October 20-23rd Blogs

Sunday October 23, 2005
Click Here to Listen to My First Audio Blog

Wikipedia is the single-most all-around helpful website I think I've ever found. You may notice that in my Oct. 22 blog below I mentioned I wanted to figure out how to convert a .wav file to an MP3 file. On a hunch, I entered the encoder name LAME MP3, and I found out everything I needed to know about MP3 files to get me started. I followed one of the external links at the bottom of the page and soon downloaded the appropriate file.

The deal with MP3 files is that they take up about 1/6th the memory space that a typical .wav file uses to record the same audio feed. They're much more compact files, and the sound quality is actually better.

So, now I'm cooking with gas.

I've got the mic, Audacity to record and edit what I say into the mic, and I am able to save my files as MP3.

Now, I need to find a hosting site that will store my audio files, so that I can then post links to them here (or anywhere on the internet, I suppose) for you, Dear Reader, to hear.

I'd really like to be able to announce the winner of the T-shirt contest via an audio file. That'd be a cool moment.

SC


Saturday October 22, 2005
Pictured below, you will see my new microphone set-up.



Special thanks to Matt Peterson for recommending this incredible mic. I just received it last night in the mail, as a birthday gift from my mom:) and within an hour, I had figured out how to download Audacity, record a .wav file, and send an audio message via e-mail.

My dream-goal is to podcast my own radio show over the internet, and I'm beginning to look into hosting sites. I found www.audioblog.com last night, but I'm going to take some time before moving on to this next step.

I want to learn how to record well, edit, and use MP3 files. If anybody knows how to convert .wav files to MP3, please let me know via the "comments" box up above. When I try to do it from Audacity, it says I need an LAME MP3 Encoder. I don't know what that is, and I'm pretty sure I don't have it on my computer.

Also, if you'd like to hear a .wav audio greeting from yours truly, just drop me a line via the "comments" box as well. I'll try and say something funny...

Stacey


Thursday October 20, 2005
I've begun finalizing the First Lulu Trade Paperback edition of Amber Page and the Legend of the Coral Stone. I now know the ISBN: 141165448X.

Unless something crops up in the next two weeks that is unforeseen at this moment, the book is done and is on its way to entering the Global Distribution system that will make it available at book retailers around the world.

The second book in the series, The Colorado Sequence, is done in manuscript format. I have begun "booking" it, by which I mean preparing the book format and initial steps for layout and design. What I've learned from this process over the past year and a half is that it takes about nine months of tinkering and work to get a novel from manuscript format to final booked format with cover art, bar codes, and ISBNs, etc.

The Colorado Sequence (148,000 words) is nearly two and a half times as long as Amber Page and the Legend of the Coral Stone (58,000 words), so I'm planning on it taking longer to prepare the book.

The third book in the Amber Page series Dr. Plant is currently at 163,000 words (almost exactly the length of Stephen King's The Shining) and I hope to bring it to THE END by January 2006, somewhere in the neighborhood of 225,000 words, a hefty chunk of fiction and a conclusion to the three-book series.

There is also a prelude to the Amber Page series, my comic-book-style PI novel Culpepper, which though selected as a finalist for the 2004 St. Martin's Press/PWA Best First Private Eye Novel Contest, has not found a publisher. A fifth book in this series's world Maggie's Inferno was completed this past April. It concerns a fourteen-year-old pyrokinetic heroine named Maggie Redcrest pitted against the evil, villainous Dr. Plant from Dr. Plant, and it was work-shopped a few weeks ago.

Two completely unrelated books Claws and Claws 2 are in search of a home. They are straight-ahead suspense-thrillers with a sexy, wildlife biologist protagonist, Dr. Angie Rippard, saving the environment for wildlife species and pitted against evil real estate developers.