My Interview at Scribnia Will Appear Tomorrow.

I just received word that my interview (about being a blogger) will appear tomorrow at Scribnia.com. When I get a link I'll post it here.

Scribnia Interviewed Me This Week--Stay Tuned for More!

Scribnia.com interviewed me (via written Q&A this week). I didn't know I had made it onto their radar. SOMEONE who reads these blogs introduced this blog to them; that's how they found out about me. THANK YOU, WHOEVER YOU ARE!  (I'm guessing Mary Doman, Lisa Hamner, or Billie Rae Walker, but I really have no idea. Please fess up so I can thank you properly.)

I think I answered about 8-10 questions. Total word count was around 1400 words (including the questions, none of which were very wordy). The interview was about having a blog, not about De--although the lady who sent the questions thought my history with De could be fodder for a future interview, too. I guess we'll see what kind of feedback we get on the first one before deciding to do another one.

I'll let you know when the interview is up at Scribnia. In the meantime, if you like, you can go there and vote my blog spot up the flagpole.  Last time I looked, it was at #16...  That's pretty fabulous, considering all the gazillions of blogs out there!

Gotta go play some cards with my grand nieces and their little friend Jillian now. Casey helped me wrangle the goats for hoof-trimming today; it's the least I can to to thank her for being so awesome. She is getting to be quite the accomplished helper!

Star Trek Remembering DeForest Kelley

Star Trek Remembering DeForest Kelley

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If any of these blog posts give you a grin or anything else of value please tweet them! Thank you!

Life is Hard.. But Not as Hard as It Is For Many Others.

I'm having "another one of those months"...

Famine. I've made (drum roll, please) all of $319 so far in January.  It's scary. It's frustrating, too, because I've spent long hours looking through the projects at Elance, finding ones I felt I could ace, bidding on them.... and getting passed over... landing just the $50 ones. 

$200 of what I've made this month didn't even come from Elance -- it came from other places: a book I'm working on with a friend, two letters I rewrote for LinkedIn associates. Oh, and I sold a copy of ENDURING LEGACY for $4.95. (Paypal got about fifty cents of that.)

I don't like months like these. They wouldn't be so bad if I had something laid up in savings but I haven't been able to get that far ahead yet.  Grrr...

Unless something changes FAST -- and of course, it can at any moment; I have enough bids out there to retire on if they all came my way!) (ok, that's an exaggeration!) but right now, based on what I've made so far this month, I'm eligible for food stamps almost four times over! I have to pay my mortgage, Internet and phone connection fees (they're my shelter and my lifeline to work!), and I should have enough for those "mandates" by the end of January, but I may have to drop health coverage (or pay it late if enough comes my way before the grace period ends); I can go to an emergency room and get help despite my inability to pay should it come to that (thank God, my citizenship, and a lifetime of paying taxes for this small "perk"!)

Being self-employed is a crapshoot the first few years. It's been so sporadic all year long that it has been a real struggle at times... and this is one of those times. It puts my tummy in a knot to dwell on it... so I don't, much. I just look harder for work... day and night... I'm often up at 3 a.m. looking for another project because I can't sleep, with the end of the month looming over my shoulder like a big black cloud...

But I am so glad I have complete faith in God; I'd be an absolute nervous wreck without Him. I know He didn't give me a lifelong passion to write for no reason... or a spirit of fear (fear is the devil's bailiwick)... and I'm doing a lot of Christian ministry as a result of the projects I'm offered and accept. I know it will all work out.

I just hate giving my sister additional things to fret about.  We bought this property together to help each other and I must hold up my end of the deal. I'm paying the chunk of the mortgage that is ABOVE the required monthly payment, the chunk that is supposed to pay off this place within ten years so she can retire without a mortgage hanging over our heads.  (I'll never be able to afford to retire. It's a good thing I love what I do, eh wot?). My chunk goes 100% to principal each and every month. I want to be paying even MORE into it, but so far $500/month is all I've been able to contribute reliably.

