Away From the Mic

Livin’ La DIVA Loca

25 June 2014

When we last left our hero and heroine (also known as Drew and me), they were leaving Memphis, TN and headed down 78 Highway to Holly Springs, MS. If you’ve never heard of Holly Springs, you obviously haven’t heard one of the Dixie Diva Mysteries audiobooks that were written by Virginia Brown and narrated by me!

These fun books revolve around Trinket Truevine, her cousin and best friend Bitty Hollandale, and several (ahem) “ladies of a certain age” who live in Holly Springs and can’t seem to stay away from chocolate, alcohol, and murders! I’ve narrated 5 of these books, and I understand that Virginia Brown is writing the next one in the series. I can’t wait to record it!

As I was narrating book #5, Divas Do Tell, earlier this year, I commented to Drew that it would be fun to go on the Pilgrimage some time. You see, Holly Springs has a number of antebellum homes, and each year the town Garden Club convenes a house tour known as the Pilgrimage. Many of the home owners or hostesses dress up in period costumes, and all discuss the history of the home and its furnishings.

I looked on-line for the dates and was thrilled to see it was in mid-April. (I’ve since learned that it always is in mid-April.) We decided to go so I could get some pictures and videos for future marketing efforts.

One of the homes on this year’s Pilgrimage was the Walter Place. As Virginia Brown wrote in Dixie Divas (book 1):

Since she’s been six years old, Bitty has wanted a particular house on West Chulahoma Avenue. The Walter Place is built of stone, has twin turrets like a castle, estate size grounds, and was a temporary home for General Grant and his family when they stayed in Holly Springs in 1862.

Once I saw it, I could understand why Bitty would want it! Antiques fill the house, which again would fit Bitty’s style perfectly.

The Terrace on Chulahoma is almost across the street from the Walter Place and also was on the tour. I liked how the owner of that house had mixed old and new furnishings in order to make it livable and comfortable. Some of the homes seemed more museum-like. They were full of fine antiques and knick-knacks without a TV or recliner in sight.

Much of the action in Divas Do Tell (book 5) occurred at Montrose. The author wrote:

Montrose is a beautiful home that now houses the Holly Springs Garden Club and events like weddings or graduation parties. It also hosts the annual April pilgrimage.

Like the Walter Place, Montrose has one of those beautiful curved staircases in the foyer. As we walked up to the second floor, I had to wonder how the women wearing hooped skirts — both on the Pilgrimage and the original owners in the 1800s — could actually navigate the increasingly small turns without taking a turn for the worse!

We were very interested to learn how the house was kept cooler in the days before the invention of air conditioning. The slaves who built the house knew to use charcoal in the walls before adhering the bricks. The charcoal worked as a natural insulator. The front and back doors would be opened to allow the breezes to flow through the house.

After a delicious lunch at JB’s On the Square, we went in Booker Hardware. I think Booker Hardware is mentioned in every book, and a particularly funny and memorable scene occurred in that store in Divas Do Tell. In Drop Dead Divas (book 2), Brown describes it this way:

Booker’s Hardware has been in the same place since the mid-eighteen hundreds. It still has the same wide plank floors, old wooden cabinets that hold screws, and a lot of the same kind of merchandise. It’s a great place to buy a Number 8 washtub or a butter churner, or the newest in chainsaws or drills.

Before leaving Holly Springs, we walked around the square and visited the cemetery. I was especially happy to hear Memphis radio station WKQK playing Barry Manilow’s Copacabana that Friday afternoon as we left Holly Springs and headed about 30 miles away to Oxford, MS.

Oxford is the home of the University of Mississippi, or Ole Miss as it is usually and affectionately known. In each book, we’re reminded that Bitty graduated from Ole Miss, and her twin boys are enrolled there. The campus features prominently in Divas and Dead Rebels (book 4) as the story line centers around a dead professor (gasp!).

Since I went to a commuter college, I’ve adopted Ole Miss as my football team. If I had gone to school there, I probably also would have been in the marching band.

While I only got to spend a short time in Holly Springs and Oxford, I look forward to Livin’ La DIVA Loca some more when I narrate the next audiobook in the series!

Photos: Drew Commins

Hangin’ with Harley Davidson

16 June 2014

Has a character in a book ever inspired you to visit a place?

After narrating 2 series of books written by Virginia Brown, I decided it was time to visit the 2 cities she described with such love and detail: Memphis, TN and Holly Springs, MS. Of course, my main goal for the trip was to get lots of pictures and videos to use in my future marketing efforts for both series!

