I’ve been telling myself I had one week’s worth of work left for almost a month now.  Not counting the week and a half my parents were here for the kids’ fall break, I’ve been working very hard to get Advent finished.  But every time I reach what I think is the final milestone, I realize there’s “one more thing” I still need to do. 

At this point, I’ve got the entire book put into one BIG file, and I’m going through the whole thing with a fine toothed comb.  I hope this is the last pass, but who knows?   The whole thing is about four hours long.  I’m not sure if making one big file was the right thing to do, but it seemed like the easiest way to work on leveling out the volume across all the recording sessions.  Later, I’ll cut it back up into shorter tracks. 

I’m not sure if I want to do short tracks (3 minutes) or longer tracks, or perhaps offer both, simply because I know that on my iPod, longer tracks work better, but on my shuffle, shorter tracks were easier to use. Then there’s the question of format: mp3 or audio? 

Of course, all that is a bit premature since first I have to submit it to the Baha’i review board, and I want to see if my sound engineer can make it better through mastering.  I’m not sure which to do first, or how long either process will take.

I wish I could say with certainty how long it will take before I have something to put online for sale.  (Hard copies will take even longer.) All I can say right now is that the current process of fine tuning the whole file should take about one more week.  But then, that’s where this whole discussion started, isn’t it?

I just realized that my blog officially passed it’s one year mark last month. 

Yay, me!

Actually, I really am proud of myself for hanging in there this long.  I started working on Verdanta about a year before I started blogging about it.  At that time, I had developed a reputation with my husband of reading a new book, getting all excited about it, making big plans, and then… nothing.  (Real estate, anyone?)  Verdanta started the same way, but this time my husband called me out.  He told me to show him the numbers. 

Of course to show him the numbers, I had to figure out exactly how to find the numbers.  That led me to Score, which got me going with my business plan (Thanks, Jim Newman!), and the rest, well, you can go back and read my blog from the beginning for the rest!

My husband and I treat our marital anniversary with about the same degree of fanfare.  The day after, or the week after, one of us will say, “Oh, hey!  Happy Anniversary!”  And that’s pretty much that.  My mom says, “Why make a big deal?  If it’s good, there will be more.  If it’s not, why would you want to celebrate it?”  I guess that’s where I get it from.  My husband, well, he’s just lousy at remembering dates! 

For those of you who’ve been with me for a while, thank you!  Your support and encouragement are part of the reason I’m still around.  For those who just joined us, welcome!  And God willing, we’ll be together for another anniversary next year!

You would think something like pronunciation would be pretty cut and dried, wouldn’t you?  At least that’s what the engineer in me wants to believe.  Just tell me the right way to pronounce it, and I’ll make sure I read it that way.  What could be easier?

Except that apparently, the world of correct pronunciation is actually a battlefield.  Who knew? 

I was listening to “On The Media” on NPR yesterday, and learned that September 18 was the tercentenary of Samuel Johnson of England, who wrote the first dictionary of the English language.  At least, it was the first “modern” dictionary in terms of format.  I also learned that Webster, an American, decided that since America had declared its independence from England, with our own constitution, we should have our own American English language, complete with a unique American English dictionary.  Thus the origin of Webster’s Dictionary.  (Eventually, the Merriam brothers bought the rights to it when Webster died, thus creating the Merriam-Webster’s dictionary we know and love today.)  To make it unique, Webster changed not only the spelling of many words (for example, -re became -er, and -our became -or), he also changed the pronunciation of many words.  (al-loo-MIN-ee-um became a-LOOM-inum?)  Eventually (in the 3rd editing, I think) the author decided to include not just the “correct” pronunciation (which keep in mind was different from the original Queen’s English pronunciation), but also local and regional pronunciations.  By this point of course, the  whole “correct pronunciation” thing had gotten pretty gummed up. 

Fast forward to the present.

Hans Peterson posted a comment with a link to another pronunciation guide, this one from a professional voiceover.  Mark Pennington posted a different link:  the site posted by Mark Pennington

These two sites agree on some things , but completely contradict each other on others.  For example, one says “off-ten” is the right way to say “often” while the other says “off-en” is correct because you would never say “soft-en”. 

The bottom line?  I decided to let Merriam-Webster serve as the official tie breaker.   I looked up “often” in their online dictionary, which has the VERY handy function of an oral pronunciation guide, and guess what?  It had two correct pronunciations: off-ten and off-en. 

I think I’ll go with Han’s site, which points out that there’s a difference between formal and informal reading, and told us to figure out which we’re reading before, then decide how to pronounce the debatable words.

Ahhh, the things we delve into to perfect our craft!

What do you think about all this? Petty or Pet peave?

Good news!  I’ve finished recording and editing the last ten pages of Advent of Divine Justice!

Unfortunately, I’m no longer happy with much of the rest of the book, so I’ve already started over. 

Fortunately, it’s going MUCH faster than before.

If all goes according to my intentions, (notice I didn’t say, “according to my plan?”) I should finish recording and editing in about three weeks.

Of course after that, there’s mastering, getting a website online to sell it (Hans is working on it!), potentially getting hardcopy CD’s made to sell through conventional outlets, and who knows what else.

Can you believe it?  I’m getting close to having a tangible product!  One which was born “potentially” during a walk I took two years ago!

