Never mind writer's block, how about speaker's block?
The internet. In terms of the great democratic leveller, there aren't many other tools to match it. Witness the exponential increase in blogs. There are probably more blogs writers than blog readers now - everybody thinks they have an interesting viewpoint, a unique story to tell, and that they are blessed with sufficient insight, wit and observational prowess that people want to know their opinion (hmmm, irony... How many visitors yesterday? Oh yeah, four. Stop the presses...).
The point is, the internet brings a power to the common man previously denied to all but a very few. Nowhere more so than in the realm of publishing. What are blogs, other than self-published episodic monologues, that can reach an audience of millions? Back in the days of paper and ink, you couldn't hope to reach that many people, in such a short space of time, for so little money. The publishing process is now being subverted. Gone are the days of submitting your manuscript to agents, readers, and wading through rejection letters, in the hope that somebody might take an interest. Now, just blog your story. Like Abby Lee. First the blog, then the book.
Or taking it a step further, podcast your novels. In the past, audio adaptations would follow publication of the paper edition. Thanks to authors like Scott Sigler, this is no longer necessarily true. Sigler started podcasting his novels long before publishers printed them, and hugely popular they have become.
Which belatedly brings me to my point. It has been suggested to me that I should consider podcasting my writing, in addition to submitting it for paper publication. And while I had considered using one of my websites for posting my writing (currently, I think my legal site might get pulled and replaced with a writing site), I had never considered podcasting.
And the reason is that, in addition to thinking I have a face that is perfect for radio, I also believe I have a voice that is perfect for mime. So the prospect of reading my own work fills me with dread, for two main reasons.
Firstly, the long-standing embarrassment of reading my own words out loud. I've always hated doing that, from primary school to this day. It's irrational, because I've had enough people tell me that they like my writing to realise that I'm a somewhat passable writer.
Secondly, the accent. I have a very strong Scottish accent. I find that the Celtic nations, and any nationality with hard, guttural accents (German, Russian) tend not to have much difficulty in understanding me. But there are certain nationalities that just cannot understand me, no matter how hard I or they try. Like the French. I've given up speaking to the French lawyer in our office over the phone. Now, I just e-mail her. It's just easier that way.
At least she has the excuse that English is not her first language. I still manage to confuse English people when I speak. The security guy at front desk? Every time I give my name, he just looks at me blankly until I've repeated it four or five times. I've had American friends say to me "I have no idea what the hell you just said." When I was in North Carolina, an American girl thought I was inviting her to an orgy rather than explaining what time I was meeting everyone ("have sex" and "half six" being too similar to her ear). And as for Antipodeans? The two Lauras, Emily and I (the Scottish contingent at UNC) had a devil of a time trying to convince Aussie Kate that "poor" "pour" and "pure" did not sound the same when we said them. And we failed. I was once told by a girl from New Zealand that Kiwis and Scots are meant to have the hardest time of all English speakers in terms of understanding each other, as apparently the New Zealand accent is slow (can't say I noticed) whereas Scots speak very quickly (guilty as charged m'lud!).
So where a harsh accent may put off non-native English speakers, it would appear that even native English speakers may have problems! And I feel a little silly about doing character voices, and woeful attempts at accents (I don't know how Scott Sigler gets past that one!). Hmmm, I'll think about it.
As to what will be podcasted, it won't be the story I'm working on at the moment. That's too fragmented at the moment to make it worth putting into a podcast, plus it suffers from a large number of accents that are better left to the imagination. Set in London, it's heavy on English, Scottish, Irish, Polish, Australian, New Zealand, South African, Indian and Pakistani accents, male and female. I'm not going to attempt those, otherwise I'll just sound like some kind of dire 1970s working man's club comedian making offensive jokes...
Couple of other ideas on the back burner would better lend themselves to podcasting though, so I'll keep you updated as and when I get round to writing them.
The point is, the internet brings a power to the common man previously denied to all but a very few. Nowhere more so than in the realm of publishing. What are blogs, other than self-published episodic monologues, that can reach an audience of millions? Back in the days of paper and ink, you couldn't hope to reach that many people, in such a short space of time, for so little money. The publishing process is now being subverted. Gone are the days of submitting your manuscript to agents, readers, and wading through rejection letters, in the hope that somebody might take an interest. Now, just blog your story. Like Abby Lee. First the blog, then the book.
Or taking it a step further, podcast your novels. In the past, audio adaptations would follow publication of the paper edition. Thanks to authors like Scott Sigler, this is no longer necessarily true. Sigler started podcasting his novels long before publishers printed them, and hugely popular they have become.
Which belatedly brings me to my point. It has been suggested to me that I should consider podcasting my writing, in addition to submitting it for paper publication. And while I had considered using one of my websites for posting my writing (currently, I think my legal site might get pulled and replaced with a writing site), I had never considered podcasting.
And the reason is that, in addition to thinking I have a face that is perfect for radio, I also believe I have a voice that is perfect for mime. So the prospect of reading my own work fills me with dread, for two main reasons.
Firstly, the long-standing embarrassment of reading my own words out loud. I've always hated doing that, from primary school to this day. It's irrational, because I've had enough people tell me that they like my writing to realise that I'm a somewhat passable writer.
Secondly, the accent. I have a very strong Scottish accent. I find that the Celtic nations, and any nationality with hard, guttural accents (German, Russian) tend not to have much difficulty in understanding me. But there are certain nationalities that just cannot understand me, no matter how hard I or they try. Like the French. I've given up speaking to the French lawyer in our office over the phone. Now, I just e-mail her. It's just easier that way.
At least she has the excuse that English is not her first language. I still manage to confuse English people when I speak. The security guy at front desk? Every time I give my name, he just looks at me blankly until I've repeated it four or five times. I've had American friends say to me "I have no idea what the hell you just said." When I was in North Carolina, an American girl thought I was inviting her to an orgy rather than explaining what time I was meeting everyone ("have sex" and "half six" being too similar to her ear). And as for Antipodeans? The two Lauras, Emily and I (the Scottish contingent at UNC) had a devil of a time trying to convince Aussie Kate that "poor" "pour" and "pure" did not sound the same when we said them. And we failed. I was once told by a girl from New Zealand that Kiwis and Scots are meant to have the hardest time of all English speakers in terms of understanding each other, as apparently the New Zealand accent is slow (can't say I noticed) whereas Scots speak very quickly (guilty as charged m'lud!).
So where a harsh accent may put off non-native English speakers, it would appear that even native English speakers may have problems! And I feel a little silly about doing character voices, and woeful attempts at accents (I don't know how Scott Sigler gets past that one!). Hmmm, I'll think about it.
As to what will be podcasted, it won't be the story I'm working on at the moment. That's too fragmented at the moment to make it worth putting into a podcast, plus it suffers from a large number of accents that are better left to the imagination. Set in London, it's heavy on English, Scottish, Irish, Polish, Australian, New Zealand, South African, Indian and Pakistani accents, male and female. I'm not going to attempt those, otherwise I'll just sound like some kind of dire 1970s working man's club comedian making offensive jokes...
Couple of other ideas on the back burner would better lend themselves to podcasting though, so I'll keep you updated as and when I get round to writing them.
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