My adventures in pod ficcing...

So I finally got around to creating a pod fic. I signed up for a fan works gift exchange, and that's what I offered, so that I'd be forced to finally do it.

Forcing myself to just do it was absolutely not a great idea because I learned a couple of very important things. The most important being, it's not as easy as it sounds.

I have a program that's been recommended by many people in my fandom circles who pod fic or pod cast. The second most important thing I learned was that I don't know nearly enough about the software as I should. Primarily features and function. Which I didn't realize I needed to know until I needed to know them. :(

So...I spent several hours one day, holed up in an interior closet lined with blankets, reading a piece of fan fiction into my computer. Don't laugh about my studio because, come to find out, many audio book narrators work from home in exactly that kind of space. I made flubs and noises as I went and re-read the bits I messed up on, until finally I'd read through the whole story.

When I finally started editing it, I realized that there were a still a couple of rough patches I hadn't caught and that I couldn't fix with a basic cut. I was going to have to re-record those bits and splice them in.

The actual splicing in and of itself wasn't hard, but what I realized right off is that you have to recreate your recording environment very closely--maybe time of day, depending on your physical location, but for me it was actually how far away was my chair from the TV tray holding my laptop and microphone, how far away was my mouth from the microphone, how warmed up was my voice?

I ended up having to choose a different, much shorter piece of fic and read it in one long session. Then edit it in several marathon session because I'd already asked for an extension and was down to the wire of turning it in.

It turned out all right, with no glaring issues, but it wasn't as polished a piece of work as I would have liked.

If I decide to pursue this activity, I'll have to devote some time to really playing with the software, with learning the features, with learning how to standardize recording sessions, etc., etc., etc... I'm not sure I have the time to devote to the learning curve right now. But who know?

Are you a fan of audio books?