Recently released: Eight Minutes | SoulSight
Missed something? Sketchbook | Stories | Dispatches
SoundLit
Audible might be the oldest subscription service I have. It yields dividends every time I “pick up” a new book. Whether I’m driving, working in the garden or ignoring the screams of a toddler – I’m never without a (literary) distraction. But not all audiobooks are made equal and discerning listeners know junk when they hear it.
For example: John Cleese reading The Screwtape Letters1 and Barry Bostwick reading Half Asleep In Frog Pajamas. The former, a witty, insightful reading of C.S. Lewis, the latter a droll, belly flop onto concrete performance of Tom Robbins’ fantastic writing.
So, it’s with some trepidation that I made audio of my own writing. Eight Minutes and SoulSight now include audio versions as a test of concept:
Does the work translate to an audible format?
Will people listen?
Can I use AI for such a purpose?
You read that last part right – AI. I’ve chosen to try ElevenLabs.io because they have quite a few voices available and I can work pretty quickly to get the copy into shape2 for exporting in a timely manner. And, if the story has different characters it’s pretty seamless in the software to bounce back and forth.
Having someone something else read your work quickly points out inconsistencies in sentence construction, verbiage and pronoun usage. I can’t say I’d use it as a part of the early writing process but it’s tempting.
For questions 1 & 2 above, I’d love to hear your feedback…
Universitas Pueritiae
I’m ashamed to admit I’m often winging it as a parent. Despite real-world experience as a former child and working with, sometimes, childish people, I’m constantly outsmarted and unprepared. Maybe I missed the chance to major in parenting at university, and now I’m paying the price?
In such a major, the 100-level courses might cover diapers, avoiding being peed on and suitable surfaces to place an infant (hint: not atop a washing machine). Then, packing snacks, sleep training, first aid, and how to manage a tantrum when you didn’t pack the right snacks.
More in-depth courses would teach leveraging reverse psychology (I bet you can’t brush your teeth), overcoming toddler logic (because you just can’t wear your swimsuit in the snow) and dealing with tangentially-related night terrors & bed wetting. The curriculum of this fictitious degree would continue to up-the-ante with childhood physics (Legos do not go in your butt) and round out the second year with a course in managing existential dread – as in, “Dad, when are you going to die?”
And it’s here that I find myself: questions about death. They start so innocently, “why did the ant die when I stepped on it?” I try to answer simply. To which my unskilled methods run full-tilt into the brick wall of toddler logic, again. Blerg.
Were I a smarter, more educated father, I would have training enough to eschew giving a 3 year old a treatise on the metaphysical, world religions or the nuances of afterlife beliefs. Because if I were, I could avoid the follow-on questions that trick me into compiling the age of every family member and a back alley fortune teller-like schedule of when each is most likely to die.
With grandparents visiting this week I can only hope pray that my kid doesn’t repeat, with excited repetition: “Dad says you’re going to die soon.”
Maybe night classes are available at the local community college?
Sister Music?
Outside being in 4/4 time there’s very little these songs have in common. Okay, I guess the titles juxtapose one another. But, for being nearly 50 years apart in release, they both ring in my head the same way. Have a listen —
Fat Man by John Fulbright
Ballad of a Thin Man By Bob Dylan
Things I’m reading on Substack:
runs a tidy ship with his regular “What I read this week” column. He’s found so many stories I’ve missed — in and out of tech.The John Cleese version is no longer available on Audible
There are some nuances to having AI read copy — text formatting, pronunciation, pacing, voice selection
Ha! I’ll have to think about the idea of a separate column. There’s hardly time now to get the writing done that I do.
Interesting thoughts about AI. Though, perhaps I should have called it something different because in the strictest sense {putting on my Linda Richmond voice:} it’s neither artificial nor intelligent – Discuss! But, that’s the nomenclature we’re using today. Maybe next month we’ll call it “pilfered semi-intelligence”?
I definitely agree about text – I feel that would be too far a cheat. Would it bother you to know that every picture on Tiny Worlds is generated by AI? And, the logo, too? I think of AI as a tool. And, as a tool it can offer, if wielded properly, results in the same way we think about different hammers in a toolbox – a finishing hammer, a tack hammer, a framing hammer, so on. It’s also the new toy, shiny and bright. But, if we’ve learned anything from Harry Nilsson: “You're not the only choo choo train/That was left out in the rain/The day after Santa came”
Universitas Pueritiae! Yes! Your questions are both hilarious and salient. All parents have to deal with this. I envision you having this title as a "section" on Dispatches - a newsletter within a newsletter. You would no doubt have a large audience. You could share the bizarre ways you found to answer the questions and elicit your readers' ideas. Give "prizes" for the best ideas you get from your readers to keep them interested. The blind leading the blind. I'd read it and I don't even have little kids!
As for voice overs? Your stories would be wonderfully enhanced. Your readers would definitely read and listen. As far as AI? A resounding NO. We would rather hear your real voice with all its hesitations and flubs and coughs and babies crying in the background than hear a machine. It is a slippery slope, J. First AI voice-overs, then AI "art" then AI text....?