The Blue Suede Memphis series is set in — you guessed it — Memphis. The main character is Harley Jean Davidson, and she drives a tour bus for Memphis Tour Tyme. Drew voices all of the male parts in this series. We’ve done 3 books so far and are looking forward to recording the final book Return to Fender this summer.

Drew and I started our April trip in Memphis. We went to several of the touristy spots mentioned in the books, with the first stop naturally being Graceland. We’ve heard for years how tacky Graceland is, so we were surprised to find out that statement is not really true. Sure, everything in it looks very 1970s, but what do you expect?

Many of the rooms seemed very tastefully and expensively decorated, with crystal chandeliers and traditional furniture upholstered in velvet. For its time, the kitchen was very state-of-the-art, with double ovens and a TV. In fact, TVs were in every room. In Elvis’ lounge (think: man cave), he had three TVs on the wall so he could watch multiple stations at once. It all seemed very comfortable and homey.

The pool room was covered in fabric on both the walls and the ceiling. The stairs leading up from that room to the so-called jungle room were covered in green shag carpet. I suppose that people found those elements to be tacky.

Someone in front of us on the stairs commented that those materials on the walls would provide excellent soundproofing. They told us that Elvis recorded one album in his jungle room, so soundproofing would be a much-needed aspect of his house. The jungle room was called that because many of the pieces of furniture had animals carved in the wood. You also saw cow skulls like you would find on the street in the old West.

The most impressive thing about the tour was the trophy room. It’s more than a room, really; it’s actually a small building. Inside this building, one side was filled with all his music awards. The walls were literally lined from ceiling to floor with gold records.

On the other side of the building, they had posters, apparel, and other mementos of his many movies. I didn’t realize he had been in as many movies as he had! No matter what you think of Elvis or his music, you can’t argue with those many physical reminders of his unparalleled success.

They also had several displays showing his many donations to charitable organizations. I was glad to see that they carried on that commitment to charity at their own cash register in the gift shop. I bought a little brass guitar Christmas ornament, and they asked if we would like to contribute to St. Jude Children’s Hospital, which we did.

Two horses were in the back pasture. One was a Palomino, and I saw signage that said a Palomino was Elvis’s favorite horse. The meditation garden contained his grave, as well as those of his parents and his grandmother.

Our tickets allowed us entry into his car museum, where we saw, among other vehicles, not 1 but 2 Rolls Royces, Priscilla’s 1960s Mercedes convertible, a snowmobile converted for lawn use, a couple of motorcycles, and two Cadillacs — the pink one (of course) and the one I liked, which was purple with white interior!

It was interesting going on board his private plane, the Lisa Marie. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a private plane before. It looked very comfortable and housed TVs in the compartments, as well as a phone where you could call anywhere in the world. Elvis had a bedroom on board, too.

We also saw an exhibit of Elvis in Vegas. They had a lot of his flashy costumes in there. We could imagine why there would be so many Elvis impersonators both in Memphis and in the book Suspicious Mimes!

After a long but completely delightful afternoon meeting with the marketing director of the publishing company, we took the car back to the hotel and walked to Beale Street, thinking we might eat there. Every place had loud music, and smoke was everywhere. Let’s just say it’s not my kind of environment.

We walked on back toward the famous Peabody Hotel and ended up in a nice conversation with a member of the Blue Suede Brigade who was standing near the hotel entrance. This group of volunteers serves as ambassadors for the city to help tourists. The brigadier suggested we dine at The Majestic, which is a converted silent theater on Main Street.

People talk about the food in Memphis with good reason. The meal at The Majestic was most enjoyable, in part due to the subdued lighting, dark furniture and excellent wait staff. We had an appetizer consisting of cheese, gourmet crackers, sausage, barbecue pecans (spicy!), apple wedges and a couple of other things I’ve forgotten. For our entrees, Drew had ribs, and I had a filet. It all tasted great!

Next stop: Holly Springs, MS!

Photos: Drew Commins

Do You Feel Like Giving Up?

16 April 2014

This Date In My History is an ongoing series of blog posts taken directly from my private journal entries written at least 10 years ago.

TDIMH — Friday 16 April 2004 1:20pm

Sometimes I just feel like giving up.

No, I don’t mean on my life — just on this whole voice-over dream. I allow myself to feel confidence and think that I am talented and a capable engineer until things happen that make me think I am deluding myself.

This week, I’ve had 2 incidents — one minor, one major — that have really made me question myself and make me wonder whether I should quit. Yes, I know that:

These stresses are temporary, a reaction, and something that will pass.
I don’t want to get to my later life and think “what if I had kept going with voice-over” or “I wish I had followed my dream”.
[I was reminded of] the story about the gold miner who sold his rights after years of fruitless search and frustration, only to discover the next day that the new owner found gold just 3 feet away from where he stopped. You never know how close you are to the gold.
And remember Mel Fisher and the Atocha — 17 years before he found it.

