Yvette Keller's Blog, page 18
July 17, 2018
Business Marches On
It’s been a rough month (or two) while I hung out with my sick mom, getting her settled into her new home. Just this weekend I managed to donate her costume collection and doll collection to worthy organizations who will make sure they get to the right homes.
Meanwhile, business marches on and The Corpse in the Cabana has been picked to participate in an online audiobook giveaway!
Check it out for your chance to win a BUNCH of free audiobooks.
May 29, 2018
Santa Barbara Literary Journal Reading
Great news, fans: I have been published in The Santa Barbara Literary Journal, a new biannual publication. SBLitJo, as it is fondly referred to by its “Editrix,” was inspired by writing prompt exercises during the 2017 Santa Barbara Writers Conference (SBWC). I was there, and I saw it all go down…no…up! In space! All the way to the Andromeda Galaxy.
Editrix Silver Webb brough to life this journal featuring works from SBWC conference alumni Yvette Keller, Matt Pallamary, Stuart Orenstein, Jan...
May 14, 2018
Listening is Learning
I’m almost finished listening to Artemis, by Andy Weir, Narrated by Rosario Dawson.
Very good book for doing laundry, dishes, and copying the addresses of convalescent homes into mapquest.
How was your day?
Anyhow, I’m not enjoying the super long, super technical, super boring ending (Ch 14 is the PITS), so I’m taking a break.
Also, I have questions:
1) Does Rosario say ‘t’s in real life? Because the main character, Jasmin, definitely doesn’.
2) Is it professionally an okay choice to keep di...
April 27, 2018
Sucking is Totally Acceptable in Service to Becoming Awesome
When I was flirting with the idea of becoming an audiobook narrator I tagged along to an informational session at Voice One school in San Francisco. My brilliant cousin Rob, an actor, singer, and co-founder of Sightglass Theater Company was checking them out and I went along for fun.
In that one-hour session, the bolt-of-lightning that struck me was something the founder, Elaine Clark shared. (I’m paraphrasing here, I’m sure she was more eloquent) She said she liked voice-ov...
April 23, 2018
Notes From The Studio Audience: Return to Base
If it hasn’t become clear to blog readers yet, “The Studio Audience” is me.
In this endeavor of learning how to do audiobooks, I am my own Producer, Actor, Director, Editor, and Marketer. I’m the only person with skin in this game, so especially when I am editing my narration, I work on several levels simultaneously. (I suspect this is part of why it takes so long.)
As I edit, I reflect, and learn, and try to figure out how to implement what I find in what I hear. I edited all weekend. I wil...
April 16, 2018
Notes From The Studio Audience: Conflicting Direction
I took a short break from recording The Death in the Drink to do some industrial recording; Updates to training videos I voiced last year.
After book chapters that take between 10 – 40 minutes to record, often with three to ten voices per chapter, the “micro-clips” of content seemed SO EASY. I just had to “make them sound like the other ones.”
Famous last words.
There are learning moments hidden in every job, especially when you’re expanding to new things. In this case, stemming from what a...
April 9, 2018
Notes from The Studio Audience: Audiobook Redshirts
The Viola Roberts Cozy Mysteries tend to have a few audiobook “Redshirts” in them; characters who show up in a scene as part of the setting and are never heard from again.
Most of the time, they are a fun opportunity to do something (reasonably) outrageous, or more difficult for my voice, because I don’t have to sustain them for hours.
On this occasion, “flat, mid-Western” accent was called out in the text, so I got to play around and give that a shot.
Feel free to critique the clip, especia...
April 5, 2018
Business Talk: Thanks, Dear Weekly Blog Subscribers!
I’ve been looking at my web traffic and you Weekly Blog Subscribers appear to be my biggest fans. More of you visit my website and I get most visits Wed, Thursday, and Friday.
So why do the monthly newsletter subscribers get all the most special things? Why are they are they *special?* Why don’t you *BLOG* subscribers also get special things?!
The answer is Economics. Trusting me with your name, email address, and a smidgeon of your attention to either read (or delete) my newsletter each mon...
April 2, 2018
Book Review: The Immortalists
Beginning The Immortalists after an astoundingly bad day resulted in intense nightmares. After the second dream of my dead father—deceased Jewish fathers being a major catalyst for the Golds in Chloe Benjamin’s book—my only option was to read my way past a night when the dark outside the bedroom window felt stuck inside of me.
The Immortalists is about four siblings and destiny. On a summertime lark, they sneak away to see a spiritualist and are each given their “death dates.” Readers travel...
March 17, 2018
It’s Book Club Day! (FINALLY!!)
After a hiatus of months and months and months, I’m at book club RIGHT NOW!!!
I thought I’d share what that looks like.
This is what it looks like after I read a book:
This is what it looks like after I read a book for book club:
All those sticky notes are indicators of hilarious lines, answers to the discussion questions, reminders of things I want to bring up about the tone, the style, the brilliance of the work.
And yes, it is true: when I read for discussion I read harder, closer, an...