When I sit and stew like this, I get miserable and restless, and I feel borderline useless to the person I love most in this world: my sis Jackie.  I start crucifying myself silently for being a Creative instead of a solid, professional 9-to-5 office worker with health benefits and a reliable weekly paycheck (no matter how unlike me that role actually was during all the years I served in it). I wasn't as happy at work then as I am now, but I was...well, like the song... workin' 9 to 5 and actually getting paid for all of the hours... Now I'm workin' 9 to 9 and getting... either nowhere very fast... or somewhere too damned slow! (Now would be a good time to ROTFL. Go ahead. I'll wait.)

De always told me I had to pursue a creative career by faith because a steady, reliable income was never going to be assured. HE finally made it, with STAR TREK... but it took him decades. He didn't starve, and I won't either.

And when I consider what Christina Taylor Green's family is going through right now, what Gabby Giffords is going through tonight and tomorrow and for months to come, what my friends with cancer are going through, what so much of the rest of the world is going through (Haiti, Africa, Mexico, you name it) I feel like a louse for spending even two minutes obsessing over my piddly concerns. 

My sister and I are healthy; she's fully employed and I'm at least semi-employed... and every bit as employed as I can be at this juncture. I've tried landing outside work but nothing has come through, I guess because of my "advanced" age: I'll be 60 in March; (good God!!! How did that happen?!) Or maybe it's because I'm too obviously over-qualified for lesser-paying jobs. I've applied to be a tutor and a teacher assistant, even a bus driver. No go.  Everybody and their cousin is looking for work; this is one lousy time to be under- or unemployed!

But boy howdy... the rich folks got their income tax deductions extended, uber-rich corporations received their "personhood" so they can contribute untold amounts of money to their indentured politicians, and Wall Street all got their  perks and bonuses as reliably as tomorrow's sunrise. I sure hope these "government-blessed" folks cut loose with some of the money the worker bees of the country earned them and that they'll create some more jobs so the rest of us can get a handhold or two on ledges of sufficient livelihoods again...

But it doesn't seem there are many "bleeding hearts" in high places these days or we wouldn't be in the shape we're in right now. The Ayn Rands seem to be winning. And Christ died for them, too.

What was He thinking?!    :)

Ok, OK.  I didn't mean to start venting. It just popped out. I see injustice and I just want to yell..or cry... and ask, "Why?"

Some men see things as they are and say, "Why?"  I dream things that never were and say, "Why not?"

President Obama Never Fails to Amaze Me...

President Obama's words were just right. I bawled most of the way through the memorial service. How anyone can believe he is a scoundrel is beyond me... always has been... always will be.

I am so glad he's our President.  I hope he runs again.  He'll win if he does.

His heart is in the right place and his smarts are exemplary.

What a statesman.

Prayers going up for AZ Representative Gabrielle Giffords

I had a horrible feeling that it was just a matter of time before something like this would happen. This is a wake up call of the highest magnitude to Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and the other shrill, mean-spirited purveyors of putrid punditry. 

Sarah Palin, your "DEMS in the crosshairs" depictions have always been problematic; Beck and Limbaugh, your insane rhetoric which encourages people to think that DEMS are Fascists, Socialists, Communists, terrorists in disguise encourages mentally unbalanced citizens to take up arms and "save" America from them. STOP IT NOW!  FIND WAYS TO DISAGREE WITHOUT INCITING UNHINGED FOLLOWERS TO ACTS OF VIOLENCE AGAINST DULY-ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES.

It's time to dial back the rhetoric, take a good hard look at what your words are creating or endorsing (paranoid monsters and pathetic actions), and stop your hyperbolic and hysterical proclamations.  Your words create the world. If your words are not creating life, they are creating death.

Shame on you. Shame on us all for not insisting on a halt to the caustic vitriol long before now.

Clean up the airwaves. Now.

Sanitize HUCKLEBERRY FINN? NO NO NO!!!

There's a controversy raging. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain has been banned in many schools during much of its existence for a lot of different reasons. Southerners hated it when it was first published because one of its heroes is black -- the slave Jim, whom Huckleberry Finn does his best to transport to freedom on a raft even though he's convinced he'll go to hell for his efforts. They also hated it because it showed, up close and personal, the way of Southern whites of that era.

