The only thing better than having Robin Miles read you a story is having her tell you some from her life and legendary audiobook career.
The only thing better than having Robin Miles read you a story is having her tell you some from her life and legendary audiobook career.
Let me tell you a story. See, this is what I love, though, robin. This is the gold. This is like what it is to get in the booth.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I do think that we're talking about left-brain, right-brain kind of functions.
Speaker 1:And to finally be like oh, I think there's a common thread here.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, how long it has taken me to get to that.
Speaker 1:Do you think that we should keep going with that, or should we maybe like go ahead and start working any of that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's go back a little bit on it. Okay, we'll always forget the difference between tempo and pace.
Speaker 1:I'm experiencing it right now. Yeah, yeah, Hi welcome to the no. Bad Narrator. I'm here with Hillary Huber. Austin Gray, Erin Ruth Walker.
Speaker 1:Nancy Peterson at the absolutely amazing home of wonderful author Dakota LeCoy, uh-huh. And we're here in the mountains of South Carolina this week on a lake, we got together for a writer's retreat to learn to write these wonderful words that we speak. So we've been hanging out and it's just been an absolutely stunning week that I can't wait to tell you a little bit more about. I am your host, emily. By the way, and for those of you that don't know me, I am a lover of all things audio book. I am an award-winning audio book producer, director, narrator, pretty much everything. You name it, I've done it, and I created the no Bad Narrator as a vehicle. The pun is absolutely intended to connect people from all walks of life around their love of audio books and to give everyone the inside scoop on the people and places and practices that make the magic happen in this amazing industry. I want to start out today by just sharing a couple of the reviews that we've gotten since the show launched. The first one here. I listened to both Emily's interview with Daniela Achtatelli and the first no Mad Narrator episode, and if you don't know who Daniela is, she's the host of a wonderful YouTube show called the Narrators Cup of Joe, so be sure to look that up. He says I really enjoyed the intimate conversation with Sarah that was our last guest about narrating. It's a level of conversation I haven't heard anywhere else. I am really excited to hear this.
Speaker 1:I specifically chose this format of spending an entire day with someone and editing all of that audio down into a one hour story because I was hoping that would allow this opportunity for a conversation to evolve organically. That would be, you know, really deep and interesting. I feel like human beings are so complex and fascinating and interesting. We just have so many different things. There are so many different things that can happen in life, like if you go downtown in Kansas City to try to find something during the NFL Draft. If you're not sure what that's about, go listen to the last episode. But I was really hopeful that doing this kind of format would offer exactly that. So it's really exciting to hear that feedback.
Speaker 1:Here's another one. What a ride. One episode in, and I can't wait for future episodes. If you are a narrator or interested in audiobooks, this is a fantastic show. Excited for the no Mad Narrators journey. Thank you for that. I can't wait to continue on this ride with all of you. I love hearing your feedback. If you're listening to the show and enjoying it, I hope that you will please go to Apple or Spotify and toss up five stars, if you're so inclined, and leave us some words. It would be absolutely wonderful to hear from you All.
Speaker 1:Right Now let me tell you just a little more about what we have coming up. I would like to take a minute to introduce my guest for today's episode, which is a little bit different than the first one that we heard. This episode is called a Coaches Corner and we will have a coach on these Coaches Corner episodes that talk a little bit about their career in audiobooks, their style of coaching, how you can get in touch with them, and then also there is actually a live coaching where I'm going to be the guinea pig, which ended up being a lot scarier than I thought it would be, I will admit, but our first coach who is on today, robin Miles, was just. She's just the best. She's an absolute gem to work with, one of my favorite people. So let me introduce Robin. Where do I even begin? Let's see. Robin and I have known each other for a while. I was lucky enough to meet her back when I worked at CDM Sound Studios and the thing about Robin and the reason I wanted to have her on as my first ever coaching guest is because she is actually the reason that I got into audiobooks commercially.
Speaker 1:Now I've been making audiobooks since I was in high school, but that was on a volunteer basis and that was with recording for the Blind and Dyslexic is where I started. They since evolved into Learning Ally, but that's the same organization, so they were a volunteer based organization. When I was with them they had a branch in Louisville and then I started doing my service hours there for high school and then when I went to college at NYU, I was up in the city. They had a branch there too, and I just continued to volunteer with them, et cetera. So after college I started as the studio manager at CDM Sound Studios and so I was like a little bit versed in what it was to record an audiobook, but I had not been a narrator on a commercial basis, like for a publisher or for sale at that point.
