So, it's a new day and I woke up twice during the night, the second time in pitch blackness, hearing a sound I couldn't place. It was a hissing sound, coming from upstairs, and I thought, "Is that the wind? Is there a gas leak? Is there a generator running somewhere?* The darned Babadook again?" But it turned out it was rain--that tiny misty kind that doesn't drip so much as spray.
But now I'm up--well before my alarm--and starting to edit again. Since I won't be here next week (it's Thanksgiving), and probably won't be back the week after (it'll be practically December then, and we've never made it up here in December (the roads get snowed out and you get stuck, even in a pickup truck), I'm trying to get in some serious work this visit.
I was telling my cousin that I learn something new every time we do a toy sale in a parking lot or mall or store, and it's the same way with each of these audiobooks. On this one, there are three female characters--all with English accents--that speak to each other, and it's a real challenge to get Wisteria, Shimmer, and Ilsa to sound different from one another.** Also, there are a couple pairs of male characters who sound very similar (Dazzle and Halvery, Stefan and Moshi, Arcove and Carmine), and on the few occasions when they interact, I really struggle to make them obviously distinct people . . . something that kicks me in the Boston Baked Beans when I'm editing.
And editing, as I can't stress enough, is more time-consuming than you can imagine. I make a lot of decisions on the fly while I'm recording--how long to space out my sentences and paragraphs, how to pitch and accent the voices, whether to stop when I hear a car or train or child or f***ing motorcycle in the distance, various performance choices, whether or not to do a line over (I often say, "My mouth made a noise on that line," then do it over, not conscious that there are TWO DOZEN other mouth noises I didn't catch in that session alone), how fast or slow to deliver dialogue and exposition, whether to stop and take a drink when my mouth starts getting dry, and how close my character voice is today from the last time I did it--which was days or months in the past.
But hey, this is what she pays me for. That, and pronouncing nonsense words like "voluntaro," "Lidian," "wisteria," and "however."
***
Anyhow, about an hour ago, it started snowing, just thin, gravely snow at first, then harder, and I thought, for a moment, "Oh boy, I'd better pack up and get out of here before the road becomes impassable." Unpassable? Nonpassable? I didn't want to, but I thought it might be wise, since I only drive a Toyota Corolla, and it's less-than-great in snow and mud.
But I had only gotten one solitary chapter edited, and I'd checked out a book from the library to record a short story from, and I didn't want to cut the trip short, so I just hoped it'd go away . . . and it did. The snow stopped, and now, it's sliding off the roof of the cabin next to mine in big splotchy clumps, and by the time I get out of here for real this afternoon, it should be all melted. Sometimes, it pays to be not-smart.
***
*They tend to make a heck of a racket, or maybe sound travels a lot further out here, so even if there's one several cabins over, you can hear their generator buzzing all night long. When we had one (we use solar now), the last person awake--always me--would have to go out to the shed and turn it off.
**Abbie asked me the other day if it was hard to strain my voice to do the dialogue for a character that is mortally injured, and no, that's just acting. And something I enjoy, even if it makes me cough. But this, this is hard (especially Ilsa's voice). But also, I've got to challenge Abbie for her next book, to not say "____ hesitated" a hundred times. I have a real difficulty with that word, and if I can commit her to only using it five or six times--the whole book--then she'd rise up on my list of favorite people. She's currently smack between Lou Costello and my rich uncle George.
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