New Reading, Song, and Sheet Music

I have added new content to my website, all of which can be found at http://gods-among-men.com/blog/books/book1.

Included is a reading of Chapter 5, Through Persuasion and Force,…, as read by my wife Kathryn.   The direct link to the reading is http://gods-among-men.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Book1Chap5Kathryn.mp3. 

Kathryn has also completed a new song, called Zephyr.  It is the anthem for the kingdom ruled by the Rihtwis clan.  It can be heard at http://gods-among-men.com/Uploads/Music/Zephyr.mp3.

I have also posted PDF’s of Kathryn’s sheet music for everything she has completed so far.  Here are links to her sheet music.

http://gods-among-men.com/Uploads/SheetMusic/At%20the%20Lady's%20Behest%20Comes.pdf

http://gods-among-men.com/Uploads/SheetMusic/I%20Remember%20Marcus.pdf

http://gods-among-men.com/Uploads/SheetMusic/I%20Remember%20Marcus%20Reprise.pdf

http://gods-among-men.com/Uploads/SheetMusic/Zephyr.pdf

For those paying attention, yes we have skipped chapter 4, …And Strikes Down the Inner Circle.  I will be getting back to it as soon as I can either find someone to perform a reading of it or free up some time to do one myself.

Rich has offered to do a reading of chapter 7, …And Critical Moments Relived….  I will be sending him the updated text shortly and will post his reading as soon as possible.

In the meantime, I have to incorporate the Magic City Writers’ Group edits to chapter 11, …Cause All to Cry ‘Havoc’!   The reviews of the chapter were very positive, but some of the changes will require a substantial amount of effort to complete.  I expect it will take me a couple weeks to complete that task.

Once I finish with those edits, Lindy has offered to perform a reading of that chapter.

As you can see, quite a lot has been happening all at the same time.  And I still have to resume my efforts to find an agent, revamp my website, find artwork I can display on the website, and get cracking on editing what I have already written for the second book, …Demiurge, Unbound,….

Until next time, have fun and party down.

New and Modified MP3’s

Kathryn has been writing music which I am now using in my audio readings.  I have replaced the music in the first two chapters with snippets from three of the songs she has composed.  I have also posted my reading of chapter three, ...Warns the Ruling Circle,..., which also uses Kathryn’s music.

I also added mp3’s of the songs Kathryn completed.  She is working on several others, and I look forward to sharing them with everyone when she is done. 

All the updated content can be found at http://gods-among-men.com/blog/books/book1. 

Kathryn’s songs are called, At The Lady’s Behest Main Theme, I Remember Marcus, and I Remember Marcus Reprise. 

I did not add sound effects to the recording of chapter three.  I did, however, tweak the voices of Tara and Morel using some of Audacity’s cool features.

OH…MY…GOD!

Altering every instance of when either Tara or Morel spoke was a royal pain in the @$$.  Morel came out ok, but Tara’s voice isn’t right.  I tried (with limited success) to modify my voice so it would sound more feminine.  I find the results underwhelming, especially considering how long they took to achieve.   I doubt I shall ever mess with voices that way ever again.

The posted text of chapters two and three are a little different than the readings at the moment.  The reading are actually a little more up to date.   Minor edits in various spots made certain sentences less of a tongue-twister

Now I am going to do a read through of chapter five, Through Persuasion and Force,..., which Kathryn will be recording soon.  Till next time, have fun and party down.

The Benefits of Reading Your Work Aloud

Today’s Magic City Writers’ Group meeting was canceled, so I have not had full reviews yet on my submission.   I did, however, talk with Lindy and Kathryn enough to have an insight. 

Lindy liked the pacing of the chapter better than my previous submissions.  In our conversation I realized my writing improved in part from the audio readings I had been doing.  

The Rhythm of A Story

Doing an initial read-through does not take long.   A lengthy chapter might take about an hour to read aloud.  A benefit in that reading is discovering where I stumble and unearthing why.  The process often reveals long undiscovered errors and ambiguities hidden in the morass of words and punctuation.

But the real advantage comes in the next step: editing out all the mistakes and retakes until the audio matches the text.  This forces  me to listen to the story over and over, not just read it. 

This experience affected my final edit of the chapter I submitted to the group.  The ear for awkward sentences I developed during the audio readings appears to have help tighten the pace on my writing style and smoothed out some of my rough sentences.  

During my discussion with Lindy about this development she suggested even greater gains could be derived from hearing someone else read the chapters.  I had talked before with Kathryn about her doing some of the voices.  (I don’t do female voices well.)  But I hadn’t considered the possible benefits of hearing someone else’s reading of my work. 

The Parallax Perspective

In college, I learned about the four parts to any story: what the author meant, what he/she actually wrote, the reader’s interpretation of those sentences while reading them, and the reader’s memory of what they liked and disliked about the story as a whole.

Each reader emphasizes different moments, each has unique experiences while reading the text.  This difference is reflected in their voice when they read the text aloud.  Listening to how someone else interprets my words would grant me greater insight into how a reader perceives what I have written.  Which in turn would better inform my future edits.

Both Lindy and Kathryn have expressed interest in reading a chapter.  (Amazing what incessant pestering can accomplish.)  Kathryn has opted to read chapter five, Through Persuasion and Force,…. I expect we will record her reading in the next few days.  Lindy choose the chapter I submitted for review, …Cause All to Cry ‘Havoc’!   The current plan is to record her reading on Sunday after the rescheduled meeting of the writers’ group. 

