Gill Oliver

Author

How, why, when, who… whatever’s on my mind

First steps with audio

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It was meeting with readers of Joe Faber and the Optimists that first got me thinking seriously about producing an audio book. Many stroke survivors find physical books difficult to handle; my husband’s one of them, and only reads on a tablet now. For others, though, brain injury has affected the ability to read at all, and audio is their only option. So, alongside the new book I’ve been writing, it’s become a passion project to narrate and record Joe Faber.

There’s  a lot of noise around audiobooks. Audio is big and growing, and indie authors are curious about jumping on board, because it looks so possible.  Platforms like ACX and Findaway Voices  can help you find a narrator; AI may, in the future, offer a way to get narration done on the cheap; while digital technology means that it’s never been easier to record yourself, at home.  However, remuneration is poor and opaque, with Audiblegate rumbling in the background. The game’s probably not worth the candle unless you’re already selling big numbers, have a publisher to take the whole thing out of your hands, and have an adequate marketing strategy. 

You can do all sorts of things, but just because you can doesn’t mean you should. If something is easy to do, it’s also going to be easy to do it badly.

Alongside the altruistic motive for creating an audio version of Joe Faber and the Optimists, I  have an equally specific, but ego-driven reason for wanting to do the narration myself. Modest as I am, I can’t believe anyone else can read my work better than I can. I know where the jokes are, for heaven’s sake! I know the serious from the tongue-in-cheek; I hear where the emphasis of each sentence falls;  and if I’ve used a word, I damn well know how to pronounce it.

It gets worse. I also have a very specific reason for wanting to edit  the audio file myself: I don’t know anyone I’d entrust it to. (This person must exist, but we haven’t met.) I know how long I want the pauses to be. I know what needs space round it, what needs to speed up. Comic writing implies comic performance, and comic performance relies on timing. And voice. The readers who ‘get’ what I’m doing tend to say they like the way I write.  There’s a definite Alan Bennett / David Sedaris factor at play, a whimsical, performative side, and any author who writes like this will want to capitalise on whatever’s idiosyncratic about their voice in the widest sense.  Not something to be handed over to a robot.

Right. We’ve established that I’m a delusional narcissist. Read the diary below if you’re a fellow-author curious to know what happened when I tried. If you just want to cut to the chase – because seriously, some people are only reading this post to find out what happened in the end –  listen to this. And prepare to be confused. Suffice to say, I should have started where I finished up.

Diary... Five acts, but not a tragedy

Stage one Decision made:  I can’t justify the expense of  hiring a studio and sound engineer, when I don’t expect to make any money out of this.  Nor do I have the voice training to talk non-stop for that amount of time, days on end. I sign up for an ‘Audiobooks made easy for authors’ course for a modest fee, and order the recommended kit. 

Two of the recommendations on this course proved excellent for my situation.  Firstly, use a dynamic microphone, not a condenser mic. (ACX and many ‘how-to-ers’ are axiomatic about the need for condenser mic, but a condenser mic will pick up the sound of dust settling.  With a home studio, getting rid of unwanted noise is the most likely thing to defeat you come the editing / mastering stage.) Second, the free software, Audacity, is all you need. (It’s widely used by language teachers. And why pay to be confused?)

The course’s technical recommendations for editing and mastering, though, turned out to be inappropriate for narrative fiction, and for my voice. Worse, some would inevitably lead to your files being rejected (e.g. pasting in silence –  instead of room noise). Of course, you know nothing of this when you start.

Stage 2 I’m getting into it, I’ve organised my home studio adequately, but there’s one huge practical problem. The technique I’m being taught is to record a small amount, then go back and edit immediately. But my brain can’t flip-flop between performance and editing. Again, it might work if I were recording the shipping forecast, but not a story. 

