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...

  HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE! Sorry it's taken most of the day, but the "Library of the Obscure" is now officially open over on #YouTube . And since it's Trick or Treat season, here's the trick... Click on the link below to get your treat: Have fun and stay safe everybody!

Hello everyone, and welcome to my first blog post for 2025. I know it's been a while since I last posted anything on this blog, but as the title of this entry says... life and reality has REALLY been demanding so much of my time and energies.  And since it's been so long since my last post, let me quickly recap where I left off... I had located the crystal ball my wife gave me for my birthday many years ago and was contemplating looking into it to see if a wheelchair might be in my future due to my continuing leg and back issues. Well, here's the real-life answer as to that question... So yeah... this has come to pass. Mind you, I am getting used to it. Plus, I'm not in the chair all that often. I mostly use it on long outings and excursions with family and friends. (Sadly, for me these days a long outing lasts more than 15 minutes on my feet for the most part before the pain and numbing of my hips/legs/and feet become intolerable). Still, I really like being able to be...

This little video gives you an idea of why I get so busy with my audio recordings. I swear, when you're doing most of your work at home, this means you literally are the chief, cook, and bottlewasher. From start to finish, you are your own director, actor, voice talent, editor... the works! It's all on you to make that audio ready to be submitted to ACX and then onto Audible. And there will be days when you are so confident that the recording you just did was F------ Awesome! Possibly one of the best takes you've ever done in your entire career and then... Well, just watch the video below... And even after doing this for 3 years, this still happens all too often to me. And yet, in spite of all the times this happens, I'm still beginning work on my own podcast. Stay tuned for more on that. My goal right now is to get at least a dozen or more installments recorded BEFORE I start to actually get the podcast up and running. Like my unabridged reading of Charles...

Until recently, I've always done all my audio recording at my home studio. But I needed some professional demo recordings which brought me to Reeds Recording and the awesome Adam who was the recording technician that day. Now, what brought all this about?  Well even though I've already recorded 4 audiobooks on Audible, I have never done voice work for commercials or documentaries and such. And for those, I needed to learn some new skills and techniques, as well as a better understanding of what the industry is looking for in voice over talents. So I got myself some professional voice over training through "Such A Voice", who paired me up my coaches Ed Renninger, Justine Reiss, my director Nancy Wilson, and my tech advisor Ben Marney. These people made a such a difference in how I do voice work now, and I cannot thank them all enough. Where do I go from here? Well, one step at a time. First I'm going to be putting up a web page and loading my demos, as well as some...