Amanda Fleet's Blog, page 2

Progress...

I should have finished processing "War" by the end of the week and uploaded it! That's the longest book in the series, so I'm hoping that "Invasion" and "Chaos" will seem easier in comparison. That may just be wishful thinking though.

Once "War" is uploaded, I'm suspending audiofile processing until the New Year. I have other things stealing my time, and frankly, I also need a bit of a break from it. I'm also taking a break from posting on here until the New Year, so let me take this opportunity to wish everyone "Happy Holidays" and I will catch up with you all in the New Year. 

30 minute timers...

... yep. Back to needing to use them to get any kind of enthusiasm for audiobook recording going. "Just do 30 minutes" will invariably lead to me actually getting my head in the right place and doing more than that. I just need to get started. And even though I know the 30 minutes will undoubtedly turn into more, my brain is still fooled by the promise of "Just 30 minutes and if you still don't want to do any, you can stop, but at least you'll have done 30 minutes."

Why am I struggling with this so much? Well, partly it's because it's quite a tedious process... I'm at the stage of cutting out all the sound between sentences, to remove breath sounds and mouth clicks and so on. It takes about 3x as long as the actual recording is to do this, and check I've not clipped something I shouldn't. It has to be done, both because it makes a much better experience for the listener not to have me wheezing away, but also, quality control will (quite rightly) reject the files when I upload them if the breath sounds and mouth clicks and so on are still in there.

But the other reason I'm struggling to get on with this, is because I'm tired and running on empty at the moment. The anniversary of losing Dad hit me hard. My "get up and go" seems to have got up and gone somewhere else. And the audiobook processing seems to have no end!

30 minute chunks. I'll get there. Eventually.

In the meantime, please send cake?

Audiofile processing is going slowly...

 ...knitting is going much better!

The two may be linked.

Black Friday Sale!

 

I really don't do this often, but Aegyir Rises is on sale for Black Friday, for 99c/99p. The last time I did a price-reduction was a year ago, so don't miss out. It won't be on sale again for maybe another year!

Grab your copy right here.

Not only that, but I'm part of a HUGE group sale, where all the books are 99c/99p or FREE. There are 190 books in the budle so you're sure to find something you'll love!

Check out the fan favourites here...

...and the new additions here.

Happy reading!

No plan survives contact...

 ...with the enemy.

I'd be hard pushed to say "life" was really an enemy, but my plan of being done with the audiobooks by the end of the year is in tatters. Why? A number of things, which I guess could all loosely be described as "life".

Partly it's because I was wildly over-optimistic about how much audiobook file processing I could stand to do in a day. About an hour of audiobook takes about 4 hours of processing, and there are a lot of hours to process. Given that I can't actually spend all day on audiobook processing (even if I wanted to, which I don't), I'm only getting through about an hour of recordings a day. At that rate, I'll be done in Spring 2023!

Partly it's due to health issues: I'm not feeling 100% and there are days when I can barely face sitting down at the laptop to do anything, never mind process the audiobook stuff. Migraines have been bad recently and these just wipe me out. They also tend to plague me on the exact days I might have a full day at stuff.

Partly it is just Life. Other people need me, so I never have a 40-hour working week at writing stuff (whether that's audiobooks, writing, marketing, all of the above). At best, I have about a 24 hour week. I do marketing stuff on one day and other writing stuff on three days of the week, maximum. A lot of weeks, those four days get chipped away. This week (for example) I'll be doing well if I get one day at it.

It's okay. I knew it would be a long haul. I know there's no deadline or time limit on any of it. It will be done when it's done. The more I stress about it, the more I'm unwell, which is counterproductive. And you know what? I left work so that I could protect my health and not be ill with stress all the time, so if spending a day away from work, working on designing a sweater, or walking on the beach is better for me than forcing myself to do work, why would I not do that?

"Invasion" is now recorded!

In fact, by the time this posts, I should have re-recorded the handful of bits for "Chaos" I need to do, so all of the recording will be done!!!

