Tuesday, September 16, 2008

sounds


Okay. I am, as promised, going to lay down one of those famous rants.

Just not today.

I'm wiped out.

In fact, I am really looking forward to this coming Sunday, because it will be the first day in about three weeks when I can actually stay home and do nothing. I may actually sleep in, which, to me, means about ten after six in the morning.

One of the things I like best about where I live is the sound. It's a rare thing here to hear a siren. That happens maybe once a month, at the most. And on summer nights when we sleep with the windows open, every few nights we will get the most amazing songs from the coyotes. Sometimes, they are right down in the creek bed behind the horses. Some nights, their songs are frantic and panicky, other nights they sound pained and scared, but every time they go off, my three dogs will join in.

To me, it kind of sounds like the people at a rock concert who try to sing along with the band, but you just know why they're NOT the ones on stage. Domestic dogs just can't hang with a coyote concert. They're like a bad American Idol audition.

I bring up the idea of sounds because I got a copy of the Ghost Medicine audiobook the other day. It really is a cool thing to look at and hold. There are nine CDs in the box, and the artwork and layout of the box are so impressive. Of course, I haven't opened it. I will open it if I get another copy (hint to Random House). But I know what it sounds like, since I got to sit in the recording studio one day during the production.

And it's over 11 hours long, too. That's awesome.

Last summer, I got to meet and talk with author Laurie Halse Anderson. I think she's really cool, and doubt she would remember having met such a microscopic nobody as me. In any event, when I told her about my going to the studio, she said that she NEVER listens to her audiobooks. I can understand that, too.

I think as writers, we get so caught up with the squiggly black lines on the paper that we never even imagine the "sound" of our work. At least, I don't. Because it sure did "sound" weird to me to hear my book coming out of the mouth of an actor.

Okay. I got there. Day 23 of blogging every day for a month.

(Am afraid, being the obsessive compulsive moron I am that when I get to the end of the month I won't be able to stop)

Hmmm... and I nearly ranted about insane college Lit professors.

BEDFAM 23

--A.S.