Aren’t You Done Yet?

I get this question about a lot of different things. “I thought you started that book five years ago.” and “Weren’t you knitting that last time I saw you?” are variations on a theme. Most recently, I’ve been pinged a few times by folks who are excited to share the audio version of Blood in the Rain: seventeen stories of vampire erotica. I had no idea when we started this process just how long it was going to take. Future audio book scheduling will take into account life and the way things just get in the way. Illness, school vacations, dead hard-drives, and things like that are very hard to factor into a schedule, but they will, inevitably, mess with any timeline.

One of the things I really didn’t know was just how long it was going to take to edit a story. In the photo above, you can see the raw content in the shaggy caterpillar like band across the middle. All the vertical lines are markers for flubs that need editing. Every time the voice actor stopped to change a word, intonation or cough, the audio tech put in a marker. Then, after the recording is all done, each line has to be addressed.

So…seventeen stories. Each story takes sixty to ninety minutes to record and three to five hours to edit. Add in voice actors can only work for three hour stretches (union rules) and, since ours are working full time at “real jobs”, one evening a week and you can see why it’s April and we’re just now really close to finishing. We have twelve stories mostly done and five left to record. I think you’ll find it’s been worth the wait. Here’s hoping for a June release!