Welcome to The Desk in the Lantern Room. Today, we will be perusing The Keeper’s Logbook to see what I’ve been up to lately.
Voice Acting
When I first started writing, it took me a long time to admit I was a writer. I don’t know why, and that is why I’m going to start saying right now that I’m also a voice actor, however amateur I might be.
After all, I did narrate my novella, The Wheel, and have read many hours of Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, Aesop’s Fables, and The Brothers Grimm Fairytales, among others, to my kids, in character.
But as of last night, I have now lent my voice to someone else’s story!
I had such a blast recording it and fiddling with all the voices. I even caught myself gesticulating and posing while reading particularly voicey lines. You know, like you see voice actors do in the studio and wonder, “Why do they move like that when they read?” Well, I guess I found out: it just happens.
The story belongs to my great Substack pal, Hallie Jules, and is just as hilarious as the other stories she’s written. Months ago, I read this story on Substack Live and, on a whim, decided to do voices for the characters like I was reading to my kids. Hallie loved it and made a comment about using that audio for the narration, and so I decided to record it for her, for real. Months later, now that my novel is finally sent out on query, I found myself with the time to do it. I can’t believe someone else would want my voice for their story; it’s absolutely an honor, and I mean that in the most sincere way. Your stories are your babies. Letting someone else be a part of the delivery isn’t easy, especially if that person is just some internet rando. So thank you, Hallie, for giving me this opportunity.
Anyway, you should definitely head over and read the dragonific, piratic story, but I hope you listen to the audio, too. It’s only ten minutes long, and I promise you will laugh at least once, probably at Hallie’s wit and maybe at my ridiculous voices. You will also likely catch very obvious strains of Maggie Smith’s (RIP) Professor McGonnagall, large helpings of Benedict Cumberbatch’s Smaug, hints of Sean Astin’s Samwise Gamgee, and maybe even a very slight slip towards Alan Rickman’s (also RIP) Professor Snape in some of these voices.
Let the Great “I Should Start a Podcast!” Mid-Life Crisis Begin!
I mentioned above that I read stories on Substack Live some months ago. People actually liked this, but it petered out pretty quickly. The whole thing felt a little odd to me, and deciding what to read was tricky, mainly because so many people are posting serials. Do you take weeks to read the whole series? Just read the first installment? Read the newest installment and hope people are caught up? I don’t know, I got in my head about it, but I also knew that there was a better opportunity for this type of content on the horizon.
In steps Prompt Response with Jay & Andrew!
If you are a writer and haven’t hopped on the Prompt Response train yet, you definitely should. Jay Wilcox and I host highly interactive live podcast episodes every Monday at 8 PM ET, and they are a blast! Jay is literally a creative writing professor and brings his expertise and wit to every episode. We learn about writing techniques, create characters, build story prompts, write stories with our audience on air, and then read those stories out loud. It’s been so much fun, and I hope you will join us next time. For now, here’s last week’s episode, which even includes Jay’s Grammy-worthy freestyled theme song from our first episode. Consider subscribing while you are there!
That’s it for today. Coming this Friday is a Valentine’s Day story starring my favorite fictional married couple, Pat and Sandra Doyle. If you’ve read my novel, “Rue”, you are going to like this one.
Look at all of these PARTS!! 🤣😘
I can attest the your talent at reading to your kids in character. They will never forget it!