Talking to Yourself in a Padded Room

So I had dinner with Mike again. Yep, the same Mike. Marketing Mike. The one who keeps suggesting to me that writers, possibly such as myself, should blog about writing.


Over veggie quesadillas and macaroni, the topic came up again. Blog readers are interested in how the writing process works, Mike tells me one more time, doing everything short of spelling out DO IT in macaroni noodles on the table.


I’m starting to think he wants me to blog about writing.


Robin (my snazzy P.R. lady in funky tights), Beth (my Q-compadre and book-selling guru) and Nicole (the brilliant new addition to the other marketing superheroes) seemed to agree. They know the industry and the blogosphere behind it. People like to hear writers talk about writing is the general expert-consensus.


“The process” of writing, most recently–if you haven’t guessed–involved camping out for two days in the big G.R. (Grand Rapids) with my friends at Zondervan.  Other than the pre-mentioned dinner at their local dinner haunt, the Green Well, I logged quite a bit of time in the recording studio with the infamous B-Rad Hill.

Brad is so likeable you almost forgive him for only being willing to interact with you through the recording studio window. Admittedly, Brad has a unique job: coaching awkward authors like myself through recording their books. On the upside, Brad ends up being one of the most well “read” guys in the world (or “well-listened”, anyways), but the other part of his job–as I imagine it anyways–is equivalent to watching people talk to themselves for hours (perhaps this is the reason for the padded room).


The studio of course is entirely padded. It is actually a separate room built off the floor, Brad points out as he gets me settled in there, “You could close the door and scream and no one would ever hear you.”


I’m not sure this is a good thing. I studied this B-Rad. He seems legit–not like some undercover psychiatric ward officer whose about to lock me in a padded room where no one will hear my cries for help. But one can never be sure.


As it turns out the padding IS for sound, which I soon find out, as between Brad’s sonic ears and his software, he pauses me anytime any new sound–other than my voice–is introduced.

“Another plane flying overhead.” Brad stops me, mid-reading.


“Whoops, can you do that line again? I think I heard a little stomach rumble.” (FEED ME, Brad! It is saying…)


“Think I caught a shoe tap there.” (That is, my sinfully unpadded shoe on the padded carpet.)


And then there are my glitches. “You said those instead of these.” Brad points out.


Recording teaches you a few things about your writing, I find:


For example,


1. I resolve to stop using such long sentences. It is nearly impossible to read some of my complex sentences in one breath. You know, the ones like I snuck into this post that just barely keep their head above “run-on” by using lots of commas and dashes. Perhaps Zondervan should sub-contract David Blaine or someone else skilled in the art of holding one’s breath to help me through these next time.


2. I resolve to write a shorter book. Did I really need 200 pages? Maybe I could’ve said it in 150. 100 pages? Even easier to record. I may be the first author of the new 1 pg. book and 30 second audio clip.


3. I resolve to stop saying “particularly”. I used the word particularly an inordinate amount of times. I don’t even say particularly in real life. Why does it appear dozens of times in my writing? To make matters worse, particularly is hard to say jumbled in with all these other words. So many times it comes out “particulaRY” without the last “LY” and I have to start back at the beginning of the sentence.

In the back of my head, as I record, I think about how my husband told me not to use my stage voice–its overly articulate, a bit over the top on pronouncing word endings and such (my excuse: the people in the back need to be able to make out what I’m saying). I avoid this. I think I also avoid the “bubble voice”–a voice my brothers say I use sometimes when I am telling a story (I think, like a bubble is caught in my throat? or maybe that I’m talking from inside a bubble?). I try to just sound like me, me talking to you, me over Chai tea at Jackson Coffee Co., but I know the end result is more story-teller than it is conversational. But it gets done. And it goes pretty well. Altogether, the day in the padded room is far better than I ever expected. I may even come back and visit the next time I feel like screaming.

(I would like to dedicate this post to Short Sport Water, the mini-Absopure water bottles provided by Zondervan which are labeled ‘Perfect for school lunches’….and apparently, also, perfect for recording audio books.)