Thursday, September 16, 2010

Listening to Myself Read

As you may recall, I record myself reading my short story manuscripts before I send them out so I can make sure it flows right (and to see if the transliteration works for things like gwan' and the foreign languages). It seems to help. Then I put the .mp3 with the manuscript in the folder and listen to it every once in a while just to hear myself talk.

From "Deep Sleep":
041 - Deep Sleep 1

This has improved two things about my writing, enumerated after the period. (1) If I can say it out loud with a straight face, I can write it, and practicing saying increasingly ridiculous things out loud can only weaken my already thin filter. (2) Listening to the soothing tones of my own voice reduces my need for human contact to preserve my social animal mojo, and so I can isolate myself in my writing chambers and tap away at Friend Computer with the help of my speculative pals.

As a bonus, my glib tongue remains well-exercised. This warm-up saves strain when I'm seducing pretty ladies at parties.

#

"So, gentlemen, we are agreed: We'll take a harrowing journey to the uncharted corners of the Earth, do some weird stuff, no women (of course). Then we'll return in triumph with a Pterodactyl (of all things), this to rub our success into their smug skeptic faces."

"Um, Professor Challenger: SPOILER ALERT?"

"No time, Malone! We must find somebody whose mysterious past can complicate up this expedition so that you can learn a valuable lesson about proper motivations for adventures."

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250 words? Yes
Book "Lived Too Long To Die"
- - - -
Reading - "The Lost World" (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

6 comments:

  1. Oops, sorry guys, the audio totally didn't work. It should be fixed now...

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  2. Still no audio access for me... but the idea sounds good! Speech and story therapy all in one.

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  3. Derp. I got nothin' too.

    I'm really hoping that's a story excerpt. That you are writing. ASAP.

    -bn

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  4. Damn, stupid Blogger. Anyways, yes, it's a story excerpt from my writing. I'm going to resolve the technical issues with a bit o' research and hopefully make a 30s excerpt a regular feature.

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  5. Have you submitted any of these stories anywhere? Reading aloud is great for flow. Approved.

    Also, what does a writer like yourself do in Thailand, of all places?

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  6. Oh, is that stupid audio link finally working? I swear when I figure it out, I'll make a special blog post for posterity. "Cheap-o David Fights With Blogger".

    Any short fiction that gets mentioned here is either churning around the pro markets (and sometimes a semi-pro market with a cool name) or has potential to be long fiction and is going through the cogitation-thinkum process.

    What I do in Thailand aside from writing is, for the immediate future at least, beyond the scope of this blog. For our purposes, just pretend I have the same occupation as the protagonist from 'The Windup Girl', because that is much cooler than the dull mystery the truth must for now remain.

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