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Karen Commins

Award Winning

Atlanta Audiobook Share-rator™

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journal

Things I’ve Learned About Adding New Entries to My Journals

16 December 2023

A few days ago, I showed a narrator friend my collection of journals, which I started keeping consistently in 1999. She was interested in beginning a journal and asked some questions that started me thinking about things I’ve learned about adding new entries to my journals.

I think many people may wish to start a journaling practice at the beginning of the new year. This list, which is no particular order, goes beyond the advice and info I shared in my article How I Use My Journal. I encourage you to read that article, too.

 

[Read more…] about Things I’ve Learned About Adding New Entries to My Journals

Filed Under: Away From the Mic, Narrators Tagged With: journal

20 Things Learned in Last 20 Years

1 September 2019

 

Happy 20th anniversary to me!

I launched my voiceover business 20 years ago.

Since my last post was about using my journal, it’s only appropriate that this one goes back to where it all began, my first entry in my first book.

 

Saturday 8/28/1999 9:25pm

I’m spending my evening copying the CD of my first voice-over demo with the plan to mail a few to agents on Monday. How I got to this point and where I go from here will be the subject of this journal.

Friday 9/3/99 10:15pm

On Wednesday, September 1, 1999, I mailed 3 CDs to [3 Atlanta VO agents]. It was such a huge step, and I felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment and excitement to have pushed the dream out to people who could do something about it!

The past 20 years have been a remarkable evolutionary journey, to say the least! As I was reflecting on all that I’ve seen, read, written, voiced, and otherwise done in that time, I decided a blog post of 20 things I’ve learned would be a great way to celebrate this milestone!

So here’s the list, in no particular order. By the way, you’ll find more private journal entries sprinkled throughout these articles!

[Read more…] about 20 Things Learned in Last 20 Years

Filed Under: Away From the Mic, Business, Links, Narrators, Observations, This Date in My History, Voice-Over Tagged With: journal

How I Use My Journal

27 August 2019

Updated 8/28/19

 

Earlier this week, I re-tweeted a great comment from casting director Dana Bowling:

Since several people asked me about my journaling process, I thought this post with a few ideas might help you start or further your own.

[Read more…] about How I Use My Journal

Filed Under: Away From the Mic, Narrators, Observations, Success Leaves Tracks Tagged With: Bullet Journal, Dana Bowling, Jim Rohn, journal

Bly vs Bisland: The Story Behind the Story (Part 1)

16 July 2015

Every now and again, we get a Divine whisper of an inspired idea. Such was the case about a very special and exciting audiobook I created and produced earlier this year.

In 1889, Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland were female reporters in New York. Each went on a daring solo trip around the world at the same time. Nellie wanted to beat the time of Phileas Fogg, Jules Verne’s fictional character in Around The World in 80 Days. Rival reporter Elizabeth Bisland left on a solo race around the world hoping to beat Nellie’s time!

Nellie sailed east to England in the morning. That night, and unbeknownst to Nellie, Elizabeth took a train west to San Francisco. In Bly vs Bisland: Beating Phileas Fogg In A Race Around The World, I combined the narratives from both women into a single book with 1 timeline! Who will win the race?!


My journal entries tell Part 1 of the story behind the story between idea and implementation.
[Read more…] about Bly vs Bisland: The Story Behind the Story (Part 1)

Filed Under: Audiobooks, Books, Narrators, New releases, Recordings, This Date in My History, Voice-Over Tagged With: 1889, audiobook, Elizabeth Bisland, inspired idea, journal, journalists, Jules Verne, Melissa Reizian Frank, Nellie Bly, New York, Phileas Fogg, race around the world, reporters, solo female travelers

The Story Behind The Story Part 1: Illustrations

6 September 2014

In July, I published the Kindle edition and audiobook of Edna Ferber’s classic coming-of-age story Fanny Herself: A Passionate Instinct. On the surface, the task of publishing new editions of a public domain work might seem simple. After all, the author has done the hard part of actually writing the text. As you’ll discover in a short series of articles from several journal entries I want to share, the effort and decisions occurring behind the scenes were almost as difficult and time-consuming as creating a new story.

You may remember from this post that in order for me to publish an audiobook from a public domain book on Audible.com  — my end goal — I have to create a new Kindle version of the text. This version must be distinguished from the free version in the Kindle store in 1 of 3 ways:

  1. annotated with substantive, hand-created content
  2. illustrated with 10 or more pictures that are relevant to the text
  3. translated into another language

I had illustrated my first book The Heart of The New Thought and decided to illustrate Fanny Herself.

Monday 31 March 2014

When it comes easy, you know it’s meant to be, and the Universe was certainly smiling on me this afternoon to make it easy for me to illustrate Fanny Herself!

Last night, I started looking for stock images to illustrate the book. I thought it would be easy to find a Victorian, plush photo album shaped like an acorn. I’m sure I’ve seen such a thing in a magazine. I spent at least an hour and maybe even 2 looking for that one picture but came up empty. As we went to bed, I thought I should plan to annotate my Kindle book instead of illustrate it.

I started researching the famous violinist Schabelitz to see if he really was a violinist or an imaginary character. Ferber mixes real and imagined people and things so easily that I don’t know where fiction ends and facts begin.

I found info about the German influences in Wisconsin and a journalist in Cincinnati named R. E. Schabelitz. These were interesting finds, and I thought of other things to add.

I saw several links to the book and looked at a few. One was the Emory Women Writers Resource Project, which might be a useful repository of future publishing projects.

Another link was the JACKPOT! I found Volume 83 of The American Magazine containing their issues from Jan.-June 1917. Fanny Herself, I quickly learned, was serialized in that magazine starting in April 1917! And guess what?! Within each month’s portion were hand-drawn illustrations by M. Leone Bracker! I found 10 between April and June, which is all I need to offer the book on Kindle. I also found a picture of Ferber and made copies of the magazine cover and some promotional paragraphs.

I looked for volume 84 in Google. They have digitized a number of volumes of The American Magazine, but they weren’t in order. I never could find volume 84. I was thinking about checking libraries to find it.

I decided to look on eBay. I queried “American Magazine 1917” and got 41 results, most of which were for different magazines like the American Magazine of the Arts, Mentor, etc. Someone had the April 1917 issue of The American Magazine for $20.

I about jumped out of my skin when I saw the holy grail:  Volume 84, bound like a library copy, of the July-Dec. 1917 issues of The American Magazine!! I didn’t even read the description! I saw the pictures and the price of $18 plus $3 shipping, and I bought it!

I then saw that the front and back covers of each magazine are missing, along with about 12 pages throughout the book. The probability that those 12 pages were the pictures I want is too remote to even consider. It’s coming from North Carolina, so I should have my book later this week.

When I think of the probability of the very book I need being on eBay at the precise time I looked, my astonishment and elation increase. What are the odds?! Obviously the Universe and perhaps Edna Ferber herself want me to have an easy time of bringing new life to this book! I’m soooo excited that I will be able to include the original illustrations from the magazine in my book!!

M. Leone Bracker’s 1917 artwork for Fanny Herself

 

Filed Under: Audiobooks, Away From the Mic, Books, Narrators Tagged With: Audible.com, eBay, Edna Ferber, Fanny Herself, journal, Kindle, M. Leone Bracker

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
 

Filed Under: Away From the Mic, Business, Narrators, Observations, Success Leaves Tracks Tagged With: Dr. Joe Vitale, Dr. Wayne Dyer, ideas, journal, This Date in My History, to-do list, voice-over

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