Direct speech proves particularly tricky; I need a micro-pause to adjust my voice, which then needs to be edited out, if the whole thing is to flow naturally. And I start to notice mouth-clicks…  aargh. Once you hear this, you become obsessive. On the performance side, I get some useful advice and feedback from a voice-trained friend, including warm-ups. Rappers on YouTube are good on this, too.

I google everything, find good and bad on YouTube, and discover the de-clicker plug-in for Audacity. Plug-ins! Yey! I notice, on the dashboard, Audacity’s ‘ACX check’ – which checks overall sound quality for upload to Amazon – and think I might be getting somewhere. 

But every recording fails to pass.  On the technical side, I’m getting a sense of what’s wrong but don’t know how to put it right, so I talk to a friendly physicist. The method I’m using is doomed. 

Stage 3 I’ve plugged away and recorded many hours, but if editing is fraught, mastering to pass the ACX check is going to be worse… AT LAST I do what I ought to have done in the first place and go back to the Audacity manual, which, lo and behold, has a whole section on mastering for audiobook. Nothing like the course I paid for, b.t.w. 

As I edit, I’m confused as to the order in which things need to be done, so I post my query on the Audacity forum.  They have a simple mechanism for uploading a 10 second sample, which I do. At this point the tide turns… 

I get expert help from someone on the other side of the ocean who knows what he’s talking about. Koz is a legend in my life. He patiently takes me back through basics. We message to and fro on the forum over many weeks.  I glean that he’s an experienced sound engineer and full of wisdom. ( I’ve always loved working with people who have any sort of technical expertise – especially expertise I lack – so it’s a nerdy, happy place for me.) (OK, a rabbit hole – a more sensible author might have said, stuff this, it’s all taking too long.) Koz went the extra mile. His last communication was along the lines, you’ll go back to chapter one and do it all much more naturally now. 

None of this good stuff cost me a penny. Audacity epitomises the best of the digital age.

Stage 4 Big realisation. I fundamentally dislike the way I’ve dealt with my main protagonist’s direct speech. His speech is affected by the stroke – but I’d made him sound irredeemably grumpy instead of the bundle of wit he is. The answer is to hold one hand over the side of my mouth, mimicking the effect of the stroke, while allowing a smile back into the voice.  That’s going to be a lot of re-recording… I decided to park this project for a while and focus more energy on the other work-in-progress. Writing. And yes, start all over again at some future date.

Stage 5  With the second draft of the new novel sent off for editorial feedback, I sign up with Findaway Voices. My aim now is to produce just one short story as a sort of experiment or ‘apprentice piece.’ I’ll go through all the stages and establish the best workflow for me. The project indulges my inner nerd.  I keep a detailed spreadsheet, with every clip, every action, and key metrics logged. I work out by trial and error what to do and what order to do it in. The uploaded file passes quality control first time, and some weeks later it’s available for distribution. It’s certainly no worse than many audiobooks (hear a sample on Spotify – here).

In hindsight, what the dodgy course did achieve was to sucker me in to trying. I needed a bit of hand-holding to get started, and some basic terms of reference. But as for the promise that, once you’ve done this course and mastered the techniques, you should only need five minutes work for each minute of recording time… Yeah, right. If that’s your aim, leave it to AI.

All I need now is a few weeks with goldilocks weather conditions (warm enough for no heating-related noises, cool enough to keep the window closed) and nothing else to be obsessing about. Big ask…

Hark at them…

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Another year, another Stroke Awareness month… I’m thrilled that Somerset libraries have  taken the opportunity to join in, with this month’s podcast. Jeremy Thompson-Smith made the whole Zoom interview so easy… Perhaps too easy. My    husband Terry, thinking we sounded so relaxed, assumed we must have finished and joined in to say hello. The best bit of this interview is his unscheduled guest appearance, and I was so chuffed it was retained in  the final edit. Unlike Joe Faber, he isn’t a model-maker – but he is a guitarist who used to play many styles, and who’s never given up on playing again. I can’t tell you how hard and painful that process is when one hand is weak and unreliable. But I can say that nine years on, he’s finding his own wacky way of playing a tune.  