Others have banned it from schools because of the frequent use of the N word within its pages.  The pejorative is used more than 210 times in Huckleberry Finn. Polite, politically correct society doesn't like the word.  I too loathe the word; I heard it snarled far too many time when I worked in Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia less than 40 years ago, where it was still quite fashionable and common among whites.

Now Huck Finn has been released with the N word taken out and replaced with the word "slave." As is the case with so many other Twain lovers, I am almost apoplectic over the change.Twain must be hopping mad in heaven.

Mark Twain knew exactly what he was doing when he used that word where he used it: we was exposing the underbelly of the monster, not denigrating the poor soul who had to endure the label and continue to abide in a land where his skin color relegated him to the level of beasts of burden, as property.

When I read the book as a teenager I didn't think the N word made Jim any less noble, any less a man, any less a hero than he was.  When I read the N word, the people I focused on were the speakers of the word. For the most part, they were trained from an early age to honor and respect white people and to use and/or abuse black people in the same way they used and/or abused the animals that they raised, fed, worked, and killed. Those were the times in which Huckleberry Finn lived; Twain just wrote it all down after coming to the conclusion in later years that the way he had been raised in the south was wrong and that slavery and the treatment of the black man and his family was a scar on the Southerners' soul and a blight on Southern soil.

To take the N word out of the narrative subjugates the truth; it sanitizes what happened to black people 24/7/365 for hundreds of years, including into much of the 20th century.  It should hurt to read the word; it should  make the reader recoil as we discover the truth about the African American experience in America.

Now, if it's a choice between making the sanitized version available to schools or having the original version banned from schools, I suppose I would have to vote for... oh, but I can't. 

I simply cannot vote for exchanging "slave" for the N word.  The two words are not kindred; they are not equals; they are not what Twain intended to convey. Twain intended to convey exactly what he conveyed. Had he felt "slave" was the correct word, he would have used it. He used the common everyday vernacular of the people. He was justified in using it. His pen was the well-tuned "microphone" of the period.

Those who read the book gain a greater understanding of why the term is as painful and insulting as it is. The way Twain uses it in each instance tells the tale. No other word is right; no other word can substitute because no other word is as God-awful as that one is.

Today's children weren't here when Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood up, when fire hoses and police dogs were turned loose on blacks in the South in the 50's and 60's. I was. I remember those sights and sounds emanating from the television set in our front room and recoiling. But I had no real, palpable access to the periods of history when blacks had no legal say in their futures until I read Huckleberry Finn. That's when black history truly began to come alive for me. To hear Jim sorrowing over his still-enslaved wife and children and planning to get a job up north and then find some way to buy them.. or to steal them if their owners wouldn't agree to sell them to him... it just broke my heart.


Twain's book takes us back to a time we all wish had never been a part of our history. And yes, you bet it's painful. But readers see how Jim handles it, how he continues to hope, dream and work for a better tomorrow... one that sadly will never come in his lifetime.

No American should miss Jim's and Huck's experience. Or the Native American experience. Or the Chinese American or Japanese American experience.  All were part of the fabric of America. It ain't all pretty.  (Those who want to pretend it was are both delusonal and dangerous.)

But it's getting prettier by the day.  If you don't believe me, just look back. Read Huckleberry Finn... the way Twain wrote it!

FOREWORD TO "LET NO DAY DAWN..." by DeFOREST KELLEY

FOREWORD

by DeFOREST KELLEY

(“Dammit, Kris, I’m an actor, not a writer!”)

(written in 1995)

My first meeting with Kris Smith was on a beautiful, clear, crisp spring day in May, 1968. I was serving as Grand Marshall of the Wenatchee Apple Blossom Festival. My wife, Carolyn, and I were riding in an open convertible. The streets were lined with people.


Suddenly I noticed the shining face of a teenager running alongside our slow-moving car waving a sign which proclaimed, “We Love DeForest Kelley.” We managed to make some hurried dialogue with her as our driver kept pace with the other parade vehicles.


Sometime later I received a letter from Kris, along with an essay describing her experience meeting us on that festive occasion. I was so impressed with her writing ability that I sent the essay to a national motion picture magazine—and they wanted to publish it. I wrote to inform her of this, and to express our hope that it might lead to something interesting for her future.


