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January 11th, 2008

January 11th, 2008
12:37 pm [Link]	My Lack Of Time, Let Me Show You It I have two essays ready to go, but my time today is at a premium. So instead, let me comment-whore, because I want interaction but don't have the time to give back. Mean of me, I know. So I ask you: Tell me something interesting and true. The comments are screened - not that I anticipate there will be a lot of crazy stuff like that, but just in case. But tell me something that you find to be intriguing at this very moment. 'Cause I wanna know for sure... (tell me I'm full of it)
Time	Event
06:51 pm [Link]	My Voice, Let Me Show You It (Or Not) My first submission to This American Life was rejected, with one surprise; it came back in a week. They told me it might be six months. Either it was so spectacularly terrible it landed in a puddle of fail and was catapulted back to me without the need for human intervention, or they're really on their ball. That said, I took some advice from cynic51 and worked without a script. Oh, I had notes - a full page of them - but really, not reading the words as written gave me a spontenaity I lacked. I could feel the difference; there I was, the me who told stories at parties, roaring to life. I slowed down a bit, pausing what seemed gratuitously, but I spent two hours in the basement recording various versions of my latest anecdote, stammering through it until I found the version I wanted. What I had was, by my lights, a stellar performance that was way above what I was capable of - something that felt organic, full of emotion and actual punchlines. It was also unlistenable. I tweaked the audio in both Audacity and Goldwave, but it was unsalvageable. Apparently, there's a thing called "microphone work" that involves knowing where to talk into the mike to hit the sweet spot, and I missed it, waving in and out. It was frustrating, since you could hear the emotion but not the words, like a lover's whisper. My audio skills were full of fail. So today, I took the next step: I ordered some books on podcasting from Amazon.com based on some excerpts I read, and purchased a headphone mike so that I would never have to worry about my hand wandering too far away when I concentrated on my words. This recording thing is deucedly difficult to do properly, and I will learn, even as it sucks a little of the money from my pockets. So far, I've learned: No script. Lots of notes. Get the first paragraph in stone so you don't waver. Work on the mic skills. And Audacity alone can't rescue every mix. Next week, I may have more to learn. Eep. (17 shouts of denial | tell me I'm full of it)