I’ve had my head down, working on an audio version of Joe Faber and the Optimists. Terry has barely opened a print book since the stroke, it’s just too awkward; he reads on a tablet now.  Audio is something I’ve always wanted to do, but seemed too big a mountain to climb. However, meeting a local stroke group at Yeovil library reminded me that  so many people find books, literally, hard to handle, not just physically but because brain injury can impair one’s vision or ability to read. If it gives any of them a chuckle or a hug, the effort will be worth it. So let’s hear it for libraries and the brilliant ways they make paths cross! 

Yevtushenko on untruth… a verse translation

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Back in March, as the war in Ukraine gathered pace, I became obsessed with the memory of a poem I’d studied as a sixth-former, by the Soviet poet, Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Ostensibly about child-rearing, the poem describes the way the communist state seeks to infantilise the masses. “You shouldn’t tell untruths to little children.”

But when I tried to track the poem down, I kept bumping up against a different, and to my mind weaker,  version. My school book, published in the west, is out of print. (And back in the Soviet era, a book might be on a university syllabus but not available to buy.)  But by searching the missing lines I came upon a Russian poetry blog which contained the text I remembered. Apparently this version, from 1952, is almost unavailable in print – and I can’t now tell you where it is, because the blog itself is no longer accessible. I did copy it, though. Phew.

Yevtushenko lived a long life – 1933-2017  – and was quite a cool dude in his day; a strong-featured man who declaimed his work on stage and achieved fame at home and abroad, as writer, performer and filmmaker. Political commentary, and criticism of Stalinism,  were a constant. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize for his poem Babi Yar, about the Nazi massacre in Kiev. Another thing I read at school.

As for the poem about morality and children, which came back to haunt me… There are plenty of English translations out there, but all in the sort of free verse that might as well be prose (sorry guys).  Also they sometimes add a title  –  ”Lies”   –  when lies is a word he’s very careful not to use at all. Untruth is much more the Russian way. Poetically, Yevtushenko works in primary colours, so rhyme and rhythm, particularly in this poem, are used almost simplistically to hammer the message home. And not to observe that nail in the final line is… well… untruthful.

I spent a couple of days in a sort of linguistic trance, translating it.  Verse translation always involves compromise, but it’s the ultimate writer’s puzzle.  It’s not perfect. But, to me, this is what Yevtushenko’s poem feels like. As much to be heard as read. 

I’d love to share the original here, but don’t have permission to reproduce the text from the poet’s family. Perhaps that’s something I should get on to now!

 

On getting stuck in a shed

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Music to my ears from David Mitchell  at this year’s Sidmouth Literary Festival

Knowing neurosis from the inside ought to be really useful for a novelist, if only it didn’t make it so very hard to get yourself into the starting gate. 

If you don’t dare call yourself a writer, you can’t say you suffer from ‘writers’ block,’ can you?  I put it in inverted commas because in common usage, it’s generally a misnomer.  Most of the time, it’s a fancy way of saying you don’t know what to do; truly pathological inability to write is serious, but rare.  As a student, however, I was one of those people who needed to ‘catch the tide’ with any written task; if there was noise, or distraction, or a too-late start to the day, there would be major stress and a likelihood of procrastination. Of course, it was always somebody else’s fault.

I’m now a recovering neurotic, whose period of peak muddle collided with all the major life decisions.  Classic. School had been a place where my work had been valued and encouraged. But once I’d left, I didn’t have the guts to sustain myself as a writer, and in fact I buried myself in other business without sharing that deep-seated aspiration with anybody. Eventually a blessed conjunction of the right people and the right circumstances helped me sort my head out. When, after several false starts over the years, I completed a first, unpublished, novel, it was written largely in the middle of the night, and as a conscious act of defiance against the day job which was turning me into an insomniac.  I reasoned that if I woke at 3 am, whatever I did with that wakefulness was going to be my business and my business alone. (Interestingly, the brain is very tuned-in to fictional possibilities at that time of the night.) 

