy to post them as a prelude to the podcast itself here on this blog as well as on the Library of the Obscure YouTube channel. Please let me know what you think by leaving your thoughts in the comments section below. In the meantime, here's the link to a story by Lord Dunsany (one of HP Lovecraft's greatest influences), that I shared last year. I hope you enjoy this tale, and I thank you for your understanding... NOTE: I will be a...

  I love a good anthology, or collection of short stories. Naturally, when I spotted this book in a used bookstore, I was intrigued by the title and the image on the cover. After reading the synopsis on the back cover, I decided it was worth checking out. And boy was I right to do so. I thoroughly enjoyed each of these odd little mysteries. As the cover indicates, there are only 8 stories contained in this volume, and each one (even though a couple of the tales takes place outdoors) have been referred to as a "locked room" mystery, which makes the collection all the more interesting for me.  Similar to Arthur Conan Doyle's beloved Sherlock Holmes, we are introduced to Mr. Trevis Tarrant, through our narrator Jerry Phelan who first encounters Tarrant in the first story involving an ancient codex in a museum. And also like Holmes, Tarrant has an affinity for 'unusual' cases or problems. But, there the similarities end. We soon learn that Trevis Tarrant is more willi...

Kindle Pre-Orders are being taken now for Helen's "W. I. T. C. H. Hunters Forever" a short-story collection/spinoff of her Forever Detective Series of books. Here you'll find some familiar faces such as Clara Thomas, Sir Lynn Fox her brother-in-law/wizard, Medium Brown a spiritualist accountant, plus many new faces. Here's more: When he heard about Hitler's interest in seeking out artifacts and legends, British wizard Sir Lynn Fox knew he needed a group with unusual talents to do more and better. W.I.T.C.H. Hunters is that group. This collection of stories gives us a sample of the wide variety within the group: a sympathetic healer, a hedge witch with a penchant for sleuthing, a telekinetic sculptress, a spiritualist accountant, a demonologist monk, two Antipodean adventurers, and one extraordinarily ordinary woman who wants to do her part, and an immortal cat. Order your copy now and have it arrive in your e-mail this Saturday: Amazon US Link:  W. I. T. C. H....

It's been a while since I did a book review so I'd say we're do for a new one. Right? Well even if you said no, this post is going to be a book review anyway, especially since the book in question is by an author I've long heard about and was a huge influence on HP Lovecraft (one of my favorite authors of all time). Now some of you may have already figured out who I'm talking about, but for those who haven't caught on, I'm referring to Lord Dunsany (better known by friends and family as Edward Plunkett, the 18th Baron of Dunsany). Now as I said before, I've heard of Lord Dunsany from my collection of HP Lovecraft books which often reference his lordship as having a big influence on the creator of the Cthulhu Mythos. And I'd been rather interested in trying some of his work for some time. However, I'm one of those readers who likes shall we say... a sampling of an author's work before committing myself to a full novel. So, I read a lot of coll...

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...

  When I started out on this writing journey, I never saw myself as someone who could a whole bunch of writing projects going at the same time.  That kind of thing was reserved for some of the great prolific authors like Isaac Asimov, who was notorious for working on multiple projects on a regular basis.  The man insisted on having a portable typewriter or two wherever he went.  And if he couldn't get his hands on a typewriter, he'd pull out a pad of paper and a bunch of pencils/pens and wrote the old fashion way, long hand. But me, I could never picture myself even thinking about working on more than one story at a time.  In fact, the very first novel I started working on was set in the early 1800's and I had gotten about 2/3's of the way through the tale when my wife pointed out that a historical piece would be harder to market.  On hearing this, I gave it some thought and put the story aside and began a whole new piece which eventually turned into my fir...

Just $3.99, or FREE for Kindle Unlimited subscribers. 26 Tales of Para-Earth Encounters Spanning 150 years answering many questions about your favorite vampyre and his friends such as: - How did a Nathan manage to continue to serve the  Union Army in the Civil War after becoming a vampyre?  -How did he and The Professor meet? -Why did Lisa and Marisa drift apart? -Has Nathan or his friends ever met any of the  characters from "The Bridge" or "The Ship"? -Who else has had a Para-Earth encounter? Plus much more! So go ahead grab your copy today! *And remember the holidays area almost upon us and you can order Kindle books for family and friends, you can even have them delivered on a specific date such as Hanukkah, Christmas, and birthdays . Just click below to start your shopping: https://www.amazon.com/Vampyre-Blogs-Anthology-Para-Earths-Para-Earth-ebook/dp/B07KMN78B2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1543590262&sr=8-1&...

And I'm back, sort of. Okay, I'm still a bit unwell, but finally on the mend. In the meantime let's continue with that discussion about some of the things I learned putting together our first anthology. First off it was somewhat easier than creating an entire novel. With a novel you have to keep track of so many things like character development, interactions, subplots, pace of the story, etc.  Now with an anthology, you still have a lot of stories to contend with but each one is self-contained and has its own beginning and end. You don't have to be worried about how they fit into the main tale. Plus you can have a greater variety of characters and give each tale a flavor all its own. Sounds pretty easy so far right? Well, here's where things started to get a little more complicated for me.              Like a novel, an anthology does need to have a certain feeling of cohesiveness to it. There must be some facet or factor ...