Speaker 1:And while I was working there I was getting ready to leave and like go back into acting and I was telling the owner, charles, about it, my boss, and he was like well, you know, robin has these classes, and I can't really remember if he mentioned something to her or if she said something to me or like. I don't remember exactly how it happened, but one way or the other she ended up knowing that I was interested in this and she invited me to just sit in on the class. And she was like you know we're here, why don't you just stay after work? You can sit in, I'll pick some pieces for you. You don't need to pay anything, it's fine, just participate in this class. And so I did, and those pieces that she picked for me ended up being my first demo. And then there's, like this whole other story about how that demo ended up getting me my first job which is funny, but I'll tell that another time. But it wouldn't have had those pieces and I really wouldn't have taken this leap of faith of going into audiobook narration as a profession, you know, without that opportunity that she had made available.
Speaker 1:So Robin's just a really special person to me and she's also a really special person to everyone.
Speaker 1:Quite frankly, she's one of the most generous coaches in the business. She went to the Yale School of Drama for her master's degree and she is just this absolute rich wealth of information, and she just gives that away so freely. So if you're looking for a coach that just knows their stuff completely inside and out and upside down, she is phenomenal, and she really loves teaching too. She's a university professor, she coaches, she does workshops and teaches classes she pretty much does it all. And then, in addition to this, she herself is just an incredibly accomplished narrator. She is an audiophile magazine Golden Voice. She has won multiple audio awards, she is one of only 20 people inducted into the Audible Narrator Hall of Fame, and her work has been featured absolutely everywhere, and I suppose that one of the only things that's better than having Robin read you a story is having her tell you some from her incredible life and legendary career. So, without any further ado, I present to you all my friend, the incomparable Robin Miles.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's all good, no, no, no, no. Oh, hold on, I just knocked over my thermostat and it would be nice if I remembered to bring in my mouse.
Speaker 1:Steve. This is what I love, though. Robin. This is the gold. This is like what it is to get in the booth. Doesn't it just work this way? You get in, you get situated, You've got your water, You've got your headphones, and then you realize the AC is still on. You go up, you turn that off, you get back in, you've got everything right. Then you realize you don't have your mouse plugged in. It usually takes like a buffer of about 10 minutes before you think you're going to get started.
Speaker 2:Oh God you are so on the money. Yeah, I tell you, I don't know what I would do without a production manager. I don't know how I did what I did for as long as I did without a production manager or an assistant or some type of help. You know, I should have learned the lesson earlier, because I remember going out to California, going to a backyard party that Scott Brick had, and he was in the house and just showing off his studio area and he had this whiteboard and all the projects were there and important information was written on the whiteboard outside and I went that's a damn good idea, I think I need to do that. But then I realized, as he was talking about it, that he has an assistant and he has her do all of that ancillary stuff around his creative stuff and I was like no wonder.
Speaker 1:I'm drowning. I don't know about you, Robin, but like I have several conditions that involve executive dysfunction, the front of my brain is not happy with me. When I spend a lot of energy trying to organize things or do minutiae or detail work. I get really detail oriented and I'm like actually really good at organizing things, but it takes so much brain space and then there's nothing left over for the stuff I actually want to do.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I do think that we're talking about left brain, right brain kind of functions, because if I'm going to be producing I have to use my left brain. Yeah, it's like turning the wheel on an old, rusty car, and I can do it. Once I'm firmly in left brain mode, I'm fine Getting there and then getting back again to the creative, although I do find it's easier to go from left to right than creative right to analytical left.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that and the organizing stuff. And it was funny because I woke up today and I was like I have one thing to do today Meet with Emily.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I woke up this morning and they didn't. They were not able to fix the tub in the toilet. Yesterday, in fact, when he cleaned out the tub, he made it worse, because now the stuff that's coming from underneath doesn't have to get through a clog. So, between, like, all the things that are just sort of swirling around, I'm getting better at having a shorthand. Shorthand. This is what's going wrong in the bathroom. Okay, he was here. It didn't work. This is what I think is happening. Here's a movie of it bubbling up. This is clearly a priority. When do you want to schedule it? Just ping, ping, ping ping.
Speaker 1:It's amazing you say this. I've gotten so much better at this too, and it's like changed my life, because I used to sit and just like stare at an email before I was ready to send it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I've been having today. It's just, I don't know, streamlining. Why did I have to wait till I was this age to be able to do this though?