I’ve since lost count of the number of women who wrote their first book early in the morning before the kids were up; or in fifteen minutes grabbed here and there, in a parked car. If writing matters to you, you will. 

So I was very interested to hear David Mitchell, interviewed this week at the Sidmouth Literary Festival, say, in answer to a question, that he didn’t ever suffer from ‘writers’ block.’ With two teenage children, he doesn’t have set times to write; as he put it, ‘I just think, this is the hour I’ve got, I’ll use it.’ He’s no smug smarty-pants, either; what he does acknowledge is getting stuck. Hallelujah! Music to my ears. Not so much the language of the ivory tower, as the shed, or the workshop.

Like the craftsman we should all be, he has ways of dealing with getting stuck. He points out there are two main causes. The first is not knowing your character well enough. His answer? Get your character to compose a letter to you, the author, setting out how they think and feel about everything, from politics to sex.  The second reason is that the particular material you’re dealing with  – which may be very good – just doesn’t belong in the story you’re writing. He recommends putting it aside in a special file for future potential use; a welcome, positive spin on the idea that sometimes you just have to ‘kill your darlings.’ What I love about David Mitchell’s advice was its practical, down-to-earth nature. in order to get yourself un-stuck you either write, or shift segments you’ve written out of the way. You may, of course, end up with the authorial equivalent of a garage full of ill-assorted screws and bits of wood that  just might come in handy. But you haven’t wasted your time.

To hijack a phrase from Auden, about getting stuck they were never wrong, the Old Masters. There were always studies, cartoons, multiple versions before the masterpiece was finally painted. 

And yet, and yet… the problem, as you first embark on writing as a serious activity, is that it is personal, emotional, and you feel you’re putting yourself on the line, so it’s easy to be a bit jumpy and even precious about it. And how can you take material you’ve spent hours, maybe weeks, coaxing out of your head, and chuck it in the bin?

Cultivating writerly habits is important, but I’d argue that the mental habits are way more important than the circumstantial ones. Whether you sit down at the same time each day, and write in pencil or ink or on a laptop, is really a matter of personal choice and convenience. If you need your special Moleskine notebook, or insist on a turquoise pen, fine, just be honest that these have only ritual significance. (I adore buying stationery but it’s never a good sign.) What does matter is understanding that the five minutes it took to have a key realisation about your WIP equals a good day’s work; and that the material you pare away isn’t wasted, just evidence that a) you can create and b) you’re in control of your creations.

I’d much rather admit to being stuck than self-diagnose with an incurable condition…

Book tour, March 2021

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Thank you Kelly at www.lovebookstours.com for  organising this virtual book tour!  And thanks to all the lovely book bloggers who participated…