However, I also know that my life would be sooo much simpler if I just went to work, came home and watched TV like everyone else.

The minor thing that happened was that [Client A] at [Company A] had some unflattering comments about one of my reads for the commercials. He said it had an accent and asked “where ARE you from?” Since I’m in the speech class to improve, I could laugh at this exchange, especially when he told me that he knew it wasn’t a Southern accent. [My teacher] listened to the read and told me that any time someone hears something different that they label it as an accent.

The major thing that had me questioning this career choice occurred today. The girl at [Company B] called today and said that my files contained way too much sibilance. She said it was distracting to listen to for an hour, and she couldn’t use it the way it is. Great. I had only spent 7+ hours in creating it, and now it has a problem. I told her I’d try to experiment with software to reduce the sibilance.

I was somewhat relieved that she called back a short while later to say that someone has told her it was fine the way it was. On the first call, she said another person said they could hear the sibilance but didn’t find it troubling. She’s working with a contractor who had previous experience with TV, and apparently, the contractor is the one who said it was sibilance and caused by microphone placement.

Of course, these conversations made me feel extremely stressed. Not only am I being told about 2 problems — my incorrect placement when making S sounds and an hour-long presentation that is full of them — but I’m hearing about it while on my day job where I can do absolutely nothing about it.

I had already planned to take 3 hours of leave today so I could [run a bunch of errands] and then find some way to spend an enjoyable few hours…. I did NOT intend to rush home and start working on fixing this sibilance problem.

All the way home, I felt upset thinking about the situation and wondering if I should just forget my whole dream. I’m tired of struggling all the time. I know that it all should be a learning experience, but I’m tired of learning. When will I be considered the master? I love the voice-over part and wish I could leave the audio engineering to someone else. When will that happen?

I downloaded a de-esser plug-in for Cool Edit and experimented for over 2 hours with it. I forgot to say that when I turned on my computer, I got an email message that seemed to be a direct answer to my thoughts, today’s motivational quote of the day:

You are where you are today
because you’ve chosen to be there.

True, but I didn’t choose to have all these problems.

I sent her a couple of MP3s with the sibilance reduced. I’ve decided that I will send a CD of everything on Monday with the sibilance reduced, with another CD with the files in their original state since I have to record some slides over due to script changes.

I talked to Drew when he got home. Of course, I’m not going to give up. I truly believe that I am destined to be a star. I’m stressed, exhausted, frustrated, needing a vacation desperately, and depressed about Daddy [who had passed away 6 months before this entry], but I’m not willing to give up on my dream.

I think — no, I KNOW — that all of these other factors have made me feel so overwhelmed and cause me to react so negatively to a problem. I need to keep in mind that a problem is just an opportunity to learn something (even if I don’t want to).

Today’s Take-Aways

1. BREATHE. When you feel overwhelmed or stressed, take a moment to take some good, deep breaths. Chances are that your problem is not as big as it first seems.

2. At the time, I didn’t understand how much my grief over the loss of my much-beloved dad infiltrated every part of my life. I looked like I normally did. I acted like everything was normal. Inside, though, everything was NOT normal. If you’re grieving, go easy on yourself and postpone any life-changing decisions until you feel stronger.

3. You also don’t want to make life-changing decisions based on one bad day. Problems are inherent in any job. You have to take the bad with the good, and problems can steer you off course. However, with determination, you can make course corrections and get back on the path of your dream!

4. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t occasionally have doubts. It helps to talk to someone you trust and/or write in a journal to remind yourself of all your good qualities and capabilities that will lift you up when you feel like giving up.

5. The real take-away here is that I was much too critical of myself. I could’ve let the OPINION OF ONE PERSON keep me from my dream and my destiny! Don’t give away your power to another person. When it comes to your dream, yours is the only opinion that matters!

Bonus Round of Comments for Voice Talent

I was writing about a problem with sibilance. I actually went back and listened to that 10-year-old file. While I did hear some sibilance on a few words, I’ve heard much worse sibilance issues in new audiobooks from experienced talent! And when you consider the script was as overrun with S sounds as trees in Georgia are choking in kudzu, I’m amazed that I didn’t end up sounding like Sylvester the cat! 🙂

I added a sample here for your reading pleasure; you really need to read it aloud to get the full joy from it. Note that the full script had dozens and dozens of occurrences of Sarbanes-Oxley!