Speaker 1:I don't know, Robin, but I'm glad you're letting everyone else know now.
Speaker 2:You know we could do this if more of us women had female entrepreneurial mentors, because I never had that. I gleaned what I could from my mom and my dad mother working for a nonprofit, dad working for definitely a profit company. You know just your basic. I learned a lot over dinners when we would talk at night, but honestly it's just taken me, I think, way too long to get here.
Speaker 1:I tell you what, though you are super generous with what you've learned, because, when I think of the examples of people that I've had in this career field, I feel like you do a really good job of being the person that you wish you had.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is it I wish I had. So I want to make sure that I provide that, because I don't want anybody to go as long as I did without and I knew there were people that I wanted to be my mentor. It just didn't quite work out. You know just places that I would have thought the flow would have been easier.
Speaker 1:I think there's that thing that happens sometimes of like there's only room for one of each kind of person at the table or something you know. Like there's only room for one woman, there's only room for one racial minority, there's only room for one disabled person, and so, instead of it feeling like hey, we're here for each other and helping each other out, and arising tide lifts all boats, it's like competing for that one spot. I don't feel like that's happening as much anymore.
Speaker 2:No, I don't feel like it's as much either.
Speaker 1:Do you feel like it used to? Is that maybe like part of? Oh yeah, it felt like.
Speaker 2:I need all of you marginalized people to tick off some boxes that make me look really good. I felt tokenized, if I can make that into a word. Yeah, I was there to make somebody else look good. You know like I made this choice to include this person. Look what a great person I am. Look how you know how devoted I am to diversity but then not interested in what I had to say or brought to the table. Yeah, and sometimes you get the other thing too. Where you're in this situation, where you're in a male dominated space and you have something to say or add or contribute, that's extremely valuable and the guys hear it and they get a little unnerved by the fact that it was a woman that provided that and that was really smart. It's threatening Like why?
Speaker 1:Have you ever had this experience, robin, of being like like you notice that that happens multiple times over several years and it took you like? Maybe I'm just talking about myself here, but I've told you a little bit about my background that I grew up in a school that was designed for women and then I went to an all girls high school and I mean I just feel like I came from a very matriarchal kind of background and it legitimately took me a long time out in the real world to stop being like oh, this is an isolated experience that I don't like, and to finally be like oh, I think there's a common thread here.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, how long it has taken me to get to that point. Some of the parts of it are literally racial, some of them are gender. I just my husband sometimes jokes that I'm very Pollyanna, and he's right, because I grew up in the suburbs and like a ridiculously like suburban neighborhood. I was one of very few black people so I think my presence wasn't threatening because there weren't enough people like me to be threatening. And then when I got out in the world and I had two uncles who were cops, it wasn't until I moved to New York and I almost got arrested for not doing something.
Speaker 2:I was basically like putting my token before Metro cards in the turnstile and this girl went traipsing through the door, the exit door, and the woman in the booth went pay your fare. And there I was, standing there. I had just gone through the turnstile to undercover cops come up and I said what's up? And he said you, you hopped the turnstile and I went no, actually I just paid for these two tokens. You can ask the woman in the booth and the guy went I don't need to talk to nobody. I saw you, what am I doing? I was like no, you didn't. I went to the turn through the turnstile. I was on one side. Boyfriend follows, puts his money away, comes to the turnstile. I won't let him through till he gives me a kiss. He does, I let him through and I was like just ask her. There was another girl and I don't want to be the one going. She looks like this Go get her you know, I don't want to be that person.
Speaker 2:But, um, oh, my God, I thought I would lose my mind. I was so angry and my boyfriend is used to being like from a black neighborhood where you don't ever talk back to cops because you can end up dead, and I don't know that experience. So I'm like you're not going to ask. Why aren't you going to ask? All you need to do is ask and you'll find out. He's taking the handcuffs out and he's about to cuff me and the other cop. There's a black cop with the guy. He's listening and looking at my body language and he goes all right, all right, all right, Just, I want you two to go, just go, and the other cops go nuts. What are you going to let him off? You let them go. What's the problem? Go. He tells us to walk through and then, as they turn around, I go. I just want an apology when you find out you're wrong. I love you. Robin, Polly, Anna, all caps.
Speaker 1:How did your boyfriend react to that he?
Speaker 2:was like what the fuck are you doing? You don't understand this is dangerous and I, I don't. I've never had that experience. It's complicated, but, um, there's a learning curve that's involved. Well, let me ask a question. All right, read, read, yeah, okay. Um so, first thing, which pieces did you like best?
