This summer I moved from my temporary home of Chattanooga, TN to a community that I found I could make connections and dig my roots in deep. Waynesville is a small town outside Asheville, NC. It has a folksy village feel. The arts community is diverse and rich here. Every move even good ones are unsettling.
I spent some time derailed. Unpacking, making home comfortable. I battled with narrating all summer and fighting my computer. I finished one book and got it into the hands of the publisher. My computer kept crashing with the narration program. Then September we went to Dragoncon. I came home with conference crud. You can’t narrate without a voice. I’ve realized this is something to be protected.
I was out six weeks with coughing and no voice. I start settling down to finish the book I am working on and the computer just can’t go on. So, I give in and send it to someone to have the thing completely reformatted to see if it fixes the issues.
I brought “Bessie” home and reloaded the audio software, did the prescribed updates. The sound was horrible….distant and bottom of the well. I won’t bore you with all the details. I spent two weeks troubleshooting with the software company. I removed and reloaded the software, dabbled with all the settings on my computer and the software…bought a new microphone….loaded the software onto another computer. Finally my S.O. bought me a desktop. We loaded the software there and it worked. I furiously went to work narrating. While I did this I kept the browser open. I would hear a little ding each time a email or FB message loaded. I thought nothing of it while I narrated ten chapters.
Then, in listening to a segment for editing I heard a little ding in the background. I have to do my own sound engineering for the job. I realized that little audible ding I heard from the email/FB somehow recorded into the system.
I now have ten chapters to listen to every word…every word…with intense focus listening for that little ding to re-record the sentence. In a job where time is money. I just shot myself in the foot.
Dang… hard first year lessons of a narrator.
J.R. Lowe Narrator 