Sarbanes-Oxley aims to increase investor confidence by introducing a whole new level of accountability for senior corporate executives by holding them personally responsible for their company’s financial statements….The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is comprised of 11 distinct areas or titles. Each title contains additional sections which clearly outline responsibilities, requirements, and penalties.

How I Started My Audiobook Publishing Company

24 January 2014

During the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, I started seeing this wonderful ad from Dell, titled “Beginnings”:

Perhaps it caught my attention because I have my own story about the quiet beginnings for a new business:

Date: 10/6/06
Time: 10:10am
Place: 10634, the cabin number of a cruise ship docked in Mykonos, Greece

Becoming an audiobook publisher has been a rough road, full of potholes, downed trees, and diverging paths that didn’t necessarily lead me in the direction I wanted to go. Only by trudging forward and refusing to give up was I able to eventually reach the destination.

I offer this post as a road map for becoming an audiobook publisher on ACX with a public domain book. If you want to publish a book still under copyright, you may want to skip down to the end for more information.

Initial Obstacles

I recently wrote about how ideas love speed. I did take several immediate actions 7.5 years ago when I had the idea to create an audiobook publishing company. I read several books that hadn’t been made into audiobooks and contacted the authors about obtaining the audio rights.

One author was interested, but the idea seemed to be squelched by her agent’s lawyers, who were reluctant to be involved with a start-up. Another author wanted to narrate her book. It took her several more years, but I see on Audible that she did narrate her audiobook. A third author was someone rather famous. I didn’t receive a response to my inquiries, but I see that her book is now on Audible, too. Perhaps I gave her the idea.

Life intervened. With the loss of my mother and changes on my day job, I put my dream of becoming an audiobook publisher on the shelf. While ideas love speed, some ideas can’t be implemented immediately and often take years to develop.

All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come.

— Victor Hugo

With the advent of ACX, I knew that I could finally see this idea through to fruition!

Rather than start with a book from a contemporary author as I originally envisioned, I decided to start Jewel Audiobooks with what I thought would be a simpler project: a book from the public domain (PD).

On 1 January 2013, I decided to publish the audiobook of The Heart of the New Thought by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, originally published in 1903. I wanted to produce a shorter work that would be new to audio and had a message I want to share. I often find myself in conversations about the power of our thoughts and words, so this little volume seemed perfect.

2 Tips to Tame Your To-Do List

6 January 2014

Long before the word “smartphone” was coined, I had several iterations of PDAs, and I remember my to-do list application on each one was always ultra important to me. My need to keep track of all my actions and ideas didn’t end there. In looking back through my journals to find entries for my blog series This Date In My History, I realize how often I wrote a to-do list.

These to-dos were all related to some aspect of my voiceover business.

Oh, I had to-do lists on my day job, too. However, someone else usually set the priority of the projects on those to-do lists. As a network and email administrator, I often would be working on a project that would get sidelined by a user support call. I rarely wrote about those actions in my journals. I knew they would always be waiting for me the next day. Creative ideas that held the possibility of moving us forward couldn’t be implemented without committee meetings, testing, and managerial approval. They became a project.

Actions for my voice-over business could be individual tasks or pieces that form a major project. I’ve always had great ideas that I wanted to implement, as well as time-sensitive actions to take, like auditions, sessions, software updates, invoicing, correspondence…. You see how easy it is to get in list mode?

The problem with these to-do lists is that they quickly became unwieldy. I began to have paralysis by analysis. I would have so many things that I COULD DO competing with things I SHOULD DO that I would find it difficult to pick something to start on.

I tried labeling each action as A, B, or C in priority, with the As being the things that must be done and the Cs being the ideas I wanted to capture and do sometime. I found that I usually didn’t need to write the As because they tended to be in the time-sensitive, mission-critical category of things to do. It was hard to assign something as a B. The Cs ended up being things I never got to. My journals are littered with fantastic ideas that I didn’t pursue.

As an example, my 2006 journal starts with a collage I made about creating a podcast. The word podcast was added to the dictionary in 2005, and I intended to be one of the frontrunners in creating a show. I started by writing lists (yes, list mode again!) of topic ideas because I didn’t want to start a podcast and then run out of steam after 3 episodes.

For what it’s worth, I had the same sort of worry before starting this blog. I decided I wouldn’t put pressure on myself to post on any schedule or only on certain topics. What freedom to just write something when I have something to say!

Although I gave myself this permission to write when the muse spoke, I found that the muse would often speak to me at a time when I couldn’t do anything about it. What did I do? You guessed it — added the idea to my to-do list. Even today, I add ideas for blog posts to an Evernote notebook. Unfortunately, like my podcast idea, many of them go in the folder and are forgotten.

