'Sounds' like a good day!

If you have never been in a sound booth, or recorded an audio track I have now done it one more time than you.

This is me, on my way to OKC sans children. For those of you who have children, you know how awkward it is when you are 15 minutes into your kid-free trip, and you feel like you should be enjoying it, but you are not. It is deafeningly quiet first of all...and you finally realize how boring a car ride is without children to throw things at your head and ask you random questions like "why do leaves fall off of trees?" and "what kind of food does God eat?"

My trip to OKC to Tate publishing was fun and a bit nerve racking. I practiced how I would voice my book the whole way down. Should each animal have their own voice and dialect? Should I read the whole book with the same voice? How in the world do I read the song from the book??? While all these questions bumbled up my brain, I decided it was best to just read the book exactly like I read it to my kids.

I arrived at Tate publishing and met with my sound guy, Josh, who introduced me to the "sound booth", basically a small cubical surrounded on all sides by egg crate padding.

Josh explained to me that I would be in there by myself reading the book and would be continuously recorded. Should I make a mistake, I simply press ctrl, and start over at the beginning of the sentence. That place will be marked and edited out. I then asked if I could read from my book that I brought, to which he replied, no because the sound of the pages would be too loud as I turned them. Then I asked when it starts recording, to which he replied that it was already recording. So after my series of of seemingly useless questions with obvious answers, I started to record my audio book.

I think it went okay, but I did mess up quite a few times. It took me three tries to record the song from the book (no I did not "sing" it, I just voiced it melodically, lol) I think overall it will turn out well. Most importantly to me I had fun with it, and it will be a very personal and unique way for kids to hear the story, from the mind of the author.

After I was finished recording I asked if I could meet my illustrator, Jesse DeFriese. I was taken back to the illustrating department and got to meet her for the first time face-to-face! I told her how amazing her illustrations were and how everyone just loves the turtle!

After meeting Jesse, I decided to undertake one more mission. A former classmate of mine works at Tate. I didn't plan to find her, but I was curious if she was there. So I then went on a quest to find her (not so much of a quest, more like asking the receptionist) I was able to locate her, and had a nice chat with Jo Reese about what she does at Tate (writes radio shows! cool, right?) and was able to catch up about family and other things. My next goal was lunch.

So, you know when tell someone who lives far away that if you are ever in town you will look them up and have lunch? And then you are never in town? Well this was the case with Shari Yeager. Also an old classmate of mine, but I was actually in town and free and she was also free so we went to Olive Garden and had delicious wine and too much pasta (wait...strike that, reverse it).

All in all, it was an amazing fun day. It was exciting to record an audio book that millions of people will hear (okay maybe not "millions" maybe just one million, lol) and to see old friends from my younger days. I hope you enjoyed the detailed breakdown of my WHOLE DAY, because I enjoyed telling you. Love you all, and I will be sending out details and invited to my big release party party soon! Stay tuned for details!