Forgive me if I ramble a bit because I've been thinking about writing this author's note for a LONG time. So this is the first podfic I ever recorded, and you're probably thinking to yourself "wait but there's three other things on your account" and that is true because this was recorded literally a year ago and I've been ever so slowly editing it ever since. I can't count the number of times I've given up on this project (who knew solo editing a short audio book was so much work?) but I pushed through and today is finally the day.
For context (it's totally fine to skip all of this) around this time last year I had just started my first real job out of college and was frustrated by how creatively dead I was feeling. I felt like I was living the same day over and over again, saying the exact same sentences to the exact same faceless masses, and as someone who grew up in a creative environment that was stifling. I wanted to feel things, I wanted to use my voice to say things that I cared about.
Around the same time someone linked this fic on tumblr and I really connected with it. I'm not even really a huge fan of the It franchise or anything like that but this is so well written and the themes of overcoming fear and learning to accept life for what it is, for better or for worse, resonated with me at a dark time. Ever since theatre class in college I've had a habit of "dramatically reading" text in my head and this dialogue just jumped off the page so I decided to finally take the leap and record. What I love about fiction (and by extension, fiction in performance) is that it lets us go through emotions and experiences we're deficient of in our everyday lives, and this fic was a very delicious journey to undertake.
For a month, after work and on my days off when the house was empty I would squirrel myself away in my room and record on my little Skull Candy headphones. After I finished I had a mountain of raw audio that I spent months cutting down to a first draft, then even more months polishing it into something I could be proud of. I recorded other fics to help practice techniques, I watched videos about audio editing, and I spent countless, countless hours listening to myself talk (which should honestly count as a circle of hell)... and now we're here!
I could spend a hundred more years rerecording, picking this thing apart, playing with audio settings, editing out minor blips and pops, but I think it's time for me to finally let this one out into the world. I'm still not really sure what the target market for these things is or if anyone will listen to this but if you do, thank you, I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.
Thanks to the author for writing this wonderful piece and letting me record it, in the spirit of the original fic I did make a donation to a local food bank. Drop a kudos or a comment or something, especially if you hear something aberrant I missed in the audio so I can fix it.
