Author: Carolyn Steele

Carolyn writes websites, copy and nonsense about emigrating. She also occasionally ambles off to do something daft in case it’s interesting enough to write about. Her latest book grew from the blog Trucking in English, and you can learn more at her blog and her Amazon author page.

Find Your Voice

I went on a course a couple of years ago called ‘Find Your Voice’. It was for people wanting to get into commercial voiceovers…all about using microphones and marking up scripts to emphasise the right words and creating memorable characters with vocal tricks. The others on the course were real actors, hoping to get into the voiceover game, and they were pityingly tolerant of the non-vocally-talented writer who just wanted to make competent podcasts of her book.

We all went through that thing where you hear your voice and squirm because it’s not how you sound in your head but, unlike when you hear yourself on a tinny outgoing phone message, we had it booming at us in a pukka sound studio with boards full of things that blokes with ponytails know how to tweak. As if that wasn’t bad enough, then the room full of people who’d had voice training dahling discussed how you sounded. They’d make suggestions for changes; try this pace, try that tone, pretend you’re shouting at a class of toddlers or addressing a meeting of the Hitler Youth, remember when your cat died. You’d try again and listen again and sound different but this time it was less about not hearing what echoed in your head and more about hearing the things the others heard and wanted more of. Continue reading “Find Your Voice”

A New Year’s Gif from Me to You

Ok, it’s a terrible pun but I have a good excuse.

“Who wants to do a tutorial on animated gifs?” asked Kat one day, while we minions huddled together over a bowl of gruel for warmth.

“I’ll give it a go,” I volunteered, all brave-like. “I want to animate a header for a website I’m working on anyway, it’ll be a good chance to learn how.” The minions sniggered, I’m sure I heard someone whisper, “geek”.

“Well, make it simple.” Kat, whip in hand, was attempting to balance on her new three-inch stiletto-heeled boots, a gift from Santa. Allegedly. “I’ve only made them in Photoshop so far and that’s too much of a drama.”

I got a bit nervous, Kat actually knew this stuff. “Um, do writers really need to know about animated gifs?” The other minions grinned and started passing notes around.

“We all need to use our websites better,” Kat thundered. “Find me an easy and free way for everyone to add animations to their blogs.” Continue reading “A New Year’s Gif from Me to You”

Only Your Mum Will Read It

Why do people write non-fiction? I don’t mean the dry sort that people who ‘don’t have time for fiction’ read. They will never understand that storying is part of being human, whereas we know that the best fiction feels truer than reality, deep in a place where the birth of humanity necessitated art and the telling of tales.

I’m talking memoirs here, travelogues, narrative non-fiction. Why bother? Publishers and agents hate them, they’re hard to sell online, they don’t get reviewed. Didn’t we grow out of What I Did on My Holidays in grade school? Nobody is that interesting, except to their Mum, even if they’re already famous. In fact, especially if they’re already famous. Continue reading “Only Your Mum Will Read It”

Can We Talk?

I mean really talk, snuggle in a bit closer to the screen because I don’t want everyone to hear this, it’s kinda shameful. I wouldn’t mention it at all but it’s also kinda relevant.

I used to be a ‘perfect proofer’. Typos leapt off the page, grammatical errors made me physically unwell. I’d have to stop reading a book completely if I found more than one mistake, it was just too painful. I ended up proofreading, writing and editing for everyone I knew, it was the only way to survive the agony. I happily made beer money charging a pound a time to write ambulance accident reports for people. My proudest moment was getting Bugsy off a charge of impaling his vehicle on a scaffolding pole, by using big words that the scrambled egg brigade didn’t understand. (He had impaled the ambulance on scaffolding though, I saw him do it.)

Eventually I drifted into copy editing for a living. That was when I decided to have a go at writing, how hard could it be? I was trawling through some terrible stuff and these people called themselves writers.

Guess what? It was easy. I turned my life into a series of humorous articles and people liked them and asked for more. I sent a spot of travelling whimsy to the Rough Guides and they published it! Hey presto, I was a real writer. There were compliments, a reporter friend told me, “Anyone can learn to write but humour takes talent,” and I wore that comment like a medallion. Yeah, some of us have talent. Continue reading “Can We Talk?”