Beating paths

 

Progress has slowed on getting the audio books out, for the Worlds Beside series, at least. I took a beat and developed a plan for the next few steps. I still need cover work for book 8, and I need a producer for book 3 and others (I’d like to stick with my original actor to wrap the series). All signs point to my trying to tap into some sort of crowdfunding. I think I’d like to offer a 4 book bundle, which would be the first half of the series, the audio versions as well, and if I could, probably set a mark that would allow for special art for the bundle. The plan calls for eating the voicework for book 3, which would be very difficult, but the crowdfunding plan would be even more challenging, so there’s that. In the meantime, I was fortunate enough to be invited to speak at a local high school about world building. Right about now is when I realize it would’ve been good to have taken some pictures. Oops. Regardless, thank you Dekalb School of the Arts. My own interests aside, I got the impression that some of the kids were happy with it, so I left feeling exhausted, but satisfied.

That effort earned me a little money, and I earmarked the windfall for a side-quest in producing: it wasn’t nearly enough money to finance book 3, but on a whim I realized that it would be enough to pay for the audio work for a novella of mine that didn’t enjoy much success at all. In 2010, I submitted it to a very tiny online press, and it garnered two reviews, both from staff at the zine, both negative. One of them was actually a haiku about how bad the person thought it was. As usual, criticism doesn’t feel great, and for me, it always brings up the question of what I could have done to create more positive feedback. Over the years, I think I’ve come around to clarifying that more positive feedback and better feedback are different, and really only one of them is important. I didn’t work on the story for the entirety of these intervening years, but I did do some edits, some rewrites, and the latest version is what I presented to artists for voicework. The feedback was positive, which is understandable to a certain extent. They were auditioning, so it makes sense that they would speak well of the work. I made some decisions, cut the list down, played some of the clips for friends. Ultimately the person I went with was the last person to audition. I wouldn’t even have heard him except I forgot how to close the process to additional queries. I thought “well, it was open, so I might as well listen,” and I am so very glad I did. If I’m being honest, he was an instant yes. I did a kind of due diligence, to feel more responsible, but there was very little doubt.

Over the time we worked together, he said some very kind and unwarranted things about the story, and the writing. He asked me if I had thought about turning it into a screenplay. He asked a number of questions I hadn’t considered. After all, this was a side-quest. Had I the resources, I would’ve been working on a different project. I could trace the entire enterprise back to saying yes to give an author talk (as opposed to letting the anxiety win), being tenacious about the mountains of paperwork to get the money for the opportunity (I thought about giving up at several points then, too), and debating all the ways I could’ve spent the money on something frivolous (or more pressing), and in the end thinking, “I’ll put it towards this. I think it would sound good read aloud.”

People talk about rollercoasters when they refer to swinging emotions. I worked on the story lovingly, and made my friends read it. I felt really good when I submitted it to that little online journal, and was crushed when it didn’t land at all. All I could think was how they didn’t understand. I had to accept that I didn’t work well enough to help them understand. But I loved it enough to get a friend to slap together some cheap photography for a cover, to submit it in ebook format so at least it was alive somewhere. And then in the most lukewarm manner, I submitted to the audio process, then when I heard my words come alive to the sound of someone else’s perspective, I was back at the beginning again, shaking with excitement. It might be a small thing, for voice talent, but the actor casually mentioned he had used some of the recording as part of his demo. He liked the words well enough to let them speak for him when he presented his talent to others. I think that was what I took away most gladly.

And what I give most gladly, is this small, but not so small thing.