19 min
Progress Report: March 2024 Among the Stacks - The Podcast of Fantasy Author, Mark Feenstra
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- Books
Hey, Everyone.
If you’re listening to this instead of reading, I guess you’ve figured out the first update already; I’m going to be trying to produce a lot more audio updates here on Among the Stacks. Some of these will be typed out ahead of time and recorded from a prepared script, while others will be free-form rambles that I’ll transcribe after the fact for those who’d prefer to read instead of listening. Honestly, I’m not much of an audio person myself, but I’ve recently developed a much better appreciation of just how valuable it is for people to be able to consume media in the format that best suits their personal preference.
One of the biggest hurdles with me recording audio when I attempted it last year, is that I’m very much a perfectionist who becomes frustrated when I can’t produce things that meet a certain technical standard. My apartment is LOUD. I live in a two-story walk-up on a major street, and no matter how low I set my microphone gain, what kind of noise-filtering tech I use, and what sort of post-processing noise gates I apply, the sounds of traffic and sirens still trickle through. For a casual newsletter audio update like this, that’s not a big deal, but it’s painfully frustrating when trying to record audio narration of one of my short stories. At one point last year, I went as far as trying to build a little recording studio in my tiny closet. I hung blankets and towels to buffer the sound, but still the honking of cars and rumbling of trucks made it into the recording.
So I’m letting go of perfect and going to allow myself to record some of these newsletters with all their inevitable messiness. And that means some serious rambling once in a while. Most of my audio posts will be as considered and as concise as possible, but those who know me best know I’m a rambler. And friends, sometimes I’m going to settle in and let myself ramble at you without any prepared script. Some of you are going to love it, and some of you are going to hate it. As a consolation to those who aren’t a fan of long-winded audio posts, I promise I’ll do my best to ensure no important information is buried inside an hour-long monologue.
State of the Newsletter
Embarrassingly, I drafted a newsletter in June of last year explaining that life and writing had become a little too overwhelming for me to juggle Among the Stacks, so I was pausing billing for paid subscribers for at least the rest of the year. I somehow convinced myself that I’d posted that update, when in reality I left it languishing in my drafts folder. The main reason I felt I had to step back from putting out newsletter updates is that I was really stuck on my Traveling Librarian revisions. I’ll talk about that more in a bit, but for now let me just say that it was a real struggle to consider posting updates when I was so stalled out on the one project on which I was already so far behind schedule. I originally thought I’d have that thing published in the fall of 2022, and there I was half a year later feeling no closer to publishing it.
I’m not entirely sure when I’m going to unpause billing again, but for those of you who’ve been so supportive of the newsletter in the past, I assure you that I won’t flip that switch until I’m ready to start producing regular updates again. Your paid subscriptions help me write and publish stories like The Traveling Librarian that I believe would be mangled beyond recognition in the gears of the traditional publishing engine, so it’s important that you know how grateful I’ve been for your financial support.
As far as future newsletter updates are concerned, I basically plan to ignore all the common best-practice advice and do everything wrong by posting without a real schedule or focus. I’m still going to share progress updates and I have two short stories in the pipe that I’ll be releasing in the coming months, but until The Traveling Librarian has a locked-in publication da
Hey, Everyone.
If you’re listening to this instead of reading, I guess you’ve figured out the first update already; I’m going to be trying to produce a lot more audio updates here on Among the Stacks. Some of these will be typed out ahead of time and recorded from a prepared script, while others will be free-form rambles that I’ll transcribe after the fact for those who’d prefer to read instead of listening. Honestly, I’m not much of an audio person myself, but I’ve recently developed a much better appreciation of just how valuable it is for people to be able to consume media in the format that best suits their personal preference.
One of the biggest hurdles with me recording audio when I attempted it last year, is that I’m very much a perfectionist who becomes frustrated when I can’t produce things that meet a certain technical standard. My apartment is LOUD. I live in a two-story walk-up on a major street, and no matter how low I set my microphone gain, what kind of noise-filtering tech I use, and what sort of post-processing noise gates I apply, the sounds of traffic and sirens still trickle through. For a casual newsletter audio update like this, that’s not a big deal, but it’s painfully frustrating when trying to record audio narration of one of my short stories. At one point last year, I went as far as trying to build a little recording studio in my tiny closet. I hung blankets and towels to buffer the sound, but still the honking of cars and rumbling of trucks made it into the recording.
So I’m letting go of perfect and going to allow myself to record some of these newsletters with all their inevitable messiness. And that means some serious rambling once in a while. Most of my audio posts will be as considered and as concise as possible, but those who know me best know I’m a rambler. And friends, sometimes I’m going to settle in and let myself ramble at you without any prepared script. Some of you are going to love it, and some of you are going to hate it. As a consolation to those who aren’t a fan of long-winded audio posts, I promise I’ll do my best to ensure no important information is buried inside an hour-long monologue.
State of the Newsletter
Embarrassingly, I drafted a newsletter in June of last year explaining that life and writing had become a little too overwhelming for me to juggle Among the Stacks, so I was pausing billing for paid subscribers for at least the rest of the year. I somehow convinced myself that I’d posted that update, when in reality I left it languishing in my drafts folder. The main reason I felt I had to step back from putting out newsletter updates is that I was really stuck on my Traveling Librarian revisions. I’ll talk about that more in a bit, but for now let me just say that it was a real struggle to consider posting updates when I was so stalled out on the one project on which I was already so far behind schedule. I originally thought I’d have that thing published in the fall of 2022, and there I was half a year later feeling no closer to publishing it.
I’m not entirely sure when I’m going to unpause billing again, but for those of you who’ve been so supportive of the newsletter in the past, I assure you that I won’t flip that switch until I’m ready to start producing regular updates again. Your paid subscriptions help me write and publish stories like The Traveling Librarian that I believe would be mangled beyond recognition in the gears of the traditional publishing engine, so it’s important that you know how grateful I’ve been for your financial support.
As far as future newsletter updates are concerned, I basically plan to ignore all the common best-practice advice and do everything wrong by posting without a real schedule or focus. I’m still going to share progress updates and I have two short stories in the pipe that I’ll be releasing in the coming months, but until The Traveling Librarian has a locked-in publication da
19 min