Speaker 1:All right, so I have not read them yet. I want to have it be an actual cold read. So I'm going to read it out loud, very monotone, just so that there's a general sense, before we start, of what this is. And I'm going to do that for both of them. So you want me to do that right now.
Speaker 2:There are two that are first person. Storm Crow character is about 17 and she's like the Empress's daughter, and the prologue establishes the normalcy of what this place is and it drops you right into the action. I mean, it's that's the opening hook is completely tied to the action In speakeasy. It's really scene setting, trying to figure out the place and the feel and what is this mythical thing that you're in? And then there's the style, and I wanted to talk about that a little bit too, but I won't say anything till after you've read it.
Speaker 1:All right. So here's this is from speakeasy by Catherine M Valenti. Valenti, part one Panther Sweat, check in. There's this ragamuffin city out east you follow, sitting pretty with a river on each arm, lit up in her gladdest rags in 1624. She'll tell you she's seen it all, boy howdy, the deep down in the high up champagne and syphilis, pearls and puke. Oh, she's a cynical doll. Nothing new to her, don't you believe it? Treat her right and she'll open up to you as innocent as Eden and twice as naked. She's got secrets. Sure, who doesn't, who doesn't? Pour me a snort and I'll spill. Mister, spot me a meal and I'll show you the goods. This is awesome.
Speaker 2:Isn't it? Yeah, she just this is such a strong character writing. Yeah, Because it's first person she tells the story of what happens in the Artemisia the hotel, but she's as strong a character as everybody she talks about. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, if you go looking for it, just about halfway uptown and halfway downtown, there's this hotel stuck like a pin all the way, like a pin all the way through the world. I don't, I don't know what that means. I'm going to need to look at that. Up on the roof of the Artemisia. It's Artemisia. Up on the roof of the Artemisia, it's heaven in a handbag. Oh my God, robin. Green grass and golden chickens laying golden eggs under the telephonic graph. Telephonic graph wires Yep. Telephonic graph wires Okay, 500, if there's one.
Speaker 1:They got Chinese Ducks the color of nose powder, 12 she goats descended straight down from the girl who gave her tit to a titan. A couple of Jersey cows giving milk as sweet as maple syrup. Bees like gold buttons closing up the clouds. Sheep just bursting out fleece that spins better than silk Ever got drunk on a tomato Hopped up on cucumbers. Well then, you never ate out of the garden. On top of the Artemisia and I swear, up there in the sky, they got a little black bear as tame as a kitten. I hear telly goes by. Rutherford Learned himself to growl. I love you. That's how you know it's heaven. The goats don't eat the sugar peas and the ducks don't fly off, and even the fellow with the claws knows about love. Oh my God, that's good.
Speaker 2:Isn't that gorgeous?
Speaker 1:I'm going to have to look up something else by her, because that's oh, that's so good.
Speaker 2:That's so good.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's look at the other one.
Speaker 2:This is a young adult series three books where you have a matriarchal society, everything's going wonderfully, it's magical, they have these crows and then, as soon as the book starts, she's deeply in depression because a male-dominated kingdom nearby has basically attacked them without warning and killed all of their crows. Which was their magical ability, how they were able to hold on to their sovereignty.
Speaker 1:Are these crows leaning close to the body of my crows? So are the crows big.
Speaker 2:Huge Okay, think Avatar. That's the visual Gotcha. All right, there's no.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna just read quickly through this whole thing, because it's on two sides of the page, so I don't think it's quite as long as it looks, all right. Prologue I was a storm. Adrenaline ripped through my veins like lightning as I leaned close to the body of my crow, preparing to execute a dive. How do you say that? Ilya? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ilya's warm, steady heat kept me grounded, even hundreds of feet in the air. Cold wind whipped tendrils of hair free from my braid, nipping at the skin around my goggles and stealing my breath. The thin, well-worn saddle beneath me was nothing more than a strip of leather to bind stirrups to the rain's trailing from my hands to Ilya's beak. Illusion of control this ride depended on trust and mutual respect. Anything less and no amount of leather would keep me seated on Ilya's back. Yes, estrel, estrel, yeah, okay. Years of Estrel's instructions raised through my mind. And who is Estrel?
Speaker 2:That's like their estros mentor, teacher, mentor and her mother's best friend.
