The Beginning Of A Career Or The Ending Of A Dream?

Ever since I was 5 years old I have wanted to be a published Author. Over the years I have writen many many stories but either something has happened to them (like deleted chapters from removing a floppy incorrectly) or I never finshed them being young and silly. However I never lost the dream, and now, in my early thirties, I have decided it is time to get serious.

For the last several months I have been working on a novel which I believe has great promise. I have read and reread chapters as I’ve gone alone. Made some serious changes as well as tiny ones.Have a thousand ideas for the next few stories in the series, and know that as I go I am sure to come up with even more.  Now I think it is just about ready to be published. However, I will reread it once again just to make sure my last changes are going to flow well, and that I don’t need to do a little more editing before I start the often painful process of finding a publisher.

When it comes to getting published it can be quiet difficult. I believe if you trully feel you have a story worth publishing then you can get published. It just takes a lot of dedication and persistence.    I have never tried before so this is all going to be a learning experience for me, and I am bound to make  mistakes, and get rejected more than a few times if my research so far has told me anything.  However, as I learn thing I am going to share that experience with you. Perhaps I might even help another aspiring writer.

Indy Study: Back it up! Back it Up!

Just a happy reminder to back up any and all project files! My computer had a angry moment this week and decided to just go haywire on me! Luckily I had most everything backed up, i did loose what I had been mid work on, which is not so happy, but at least I have all the raw files and can do it over again. Still , that was hours worth of work down the tubes, and not because I hadn’t been saving. I am a devout saver! Unfortunately, I lost all the files  I had open  and I had to pull up my back up files.  It’s a bit of a head ache but better then loosing everything! I doubt half a term would be enough to start from scratch.

That aside, things seem to be gong well. I may have said it before, and if so, I’ll say it again. This project has turned out to be a lot of fun so far but a bit tricky at times not having a visual element to help me line sounds up exactly right.  I have to close my eyes and try to mentally picture the action taking place and then try to edit. I suppose on a project like this it would be best to have as many segments as you can recorded on location instead of trying to mog pog sounds together to create an environment. However, thats not a real option at this point, and I don’t have any dragons handy to assists!

I maybe taking a small break to spend a few days doing some serious packing this coming week. Hopefully it won’t interfere with my project timeline.

Just to recap, Save, Save, Save, and back it all up!

Indy Study: Cut, Shift, and Edit

Just going through all the sounds I’ve recorded and working on putting bits and peices together into something more substancial.  As I try to create segments of story I find new ways to do what I originally planned. Making slight changes here and ther and taking not of more sounds to record.

Finding that it is a bit tougher syncing up sounds when there is no visual to aid me. Such as how exactly should the breathing of my dragon sync with the wing flaps? Should I run around flapping my arms while I breath? Actually thats an idea. I’m thinking intake on the up stroke and out on the down but to actually accomplish this is turning out slightly more complicated then I’d planned. However, its nothing I can’t manage! Just keep on trackin!

Indy Study: Roars and Snores

Did some more recording this weekend.  Dave, one of my voice actors, helped me do a final flush out of my script.  Then we recorded, I read with him and we did it in sections, and recorded them over a few times each.  I’ll be able to pick the best ones out,or I might feel he did one line better here but the rest better there, so I can cut them up and splice them together. I can take away space or add it, but that will come later, Right now I am still gathering my bits and peices.  Now I just need to have my other voice actor re-read his par with the altertions I’ve made to the script. In reality I should have done this much sooner, but as I have said this is my first go at this and it is a learning experience.

I had planned to go tromp through the woods again but didn’t have time so I will have to do that soon so I can get to just straight editing!  Once I have gathered all my bits and peices the hard part is putting them together and getting a working product, but hopefully that will go without too many glitches. I am sure as I am editing every thing together I will realize I need something here and there and have to go record it, but that is ok. As I start putting things together that is when I find out what works and what doesn’t. Also it isn’t nessessary to wait til you think you have everything you need before you start editing stuff together. It is good to work on sections at a time as your gather yur materials if you can.

