Musings of Two Creative Minds

Christmas came early to me... Last night I received this comment over on my YouTube channel regarding my presentation of an unabridged version of Charles Dickens' classic "A Christmas Carol" from Barbara Ortiz... "This version is among the best, the added images are very nice, your extra research is appreciated. Ahh, also, your voice acting is spot on." This meant the world to me. I hope everyone else who's checked it out enjoyed it just as much. And if you wish to give it a try, I'm supplying the link just below. Happy Holidays everyone and may the season bring you all the joy and happiness it can. Link: Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, a Joyous Kwanzaa and a Happy New Year to you all.

The holiday season is upon us, and I hope you are all enjoying yourselves. I know I've been on the quiet side for some time, but I've been dealing with some health issues (which I'll discuss down the road, it's still not fully resolved yet). But I've also been working on a special project for the last 2 years. It's been quite a journey with this particular effort of mine, as it's part audiobook and part video.  As you all know I've done a fair amount of audio work, but adding video was a whole new ballgame for me. Getting everything lined up just right, finding imagery in public domain, as well as music to go along with it, took a considerable amount of time and energies. But I feel like the results were worth it. I learned a lot along the way and may actually start doing some podcasting in the near future. We'll see. But for now I'd like to present to you all to a brand new Unabridged presentation of Mr. Charles Dicken's classic "A Chri...

Well, after all these months of posting about making an audiobook, it's finally happened... I am now the newest voice actor over on Audible! To be honest, the reality of it is still kind of sinking in for me. We got the word on Tuesday, the day before Helen's and my 31st wedding anniversary. And it just seemed so perfect in so many ways. As you all know Helen wrote "Forever's Too Long" as her first solo novel, and she had me do the artwork for the cover. We've always been a team and we've always support each other in so many ways, so seeing this culmination of her writing skills, combined with my penchant for voices become a reality on the eve of our wedding anniversary just seemed so appropriate. To be honest, I'm still in shock over here. The idea of being the voice for an audiobook had been simmering in my mind for about a year or two before I actually tried it. A co-worker of mine who knew and loved our Para-Earth books kept tellin...

Okay now that we've covered as much of the technical that I'm aware of, let's move on to a new topic, namely doing the actual reading aloud. Now the first thing I'm going to say is please do not make yourself sound like Ben Stein. Unless of course your book is about curing insomnia, in which case then you might make a bundle on the open market. People do not want to hear a lifeless dull monotone performance. You put a lot into your work to make it come to life on the written page. Now you have to bring that same life into your reading. Mind you I'm not saying you have to put together a full-fledged performance complete with sound effects, mood music, and an entire cast. But you do need to give your listeners an interesting and gripping experience. Try to get them caught up int he moment with your voice and delivery. But equally as important you have to make sure your speaking clearly, not too fast, nor too slowly. You need to enunciate properly so they don...

As many of you have learned from my last post, my great adventure in audio recordings has begun. So far I have recorded only the one short story "Wolves and the Northern Lights", which comes from our first anthology book "The Vampyre Blogs - One Day At a Time". But simply recording one story is a far cry from turning a full-length novel into an audiobook. However, that is indeed my long term goal. At this point, I'm keeping things simple for myself as I still get used to the equipment both for recording as well as editing to get the best sound quality for listeners.  To keep things manageable for myself, I'm planning on recording the rest of the 25+ stories from the anthology, as well as slowly begin recording it's predecessor "The Vampyre Blogs - Coming Home".  Like the anthology, that novel is mainly comprised of blog, e-journal, and e-diary entries from various characters in the book.  And I plan on doing different voices for ...