At a later date we learned that Kris has always had a great love for animals (a devotion we share) and we were delighted to find that she has put her talent to use to benefit animal welfare in various national publications. Today, while pursuing her goal to become a screenwriter in Hollywood, she continues her dedication to animals at Shambala, Tippi Hedren’s wildlife preserve near Acton, California, the facility which provided her gorgeous “serval son,” Deaken, a much-needed place to stay during the lengthy transition from Washington State to California.


Carolyn and I have been privileged to meet Deaken, both at
Shambala and at home in North Hollywood. Deaken must have known that “Mom-Cat”Kris approves of us, for he immediately greeted us with enthusiastic head rubs and licks, which Kris says she had never seen him do before to anyone but herself.


I refer to Kris as “the best Mom-Cat I know” for she has a touch of magic with animals,wild and domestic. She is deeply concerned about their welfare in the wild and in captivity, and about our own environment and welfare on this planet.


As you will see within these pages, Kris possesses a real talent for expressing her feelings regarding matters that tug at so many concerned hearts.


But make no mistake about it: Kris has a “wild” sense of humor, as well. She is known among some of us as “Krazy Kris.” She’s crazy, all right—crazy like a fox.

Hodgepodge PIx... Wild (and Not-so-Wild) Animals I Have Known...

 Deaken @ 3-4 Weeks of Age... awwwwwwww!!!

(before his ears stood up and his color changed!)

 Darwin (aka Doc),  a dear friend of mine...

 Deaken and a Best Buddy, Rowdy Catboy

 Deaken Close-Up
(Oh, how I long to kiss that sweet, sweet face again!)
(Someday I shall... when I cross Rainbow Bridge!)

 Popcorn (Poppy), photo by Mrs. DeForest Kelley

 Archie, age 13

Ashley, age 13

Oh, My Aching...EVERYTHING!!!

(FYI: What looks like dried mud on Laverne's coat is her "winter underwear." I didn't groom her before taking these photos. It's a lighter-color undercoat.)

I had five (count 'em...FIVE) yards of crushed rock delivered to my back yard yesterday. It's for the goat pen.

I spent an hour and a half yesterday pushing it into the pen via wheebarrow (a distance of about 35-40 feet one way); then I spent two hours this morning doing the same. The chore also included "mucking out" the parts of the pen where I had strewn straw to keep their hooves clean and dry until I could get the additional six inches of crushed rock in... so there were about 10-12 wheelbarrows filled with that sodden mess in addition to 40 or 50 barrows of crushed rock during my two solo adventures as a Goat Protector and Defender. 

Not long after I took off my "goat clothes" for the day, the four grandnieces (ages, 12, 10, 8 and 6) came over, so I asked (tongue in cheek) if they would like to help me shovel crushed rock into the wheelbarrow "for the goats" (whom they love and whom we had just walked). Much to my surprise, not one, not two, not three, but all four said "YES!"  Oh, my...

I was bushed, BUT I figured they'd last (if I was lucky) 20 minutes and I knew I'd be glad for whatever help they could give, so I gave them all buckets or shovels and had them fill the wheelbarrow (twenty shovels per barrel). I figured I could handle another 20 minutes of work without croaking...

Wellllll... to make a long story very short...  they loved the task. Adored the task. Did not want to quit. They didn't get tired. So, once again, I pushed crushed gravel for yet another hour and 15 minutes...  maybe more...until my pusher was bushed and I had to call a halt.

Tonight I feel like I've been hit by a Mack Truck and then run over by a military tank.  I need a chair to help me get up from the couch...

But the good news is that Laverne and Shirley are high and dry tonight. HALLELUJAH!!!

The girls and I didn't get it ALL done to a depth of 6" but, between yesterday and today, we got 80% of it put down to that depth.  (The girls and I did about 20% of it today.) Tomorrow (IF I'm ambulatory; I recover pretty quickly for an old broad), I'll probably  put in the balance.

The entire floor of the outdoor portion of the pen has some new gravel in it; the last 15-20% only has a sprinkling of rock, though... perhaps a half inch...just enough to salve my conscience and make me feel like Wonder Woman Mom-goat.  I wanted us to get that far before I called it quits so the goats wouldn't have ANY wet or sodden areas beneath their hooves since I had taken out all of the straw prior to putting down the rock.