What I will forgo for the time being is all the special audio effects.  There is value in differentiating between spoken words and thoughts, so I will probably do that much audio editing.  But I think I will not add sounds of thunder, or a horse galloping on cobblestones, or fire burning in the fireplace, and so forth.  While fun to do, that effort is time consuming; and in the end the work must stand on its own, relying solely on the text as written.  Perhaps when seeking diversion I will revisit a reading and add sound effects to create an “enhanced version” for those who like such extras.

I look forward to discovering where this journey leads.

When Last We Met

On Wednesday, August 11, 2010, the Magic City Writers met and reviewed my fifth chapter entitled Through Persuasion and Force,….    

The meeting was small  again.  Kathryn, Lindy, and myself.  Nicole was unable to attend, as was our hoped for new member Emily.   

And now onto the food.

Let’s Torture Alex by Mentioning What We Ate

Since we were meeting at 6 pm, we ate dinner before the meeting.  We went for a low key meal.   Kathryn picked up some breaded chicken tenders at Publix, garlic mashed potatoes, and garlic cheese toast.  For snacks we had some crackers with a nutty flavor. 

An Now What We Did

I had rewritten Through Persuasion and Force,… from scratch and was feeling pretty proud of it.   Normally this would be a sign of impending doom, an invitation for an ego bruising recitation of what was wrong with the chapter. 

This time, it turns out I had some reason to feel proud.  The chapter was the longest I had ever submitted, but took far less time to review than my previous submissions.   The entire meeting lasted less than an hour and half, whereas normally it takes us four hours (or more) to go over a work in detail.

It was agreed that this was the best chapter I had written to date.  Yes, there were flaws to be addressed, but not nearly as many or as severe as my earlier attempts. 

Without going into details, I was advised by Kathryn and Lindy to fix the problems they pointed out, then not edit this chapter again.  It can be considered complete.

This is a personal milestone.  Never before have I received so positive a review.

The Remains of The Day

Afterwards I retired to write this post, while the others went their separate ways.   Lindy had places to go, and Kathryn needed to finish working on her submission for next time.

Coming Attractions

We tentatively set the date for the next meeting to be Wednesday August 25th at 6:00 pm.  Again the plan is to eat dinner first, followed by reviewing Kathryn’s submission.

Until my next post, take care and have fun.

When Last We Met…

On Sunday, July 25, 2010, the Magic City Writers met and reviewed the beginning of Lindy’s novel, The Night Things.    

The meeting was small; just Kathryn, Lindy, and Myself.  Nicole was unable to attend, as was our hoped for new member Emily.   

Before describing what happened, let’s talk about  the food.

Let’s Torture Alex by Mentioning What We Ate

As snacks we served three types of cookies: peanut butter, chocolate chip, and oatmeal raisin.   In a word, yum.

For dinner Kathryn made a very good Cobb Salad, using the official recipe from the The Hollywood Brown Derby, home of the original Cobb Salad.  She even hand made the salad dressing that is supposed to be used on it.  It required a bit of tweaking (chicory was impossible to find, and blue cheese was substituted for Roquefort ) but the result was delicious.  Great job, Kathryn.

Just for the records, the salad consists of water crest and romaine lettuce, tomato, bacon, chicken, hard boiled eggs, avocado, blue cheese, chopped chives, and tuna.  

The dressing’s ingredients do not live up to their combined taste, so I shall not bother listing them.

Later we were suppose to have either watermelon or ice cream for desert.  I regret to say that we were so sated from dinner we forgot to have desert.

Oh woe is me.   Now we shall have to eat these items later in the week. 

An Now What We Did

Lindy knew that her submission was a rough, first draft.  She asked we only give her general comments.   i.e. Focus on structure and plot problems, not so much on details or grammar.

I think my idea of general comments was a lot closer to her concept of line-by-line edits.   For that, I apologize to her.

The consensus was that The Night Things contains many strong elements, and that Lindy needs to flesh out or rewrite certain portions.   Some parts were quite good, and other parts needed more work. 

After reducing Lindy to a shadow of her former self, we did writing exercises based on an idea of Kathryn’s.  Her idea was to practice our ability to describe items based only on how they feel. 

One at at time, we each put odd shaped objects into a box and closed the lid so the others could not see what it was.  We each reach into the box and felt the items, never looking at them.  Afterwards we wrote a few sentences describing what we felt.   

This was a great idea.  It required flexing unusual writing muscles and focusing on subtle details.  This was a very useful exercise for me, and I think for the others as well.  Another great job, Kathryn.

The Remains of The Day

After dinner, we retired upstairs and watched a Mystery Science Theater 3000 riff on a movie called Jack Frost.  This movie hammered and glued a number of Russian folklore stories together into one of the dumbest movies in history.  Basically it was a deranged mixture of Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and Sleeping Beauty with liberal doses of the Baba Yaga myths.   Needless to say, at times we laughed till we cried.

Afterwards I retired to write this post, while the others went their separate ways..

Coming Attractions

We set the date for the next meeting to be Wednesday August 11 at 6:00 pm.  This time, we shall eat dinner first, then rip to shreds my fifth chapter, Through Persuasion and Force,….   

I am especially looking forward this, because I just finished a complete (and much needed) rewrite of this chapter.  At the moment I am feeling quite proud of myself and need to be taken down a notch.   I feel certain the others shall oblige me.

Until my next post, take care and have fun.