Dungeon Runner 1 Audio

Dungeon Runner 1 (the novel, not the episode) is getting an audiobook! And—if all goes well—I’ll be the one to narrate it. Exciting!

I love audiobooks. The only way I “read” now is by listening to audiobooks. To me, the performance of a story is the truest form of storytelling, which is why I have always intended to narrate my own books.

But . . . life happens.

My audiobooks kept getting pushed back. At the start of the year, I decided to hire a narrator. However, after hearing their interpretation of my work, I realized it would be impossible to achieve my vision because there’s an infinite variety of ways to perform a book.

This pushed me to step inside my narration booth and give it another try. And I loved it! It’s so much fun performing my story, giving the words new life.

I’ve given myself two hours every day to narrate. I have insane quality standards, so we’ll see how this goes. If I can’t deliver the experience I know my books deserve, then I will accept that I’m not a narrator, tear down my booth, and focus on writing. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that!

Updates

3/12/2023: I love the idea of narrating my stories. It makes a lot of logical sense, and I like logical things. But I feel my focus should be on writing. I am far from the author I want to be. And there are many stories begging to be written.

This audiobook project has been moved to the Upcoming category. But it’s still coming! It just (probably) won’t be narrated by me.

3/5/2023: I sprinted headfirst into a wall of self-doubt this week. There’s a difference between learning and doing. The doing part is hard. My intuition said, “You should be writing, not narrating.” And so I gave up.

A few days later—after crunching a bunch of numbers and updating my schedule—I found that pushing myself to write for seven hours straight every day would only produce an extra two books a year, eight instead six.

The thing is, I don’t want to lock myself in my writing room for that long. And six books is three times more than I’ve ever published in a year. That would be phenomenal! A book every other month.

So, I have 416 hours and 40 minutes per year to invest toward something that’s not writing. Narration makes the most sense, creatively and financially. It allows for the most freedom and the least risk. I’m going to keep trying.

2/26/2023: Most of my focus this week has been learning software and accents. Aayra is Indian. I want to ensure I capture her unique way of speaking, as it should help make her feel real.

I was going to start narration this week, but formatting Dungeon Runner took a bit longer than expected, and I decided I needed to practice/learn more before starting. I’ll keep at it. :)

2/19/2023: This has been a week of learning. Since this will be my first audiobook, I’ve been reading books, going through my courses, and getting my software and hardware set up to professional standards.

Beyond academics, my focus this week has been on nailing down the individual character voices and accents while I finish editing Dungeon Runner 1. With that nearly done, narration should start tomorrow!