Fresh from the recording booth

I guess yesterday threw all of us for a loop. I mean, in our forensics universe, Boston looms way large, so immediate fears were for people we might know, quickly giving way to fears for people we don't know. And then anger. Life is tough enough without this sort of thing going on. Damn.

Still, something like this happens and then we get back to business. What else can we do?

I was going to post this yesterday, but I thought I'd give it a rest for a day. But now, as I say, back to business. It's from the annals of things that, if I had thought about it a little more, I would have expected exactly this outcome:

I motivated myself to get that first chapter of The House on Summer Street recorded over the weekend. It’s been a while, let me tell you. But the old microphone wasn’t far away, and after a little poking about in Audacity, I was ready to go. Then I opened the book, and read through the first chapter to reorient myself, and, good grief, I really enjoyed it. I like Ben, the narrator, and his voice is fun. And then I did the recording, and this is where, if I had thought about it, I would have expected the outcome. First, there are still the tiniest of textual errors, despite having combed through this thing like crazy innumerable times, and you catch them when you’re reading it aloud because they’re not misspellings but real words albeit the wrong words, like Dan for Dad, or there’s a comma where there should be a period. Easy stuff to miss when you’re proofing because the mind tricks you into seeing what should be there. Second, I really enjoyed myself as I was recording, and despite the amount of work involved, now I really want to do an audio of the whole book.

That’ll kill a few hours.

I had second thoughts when I went back to edit it. Do I really want to devote this much time to a recording? I have no idea what to do with the audio after I record it. As I said, I’ll use the first chapter as a teaser. But the whole thing? I just don’t know. I really can't sell it, and I don't mind giving it away, but I’m not exactly sure how. I don’t want to make it too easy for people, because I’d rather they read it that listen to it, but I don’t want to make it too hard, either. Oh, well. I’ll figure out something, if I do the whole thing.

On the forensic front, it was a rather successful weekend for the Sailors, winning not one but two divisions at the NYSFL championships. And both the winners made it to finals in their other event. Jeesh. I’m going to start taking coaching credit for our Speecho-Americans, rather than letting Spons, the speech coach, take it all for herself, even if I have nothing much to do with it. I mean, I do all the hard stuff. I entered them into the tournament on tabroom.com, for instance; that alone is worth something. And I ordered the bus! And I stayed out of their way with great efficiency the rest of the time; isn’t there a reward for that?

Of course, that pretty much puts paid to the Sailor year, except that both these guys are going to CatNats next month. And it’s still only April. I guess I will have plenty of time to do all the recording I want to do of Summer Street.