It's supposed to get real cold tonight. It may snow. Knowing the goats have crushed gravel down and an indoor area to bed down on clean, dry, warm straw makes me feel a lot better...well, except for my body, that is.  IT wants to know what the hell I was thinking, to go from a deskbound writer to an earth mover with so little advance notice... What can I say?  From the moment the rock got delivered, it began calling my name and giving me the guilts: "Hey, Mom-Goat... what are you doing leaving us lying here in your driveway when your precious goats are languishing...languishing...in less-than-perfect conditions? If they had a phone, they would call the Humane Society on you..."   (And the Humane Society would laugh their arses off when they responded and found two very happy goats HARDLY in any immediate danger of ANYTHING other than being spoiled half to death.) (Guilt doesn't have to make SENSE, you know.  All it has to do is suggest a minor, puny anomaly, and all hell breaks loose trying to convince me I am a lousy Mom-goat!!!)

I expect to lose ten pounds this week. If I don't, it won't be for lack of enough exercise... that's for sure!

WOO HOO! One of the BEST Reviews Yet of LET NO DAY DAWN....

"Literary Value



"I see other reviews here [at Amazon] that talk about the poet's obvious love for and experience with animals, and these come through profoundly in her writing. But I want to comment on the book's literary value. If you have high standards for poetry, you'll be delighted with what you find here. This isn't just cheap verse - it's quality stuff, with original imagery and compelling insights that make you look at animals in a fresh new way. I'm a former English teacher and expected this book to be a disappointment - another amateur's attempt at poetry writing. But I was more than pleasantly surprised. This book has taken up permanent residence on my 'favorite'" bookshelf."


Jessi Hoffman

Thank you, Jessi!

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYBODY!

On this joyous sacred morning, before the grandnieces and their parents and grandparents call me over for the opening of presents and the partaking of a very special breakfast, I want to take this opportunity to wish each and every one of you a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy, prosperous New Year...

May God richly bless you today and in all the days to come...

Here are a Few of the Best Ones -- Let Me Know if You Want More!

FLASHBACK-- HOW LITTLE LAVERNE WAS BACK IN JULY!!!

Click on the images to see larger...

Pictures to ... FA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA... LOW

It's official: I have lost my mind. You'll have rock-solid proof in a day or two, but trust me on this, okay?

Here's how I know I'm losing my grip on sanity...

I went to the Dollar Store yesterday to get some jingle bells for Laverne's and Shirley's collars so that when we walk for the next week or so, they'll sound Christmas-y. I thought it would be a nice touch. You see, the neighbors love the goats and like to know when they're nearby so they can come out and see or pet them, so I thought jingle bells this time of year would do the trick. (Some have "Christmas presents" for the goats -- apples, grapes, yummies like that...)

But...

When I got inside the Dollar Store, I noticed a special sale: two faux felt antlers (for humans) for $1 with tiny, tiny bells on them. Thought I to myself (redundant, I know), "I wonder if the girls would consider putting up with an extra set of 'horns' for a few days... so I can pass them off as 'reindeer'?"

Hmmmm...

So I bought them, thinking, "No way... but it can't hurt to try.... and they're just a buck."

I brought the goats' "holiday costumes" home and carried them out to their shed. They don't mind the bells at all, so I'm home free on that idea.

Shirley doesn't mind the fake antlers -- she doesn't even seem to notice she has a "headset" on. (With the horn-filled cranium goats have, this makes sense.)

But Laverne  hasn't let me put the antlers on her yet.  She's happy with the bells on her collar but fake antlers... not so much.  She just won't stand still long enough for me to put them on her.

Shirley is a much more sedate goat. She probably considers me semi-sane and lets me get away with craziness like this.

Not so with the redhead; she has my number. She recognizes craziness when she sees it, because she's crazy, too.  We're kindred spirits, Laverne and I. I feel the same way about wearing fake antlers; it's fine if others want to wear them, but they're just not my style. Laverne and I prefer fools' caps...

