Audiobook Mania

Today I had the honor of writing a review on an awesome audiobook blog, Audiobook Heaven. Call me the guest author for the day.

Audiobooks is a craze that isn’t going away any time soon. It’s not a passing fad, instead it seems to be the end of curling up on the sofa and reading page by flipping page, by holding an actual book in your hand.

We have Ebooks, Ereaders, Audiobooks and the same with publishers. It scares me as a writer, to want to get my book ‘published’, because what does that mean exactly? Will it be on pages, read by people or will it be in an audible format or Ereader where no one will fill their hands with my actual words in a paper bound book?

Audiobooks are to the writing industry, what cell phones are to landlines, what email is to snail-mail, what the massive exodus of internet and social sites are to speaking face-to-face, they are a quick means to an end.

While I love the audiobook industry, ripe with bloggers-a-plenty. The Twittersphere is crawling with audiophiles; Facebook is streaming with pages of audio lovers, and I can also find a couple of the narrators there too. The internet is all abuzz with sounds; with the likes of YouTube, you never have to leave your desk chair. The audiobook community is a world of its own there.

Audiobooks are a sheer delight in that, you DON’T need to be sitting in a chair to read your book. You can be exercising on a treadmill, running the morning’s park-path, driving in the car, everything except shower (until they come up with a water resistant mp3 player)!

Audiobooks are here to stay just as the internet is here to stay and deliver you the information you just couldn’t get from a face-to-face conversation or leafing through a book. Sometimes an audible rendition is good for the soul, too.

We listened to the book I did a review for while driving to Omaha. It’s a six hour trip in the car so having an audiobook was a welcome distraction to the long drive ahead of us. This book touched my heart in many ways. This is a non-fiction book, and while I’m close to the author/publisher/editor of Audiobook Heaven, non-fiction is not his niche of audiobook reviews, as you will see when you visit his site, Audiobook Heaven.

Blog a Book

It is perfectly okay to write garbage – as long as you edit brilliantly.
C. J. Cherryh

Here’s the concept. For starters you need to start yourself a blog. I have one and the settings are set to ‘closed’ where no one can read or comment on it but me. My goal? Write my life story. I don’t know where the idea came from and at first I had it opened to where people could read my gut wrenching, painful past and learn from it, but then I thought I was revealing too much for public viewing so I closed the doors and am writing my novel instead, through the use of a blog.

Many of you have read books like Go Ask Alice and surely, the Diary of Anne Frank. The format is quite simple in a daily journal style format; with some added tidbits meshed into the story. Well that is my goal in Blogging a book. Day after day I’ll write one tale after another, compile posts of substance, possibly 1,000 words a day. Then at the end of the month I will have close to 30,000 words written! Sounds like a plan.

You don’t need any fancy gadgets and sidebars, this is where you are just going to pen your story. You could do it outside the blog, but I know many of you don’t back up your work on a daily basis. This is where all your writing will be safe, and when your computer crashes and you lose everything, the blog will still be there storing all that you’ve written, so a months worth of work will be safe.

Writing a novel of fiction would be done the same way, but not so much as a journal. I’m going for the journal-like route because my biography is non fiction. The style might change after I get it all completed, but this gives me something to write about on a daily basis. I’m done on classes for now, I’m finished leading people in their writing (except for my blog here at Write Right) and I’m moving on to action. The action being that I’m writing every day, no outside negative influences, and I’m well on my way.

If you’re a new writer and this is your first time penning a tale. Do your research! You don’t need to pay for expensive classes to help you along the way. Make google your friend and search out style of writing, voice, metaphors and the like. Surround yourself with positive people which you can find on many writing sites on the web, for FREE! Take it from me, one negative person can take you down, so flee from them! Be forewarned! Surround yourself with positive and positive will be your pillow at night, and all you dream.

There are many storage facilities, also free on the net, GOOGLE is one of them. Make sure you store your work somewhere other than just on a blog. Your files are not safe because computers have been known to crash, with years of hard work wiped out completely, all because no one thought to BACK-UP their work. Sure the websites you store your work at can rarely be hacked, and this is why you choose many sites all with different passwords.

