Audio Book vs Audio Drama
in medias res continues its audio book obsession with a look into an emerging trend in the audio book world: audio dramas.
What’s the difference between an audio book and an audio drama?
A lot apparently. An audio book started out life as a book. Not a comic book or a screen play but a book. A book that sometime narrated. A book that included actual description of important things like wtf is going on in the action sequences, some kind of introduction to who the characters are and some reason to care about them.
Audio dramas start out life as a graphic novel or screenplay. They are meant to be accompanied by visuals. The visual element is the important part of these works. Audio productions have no visual element. They are pure sound. Do you see a problem? I do and I’m not alone.
A Bad Day in Three Concrete Sonnets
Bad Day
(Plain Text Version, scroll down for concrete version)
I.
Cars stopping. Cars honking. Cars whose drivers
are texting. Drivers yakking on cellphones.
Drivers rubbernecking. Damn those drivers
creeping past police cars. Police by cones
waiting, why aren’t they nabbing those drivers?
Who Will Narrate: Listen and Cast Your Vote
Okay, we’ve talked these last two days about audio books both the professionally produced variety and the self-narrated too. If you need a refresher, pop by this post here for a discussion of professional voice acted audio books and here for the DIY option.
You are armed with knowledge and ready to cast your vote an a very important issue. Who should narrate?
With the above posts in mind, I come to you, wonderful followers and one time visitors alike, to ask your opinion on the matter. Below I submit to you two scenes from my novella narrated by me, the author. Worry not, neither one is longer than 7 minutes. Together they comprise the first two scenes from my forthcoming audio book. It will be available for sale in 2016.
Continue reading “Who Will Narrate: Listen and Cast Your Vote”
Elegy for Lactose, God how I miss you!
Elegy for Lactose Lost Cheesecake topped with whipped cream, sweet, velvety fudge, smooth ice cream topped with nuts, buttercream frosting heaped onto crumbly cake, I love you and I loathe that you don’t love me. Not a sip, not a crumb, can cross my lips or pay the price I must. Dear lactose it’s over. No more fruity parfaits, no more yogurt snacks. No bowls of cereal, no snap crackle, pop, no lucky charms afloat sweetening cold milk. Dear lactose, it’s over. Goodbye ’till science cures my intolerance. Dear lactose, please know I love you but I must live without … Continue reading Elegy for Lactose, God how I miss you!
Audio Book Meets DIY
Yesterday we talked about audio books, specifically about the money side. You can refresh your memory here about that. I also referred you to a great post that Cecilia Lewis wrote up detailing how you pick a narrator for your book. Read her article here. Yesterday’s discussion centered around the cost to produce audio books and the options you have about production–if you go the professional route.
If you, like me, have some skill at editing audio files on your own, there is another option. You can narrate your book yourself, edit the audio yourself and submit the files to ACX. They have guidelines and tips to help you navigate your way through the DIY option.
A Silly Ballad about Buttercream
You’ve been warned. I can’t get this damned thing out of mind so I can write a serious ballad for today’s assignment. So here is the ballad making the rounds in my skull. I hope you get a chuckle. Maybe by the time you read this I will have stopped laughing.
Buttercream Day
The bakery exhaled sweet buttercream
through its flaky, drizzled white windows.
It’s not ice cream but we all screamed
for frosting to sweeten our woes.
Is There a Narrator in the House?
I love audio books. So do my coworkers. We have our own little audio book club where we advocate and cajole each other to listen to the audio books we have loved. Right now two-thirds of the audio book club is pushing me to read Robert Galbraith’s novels. They are also lobbying me to put a project on kickstarter.com to raise money for my novella’s audio book to be narrated by a real voice actor.
ACX, whom I will be doing this through, offers several options for turning your book into an audio book. Step one is to publish your book as a kindle book through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing program. I’m working on that right now. Rest assured.
My Happy Place
My happy place is anywhere I can find beauty, even a crack in the asphalt will do: I’m just simple like that. Continue reading My Happy Place
Found Poem and Chiasmus
Lambency: A Sonnet for Your Sunday
Lambency A ray of light falling down on the shore reflects like obsidian in the sand. The shaft of light plays with the eyes to lure them deeper into its luminous hands. White fire that pierces the clouds, falling bright through azure-blue skies lighting its descent, spiraling slowly around, weaving tight bent circles both black and opalescent. But the cleft from whence the light appeared, closes, as the fluffy game pieces shift above. The ray dissipates, the waves quickly hose the shore dispersing sands like a dark dove, caught by the swells of the waves in the bay below the … Continue reading Lambency: A Sonnet for Your Sunday
Winter: A Sonnet for your Saturday
Winter advances and claims my warm heart. Blood freezes the veins of my chilly limbs. Dead leaves pour into my bowl and their tart taste slips past my frozen lips, deftly skims over my rebelling stomach to fill The snowy void left by fall’s bitter end. Naked branches bend in the shrill wind’s chill Torpor consumes me, to sleep I bend, In its’ icy, breathless embrace I drift only to waken when white blossoms kiss my lashes. Lifeless to lithesome I shift, reviving to greet spring’s advancing bliss. I rise; the cloak of life I quickly don lest winter’s waning … Continue reading Winter: A Sonnet for your Saturday
Candy for Your Ears: Urban Fantasy
Urban fantasy audio books are like candy. You can’t consume just one. The first one always leads to the next and the next. It’s the gateway drug of audio books.
They’re the first person shooters of the fantasy genre. What makes these stories so addictive? Let’s toss them onto the operating table and dissect them to see what makes ’em tick.
A Homeric Ode for Your Friday
Went with a Homeric ode for today’s assignment (rhyme scheme: Abab cdecde) and reworked a poem I wrote on a tour bus in Scotland in 2001 because it was so damned close to a Homeric ode. Figured I’d go the extra mile and push it over the edge into Homeric ode territory. I painted the accompanying picture in my very brief, artist stage. Enjoy! Riding through a painting where mountains sprawl and the heart of Scotland beats. Across fir-lined pelts, mists do crawl o’er humped back Scotland down to its streets. The sun kisses snowy peaks, whose tearful eyes lock forever … Continue reading A Homeric Ode for Your Friday
Red Queen versus White King: Alan Touring Through the Looking Glass
Unless you too just finished The Enigma: Alan Touring, you’re probably scratching your head right now at the title of today’s post. I did read it, and I’m still scratching my head over it. Before I attempt to make some sense out of this, because I will lose my mind if I don’t, I need to get one thing off my chest: If I die after having done something world-changing or just plain cool, do not compare me to a fairy tale character. Please, just don’t. I don’t care of I make some offhand remark ONE time in my life and you … Continue reading Red Queen versus White King: Alan Touring Through the Looking Glass
A Grave Insect: Two Limericks for Thursday
A dash on a gravestone,
expresses how you’ve grown
A sister rendered into dates,
because death wouldn’t wait.
It left only her bones.
Continue reading “A Grave Insect: Two Limericks for Thursday”
Melinda Kucsera - USA Today Bestselling Author of Epic Fantasy Adventures 
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