I'm going to try again tomorrow and Christmas Day with Laverne. If I have success with both of them, I'll have Jackie take a photo of the the three of us together; I'll be the antler-less one... you know, the Mom-goat. If I only have success with Shirley, antler-wise, I'll document that, too.

So stay tuned.  At some point either this entry will get updated with a photo or two, or a subsequent blog entry will...

Because face it... you gotta see this!  It's... cute... or crazy... or whatever you choose to call it.

DADT PASSES! LET'S PRAY FOR DREAM ACT TOO!!!

Awright!

Been a Busy Girl!

I hope your holiday season is shaping up to be warm and wonderful and in the presence of those you love most in all the world. That's my Christmas wish for each and every one of you.

I've been busy working on Elance projects but have a break at the moment, so thought I'd drop by to share a few thoughts... if I can find any to share!

This past weekend my sister Jackie hosted Childrens' Winterfest here in Tacoma, WA on the PLU campus. Every year for the past 20 years PLU (Pacific Lutheran University) has hosted up to 400 families who otherwise would have no Christmas because of extreme poverty. I volunteered for the event last year and this year.  I helped set up for it, tear it down afterward, and I was one of the story readers for it (there were three others).

We four story readers took turns reading because we were in a noisy auditorium where a lot of other things were going on -- kids meeting Santa, eating cookies, getting their faces painted, picking out books to take home, finding gifts to give to their parents, choosing stuffed animals, making cards for their loved ones, picking up socks and scarves and knitted hats, etc.-- and it didn't take long for our voices to wear out in surroundings like that.  We needed story readers because after the kids made the rounds in the auditorium, some of their parents (in other areas of the building) hadn't yet finished choosing presents for the kids we were entertaining, so we needed to find ways to keep the wee ones occupied while parents completed their shopping. 

Everything at the event was free.  It was a heartwarming day and the parents and kids were super appreciative that they would be able to have some semblance of a Christmas this year.

I've been walking goats whenever the weather permits. Casey, Jamie and I wrangled them this weekend so I could trim their hooves again.  I would lay the goats on their sides, Casey would hold them down, and Jamie would feed them grain so that holding them down would be possible.  I need to invest in a goat "cradle."  They're getting too big to manhandle this way, and since they both have horns, it's only a matter of time before someone will get hurt(by accident) if we continue to try to trim their hoofs this way.  A goat cradle (or whatever you call it) allows a handler to place them into it; as soon as they're in it, they relax. Their feet are sticking out at an angle where I can get at them.

HOLDING AMERICA HOSTAGE IS B.S.

What I want to see is the DEMS/Obama go back to the bargaining table and say, "I want everything you've mentioned in this deal AND I want you to end the Bush tax cuts to the wealthiest... you know it's the right thing to do... and if you're a Christian as you profess to be, you know that 'whatever you do to the least of these' (the most unfortunate and beleaguered people in society) you are doing to Jesus."


It's a travesty that these right-wing GOP standard bearers can claim undefiled Christianity and then behave this way. It's a bad deal. It's a good deal IF the GOP will drop the insistence on tax breaks for the wealthy. They already have the freakin' Citizens United ruling that turned corporations into people with NO contribution limits (while people like me are held to $2400). Now they want moRe tax breaks so they can throw more money at defeating Obama/Biden in 2012. It's B.S.


I know what the Prez has tried to do... I honor that... but it's still a miscarriage of justice. I'm with Jim Wallis of Sojourners on this one.

Link to a Free E-Book You'll Enjoy About Achieving Success

http://www.readingforyoursuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/The-Best-of-Reading-For-Your-Success_eBook.pdf

OMG! I Forgot All About This Until Just Tonight!

I was chatting to a Hollywood friend this evening and he reminded me of something I had completely forgotten: I was encouraged by several studio professionals to get a demo voiceover tape produced while I was down there! 

(Smack myself in the forehead with the palm of my hand and call me an amnesiac chickenshit!)

Here's the story...

While I was living in Hollywood, I did one voiceover "on the fly" for a casting director at a major studio because an actress called in sick and everyone else was "on the set" and ready to roll.  It was just one line...

