Tag Archive: #collaboration


The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men… Then There’s Me and My Hopes for 2022!

Filed under: About Writing, Coming Soon, Personal, Uncategorized — Leave a comment
December 30, 2021

 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, none of them are ‘complete’. There are a number of powerful speeches and even scenes that more often than not, wind up on the cutting room floor. There have also been new scenes created and added to the films that cannot be found in the original story at all. After having read the book cover to cover myself a few years back, I started finding myself reading certain scenes with a variety of different voices for each character. And yes, this is when I really started taking the idea of doing voice over work more seriously. I was having so much fun with these characters and that it took me a while to realize I was drawing upon techniques and skills I learned in my l theater class during my last year of high school. I learned so much in that one year, and I have often found myself regretting I hadn’t taken the class sooner and then taken one of the more advanced classes afterwards. Still, I thank my lucky stars and my teacher Mrs. Nina Pfeffer for all her patience and guidance. I learned so much from her.

So after Helen convinced me to bring her books to life in audio, I went back to the idea of doing the same for Mr. Scrooge and company. Helen often refers to me as her “Voice Time Machine”, since I can do so many voices of actors who are no longer with us, which allows her to ‘cast’ the characters from her books and helps her in turn bring them more to life in her writing. And believe me I drew upon a lot of voices of actors both living and dead, to my project. 

And in spite of having a whole year to work on “A Christmas Carol” I could not anticipate back and hip problems which kept me from my ‘recording studio’ and sitting at the desk to edit either images/audio recordings for weeks at a time. 

Then of course there were other projects that needed my attention as well. I’m wrapping up my 3rd audiobook narration as I write. I also created a couple of book covers over the last 12 months, as well as feeding 3 blogs with material as well. One of those is “The Vampyre Blogs – Private Edition” where I’ve been writing short stories involving our Para-Earths vampyre Nathan and his friends.  

Link: https://www.thevampyreblogs.com/ (Blogger site) 

         https://thevampyreblogs.blog/ (WordPress site – same content as the Blogger site, but I                     know some people find WordPress easier to work with)

With so much going on, I can’t feel too bad about not finishing my “A Christmas Carol” project. There’s only so many hours in the day, and only so much of me…

Therefore my New Year’s Resolution will be to keep being ambitious, but give myself leeway to scale back and not be too hard on myself if I can’t get all that I want to done. 


And I do have plans for this coming year, oh yes indeed. Here’s a little list:

1- Re-work, re-edit, and re-release “The Bridge” in a special 10th Anniversary version.

2  – Get a complete 1st draft of “The Vampyre Blogs – Family Ties” which takes up mere weeks after
      the end of  “The Vampyre Blogs – Coming Home”.

 3 – Release the first volume of “The Pass” trilogy, which I wrote with my old high school friend Rich
      Caminiti, with some fantastic illustrations by the talented Gabrielle Callan. We will be releasing 
      this book in hardback (yes, your read that right) and e-book formats. 

NOTE: This one is a definite. The book is already written Gabrielle just getting the last of the artwork completed along with the cover

4 – Rich and I will be working on the 2nd and 3rd drafts of the second installment of “The Pass” trilogy      with hopes of releasing that book in 2023.         

*The 1st draft is already completed so we have high hopes of getting this to happen*

5 – Record and release Helen’s 1st solo anthology “Forever W. I. T. C. H. Hunting”, which is actually a spinoff from her Forever Detective Series and will feature characters from that series as well as a few new faces who will be appearing in future installments of The Forever Detective books.

6 – I hope to begin recording “The Vampyre Blogs – Coming Home” with the help of Helen to bring more variety of voices for your listening pleasure.

7 – We may start adding some podcasts occasionally to this blog and maybe even to YouTube. We have
      the equipment and the ability to do it, so you may actually get to see and hear us once in a while.

8 – Finally, I’m starting to look into voiceover work opportunities for myself this coming year. I’m 
      already on LinkedIn and have seen opportunities becoming more numerous, as well as over on
      Audible. There are apparently opportunities here in and around Santa Cruz, so I may be trying 
      out for a few here and there. It all depends on time and how many spoons I can spare without 
      burning myself out.

