So today I'm hard at work editing the audio from the latest chapter of my new novel, Little Marigold Blossoms.
It's hard work. The raw audio file is over an hour long.
Audio editing is not a glamorous task. What I'm doing is listening to the same audio, over and over, clipping out bad takes, laughter, mouth noise, environmental sound that got into the recording by accident, adjusting the audio to be mostly the same level.
It comes with the territory. My narrator for the book, Suzie is really good. She has a great sense of timing, drama, and emotion. I love working with her. We've got a great working relationship, and she's super patient with me about doing multiple takes for something, in order to get it just the way I want.
Even as good as she is, I still got to take the raw product and refine it. But you know what? I love it. Even the laborious, painstaking parts of the gig are worth doing.
There's this one exchange between Mari, the main character, and her Uncle Norman, where she cuts him off, responding in quick anger to something he says as they're on a plane ride. I edited the audio so that in Suzie's narration, playing as Mari, she actually interrupts herself, playing as Uncle Norman. It's a subtle, little thing. But it's artful and clever (if I do say so myself), and makes Suzie's performance really pop.
I was so very pleased by it that I took a little break to write this post about it. I feel blessed to have such a talented narrator to work with, and on a project I love so very much.