Speaker 1:Okay. So, auntie Estrel, um, years of Estrel's instructions raised through my mind Keep your body low and tighten a dive, give the rain slack, keep your knees back so you don't put pressure on the crow's wing joints. And just for the listeners to know, that's in italics, mmm. I knew it all, like my own heartbeat. I talked close to Ilya's body and we dove. Water misted my skin as Ilya's storm crow magic Split apart a cloud seconds before we shot through it and plummeted toward the earth. My heart screamed into my throat pure, unadulterated joy, erupting through me with every passing moment. This has so many good words.
Speaker 1:I held my breath as we fell, counting the seconds we could only gain so much speed before Ilya's wings wouldn't be able to handle the strain of opening. 15, 16, 17 those are italics. We burst through layers of clouds. Eris, mm-hmm, eris spread out below us. The city was a blur as we dove a sea of light and color, fast approaching 20, I squeezed my knees and Ilya's wings snapped open like the slice of a blade catching an updraft to send us sailing in a gentle arc. Lightning buzzed at the tips of Ilya's wings as she let out a piercing call. I sucked in a lung full of cold air and let it out in a laugh, thrill of the dive resounding through me like a thunder clap. I craved that feeling like starved lungs, craved air, letting it fill me until I felt impossibly alive.
Speaker 1:We circled wide and low, descending the rest of the way until Ilya's shadow blanketed the city streets. Aris unfolded beneath us like a colorful map, dense with thick green foliage and spotted with wildflowers. People called up to us, waving from crowded streets as revelers, prepared for the festival leading up to Nagnok, the city's yearly hatch night. In a few hours, every single crow from across the kingdom of Rodeaer would put on a masterful display of Riding and magic and the year's crows would be hatched. One of them would be mine tonight. I would choose my own crow and become a rider.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's interesting, because it seems like she is. We dipped lower children chasing Ilya's shadow in the hopes of catching a stray feather to wish upon. This was my favorite part of flying, even more than the thrill of diving or the magic of soaring through endless skies. I loved gliding peacefully above Aris, the wind brushing along my skin as the city passed below, even on the back of a stolen crow. There we go. Well, not quite stolen. Ilya belonged to Astral, my teacher and mother's best friend, and while Astral ahead, let me ride Ilya alone before she technically hadn't given me permission tonight to tonight, probably because I didn't ask.
Speaker 2:Haha, that's so good. So you I mean you really get a sense of what I love about this is our Author just goes plop right in the middle of it. Yeah, and also let you know that she's a bit of a rebel, yeah.
Speaker 1:There's so much good in here because, okay, it like it tells you all these little things like First of all, I just love that. It's like you dive in right in the middle of the action and it says things like it shows the relationship between the rider and the crow. With this, no amount of leather would keep me seated. It depended on trust and mutual respect. It's an illusion of control. And then the, the numbers in italics. I love that. I've had several books like that, where it's this counting outside of what's actually happening and so you get like the inside of the person's head versus what it is that it's going on. And then it says that she's a rebel and she's tough, but she's also just gentle and just likes this peaceful Floating the best and the children wishing on the feather.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I love how very quickly the author establishes one. This is what's normal and this is who this person is, and then it's all taken from her. I remember recording this and that first sentence, prologue I was a storm period. There's no rest of the paragraph, yeah, and so I Remember having to figure out very quickly. Who am I talking to? Is this mid thought I was a storm, that's what was going on? Or because the title is the storm crow, but she's saying I was a storm just like the crow? Or was it a stormy, fast, swirly experience and you were actually a part of it, not just observing it, or in it? It's like what is it that she wants to say to you, the listener?
Speaker 2:One of the ways that I think about first-person pieces is first-person stories. Fiction tend to have a unifying kind of an element like what's the reason for being? Like? It's raison d'etre, or, in this case, a raison d'etre like what's my reason for speaking? I mean, I think it's a reason for speaking. Is a say there a reason? Raise, a raise, all deal like a raison d'etre, a reason for being, in French. Well, if I take the word being out and I put well, I need a reason for speaking, like why do I need to talk for 10 hours to tell you this story? Why is it important to me and off to tell you for 10 hours what happened?
Speaker 2:A raison d'er dir E is to speak or to say, oh okay, and so I think of it as Is this an insider story and so the only way you're gonna know is if I bring you into it. Like the devil wears Prada, how would you know what goes on behind closed doors in the fashion industry, unless I take you by the hand to bring you in? Or is this a cautionary tale? Something happened to me and I want to warn you. If you're not careful, this is what could happen to you. I have a purpose in my speaking for 10 hours. I need to warn you about this. So there's the cautionary tale. There's the Confessional tale, where you've done something and you feel bad about it and you need to kind of get it off your chest, and that's what pulls you through 345 pages.
