Musings of Two Creative Minds

  Recently I had a rather loud and unexpected reminder from life, that I am physically not the same person I was 10 years ago. I'm not saying that old age is catching up to me, although it does give me the occasional reminders that many of us experience (like your body sounding like a bowl of Rice Krispies when you get up in the morning). No, the incident I'm talking about was a very loud and frightening reminder to me that I am disabled. Now when I say it was frightening, I am mainly talking about everyone else around me. In my case it came more as a shock and a nasty surprise. You see, I was seated and began leaning over to grab something that was off to my side and slightly behind me when the wooden chair (well it was actually a wooden bench we have in the dining area) I was on tipped over. And yes, I went down with it. LUCKILY, I had enough presence of mind to stretch out my hands and arms at shoulder height to break most of my fall. I didn't even wind up slamming into ...

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...

Hello again everyone. Hope you've all been doing well. As for me and Helen we've had a LOT on our plate lately to deal with. However, we're not abandoning our readers by any means.  We're still getting settled into our new home, which of course seems like a never-ending task, plus Helen is putting in for a number of jobs, especially in the realm of state, county, and city employment. And of course, I've been still contending with Social Security and trying to bring my now 2-year ongoing efforts to get approved for SSDI.  Oh, and did I mention Halloween is coming up? We're big fans and have plans which include FINALLY getting The Library of the Obscure YouTube channel fully up and running. I'm hoping to release a "Coming Soon" video (which I will feature here as well as elsewhere) very soon. Certainly, before Halloween, because I want to drop the first video either on the day before Halloween, or on that day. Haven't fully decided. We'll see...

Yeah... the title for this entry pretty much sums up my feelings today. Why? You ask... or maybe not, after all I'm not inside your heads. But if you are asking that question, well the answer is "THE DOOR"! Now I might be hearing some of you saying, "A door? What door?" Well, here's a little reminder... Yeah, THAT one. The one I've been going on about for months and even a couple of years. Sadly, it hasn't exactly been just a couple of years. After going over my entries for this blog it turns our that I've apparently been going on about this book since about... 2013.   Cue embarrassment... Damn it! Why is there never a nice big rock (preferably the size of a small mountain) to crawl under when you need it? Well, since said rock isn't about to make a helpful appearance anytime soon, I may as well give you the rest of the explanation. A severe, and I do mean SEVERE case of Writer's Block has been plaguing me when it comes to this book for q...

 ... because you might just get it. So, after all my talk and posting about finding a crystal ball... well...um... Ah, the photo pretty much tells you what happened.  Now to be honest, I've had this crystal ball for years. Helen got it for me long before we got married, and we exchanged our vows 35 years ago. (Go us!) But I'd lost track of it some time ago, and I literally just ran across it in one of our boxes in storage. Upon spotting it, I just had to pull it out, cleaned and dusted it, and now it is currently sitting on my desk. "So? Did you look into it or not?" I hear some of you ask. Or maybe that's just the voices in my head, and believe me, as a voice-actor I've got a LOT of them. The answer is... I'm thinking about it. Why haven't I done it already? Well, I got kind of side-tracked wondering what would my characters do? See how I slipped the topic of writing into this entry?  Although to be honest, I have had one of my characters actually wei...

Those of you who have been following this blog (especially in the last couple of months) will be familiar with this image and the snippet of the song it comes from... "I wonder what tomorrow has in mind for me. Or am I even in its mind at all? Perhaps I'll get a chance to look ahead and see. Soon as I find myself a crystal ball..." - From Styx album "Crystal Ball" ...and my worries that if I did find a crystal ball and gazed into it, I might find a wheelchair staring back at me. Well, after being examined by a 2nd neurologist, and the results of another MRI of my cervical spine and head, the doctors have ruled out Multiple Sclerosis, Lou Gehrig Disease, cancer and a host of other worrisome possibilities. So, what was causing all my problems? Myelopathy which is caused by some kind compression on the spinal cord itself, inside the spinal column. In my case, the compression is happening in the cervical region (neck), and yes pressure on the spinal cord in that are...

I haven't posted much about writing lately, but this is not because I haven't been writing. On the contrary, I've been rather busy with stories lately. In fact, I recently completed one tale set during in World War I, involving our vampyre "Nathan" (from The Vampyre Blogs part of the Para-Earths Series) and a zeppelin. Sounds intriguing? Well, I'm afraid you'll have to wait until the 2nd anthology "Two for the Road" to come out, to read it.  Which with a little luck, and some actual work on my part, may actually happen later this year. We'll see... HAHAHAHA (I crack myself up some days). But seriously, I would like to see it happen, but if I've learned anything in the last few months is that "Life gets in the way...", so we'll see. Mind you I will try to keep you all in the loop as best I can. And speaking of stories, I've also been working on a second lengthy tale which will also appear in that same collection. This o...

The Pondering Pug's Thought of the Day: What happens when two authors, who are married to each other, get the same type of idea for a short story for their respective book series? Funny, that this pup should be asking that question, because it happened to Helen and me just recently. As you all know I created a vampire (or as I call him a 'vampyre' since he's not a true undead being, but more of a science fiction-based blood drinking, shape-shifting, sun avoiding being) named Nathan Steward. For those who aren't familiar with him here's a brief synopsis. Nathan was a Union soldier in the Civil War who got blown into a Para-Earth where one of the life forms there fused itself to him, creating a symbiotic bond that allows them to coexist as one. This symbiotic arrangement has also extended Nathan's life far beyond that of a normal human being, which means he has existed for over 160 years. This has allowed him to see and be a part of a lot of history.  Then abo...

Yesterday I was scrolling through YouTube and ran across something that really caught my eye. Yes, I'm one of those people who when the Halloween season rolls around, I break out all kinds of horror movies, especially the black and white ones. And I freely admit that I've watched this classic gem many times.  However, it wasn't the full movie that was being advertised. Instead, this was a 40-minute video about 'deleted' scenes from this movie, which immediately caught my attention. Pausing only to grab a cup of tea, I sat down for a good viewing and was not disappointed. Now, I'm not saying that they had actual footage that was left out of the final cut, but what they did have took me completely by surprise. For those who are less familiar with the old universal black and white monster films, I'll give you a quick rundown here. This video covered the actors who played Frankenstein's monster.  For the first 3 films it was Boris Karloff who had been handpi...