The podcast idea was actually a recurring one, so let’s fast forward to 2011 when I attended Faffcon2 in Atlanta. Five years had passed since I first had the idea about creating a podcast, yet I was no closer to creating one. I was completely thrilled when someone suggested we collaborate on a series that could have endless, easy-to-create episodes. This idea could be IT!

After we parted company at Faffcon, we had several calls to firm up the plan. I immediately bought some new equipment that I would need to accomplish my part. Due to other demands like my day job, some time passed before I could test the equipment. By the summer of 2011, my collaborator and I both had our plates overflowing with other, more pressing things. The idea that so completely captivated me when I heard it eventually fizzled out to nothing, and I’ve since sold that piece of equipment.

Eight years have passed since I first decided to create a podcast, yet I still haven’t done it.

Which brings me to my first tip…

Ideas Love Speed

I’ve always heard the old saying “the early bird gets the worm.” It was proven to me when I used to sell a lot of my Barry Manilow collectibles on eBay. I noticed that the first seller who posted a unique item was usually the one to get the most money for it. Nike’s slogan of Just Do It is based on the premise that ideas love speed.

I recently listened to a program from Dr. Joe Vitale in which he explained the reasons why ideas love speed:

1) The idea comes with passion and excitement. That energy is available to use only if you act THEN. Use that energy to help propel you to get it done. When I look at the podcast collaboration idea in 2011, I see the truth of this statement. The further away we got from the original idea, the less inclined we were to implement it.

2) The Divine gave you this idea as a gift. You are honoring the idea to take action. Doing so comes with a blessing. He even said, as I observed with my eBay listings, the first one to act on an idea is usually the one to profit from it the most.

3) The Divine gives the idea to more than 1 person at a time, knowing that most of them won’t act on it. How many times have you had and ignored an idea, only to later see it implemented by and making money for someone else?

4) The more you act on and honor ideas, the more ideas you get.

Take-away straight from Dr. Vitale:

Act on the next idea that comes to you. Write it down and take action on it.

Act on Ideas That Wake You Up

I’ve read Dr. Wayne Dyer’s books and watched and listened to his programs. One quote that he often repeated was from Rumi:

The morning breeze has secrets

Don’t go back to sleep

I started writing this post around 5AM on a winter morning where it’s 30 degrees outside. Believe me, I really wanted to stay in my warm bed and go back to sleep, but I kept thinking about this post. If I’m going to think about it, I might as well get up and write it, especially since I’m guaranteed to have no interruptions.

And now it’s done before sunrise! Anything else I do today is just a bonus! 🙂

Photo: iStockPhoto/Fourtheexposure

TDIMH — Place Your Order With the Universe

20 November 2013

My continuing series of my past journal entries — This Date in My History

Wednesday 20 Nov., 2002 9:35pm on my sofa in front of the fire

Today’s word is disappointment.

I was disappointed to wake up and realize it’s only Wednesday; the preceding 2 days seemed long enough to be a week. I was disappointed to learn we did not win the lottery last night, and I have to go to work. I’m disappointed that my headache came back today.

The biggest disappointment, though, were the calls from [a potential client] telling me that he wouldn’t use me for the commercial after all. The regular talent will be back in town tomorrow, so, of course, she gets the gig.

I did make 2 follow up calls, and I sent 5-6 follow up emails. I guess I’ll just have to make my own luck. I like the quote yesterday in my 28 Days marketing book:

When doing business with the Universe, remember you must place an order if you want to get a delivery.

I think I’ve placed my order many, many times, so I keep wondering when it will be filled. I have to trust that things will happen in their own good time and when I’m ready. (I think I’m ready now if that makes a difference!)

Today’s Take-aways

These aren’t so much take-aways from the entry I copied as things I’ve learned about the Laws of Attraction and Creation since I wrote it.

1. “You can’t achieve victory if you’re constantly talking defeat.” — Joel Osteen

“What you think about expands” — Wayne Dyer

We all have disappointments in life. Dwelling on them will only ensure that the Universe serves up more disappointments to us. I wrote a blog entry titled Think/Write/Speak what you WANT into Being that goes into greater detail about changing your thoughts to a more positive pattern.

2. When we place our order to the Universe, we don’t know WHEN or HOW it will materialize. We waste valuable energy worrying about the WHEN or HOW. Instead of concerning ourselves with those two unknowable things, it’s important to continue taking steps and doing our best each day toward our dreams. When the Universe is free to deliver our order in the time and way that is best for us, the outcome will be better than we could have thought possible!

Karen Commins

Award Winning

Atlanta Audiobook Share-rator™