June Sweeps - Day 127

I remarked the other day how long audio editing takes versus video editing.

Today was a grey, rainy, miserable-looking day, so I took advantage and edited not one but two videos for YouTube.  Unfortunately, when I went to save the longer video (about twenty-seven minutes long), the program crashed.  As it often does.  We'll see if I get to it again.

I went looking for the oldest Storage Unit Serenade episode I had not yet put out, and found five different recordings of the same song.  There was wind blowing throughout, and it ruined all of the takes.  So the next day, I went back and did it again (twice), but must have been dumb enough never to check the playback, because only my head and neck are visible throughout, with the top of the wall and sky taking up the rest of the frame.  Sigh.

I also found three recordings of the same song from a month or so back, done over and over because I couldn't remember the words.  On the last take, the song was fine(ish), but the picture was slightly out of focus pretty much the whole time.  Too bad that.

I have a handful of words for the day, but not nearly what I should.

I think I'm going to record instead.

And then run.

And then, we'll see.

Sit-ups Today: 110
Sit-ups In June: 737 (24% of goal)

I did my usual run, and it was wet and rainy, but not at all difficult.  The last couple of nights in a row, I've noticed a football lying in the gutter at the half-mile point as I've ran by, and always been tempted to turn around and kick it, but never done so.  Tonight, the rain had washed it away, and I pondered that.

Something else to ponder:

So, I finally sat down and started recording "Three-Time Visitor."  Only took me, what, three months?  As I mentioned recently, I split it into three sections (one for each visit to the bed and breakfast), and while it wasn't as slow-going as some of my audio recordings have been* (I remember one chapter in "You're In Good Hands" took about fifty minutes to get done, and when I edited it, it was barely eleven or twelve), it still took me more than an hour to get just the first section recorded.

And there were a couple of moments where I thought, "Is this good?  I think it isn't," which may be the truth, or may just be my brain telling me to quit trying.  It's irritating that way.  The first part of the story is just this new character Alonzo talking to Mason, and a brief flashback.  The second part is Alonzo talking to Natalie, and more flashbacks.  The third part is him talking to both of them (I think), and a more extensive flashback, unless I'm remembering it wrong.**

As it stands, I forced myself to get through the whole of the first third, and then let myself take a break, but it had sapped my creative juices, and I didn't get any more writing done that night (did write as soon as I got up the next morning, though).

Words Today: 731
Words In June: 6231

*There are some where I just pour over every single line of dialogue or get frustrated with bits that should be scary or funny or emotional and aren't, or I scrutinize the overuse of certain words, change a word to something else, and then say, "Dammit!' a paragraph later when I find that exact same word again.  It doesn't happen every time I record audio, but pretty close to it.

**Which is possible.  Part of the conceit of the story is that Alonzo encounters a ghost in the B&B's off-season, and Mason just doesn't know how that could be possible.  But ever since writing this story (3TV is the fifth story, and we're on the eleventh or twelfth now), I've retconned Noble Oaks to be haunted all the time, and Mason has talked to and seen ghosts a dozen times when it's not July.  I don't know how to justify that, except to say that the spirits realized that Mason Bradley could be trusted, and decided to interact with him somewhere along the way.