Speaker 1:Robin, I literally just had a moment, was like and this stuff's really good, I need to be writing this down. Why am I not writing this? I totally forgot what we were doing, so funny. Okay, that is not a context that I have ever had. You know, I've been doing this a long time. I've never thought about it that way. That's incredible to put it in that context for every single book that you come across.
Speaker 2:And I do believe in the beginning, especially in something like a prologue, like this it was so exciting you weren't there. But let me see if I can break it down for you what it felt like, that excitement of bringing somebody who you really want to know.
Speaker 1:Okay, so as we were reading this, I was like I want to start with this one and it seems like we already have, so let's keep going with it.
Speaker 2:No, I will. I will make one observation. It's not an observation, actually. I'm just gonna share a technique, please.
Speaker 2:When I Crack open a book to read, I Really take my time, I Don't rush and I read it out loud to myself. Really, I want to hear what the rhythm of the, like the rhythm pattern in the writing. I just want to feel like, where, where does the language break into chunks? Where do I need a breath? Where do I want to breath? I just let it play through me like a player piano. You feed the music in and you let it hit the keys and the keys are you and see what comes out.
Speaker 2:And then afterward I might want to change something more, like a directorial Don't rush there, robin or wait, wait, wait, enjoy that minute, you know. But I I always read so slowly when I start because I'm trying to give over my needs, my wants, over to whatever it is that my author wrote. Yeah, like the rhythm of how I would speak. It is Not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for the rhythm of what's in the sentences and the thoughts, speed and rhythm patterns and breath, and I'm trying to let go of my need to do my own thing.
Speaker 1:Okay, would you like me to try that? I've never done that before and I have a game to try. I just would like a little guidance on if I'm doing what you're Saying or not. Can you let me know if I need to start over or slow down even more?
Speaker 2:Honestly, this is your Exploration. This is not about doing it right or doing it wrong. It's letting the words impact you and make choices for you, because there's no other way to almost no other way to do it.
Speaker 1:You know what that's kind of reminding me of? You've ever gone through the Kristen link ladder freeing Shakespeare's voice book? Yes, I have. There is, I think, an exercise in there where you like write out the monologue and you tear the words up and then just throw them on the floor, mm-hmm, and you like pick each word up one at a time and just let the word.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's dropping in, that's dropping in and letting the word just drop storm, storm. You just kind of let it.
Speaker 1:Am I leaning more toward the dropping in feel of doing this or am I leaning more toward? This is still a story that I'm telling, but I'm letting the words move me through it.
Speaker 2:That last way of describing it works for me. Okay, when I do dropping in, it's very me, me, me, me oriented.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very kind of self-indulgent, like, yes, very indulgent, feeling the words yeah and it, there's a place for that.
Speaker 2:But I don't usually have enough time to like do a self-indulgent dropping in pass. I'm just so used to doing it, I do it constantly and do you do this?
Speaker 1:you do this with the whole book.
Speaker 2:Well, not with the whole book, but I definitely do it for, like the first 80 pages of Average length book, which is, like you know, 340, 380 pages, I'm very Meticulous about just letting the tone of it infect me, letting the speed and the rhythm of the thoughts Infect me, so that that leads me In what I do, as opposed to making choices that are outside of the text and imposing them on the text. Yeah, we're just stuff that's in me, like I like doing it this way. That's what I do. Well, this book isn't about me.
Speaker 1:So here's one more question before I start, and I feel like I'm stalling, so I don't want to keep stalling, but I'm Anticipating, as I do this, that I'm going to have discoveries. Do you just let those live in your body, or do you write those down, or how do you usually Notate or try to remember those?
Speaker 2:I think I'm at a place now where I don't need to write them down, I just need to feel them and I just note it. But I would say, for if this was someone who was newer to audiobooks, I might want to be writing down all that stuff in my margin Gotcha, and sometimes if I have a lot of characters and a lot of changes of scene Right underneath, like chapter 16. All right, the names of the people that are in the scene, and I might just put a little bit like you know, this is where she tries to get him to marry her, so I go, oh right, okay, remember what chapter that is. It's important when you're newer to write that stuff down. They can tell you have a process that you can pull out of your back pocket at any second. Definitely take notes, and you know that'll be different for each person.
