I’ve still been working on the story about Martias and Steigan heading to the Palin Wars which I referenced last Wednesday. I’m trying to slant it so that a reader could pick it up at any point in the story, even before reading Quest for the Three Books, without much in the way of spoilers. So far, so good.

It is a little strange because while I have known Martias’ motivations for quite some time, I hadn’t every really thought about where his head would be at when he and Steigan ran away to the Palin Mountains. We’ve “chatted” about how he felt when he first arrived at the Temple, and even how he felt when he was nominated for the position of Holy Sapere, but I hadn’t really needed to know how he felt along the way on that path. So, this provides me with interesting insights into his character.

I also love his view of Steigan. I’m so use to being in Steigan’s head, where he is always so noble and upstanding. Let’s face it, even when he had no memories, I knew who he was because I knew how he’d act on instinct alone. Admittedly, that might be why I’m having issues working on book 5 (The Missing Thread) because Steigan’s headspace is so messed up that he doesn’t know who he is anymore. That, and the fact that I have no idea about Keteria waking up. I know when I write the correct scene, I’ll know it. It just hasn’t happened yet. Anyway, that aside, it’s fun to see what Martias thinks about and what he withholds. Steigan is cut and dry. He speaks his mind. Marias, he refrains. Again, that’s not something new with Martias — I’ve known he doesn’t always tell Steigan everything, but I see how he is event the trickster character in his own mind. It’s fun.

When you look at the audio numbers this week, I believe it’s pretty close to zero. It’s not that I haven’t worked on audio this week. I have, but not in the way that I feel I can mark down time for. To begin with, I had to wait for my new channel strip to come in, then it took me time to get that installed in my booth. While I waited, I spent time reading the manual for my channel strip and reading Making Tracks by J.D. Sawyer. I’ve been trying to make my way through this book since I first met J.D. and learned about his book, but the information was so overwhelmingly comprehensive that I couldn’t take it in. Setting aside some time to really focus on the material has helped greatly. I soon found myself devouring it. I’m sure I’ll be working up a “thoughts” post soon because I think this needs to be shared more.

Then, once I got the channel strip into my booth, then I had to tinker with all the settings and get it sounding good. Then I had to set up my mastering chain all over again, which meant more tinkering outside of the booth.
I’m trying to process the signal enough going in that I don’t have a lot of work afterwards. I really want to get my time down for editing it. I know there is a certain point at which you just can’t go any faster, and that there is a fine line between speed and good audio. I’m looking for that sweet equilibrium spot. I found that there wasn’t much difference in my raw data before and after the channel strip, but it’s there enough that I can hear it. In mastering it, I now believe I have better sound than in 1-800-Mischief (which is, I believe, the best sounding audio work I’ve done to date). I’m going to do a test recording of Oxygen to see how it sounds once the audio distributors have “worked their magic” and made me sound like I’m talking through a tin can. Yeah, I swear that I never sound like that on the audio I’m shipping off. At the point of me writing this, I haven’t recorded anything yet, but that might change by later tonight before this posts. If there’s time in audio below, it’s because I did get recording done. At least some.

I also started setting aside time to edit Tangled Magic. I swear, if I don’t start blocking time for it, the story will never get done. So I’ve been waking up earlier so that I can have a few minutes to work on editing as well as getting in my audio work (which, as stated above, has been reading). I’m going to continue this through next week and see how it goes, hopefully with recorded audio to be editing.

And that’s been my week. Let’s look at the numbers.

Fiction words written last week:  3,609 words.

Blogs/Newsletter articles/non-fiction written:  2,250 words.

Daily word goal reached for 156 days! Weekly word goal reached for 25 weeks.

Writing month to date total:  10,573 words

Writing year to date total: 10,573 words

Drawing/painting last week: I got a space painting on a hexagonal canvas completed. Pictures coming soon. I’m estimating this piece to be 24 linear inches, which brings me to 58 linear inches for the month so far.

Audio: I spent an hour recording audio. I hopped to it after finishing my words for the day and got half of Oxygen recorded. Now I will work it up and see how it sounds. Hopefully next week I’ll get to record the other half.