Daisy Says@username
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What a warm, enjoyable read this was. The author Gill Oliver clearly has intimate knowledge on the subject but tells the story with great humour. A family hit by devastating illness, displaying great fortitude, human spirit, strength, determination and above all love. Really well written and a real joy to read. I couldn’t put this book down. Eagerly looking forward to reading Amateurs. If Joe Faber and the Optimists is anything to go by, it will be a joy. Highly recommended 
Lynn@breathe.andread
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This isn’t a book I would usually have picked up, but I’m so glad I had the chance to read it. I found all the characters that surrounded Joe very endearing and loved the stories that surrounded him and them, and his recovery after a stroke. This is a subject I don’t really know much about, and to be honest, haven’t thought about before. I found the story entertaining (there’s a lot of humour) but also informative. As a musician (although it’s been a while), I enjoyed those parts of the story as well as the manic wedding planning, which I have also experienced! Overall, I really enjoyed this book and would recommended it to others.
Bianca@bianca_reads_books
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"What a great read, after her husband Joe has a stroke Fran and their family must rally round to see Joe through his recovery. While this was an emotional subject, and very sensitively handled, there were some real moments of humour in there too which made it all the more realistic. There were other elements at work in the story which all tied in with Joe and his new life. I think this really gave the story a lot of character.I loved the fiddle and Shetland parts, I have been to Shetland once and completely fell in love so these sections of the book were such a delight. Really well written, a lovely, uplifting story."
My Reading Narnia
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"Life changes dramatically for the Faber family after Joe has a stroke. His wife suddenly finds herself responsible for the upkeep of everything, the house, finances and caring for her husband. Their Daughter Jess who is due to marry soon, gets the job opportunity of a life time to play at the Shetland folk frenzy. As Joe starts to make progress in his rehabilitation, seeing his daughter play at the festival becomes his number one goal.This book doesn’t just focus on Joe , it follows the family and their associated friends through his road to recovery and the changes that occur as they journey towards a new normal. This is a very positive and realistic portrayal of life after a stroke. I laughed out loud at times and also shed a tear or two. A hopeful and optimistic story that I’d recommend everyone to read, whether stroke has affected your life or not."
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Maressa Mortimer@Vicarious living
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"“For months she’d fixed her eyes on the road ahead, and never once allowed herself to look back at what was lost.” This lovely book, Joe Faber and the Optimists, is written by Gill Oliver and is all about Joe Faber, a wonderful, funny and artistic man. Joe builds models until he suffers a stroke. Fran, Joe’s wife, copes well, but there is also their daughter Jess, a very skilled music player. She plays the fiddle, and her father’s stroke really hits her hard. Fran thinks of ways to handle the next few days and weeks and comes up with a manifesto. The idea is to be an optimist, to look for positives and celebrate each one. She manages to persuade Jess and Jess’s fiancé Matt, to join in with the manifesto. It’s so poignant to read their little moments of triumph, looking for things to smile about. Joe is funny, and the story is full of hope.There are so many wonderful storylines within this book, like the invitation Jess receives to play in a big music festival in the Shetland Islands. The descriptions are gorgeous, making you feel part of their lives. I love fiddle music, and I could just picture the music Jess played for us, and there are parts where the descriptions are filled with emotion. Even now, I can still imagine the special song, Joe Faber’s Air. Then there are the wedding plans, accompanied by hilarious friends and relatives, all so clearly drawn for us, that you feel you’re wandering around reception halls together. Matt the fiancé made me laugh; his way of looking at life is interesting, but he’s a lovely guy, and it’s his thoughtfulness and quiet kindness that makes Fran realise that all this time she has been looking ahead, staying positive, but there had been no time to grieve. I loved that part, as it’s so easy to get carried away by circumstances. Matt is so different, and I enjoyed reading how he becomes more and more part of the family. The book is wonderfully positive and makes you smile and tap your feet along with the reels and music Jess gets out of her fiddle. There are moments of harsh reality as well though, and my heart went out to them all. It meant that I couldn’t put the book down, I needed to read more about their hopes, fears, dreams and struggles. There are the in-laws for example… Gill Oliver, the author, wrote this book, basing it on her husband’s stroke, and what they went through, and are still going through, as a family. It made this beautiful story even more special. It made me wonder all through the book, Is that what it was like for them? It also meant that the book is detailed and involved, poignant as well as uplifting. As I said, it’s a real page-turner, sweet, funny, heartwarming as well as heartbreaking."

First steps with audio

March 7, 2023 No Comments

It was meeting with readers of Joe Faber and the Optimists that first got me thinking seriously about producing an audio book. Many stroke survivors

Read More »

Hark at them…

May 22, 2022 No Comments

Another year, another Stroke Awareness month… I’m thrilled that Somerset libraries have  taken the opportunity to join in, with this month’s podcast. Jeremy Thompson-Smith made

Read More »

Book tour, March 2021

April 15, 2021 No Comments

Thank you Kelly at www.lovebookstours.com for organising this virtual book tour! And to all the lovely book bloggers who participated.

