I never had much to do with my closet, until I was trapped in it for three days!
Before I explain myself you must know my closet. It’s pretty large, especially for one person. When I give a tour of my house to someone who is a first time visitor, my closet seems to have a “wow” factor to it. It’s not movie-star spectacular or anything remotely close, but for an average person, it could be used as a small bedroom, or an office, or a nursery without windows. I have upper and lower clothes racks and built in shelving surrounding the room. There’s a built in linen closet and I added an antique dresser that provides closet drawers in a lovely way. A cherry wood boudoir chair with a pink velvet upholstered seat makes perfect sitting to pull on boots or stand on to reach high shelving.
The other factor about my closet, besides its roomy size is the amount of clothes I have hanging. Years and of dresses, tops and pants in a range of sizes are collected, waiting for a call to action. I know shoulder pads left the scene years ago, and who am I kidding I will never be a size 8 again, so the question is, “why?” don’t I purge. Now I’m ready. After 3 full days of staring at the full racks and hangers I’m ready to fill bins and give these dead soldiers a new home.
Why was I trapped in my closet for three days?
I was recording my first book, Hello Nobody Standing at the Door Alone, as an audiobook! It was the perfect place for quiet and good solid sound quality.
My marketing coach and producer, Emily Ann Peterson (the best!) drove from Nashville with her faithful furry pal, Beau. Not so much a pet lover, I quickly fell in love with this quiet, always-near rescue companion. He added a steady presence to our recording grind, sitting outside the closed door, just being.
Our audiobook recording adventure, was just that, and much more, an undertaking. My closet was transformed into a recording studio with equipment necessary to make a professional recording. Emily Ann, being a songwriter, a musician, a podcast host, a recording artist besides an editor, producer and all around talented and gifted professional, had all the tricks down pat. She followed along on a digital copy of my book as I stood at the mic, my head surrounded by sound proofing equipment, reading my digital copy out loud.
Wearing headphones, she could hear every wrong word I read or when my reading took on a life of its own and I read the words that weren’t even printed. Her hand would go up, that meant: Stop. A stop signaled a do-over, a start again, or “let’s change the text, that sounded better.” I never knew my thumb had a crack-sound to it every once and awhile. That stopped the recording. An airplane flying overhead, stopped the recording as did the air-conditioning kicking on. My stomach growling for lunch was met with a hands up signal to start reading a particular sentence again!
We stopped and started reading and recording for three days! All the while, Beau, our ever faithful napper waited patiently for us to stop for lunch, dinner, or a walk.
So there you have it. I was never happier to exit my closet with a new resolve to give away most of my clothes! We finished recording and the digital copy journeyed along to be edited further, formatted and tuned up for Kindle.
I now have a deeper appreciation for the audiobooks I check out of the library. I’ve always loved to have a compelling story to join me on the long drives I take to North Carolina or elsewhere. Knowing how much time and patience it took to read and record my book, I can’t imagine the task of reading a novel of dialogue, keeping characters straight or different voices in tact!
I found reading a book out-loud was quite different than the eye-skim method I use to get to the end of a page. I had to concentrate, pronounce every word and slow down. The impact is much more striking than words passing through your mind as in silent reading. Speaking, using voice to pronounce each word seems to deepen the impact and power of the message. The words can plant themselves and if a truth nugget is read, reading it out loud seems to add soil where a thought can take root.
The audiobook version of Hello Nobody, Standing at the Door Alone is available very soon! Stay tuned! If you get a chance to have a listen, you must imagine me standing in my closet, reading and reading and reading again! It was quite the project, I hope you enjoy it!
The good news? You will have an audiobook soon!
I survived three days in my closet, and have five bags of outfits for Goodwill to show for it!