Speaker 1:I think All right, here I go, all right. Prologue I was a storm. Adrenaline ripped through my veins like lightning as I leaned close to the body of my crow, preparing to execute a dive. Ilya's warm, steady heat kept me grounded, even hundreds of feet in the air. Cold wind whipped tendrils of hair free from my braid, nipping at the skin around my goggles and stealing my breath. The thin, well-worn saddle beneath me was nothing more than a strip of leather to bind stirrups to the rains trailing from my hands to Ilya's beak. An illusion of control. This ride depended on trust and mutual respect. Anything less, no amount of leather, would keep me seated on Ilya's back. Years of estrals instructions raced through my mind keep your body low and tight in a dive, give the rain slack, keep your knees back so you don't put pressure on the crow's wing joints. I knew it all, like my own heartbeat. I tucked close to Ilya's body and we dove? Do you think that we should keep going with that? Or should we maybe like go ahead and start working? Any of that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's go back a little bit on it, and one of the things that I like to do is I trust actors. I really do so. Once we mention something I don't necessarily want to work it, work it, work it. You know what I mean, but just to introduce the thought that would change the choice.
Speaker 1:So, okay, go ahead. I had some impressions of that because I've never done that before. Okay, say it, let's start with that then. So for me, well, first of all, I found myself feeling very impatient. I really wanted to like shoot through it, you know, but in slowing down and just allowing the words to be more present, like before me, before I let them come in and go out, there were moments where I was like, oh, I felt my voice naturally go up on that and that's not a choice I would have made, or and I definitely felt like the pace, like the italicized part keep your body, like that just felt driving and different than the rest of slowing it down, really did make me more conscious of those things, and I don't usually experience that before I get into it. So that was very interesting. What would you have to say on that?
Speaker 2:Well, two things. First, you're exploring, and part of exploring is slowing it down so that you don't rush through it, so that you don't miss little bits of the visions that you're seeing right or the experience that you're actually having. I always forget the difference between tempo and pace. I always forget One is the actual speed with which you go word to word to word to word to word, and the next one is the speed at which you end a sentence and then continue on to the next. This particular reading, you went through the sentence at a good clip but then had long pauses every time there was a period. Really, yeah. So one of the things you can do to change that is to not take such a pause every time you get to a period. Keep the drive going. I think that's what annoyed you was that you wanted to keep going but you had a like I'm going to wait. Then you went on to the next one, whereas you can let it drive from the end of a period into the next thought.
Speaker 2:But if you go word to word to word, adrenaline ripped through my veins like lightning as I leaned close to the body of my crow. You know, it's like word to word to word, to word to word. Those are two things you can play with in terms of how you manage your speed. If something is very wordy or the images the compound images have a lot that people need to see, then I don't necessarily want to rush through. I can always slow it down and give them a second to catch up at a comma or a second to catch up at a period. We're not always conscious of the fact that we have that power to do that.
Speaker 2:When you got down two lines, 19 to 21, which were the italicized parts there's a choice there. There is of Estrell's instructions raced through my mind. Now it's italicized text, which means verbalized thought, or a reportage on what somebody else has already said, which means you can either play her recalling keep your body low and tighten a dive, give the reins slack, keep your knees back so you don't put pressure on the crow's wings.
Speaker 1:That's sort of what it felt like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to go over the instructions I was given, so you're reporting on them. Or in other instances it might make more sense to flip into the voice Estrell's voice giving the lesson. But that's a choice Reportage or quote? Yeah, it's a distinct choice, one or the other for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really interesting to slow it down like this, because it's the difference between doing things simply on instinct and making conscious choices. There are a lot of different things that I might do as I'm narrating a book that I just don't really think that much about. That's just the way. Yeah, that's just like the way that I've worked, or it's the way that the character struck me, or and I've not taken the time sometimes to sit down and consciously make choices, I would just sort of go on instinct. And it's an interesting juxtaposition because, on the one hand, with us being paid per finished hour and sometimes having a lot of research, or sometimes it really serves us to be able to jump in on instinct and just get the thing done, oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I would have to say instinct is first line of defense. It's the first approach. Whatever your instinct is, go with them. But then again, a chapter like this, that's a prologue, is establishing the first footprint. What is it that the author intended?
Speaker 1:I mean realistically. We want to take care with all of our projects, but there are some that we have to knock out faster than others, and that's where instinct can really help. But an approach like this is just very.