Read More »

Making Headway

March 21, 2021 No Comments

A big preoccupation right now is introducing Joe Faber to as many people as possible. So it’s really thrilling to see the Headway interview with Terry and myself online!

Read More »

Making Headway

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A big preoccupation right now is introducing Joe Faber to as many people as possible. So it’s really thrilling to see the Headway interview with Terry and myself online. 

Headway is the brain injury charity which offers support through a network of local centres and its own rather lovely website. We were already fans of this organisation because of the help they continue to give an old friend who suffered a cerebral aneurysm.

 Many months ago now, before the paperback was out, I was contacted by a reader, Sue, who’s a therapist working for the charity. At that point she hadn’t even finished the book, but she was enjoying it, and could see its usefulness to clients and their families – alongside all the excellent non-fiction which is available. I can’t express how much that meant to me: it was exactly what I’d hoped. Sue has been a tremendous champion, pointing me to the right contact, and the upshot is this beautifully produced article. Read Headway interview

A big aspect of the Headway website is its ‘share your story’ invitation. In an area where both the effects of injury and experiences of care are very varied, it’s always been important to share stories.  It has never been more so than during the Covid crisis, when hospital visiting is not allowed. This puts huge pressure on already overstretched nurses, and it’s truly awful for the patients themselves as they start to recover and the realities sink in. But also, bluntly, brain injured patients are being discharged to bewildered families and caregivers who simply haven’t had the opportunity to learn at the bedside from medical staff. They haven’t even had the opportunity to come to terms with the changes in their loved ones. They’re shocked by what they find. They haven’t seen progress – which may come by minute increments – first hand, so they can’t see that the trajectory is a positive one. They may lack hope. If you’ve connected with, say, a facebook stroke supporters group, your will know what I mean – they have so many heartbreaking questions, and it’s not officially anybody’s job to check they’ve been answered. And that’s before you even start trying to understand things like discharge procedures and the social care system. Add to that the stress of managing care alongside home working and home schooling, and people are in despair. 

I will never forget how simultaneously thrilled and terrified I was when my husband came home. And I was well prepared! I’d picked up so much along the way, and benefitted from multiple short but meaningful interactions with the nursing staff, who had a conceptual framework for all this which I lacked. They were able to say, this is normal, this is a good sign, this is what we do. Before discharge I was able to get them to show me how to make Terry comfortable in bed, and physios taught him how to get in and out of a car.  Admittedly, he hadn’t mastered the Zimmer at that stage, and I hadn’t grasped the basics of manoeuvring a wheelchair beyond the smooth flooring of a hospital. This is nothing compared with what people are facing up to now. There is so much to adapt to, and it all takes time to sink in. The awful thing is that every jar and every little hurt or scare can resonate for hours, even days, in the lived experience of a seriously weakened person. Essentially you’re bringing home a newborn – because yes, this person has literally been born into their second life – but a newborn who has an adult identity to protect, and who doesn’t fit in a cot.

Headway, Stroke Association, Carers UK – all deserve our support.

First steps with audio

March 7, 2023 No Comments

It was meeting with readers of Joe Faber and the Optimists that first got me thinking seriously about producing an audio book. Many stroke survivors

Read More »

Hark at them…

May 22, 2022 No Comments

Another year, another Stroke Awareness month… I’m thrilled that Somerset libraries have  taken the opportunity to join in, with this month’s podcast. Jeremy Thompson-Smith made

Read More »

Book tour, March 2021

April 15, 2021 No Comments

Thank you Kelly at www.lovebookstours.com for organising this virtual book tour! And to all the lovely book bloggers who participated.

Read More »

Making Headway

March 21, 2021 No Comments

A big preoccupation right now is introducing Joe Faber to as many people as possible. So it’s really thrilling to see the Headway interview with Terry and myself online!

Read More »