I don’t have a visual to go by other then my written script, and some areas, such as when my characters are talking it is going to be easiest to get the dialog functioning befor adding other sounds, but when the dialog isn’t setting the pace for the action I can work on those seperatly and then edit them together later.

I did work on some more dragon sounds, can’t have too many of those after all. Plus there just a lot of fun to do. If you have some pent up agression, get a mic and just start screaming! It’s always fun and you may find use for the recording later. My vocalist and I took turns roaring at the mic and it sure made me smile!

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Indy Study: Rewrite Dialog!

So I had a wonderful recording session with my voice actors only to find out I don’t like the flow of my story, it just wasn’t quiet right. So it needs some minor tweeks.Were really taking just a few minor changes that would be simple enough to just rerecord the line if it weren’t I also don’t care for the style we recorded it in.  So well have to rerecord it all in a slightly different voice styling.  Hopefully we will get this taken care of quickly so I can move ahead. Luckily there is still a lot of other things I can be working on in the meantime so production will continue.

Indy Study: It’s a wash!

I just tossed the whole set in here, but some recordings are clearly better then others.  However this is all from the same day, same stream, just different spots of it, different angles and distances.  Just thought it would be nice to show how many different recordings you can get from one source and why it is a good idea to get several recrdings and not just one or two.

Also out of everything I recorded Subday, I’d say only some of the water turned out usable, most of the other things I recorded just had too much wind interference.  I was using a wind screen on my mic, but it just couldn’t compete to the wind thats been kicking up here lately.

Indy Study: Nature Rarely Cooperates!

 

Since my story takes place outside and in the woods it is a given that I need woodland sounds.  I had wanted to go out into the woods where there would be no people to interup or sounds of vehicles bussing by in the back ground, or even the dreaded water on electric line buzz! However, with all the flooding and high winds and a not always relieable car and kids in toe, Mt. Pisca was a better option this weekend.  Now any time your out recording sounds you want to record  as much as you can so that you can pick the best sounds for whatever your project is. This is especially true when in a area with wind, people, dogs, and other uncomtrolable noises you may not want . People will not always be considerate of what your doing, just as poeple will walk in front of you when your taking a picture they will be roudy and loud even though they see you recording. Even people who think they are being polite       more then likely wont be aware of how much sound carries and what a mic will pick up when they think their out of range. So don’t get mad, just be prepared to work around them.

I went out today knowing I might not be able to get any really clear sounds and was, and still am, prepared to go out again to try again until i have enough usable audio waves. I recorded 73 audio clips todays ranginging between 30 sec to 4 min.  Now I already know there are several I’ll have to discard completely, and others I may just chop up and keep for other projects.  The majority of these sounds will probably go straight into my archives in their raw form for later use. It will probably be closer to 20 sound clips after I am done sorting through them. How many of these sounds will actually make it into the completed project is yet to be determined.

I recorded the stream in several different locations, distances and sides. I sat in th woods a ways up where there was no one else around and did a 4 min recording of just the woods! I decided to do 4 mins because, unlike a room, nature isn’t quiet and i didn’t want the same leaf repeating its fall too many times when I loop it under my other sounds.  I recorded running through grass, leaves, water and gravel as well as along deer tracks, which let me know just how out of shape I am..wow! If I needed the sound of a middle aged woman breathing hard this would have been the time to get it, but atlass, I do not. I brushed up against tress, and ferns, and got attacked by several pissed off black berry bushes in my attempts to create the sounds that may be involved when one runs through dense woodland. After about two hours I figured it was time to get the kids out of the cold and called it good for the day. However I will be out again to collect more sounds of nature I am sure. I have plenty however to keep me busy for a few days editing.

In the process of todays recording I not only had to face obnoxiously loud wind, cruel thorns,   over exhurstion, and annoying people, but I lost my hat!  My daughter insisted we go find it and luckily it was too far behind or I would have left it for the scavengers. This is one reason I did not wear my good hat, it was just a stand in, stunt hat if you will.