I will be so pleased when that happens. The main heating in the room with the recording tent, is an air-to-air heat pump which isn't silent, so can't be on when I'm recording, and it gets cold in that room! In fact, that's the main reason I went ahead and recorded all the books and didn't stop to do the processing/edits of each before starting the next. I'll leave the recording tent up until all the processing is done too, just because it's such a faff to put it all back up again, and you could bet your bottom dollar that if I took it down, I'd find I had a sentence or two to re-do!

It will probably take me until the end of the year to finish all the editing/processing of the files - I have three books to do: "War", "Invasion" and "Chaos". Has it been worth my time and effort? Um, maybe. Maybe not. I guess they don't have a shelf-life. My brain wasn't feeling at all creative after losing my father, so it filled in time when I couldn't write. Sales are very low at the moment, but that means they can only go up. Will I do it again, for any other books I write? Probably. Since I read a book aloud as part of a final proofread/edit, I may as well record it (that's what I did with "Chaos").

So what's next?

I cannot do full days on the editing/processing. It's mind-numbingly slow and tedious, and I start to make mistakes after a while. I sorted out a "notebook for playing in" a couple of weeks ago and I've been scribbling a bit some nights. The little people who live in my head are stirring, finally. There may actually be too many little people stirring in my head, but we'll see. It's just a relief that they haven't left permanently.

The plan is to edit/process until I start to get totally fed up, then allow myself some playtime, and see if anything starts to firm up into an actual plot. I still have "A Promise Through Time" to edit, and that will come first, but it would be good to have something else on the boil for when that's finished.

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"Daylight saving" ends

I've always thought that "daylight saving" was a bizarre term. Where is the daylight being saved? In a special piggy-bank? It also implies that (through some miracle) day length actually changes. It doesn't (though there seem to be a load of numpties on Twitter who think it does!).

As ever, there's also a large cohort of people on Twitter who think we should stick to "daylight saving" the whole year - essentially move to BST and away from GMT. They clearly do not live in Scotland. Personally, I would rather stick with GMT all year round. Daylength is so long up here in the summer (almost 18 hours in midsummer where I am; even longer if further north) that it doesn't really make any difference. Dawn is still way earlier than anyone tends to get up, and dusk is later than many people's bedtime.

For me, in many ways, it doesn't make any material difference. I work for myself. I am in control of when my day starts and ends. I tend to get up early, so now that we're back to GMT, I'm still up with the dawn, but that's 6.30 am not 7.30 at the moment. It also means that by 4.30 pm (dusk/dark) I'm happily done for the day and ready for a cosy evening.

I suppose the bigger issue is for those who work where lunch is considered "the middle of the day", and is (for some convention) round about 1-2pm. That works in BST - the sun being at its highest point then and it actually being the middle of the working day. But when we get past the clock change, it makes the work day less aligned with the solar day.

I don't know when the work day shifted away from being aligned with a solar day. When (and why?) did 1pm become lunchtime, rather than noon? If you know, tell me in the comments?

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On needing a notebook for 'playing'

I've started recording "Invasion". I think it will take me about three weeks to record the files, plus some I realised I need to re-do for "Chaos" and process them through the first stage of editing. After that is a long haul of processing all of "War", "Invasion" and "Chaos" to their final stages. If I don't give myself something else to be doing while I slog through all that, I will go crackers!

Enter... a 'playtime book'. A place where, at the end of a day of processing audiofiles, I can 'play' for an hour or so. Not really planning anything new, just playing around with ideas and characters. Or just doodling. Trying to encourage the Muse to come back out of retirement.

Naturally, since I also write and review for Nero's Notes, I have a gazillion notebooks in the cupboard! Which one to use? That kind of question has paralysed me for days in the past. (Not even joking!)

Image from Nero's Notes, with permission

But I think this time, it might have to be the Pebble Notebook I reviewed here. It's dot grid, which in all honesty, isn't perhaps my favourite (I prefer lined) but the paper is amazing (Tomoe River, for those in the know) and as it's dot-grid, it probably won't make it to a final cut for a notebook in which to plan a book.

It seems a shame to have such a splendid notebook and not use it, and it would be a luxurious reward at the end of a long day of processing, to have it as my 'playtime book'.

Fancy a playtime book of your own? You can get the Pebble notebook from Nero's Notes in blue here, and in grey here.

"War" now recorded!

Okay, only recorded, not processed and ready to actually purchase... but all the audiofiles have now been recorded. Hooray!!!

