Weekly Update — 9 (Patreon)

I now find myself experimenting with tools unknown — or, at least, unknown to me for the longest time. I am referring to audio production, something that, while I’ve occasionally spoken in front of crowds of people, I have little experience with at the technical level. 

I was thinking, you see — about how I want to tell my stories. And the thought struck me that, yes, if I were J.K. Rowling, I certainly could get Steven Fry in to do my audio recordings, but I’m not. What are the chances that I’ll be able to attract a voice actor to voice my audio books who is both consistently high quality and aligned with my long-term tactical and strategic vision (Oh yes, you can tell I used to study business, can’t you?)

Well, at the moment, the chances aren’t great — not zero, but not great. So, I decided to look around and see what it would take for me to do my own recordings. Turns out you need three things:

1. A good voice

2. Experience with using it

and 3. The right equipment.

After asking a good few people in my close circle about whether they thought I had the voice for it (and probably sounding like an insecure orphan asking their newly adopted parents if they love him) I reached the conclusion that… yes, I probably could. So, that was that hurdle passed.

The right equipment wasn’t too much of a hassle, so that left just point three — the right experience.

Many of you know that my hobby project has an audio version, and that this audio version hasn’t really updated much in the last six months. This is because the voice actor for that project currently has a lot of awesome stuff on his plate, and would rather like to quietly drop his commitments on the audio project, if he could, please and thank you. I looked at this and thought, Mmmmmmm, I smell opportunity — opportunity to selfishly hoover up all that wonderful XP and max out my talent tree in the voice acting column (or at least get it up to end game standards).

My hope is that by the time the next Richard Struggle book is published, I will have managed to rack up a good number of hours training my voice for the part — that'll be part three taken care of, and 'Richard Struggle —
Available on Audible,' will become a thing.

Now, you’re possibly thinking, ‘Oh, Driven, please don’t tell me this is going to eat into his writing schedule?’ 

To which I reply, “Don’t worry, it won’t. Not much anyway. Certainly not for the schedule I’ve currently got posted, which is currently clear sailing and on track. *Big Thumbs Up*."

Also — Yes, clear sailing AND on track. We’re in some kind of land boat here, matey. Which would be an incredibly awesome fantasy theme now I think about it… A world where rough looking farmers surf their produce to market in sailing carts, pushed by the fierce wind, banking wildly over steep inclines, and where the phrase, ‘there’s no use crying over spilt milk,’ carries far more weight than it might in a more breezily challenged culture.

But I’m getting rather off the topic now.

If you’re following my hobby project, you can expect to hear my voice (my incredibly British drawl) sometime in the next few weeks.

Now back to the grindstone,

— J.M. Coombs (LeadVonE)