Keep your novel/blog/work safe! And Write Right!

Talk-o Tuesday

Ps. 31: 2 Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be thou my strong rock, for an house of defence to save me.
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Any time I get a chance to do a little promotion of a fellow writer, I jump at the chance and tell you what great people they are. Writer’s are their own breed ya know. We’re family and we all  stick together.

So I once again will tell you about this awesome poet, besides myself mind you, that has just had her book Vines of Life put on the shelves! Published and on its way to becoming a must read. Julie Jennings is an inspirational poet that might just lift those spirits when they are down, or maybe give you something enjoyable to read as you sit on the park bench basking in the sun.

Then there is my blogger friends that I like to boost like Benning, June, Raven and Gran. She’s not my Gran, she is Deb, who is a gran and we can all relate to that. Even with her grannyitis she’s a cool cat!

Then there is the audio book blog that I would like to sell you on. It’s called Audio Book Heaven, and with reviews for all genres, he is the up and coming Siskel and Ebert of audio books! But there is something different about him, something that makes him and his blog extra special. He’s blind. All that means is that he can’t see, it doesn’t mean he can’t blog like crazy, and you know, sometimes in the wee hours of the morning, I hear him out here tapping on the keys like rain on a tin roof.  I’d call him a Madman but he is my beau, so I’ll spare the egg tossing. *wink* *wink* 

So there you have it, the audio book blog to end all audio book blogs. His style is unique, his charm to die for, his writing, excellent in depth reviews, and the pudding on the pie? Well it’s my pie, but he’s growing closer to God and who can’t relate to that? Diversity, adversity, and everything in between, he triumphs and I think it is only because of, his love for God. He’s also blogging about his trials/triumphs being blind so if you want a glimpse you’ll find him here at Drums in the Deep.

So why not give him a click? Lend him and all my friends support! They’d do the same for me, I just know it! They are my support when my legs feel wobbly, my rock when I feel like sand, my muscle when I shimmy like jelly, they are... my writing friends!

And the beat goes on...

The Blog

Some may say, “Life isn’t all about blogging.” I say *whack*! I’m kidding folks. Life isn’t all about blogging. Life is about, well, life, and living it.

But as a blogger, I like to think that they are at least worthwhile. How many times have you googled something, only to be taken to a blog? Blogs are becoming the information of today and maybe tomorrow. They are enlightening, fun, and a virtual breeding ground of pain and angst, but also they are a tool for learning. Not only learning about a skill but learning about people, meeting others like yourself, writer’s and people who have the same interests as you.

When I first started blogging, over three-hundred posts ago, I never thought that I’d have anything worthwhile to add to the blogging world. I thought maybe this was a passing fancy and I’d lose interest after a while. Instead I’ve found that twenty-one followers later, that I do have something to say. My friends and family will say, “You can sure talk up a storm, why not blog up a storm?”

That’s the funny part, my family is non-supportive. Wait, I have my fiancé and my son who claim to follow me religiously. I mean my blood family. Do they even know I exist or that I am a writer? Who knows!

I have a family within my writing community who stands by me, supports me, and is very encouraging in all that I do. I think sometimes they are my family more than the blood people who claim to be related to me. When a writer friend from across the country can send me money because she read of the hardships that we’ve endured, while my blood family ignores me like I have the plague, I’d say my writing friends ARE my family.

Now don’t misunderstand me, my beau’s family is awesome beyond belief. They have been here for us every chance they get! They care! But then again, read my poem Nebraska and you’ll see why. These people rock!

My blogging days are far from over as I help along the writing community to become better writer’s. Maybe give them ideas that will grow into something promising, or maybe even post that market that will find their work a home and they will become the published writer that they dreamed of becoming.

All in all, no life isn’t about blogging, but life is about helping people and that is why I will help people until the day I rejoin my Father in heaven.

Angel Always...godspeed friends...