So there you have it everyone. We’ll see how much I actually accomplish, but time and life will tell. I’m not sure how easy the new year will be starting out with our regular jobs as we’re having labor issues with management this time around. So there’s a strong possibility of disruptions in our lives in the coming month. So if I go quiet for a while, you’ll know why.

We’ll see what happens. But in the meantime, we hope the holiday season has been treating you well and that you all have a joyful and wondrous New Year come the end of this week.

Stay safe, and keep writing and recording dear friends.

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Our First Big News For 2021: “Forever Haunted” Is Now Available on Audible

Filed under: Uncategorized — Leave a comment
March 5, 2021

Sorry for the long delay in posting here, but as you’re about to find out we’ve been VERY busy.

First off I am proud to announce Helen’s 2nd solo book “Forever Haunted” is now live on audio at both Audible and Amazon for just $17.46 or 1 Audible Credit. Once again I am the voice of her main character Rafael Jones (along with every other character). This is my 2nd full audiobook narration and I’m thrilled to help bring her characters to life once more. And yes I am still “Chief, Cook, and Bottlewasher” for the audio. The recording and editing process took longer than I’d hoped, but I learned some new tricks (through trial and error) that I will be sharing with you all in future posts. I’ve gotten things down to a checklist I keep on hand for myself of how to edit the audios for pacing speed, volume, pauses, etc. which I did not do the first time when I recorded “Forever’s Too Long”.  And with the amount of time that passed between that audiobook and this one, I forgot a lot of editing techniques/tricks that I had to relearn and change. 


Again, I will be sharing a number of those tips and tricks with you in the very near future.  In the meantime here is some more about the new Audiobook:


Bookcover Blurb:Life isn’t easy, but it’s easier than adjusting to being dead. Rafael Jones is still learning about his new diet, powers, and limitations when he’s asked to certify that a house isn’t haunted. But when it turns out to have the ghost of a murdered flapper, his new mission is to locate the missing gangster who killed her, the magic mirror that helped the killer disappear, protect his client, and stop a new string of murders.Magic and mystery collide in the summer of 1947, and our detective is digging up answers to questions going back as far as the end of WWI.


Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Forever-Haunted-Detective-Book/dp/B08XZRC84S/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Audible Link: https://www.audible.com/pd/Forever-Haunted-Audiobook/B08XZQ7TCW?qid=1615055966&sr=1-2&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_2&pf_rd_p=83218cca-c308-412f-bfcf-90198b687a2f&pf_rd_r=Y853QBMXKK8YE0H638Z6

And of course, here is an audio sample:

In addition to getting “Forever Haunted” edited and sent to Audible, I have already begun recording her the third book in her ever-growing series, titled “Forever in Deep”

I’m pleased to say I’m already about 1/3rd of the way through with the recordings, and most of it is already edited. Lord, am I so glad I wrote down those editing notes to myself, it goes much quicker now, but that’s something that comes with experience.


I’ve also been busy with getting the 2nd draft of “The Pass” (my collaboration with Rich Caminiti) to the final stages. I have only to insert a few scenes into it, and that will be going out to beta-readers for inspection and comments. Once we’ve heard back from them, we will begin the 3rd and final draft, with hopes for an October release later this year.


“But what about the Para-Earths Series?” I hear some of you ask. Well, work has been continuing on both “The Door” and “The Vampyre Blogs – Family Ties”.  Admittedly, the work has been slow on both of them, but they are still happening. I’m also in the process of getting some of the completed novels prepared for audio recording so they can join the ranks of Audible. But of course, everything takes time and there are only so many hours in the day. And of course with m Fibromyalgia, I have only so many “spoons” to work with in a day. So I ask that you all please be patient. I might be recruiting a couple of more voices for the Para-Earth books to make them more of an ensemble cast recording, but we’ll see.

Anyway, that’s why I’ve been so slack on getting new postings up. The narrator work takes a lot of time and energy, but I have already been approached more than once about voiceover work for other people, which would be paying jobs for me. Which would be most welcome. I do hope that my audio narrations will lead to bigger things like some voiceover work for animations, podcasts, or streaming series. One never knows. But time will tell.


And now I must get back to writing and recording. So until next time, which I promise won’t be too long, stay safe and keep recording and writing my friends.

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