editingeditingediting

Since we returned from those hot summer days, telling the story around our little electric fire of microphones, I have been hermiting hard to make all the audio pieces fit together. Here’s a breakdown of what we have so far… and so much continued enthusiasm for all that is to come 🩵

First, I went through the narration we'd recorded for every chapter and marked where we said what, and when (generally)

Then, I combed through that audio taking out blank space, asides, distracting likes/ums/justs/sort ofs/kind ofs/maybes, and things that were totally irrelevant - easy to misunderstand - a bit too out of context - etc., as well as adding in the clips we took live on the trip. It took a week for each chapter... so that's where we've been these last three months.

Yesterday, Juliette and I did our first ever listen through! We made all those new notes after the second track in this picture (Ext. L Edited): things that need to be trimmed down, moments to cut because they're too far from the heart and bones of the story, and some things to move around. I'll implement those changes, and we'll have our working draft of the extended edition chapters!

Then, I'll go through each chapter one more time and 'master' the audio - smoothing out all the volume levels, removing static from live clips, and making sure everything sounds so good that I personally would be both delighted to spend an afternoon listening on the world's best headphones AND I could listen on mid volume in my noisy car without missing a word. Ee! I hope!

Then, I'll go through each chapter again and cut out what's going to be saved specially for the extended edition audiobook, to at last have... the podcast!

Then we will figure out how exactly to publish an audiobook and podcast 🙃

It's gotta be about love of the process, right? I'm sure that's easier for me to say, as one of two people with access to the process... but it really has been something I look forward to working on (almost) every time I get to sit down and open it up. There was a week around chapter 10 that was really pushing rocks up hills, but that also made sense with the content of chapter 10, so it didn't feel out dissonant. Each time I get to go through the material, it works the experience of the trip on a deeper level, in a new way. Honestly, best integration tool I could ask for.

More soon!!!

Larkin