I had originally intended to record all the files for "War" and "Invasion" ("Chaos" is already recorded, though not edited/processed yet) and then do all the edits/processing, but my voice won't hold out for more than a morning, so I've been recording in the morning and doing the first stage of edits in the afternoon. Slower in some ways, but more manageable.

I've ended up shifting where my weekend is. It's much quieter on a Sunday than it is in the week, so my working week is now running Sunday to Thursday, giving me Friday and Saturday as weekend days. The back of the house, where the recording tent is, is pretty quiet and as far from traffic as I can get and still be inside, but the noise from the lorries that thunder past the front of the house can make it through to the back. Almost invariably coinciding with when I'm doing a second take of a line I've just messed up, meaning I need a third take!

I'm hoping to have all the recording for "Invasion" done over the next three weeks, and then the slower process of the second stage of editing/processing of the three books ("War", "Invasion" and "Chaos") will take me until probably Christmas. But at least the recording tent can come down this year!

Four down. One to go.

I'm getting there. I am. I really am!

Remember, if you want to hear either Aegyir Rises or Aeron Returns for FREE and get a free month's trial of Audible, check out these links:

Aegyir Rises as your first book - US customers

Aegyir Rises as your first book - UK customers

Aeron Returns as your first book - US customers

Aeron Returns as your first book - UK customers

Of course, you can also add the audio narration to the ebook for less than the cost of a coffee and a cake, or if you're already an Audible customer, you could use your Audible account to get the audiobook for even less.

Why writing is like knitting...

Huh?

Let me explain.

Right now, I'm in the middle of knitting a patterned jumper that I designed myself, and as I was designing (and knitting) it, it struck me that there are a number of common themes between writing a book and knitting a sweater.

Pattern (plot)  

The pattern (plot) shouldn't be too busy or complicated, otherwise the overall result will be masked. There should be enough complexity to keep it interesting, but you should still be able to see an overall design. I feel the same way about a plot... there should be complexities and detail, but not too much. I've read books both with too little plot (making them dull) and also ones with too many different strands (making them impossible to follow). Or a plot strands that was introduced at the start and then not seen again until three quarters of the way through the book, and then only picked up again right at the end. For me, in a sweater, this would be like doing one round of pattern near the neck or hem, then knitting another pattern entirely for much of the garment, then doing a few rows of pattern 1 part way through, then another bit just as I was casting off. It doesn't work (for me) in a book and it doesn't work (for me) in a sweater, either. It's fine to have several patterns (plot strands), but they need to get fairly equal, and even, representation.

Colour balance (characters)

In a sweater, the colours should go together. That's not to say they should all be the same, or even in the same palette. Often a small amount of a very bright colour can really change the character of a piece of knitting, in the same way that a very loud or intense character can influence the overall feel of a book. You can't have all the characters as loud and brash and in your face, or none of them would stand out. Nor do you want them all the same. But the blend of them together should allow them to complement one another.

Size

In my experience, a book has a natural length. Sometimes this is a fairly short and snappy length. Sometimes (looking at you, "War"!) the book needs space to grow. I've read many a book where it felt as if there was a big wodge of padding, about three quarters of the way through, that added little to the plot or characterisation but seemed to be there just to make the book a particular length. I've also read books where it's felt as if there had been a massive cutting session to remove a vast chunk of the book, to make it shorter.

A wrap cardigan doesn't suddenly need extra rows added to make it hip-length, and a knitted coat needs to keep your bum warm.

Finishing

In knitting, the ends need weaving in, pieces may need to be joined together, the garment way well need to be 'blocked' (wetted and then manipulated a little to even out stitches and give a good finish). You can never really cast a garment off the needles and instantly wear it. Nor can you stop typing/put your pen down at the end of a first draft of a book and say "It's done!" Ends need weaving in; any mistakes need sorting out; it needs 'finishing'.

The little people in my head are trying to talk to me again. They've been silent for so long, they're needing a bit of time to find their voices I think. But while I'm waiting for them to come back as loudly as they used to be, I'm knitting my sweater and thinking about plots, patterns, character strands and colour, and convincing myself that I'll be writing again soon.

I hope.

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