I was an administrative assistant on the hit comedy TV show she was casting at the time. When she crooked her "come hither" finger at me and told me what she wanted me to do, I asked her, "Why me?"

She said, "Because every time I walk by this office, there is a different voice coming out of it, and it's always YOU! I know you can do what we need." 

Fair enough. (I do tend to "act out" whatever I'm talking about, so the comment made sense, although I hadn't really thought much about it before she brought it to my attention. It's just the way I talk; I'm animated!)


So I went to the soundstage... and... much to my surprise... aced the gig.  

One of the studio technicians, looking mighty pleased and surprised, told me, "You should do this for a living. You're a dream to direct. You nailed it."

His compatriots nodded. The casting director smiled and said, "See? What'd I tell you? You can do this... and you should. You're a natural."

Well, that felt really good, so I took several voiceover classes... tentatively... because it seemed far too good to be true...

My voiceover coach, Nigel Neale, quickly discovered that I had a perfect "teenaged boy's voice" and that teen boy voices were hot items in Hollywood animation. ding ding ding ding ding. I knew that Rocky the Flying Squirrel and Woody Woodpecker were both voiced by adult women with great teenaged boys voices, June Havoc and Mrs. Walter Lantz respectively.  

Nigel said I should get a demo made and then move to Seattle to get discovered, because it would take me five years to be discovered in Hollywood (because voice demo tapes are stacked to the ceiling in every casting director's office in Hollywood.) It never even occurred to me that I already had an "in" with someone inside the  industry: the casting director who had hijacked me just weeks earlier! (What a dumbbell I can be at times... I just NOW thought of this, YEARS after the horse left the barn!)

I told Nigel, "I just moved down here from Seattle. I'm not moving back there to get discovered!"

Anyway, he said he would produce my demo for me at a steep discount because he, too, thought I had what it took to be a voice actor.

I never had it done.

When I got back to Seattle in 2003 I discovered that Nigel Neale had moved to Seattle too and was now teaching voiceover at the University of WA... so I went to another of his classes... and again he offered to make my demo tape for me.

I still didn't get it done. 

I was so focused on finding a "real" job that I put the voiceover thing on the back burner -- so far back that I forgot all about it!

Well, as you know, after doing some "real jobs" for a number of years up here (secretary, administrative assistant, activity director, copywriter-for-hire, etc.) I decided to throw caution and low pay to the wind and hang my shingle at Elance as a freelance copywriter... be my own boss...

It has worked out moderately well.  By this, I mean that I haven't starved to death yet.

Cleve reminded me again tonight about the voiceover option. If he hadn't, I probably would never have thought of it again.  Incidentally, Cleve is also the guy who told me about Elance. He has  been my biggest fan and most stalwart supporter/encourager since the day I met him. He works in the entertainment industry and knows his stuff... knows what will work and what won't creatively.. and he's telling me to GO FOR IT; don't let the door hit me in the butt on the way out!

There are a bunch of high profile video game producers in Seattle. They need teenage boy's voices and other voices... and Nigel says I'm BRILLIANT as Ariel the Mermaid and other cartoon characters, too... and I can do straight announcing, too...

So now I'm slapping myself upside the head. I'm self-employed! I can go to auditions and gigs in Seattle at the drop of a hat. I need to get that demo tape done.

Cleve even said he'll pick up the tab so I REALLY have no excuse!! 

Voiceover artists get $400 an hour!  I get $45/hour as a copywriter.

What am I waiting for?  I don't have to have a "feast or famine" life. I can have an "add on" career that is part-time and very, very lucrative...

So guess what?  I'm going to make a few calls on Monday (a long weekend is coming up) and see if I can find Nigel again and get this going.
It's time!

What a kick it would be to make a living writing copy and books and voicing video games and radio and television commercials!   Wish me luck and please keep me in your prayers... 

I'm going for it... FINALLY!

WHOA!!! I just found out, by googling my name (which I do occasionally to see what else has popped up about me that I may want to know about) that the letter President Reagan wrote to me has been republished in the book REAGAN: A LIFE IN LETTERS. It's on page 69 of the hardcover edition. I still cherish his letter -- and the one I wrote that elicited a 100% personalized response, answering each topic point by point! I was FLOORED to get a response...