Mark Pennington, in a comment on my post “Pronunciation Frustration” left a link to a page that lists the “Top 40 Pronunciation Pet-Peeves.”  It was so helpful, I thought I’d give it its own post.  Reading it was a real eye opener for me, because it turns out there are a few words even I pronounce wrong.  I’d like to add another to the list:

Plenty: many people pronounce it “plenny” forgetting it has a t.

I’ve also often wondered about the words “button” and “written.”  Everyone (except me, apparently) usually swallows the two “t’s” in the middle.  Same question for the word “potency.”  Does anyone have any thoughts on the matter?  I’d love to hear them!

I hired an audio engineer – Steve from The Audio Suite – to come to my house, examine my setup, and help me figure out what – if anything – I could do to improve things. 

One of the pieces of advice he gave me (among many) was to import several audiobooks into my editing software (Cubase), and listen to them through my monitors and headphones.   Although I listen to audiobooks all the time (much to my kids’ annoyance!) I had never thought to listen to them through my recording/editing equipment.  It turns out, it’s very different.  About half of the audiobooks left in all the mouth pops, breaths and “stickiness” that I had been working so hard to take out. 

What Steve told me, and which I didn’t really believe until I listened to them through my equipment, is that the ideal to strive for is not perfection, but  ”naturalness”.  And all conversations naturally contain mouth pops, breaths and “stickiness.”  We hear them all the time, and ignore them with no problem. 

It was true, when I listened through my monitors, I heard all of the things which I had very slowly and painstakingly been editing out of my own files.  I had achieved a level of perfection in the recording that couldn’t possibly exist in real life, even if I had the most well-lubricated mouth on earth, simply because I do have to breathe.  And here were all these award winning audiobooks, getting great reviews, and yet including pops and clicks that sounded gigantic on my monitors, but which I had never once noticed while listening on my iPod. 

While this may seem like a small, relatively insignificant thing, it is in fact, huge.

I’ve been spending something like an hour editing every single minute of my recording.  With a 60:1 ratio, I’m not going to finish anytime this century!   

 Now that I have officially received permission from a professional set of ears, I’m going to force myself to relax my standards.  I know it’s not going to be easy, but I simply have to do it.

Wish me luck!

A new Baha’i whom I was tutoring in Book 1 would occasionally ask me questions about life.  “What should I do in this situation?” or “What should I do if that happens?”  I would carefully consider each question, but to every one I had but a single answer: “Pray.”

One day she said, “I think I finally get it, the answer to every question is to pray!” 

We had a good laugh, but the truth of it struck home. It’s easy to tell someone else that clearly, prayer would help them in their situation, but it’s much harder to look at our own lives and say, “Oh yes, obviously this is something I need to pray about!” 

I guess that’s why teaching is so important: when we teach others, we learn.  Sometimes we even learn more than when we were the ones studying! 

And so it was that a new Baha’i held up a mirror and reminded this old Baha’i that the answer to all of life’s difficult questions is to pray!

My Saffire started blasting static – How terrible!

But it’s under warranty, and they (eventually) replaced it with a better unit – Oh, well that’s good.

Unfortunately, the new unit is so good, it revealed how crappy my recordings were – Certainly, that’s bad!

Yes, but thankfully I now have a chance to fix it!  – Well, that’s good!

A few years ago, I and two of my friends decided to form a mastermind group.  (For those who don’t know what this is, I refer you to this site for an explanation.)  Basically, we were three women who had dreams and aspirations, but who wanted “a little something extra” to help us reach those dreams sooner. 

We started meeting every two weeks at various coffee shops.  Each person had 20-30 minutes to report on their progress, specifically addressing their status on concrete goals set by them the previous week.  It gave us something invaluable – accountability!  (Also known as “a swift kick in the pants!”)  When it was working well, it was fabulous, and we all made great strides towards our goals. 

Unfortunately, life kind of got in the way earlier this year and we stopped meeting.

Thankfully, as of this morning, we managed to fire it back up!  And this time we have at least one new member, possibly two, which will only make the experience that much richer.

I thought I was doing pretty well on my own, but the group reminded me of several things that I had forgotten needed doing.  As soon as I got back to my office, I had a burst of productivity, and I remembered why we had started the group in the first place. 

If you have big audacious goals, but you aren’t progressing as quickly as you’d like, consider starting a Mastermind Group of your own.  It’s not nearly as hard as you might think - all you need are a few friends, colleagues, or even acquaintances who also have big dreams.  

Think about it…  and then do something about it!

On Friday, after I had dropped my broken interface off at FedEx, I was informed by my Focusrite rep that the model interface I had was discontinued, and there were no more available.  But they would be happy to “upgrade” me to the Saffire LE.  I said great!  Then I went on-line to do a little research, only to find that the LE was actually the model BELOW the Saffire I had just returned. 

I wasn’t happy, but there didn’t seem to be anything I could do.  There didn’t seem to be any options.  Although I still had a few questions, I was resigned to whatever was going to happen.

Happily, my good pal John at American Sound and Music went to bat for me, and got approval for a true upgrade!  Which means that soon, I will be the happy owner of a brand new Pro 24 DSP audio interface. 

Thanks, John, for bringing the “service” back to “customer service!”

And thanks to you, too, Focusrite, for standing behind your product!