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...

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 t's Christmas Eve, so it's time to bring you something 'completely' different... In the United Kingdom there is a tradition of telling a ghost or creepy story at this time of the year. And since according to Ancestry.com based on my DNA sample, I am 49% Irish, plus another 22 % English, I feel it only right to continue this tradition. So, we're bringing you the audio version of "The Snowman", complete with imagery, providing a picture book experience, much like I did last year with my unabridged presentation of Charles Dicken's "A Christmas Carol". As some of you may be aware, "The Snowman" was written by my wife/co-author Helen for our "The Vampyre Blogs - One Day at a Time" anthology. It was inspired by hearing the song "Frosty the Snowman" one too many times, before deciding to put a bit of a strange unearthly (or Para-Earth-ly) twist on the story... So without further ado, here is this year's Christma...

Christmas came early to me... Last night I received this comment over on my YouTube channel regarding my presentation of an unabridged version of Charles Dickens' classic "A Christmas Carol" from Barbara Ortiz... "This version is among the best, the added images are very nice, your extra research is appreciated. Ahh, also, your voice acting is spot on." This meant the world to me. I hope everyone else who's checked it out enjoyed it just as much. And if you wish to give it a try, I'm supplying the link just below. Happy Holidays everyone and may the season bring you all the joy and happiness it can. Link: Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, a Joyous Kwanzaa and a Happy New Year to you all.

The holiday season is upon us, and I hope you are all enjoying yourselves. I know I've been on the quiet side for some time, but I've been dealing with some health issues (which I'll discuss down the road, it's still not fully resolved yet). But I've also been working on a special project for the last 2 years. It's been quite a journey with this particular effort of mine, as it's part audiobook and part video.  As you all know I've done a fair amount of audio work, but adding video was a whole new ballgame for me. Getting everything lined up just right, finding imagery in public domain, as well as music to go along with it, took a considerable amount of time and energies. But I feel like the results were worth it. I learned a lot along the way and may actually start doing some podcasting in the near future. We'll see. But for now I'd like to present to you all to a brand new Unabridged presentation of Mr. Charles Dicken's classic "A Chri...

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...

 A whole year of planning, working, sweating, and it still wasn't enough.  For those who are wondering, I'm referring to my unabridged dramatic reading of Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol". My plan was to unveil the finished project as a picture book on YouTube. Besides spending hours recording voices, some sound effects, finding music in public domain, as well as dozens of images (also in the public domain) created over the last 150 years since the book's creation... and I still couldn't quite get it across the Finish Line. At least not in time for this Christmas.  All I have left to do is film an opening and closing to the project, but between work and other audio and writing projects, I just couldn't do it justice this year.  Now some of you might be asking yourselves, why? Why was this so important to you?  After all, there are so many versions available of the story available on YouTube, streaming services, Blue-Ray, DVD, etc.  Well the answer is, n...

Christmas is only a week away, and Santa told me you've all been very good this year. So with Helen's permission, I'm sharing the 1st and 2nd audio chapters I narrated of   "Forever Festive" , the 4th book in her Forever Detective Series, which is available now for Kindle, Kobo, Apple, Nook, and Trade Paperback.  Unfortunately, due to time and work constraints, I'm still editing the last few chapters of the full audiobook itself, which means that version will not be available until early next month. In the meantime, we both wanted to give you these chapters as a sample of what you can expect in her vampire detective's first holiday adventure. Enjoy...  Chapter 1 - "Harold T Angel" Chapter 2 - "Appropriate Decor" You know books make a great gift, or nice little something to fill some stockings, and you can get "Forever Festive" (or any/all of the Forever Detective Books) right now in e-book or a trade paperback (at Amazon and ...

  In the span of 10 months, Helen and I have released 3 audiobooks which I have narrated. We just released "Forever In Deep" last week.  Links: Audible          Amazon          Itunes All three books are the entire "Forever Detective Series" to date. Helen has more stories coming and will be releasing a fourth book "Forever Festive" this November. We are hoping to have the audio ready to be released at the same time so people can have that option to stick in someone's stocking or leave under their tree, (electronically speaking) of course. Remember, you can gift someone an e-book or even an audiobook. Links: Audible         Amazon         Itunes Links: Audible         Amazon         Itunes Now this may not seem like such a big deal, but for someone who spent over a year researching how to create audiobooks, as well as getting the proper equipment, a...

  Hello again everyone. I recently had a request to the links regarding to all my posts here about doing audio recordings. As I started to gather the links, I quickly realized that they were all seriously scattered throughout the blog, as I'd done them over the course of 13 months. Plus, there were a number of other entries in between which made them even more difficult to find.  So today's entry mainly consists of all the links for easy access to anyone who wishes to look over the details and suggestions I had about audio recordings. So far there are only eight entries, but I am planning on more in the coming months.        ADVENTURES IN AUDIO RECORDING LINKS: Part I: https://musingsof2creativeminds.com/2019/07/27/adventures-in-audio-recording/ Part II: https://musingsof2creativeminds.com/2019/08/09/adventures-in-audio-recording-part-ii/ Part III: https://musingsof2creativeminds.com/2019/08/25/adventures-in-audio-recording-part-iii/ Part IV: http...

As you all know, I've been busy recording audiobooks at home. I've already gotten "Forever's Too Long", my wife Helen's first solo novel, published on Audible where it received a 5-star review. So of course I was eager to turn another of her books into audio as well. So I began recording her second book "Forever Haunted".  Now having shared on this blog all the technical aspects that I use to record the books, I thought it might be fun to share one or two... um... a few? Oh hell, I make a LOT of mistakes and I run into some other 'obstacles' that I thought might help prepare you all for some of what you might encounter.  So, here's the first (of what I suspect will be a growing library) of my blooper outtakes... Now remember folks, "We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We...

Finally heard back from ACX. Two issues came up. I didn't leave enough "Room Tone" (silence) at beginning and end of every chapter. They want .5 to 1 second of silence before first word spoken, then 1-5 seconds of silence after last word spoken. Easy fix. The other issue, I included the closing credits and the last chapter in one file. They wanted them separated, another easy fix.  Otherwise, they had no other problems with the files. Volume, clarity, technical requirements of the audios themselves, all of that was fine.  I will be making these corrections, if I haven't already dealt with them on my own. After that... still going to follow our own path at this point and make CD's and downloadable MP3's from our websites.  and  Why? Because Audible has an "exclusive" clause that says only they get to produce the audios, and they do not make CD's. They only produce Audible versions, and as we've been told ...