Category: audiobooks

“Goddess’ Crusade” begins

After taking July and a little of August off to be older about recording and editing audiobooks, I forced myself to sit down and begin the MS for the final installment of this trilogy.  I had had bits and pieces of this opening scene – which will be the prologue of Part I (of just two, I think) but was quickly shown some little details I’d not noticed before; writing is like that:  it forces you to pay attention.

Wrote most of this out on my deck this afternoon.  Had to flee inside with all the electronics for a squall around 1500, but just now (1600) concluded the exchange at the end of what’s below the fold.  There is much packed into this:  some good news, some bad news.  And one point was news to me, too.  I love this:  writing.  I really do.

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Effing RMS

Here’s the last of the prototype chapters.  I am much older about peaks (Nichole’s sharp voice, here and there), valleys (Mackenzie’s, everywhere), and RMS (the relationship between those levels).  In learning such, I’ve also gotten the volume waaay up from where it was before.  Tanjed near burst my eardrums in the headphones…

With this complete, and taking in any constructive criticism y’all might have, I’m going to try making notes and writing some very raw ideas I have about Faustina and her third novel, “Goddess’ Crusade.”  It is setting the bar a little high, but I want all three of her books and the complete audiobook of “Friend & Ally” out no later than Christmas.  We shall see.

War stories

This is the second-to-last post of my prototype audiobook files.  This longer one is chapter two of “Friend & Ally,” wherein Nichole 5 gets her first taste of war.  There isn’t much in the way of new character voices but there is a lot of action going on and I wanted to see if my voice could keep up with it all.

The final installment will be chapter three, sometime Saturday.  It will slow things down again and introduce one more important character.  Following that, I’ll create an ACX account, draw up a recording and editing schedule, and get to submitting chapters for their review; another process I am going to have to learn.

In the meantime, it has been a month since I have written a story, even just playing with ideas.  “Goddess’ Crusade” is nominally due at the end of this year and besides a vague vision of one scene in my head, the other 60k+ words won’t write themselves.

So here’s chapter two; longer, I know.  I’m still playing with Audacity’s settings and getting older about how to use it.  Cheers!

Losing my voice

I went downstairs yesterday to record chapter one and immediately realized that I have to not only get voices assigned to characters but also make notes so that those voices remain consistent.  That meant that I didn’t actually begin to record until today.  On something of a roll, I did the raws for the first three chapters.  To elicit more constructive criticism, I have tried to edit Chapter One into something I don’t mind posting.

The side-effect of all this is that, as I’m not and have never been a talker, I’ve said more in two hours than I would in a week, and my throat feels it; I might be mute tomorrow.

Anyway, here’s chapter one of “Friend and Ally,” recorded by me, with a listening time of just over seventeen minutes.  Cheers!

Making sounds

Took a little longer to get around to this than I’d anticipated, but at long last I built a “quiet corner” in my basement (and it’s only quiet when people upstairs are not flushing the toilet!) and got around to practicing recording and editing.  A pic of my corner – one cannot call it a studio – is below the fold.

Attached (and this might take more than one try; please bear with me) is an 8-minute mp3 of me taking a stab at the prologue of “Friend & Ally.”  I am very young at this and welcome constructive criticism.

Hardware:  a Samson C01UPro mic (USB).  Software:  Audacity (2.3.3)

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