Voice Recording

 by Charlotte Hinger

This is going to be a really short not so sweet blog. I was asked to record my short story, Lizzie Noel, and I thought that would be a very simple process. 

Ha!

It would have been simple if I knew what I was doing. However, as usual I naively assumed it was a piece of cake. 

To begin with, I decided that the best approach would be to use the Voice Memo app on my iPhone. This entailed figuring out how to stop, resume, edit and improve the recording. 

My biggest problem was my voice. I sounded terrible. I have chronic allergies and sounded like a feeble frog. On top of that, since I don't regularly read aloud, my voice and breathing was irregular and breathy. I stumbled over simple words and repeated them. I used to be a good oral reader. What happened?

I think it was a case of use it or lose it. My neighbor who is a broadcast journalism advised me to drink lots of water, and a tea labeled Throat Coat. Those suggestions helped. I also dashed off to Best Buy and brought a mic that plugged into my iPhone that improved the sound quality. 

After I mailed off the recorded story to Ellery Queen I discovered there was a better system on my computer. Wow!

I wish I had done a better job. I'm going to start regularly reading aloud so I won't be caught off guard if I have another opportunity. 

It's embarrassing how many times I deleted the recording and started over before I learn that sections could be replaced.