I was eleven. I had briefly written a chapter for a project that our teacher made us do. It was for a book called The Phantom Tollbooth, which I still love to this day. We, the students, were given the project of writing a lost chapter of the book. I can't remember what I wrote or where those papers are . . . so I guess it's safe to say that project is complete in that now it really is a lost chapter. Go figure.
But there was something else that happened during that time; my family got our own tape recorder. I don't remember where from. All I know is, one day I came home from school and it was just there. It was one chunky looking thing, ancient by today's standards. (Phones can record, laptops, they even have recorder pens that can hold, can't even make this up, 16GB= 280 hours of recording time.)
Completely smitten with the damn thing, I decided to give it a whirl. Of course I did all the primitive stuff that the kid in us always does. I blew into the mic, experimented with different voices, all that nonsense.(Even tried recording an audio drama and later did a fake radio show with my brother where we would do impressions of famous celebrity guests. But that's another story.)
Then I picked up a book. One of my favorites.
It was entitled Top Secret written by John Reynolds Gardiner. The story was about a regular kid named Allen who tries a science experiment where he turns himself into a walking Human-plant hybrid.
With the Tape Recorder ready, I read the whole 128 page novel aloud, creating my very first audio book. I tripped up a bit, here and there. I was nervous even though I knew that this tape was just for me. I remember pronouncing words like "linoleum" and "sergeant" wrong, rewinding the tape to rerecord over my mistakes. But it was a fun little tape, despite the trip up's. It was my own little top secret project.
Flash forward over a decade later and now I'm recording my own book, Mr. Dead Eyes, in podcast form. Sometime during recording, I looked back on this memory and snickered to myself, "How the hell could I mispronounce Linoleum?"
Anyone else care to share their story of tape recording?
Leave a comment below.
Be happy to read them.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." ~ Henry David Thoreau
