[Author's note: podcast and hiatus]

There has been much talk of presenting weblit as audio on weblit.us (where many of us digital scriveners hang out) lately, and so while Shirley and I were together on the weekend licking our canine-bereavement wounds (she loved Beauie too), we decided to play with the idea. Having heard of a free downloadable piece of recording software called Audacity, we both downloaded it.

The first thing I learned as I recorded myself reading a snippet of PA was that I could record multiple tracks -- something I've never tried before. Shortly thereafter, I had a .wav file of me singing the chorus of Holly Near's "Hay Una Mujer Desaparecida" in four-part harmony. I'm not going to share it publicly because I did it with the mic too close so there's distortion, and I didn't come in at the same time on all the parts and all the words so it's too loose, and I'd sing it differently if I did it again, and it's lame in a number of other ways. But I still thought it was very cool because I had never heard myself sing in four-part harmony before.

Then, remembering what I was supposed to be doing, I played around with reading different kinds of Chevengaic scenes. The insult-fest between the Director and him which is mistranslated by Iska (PA 87) was the most fun, but more serious passages turned out nicely, too.

Reading my own work taxes my (non-existent) voice-acting abilities; first of all, I have to get the pronunciation of those non-English names and words consistent when I am most used to working in them in print (and I just know that Chevenga -- the Chevenga with the Social Security card, that is, who is a pronunciation maven -- will be listening). Then there are things like the lengthy letter from Intharas Terren to Chevenga, which should be read in an increasingly-inebriated way as it progresses, or the truth-drug scenes in which animated questions should be replied to in a lifeless voice... or the question of whether I should attempt any accents or not. (Yes, we have some.)

Despite the challenges, it's a way to present my work that will attract a new set of readers, or should I say, listeners. For many people, I feel, audiobooks hark back to the days of "Mommy, read me a story!" and so have a kind of inimitable magic, as well as being accessible during times reading is impossible, such as while driving. I also know that I've been told many times that I am good at reading my own work, putting an extra energy into it that you don't get from the page or screen. Shirley, incidentally, is good at it, too.

The upshot is that at some point, and I don't know when, I'll be offering PA and ak this way. I have to figure out how both to read and use Audacity with more panache, and then learn/decide the technical details of how to disseminate, whether to make it premium content (i.e. you pay $) except for samples, or what. This is a distant heads-up.

Second topic, another heads-up but less distant: I'm going to take a week's hiatus on PA, starting this Friday until Nov. 23, but keep going on ak. Further in the future, I'll be taking time off again for Christmas/Yule on both books, though I haven't decided how much. I don't think I could stand taking more than nine days in a row (i.e. a work week) at this point.

But ak might actually reach an end by then. Truly... if you had a dead-tree book in your hands, you'd know: there'd only be maybe a sixth or an eighth of the width of the book in pages left. (I can't say exactly because I haven't worked out how long I'm going to spend with each of the events that have yet to happen, as I often never do until the day I write them, and as well I might well add scenes that I haven't even dreamed up yet.)

Once I'm finished ak, I'll be concentrating on PA until it comes to the point where it joins up with ak, and then, blessing of blessings, it'll be Chevenga's story in one nice long unbroken line. (Though I might do side-projects; Shirley and I actually have one planned for next year's Muskoka Novel Marathon.)

After that..... we'll see.





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