Speaker 2:Well, I would never want to start with this approach. I'd never want to start with the analytical. I always want to start with instinct, and then I'm always looking for a way to do what I do in the most organic way possible. I want to stay out of my left brain. I don't need to go there. So if I want to adjust how I'm doing this or it's just to explore how I'm doing it, what I'll do is I'll change the person that I'm talking to and what I want from them. I just change that Like I want you to know me and so I'm going to tell you all my personal reactions and things that have happened to me. So it's this massive sharing and it's very intimate and private. The excitement of it I was a storm. I, you know, like just jumping into it, whatever that means for you in terms of I want this person to know how amazing this was. I want to make them feel as excited as I. That's an action, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, what I think is interesting about the action is it's like who was it? It was the difference between the two actresses. It was Sarah Bernhardt and Eleanor Aduce, I think, oh, eleanor. Aduce yeah okay, so she was the one that brought about the kind of naturalistic you know, like you feel it on the inside and then it comes out, and Sarah Bernhardt was the big expressive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the big gesture, the grand gesture.
Speaker 1:Yes, and so those were kind of the two.
Speaker 1:I always think of that in my head as like the two, and I also think of it as a little bit between like British and American styles of like teaching acting. Now I always feel like British actors are so well trained and everything that they do is I would love the opportunity to study there at some point. But I feel like the difference, though, is that a lot of times, in starting out, it seems like they have kind of a focus on the technique, and then it moves into the emotional and then, like on the American side, it's more like all about the emotional, and then maybe we'll throw some technique on it, and I don't know where this falls. But people have so many different ways that they will potentially naturally express any given emotion. Like, if I feel angry, I might express it completely differently than the person next to me. I think what becomes so interesting with the human voice is that it might not even sound like what you would expect anger would sound like, but somehow we know what it is because we feel the energy behind it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's usually attached to an action that's being played on a target, target being the person you're talking to.
Speaker 1:And it's like everybody acts differently but we somehow get their meaning anyway. It's what you're saying. It's all based on action, but I'm also thinking of things in terms of energy and like the life force behind them. I don't know if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love that phrase, the energy and the life force behind it. I'm not sure if you had a room full of 40 actors, if you'd find more than two people saying exactly the same thing about how they do what they do I work with. I went to one drama school and I teach at another drama school and I've worked with actors who've been to drama school and who've learned by doing, by actually being on the stage. I think those things, all being equal, are about how well the person internalizes the technique right, closes the hood on the car and then just drives that sexy Ferrari down the street, as opposed to sitting on the curb with the hood up and going. Hey, everybody look out my engine. Yeah, it's so smooth. Everything is. Nobody wants to see that, except another mechanic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Nobody wants to see that.
Speaker 2:So I tend to go for the tone. I take the text slowly so I can just sort of let myself contact the text without rushing, so that I can feel where it's driving me to. It gives me as much information as I can get from it, intuitively, just intuitively. And then I might say, wow, what if I change who I'm talking to? What if this were like a tribunal I was in front of?
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, that would completely I'm thinking of the last line would be like muttered under her breath instead of yes, probably because. I didn't ask.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know that could work too. Yeah, it actually could you know, but a lot of it will be well. What's the context of this prologue that I'm reading? Does that make sense? Does it pull you through the entire thing?
Speaker 1:I don't like pointless originality, it's just you know I'm going to be so creative. I've never heard that phrase, but I know exactly what you're saying.
Speaker 2:Pointless originality, P-O so.
Speaker 1:Okay, I want to try and move through this a little bit more. Yes, let's go back to the top. Let's just keep going through. Okay, this is nerve wracking, robin. Oh, I recognize that I'm like putting myself on display, doing something that I'm not perfect at. Normally, when you put the finished audio book out there for people to listen to, everyone has had a chance to edit it and master it and quality control it and make sure that everything you know. So I just I want to speak to that experience a little bit. That this is actually. I was not expecting this. I thought this was just going to be like oh, I jumped in the booth and I've done this a million times and it's just going to be fun and it's Robin and we'll work together. And for anyone that might listen to this who is nervous about, like, being in front of a class with coaching, or they're unsure about how it's going to feel to work with a coach and they're hesitant because they're nervous, like I'm experiencing it right now, yeah, yeah, all right, so I would like to go ahead and start this again and I'm just going to keep going until I hear something from you. Okay, prologue I was a storm.
Speaker 1:Adrenaline ripped through my veins like lightning as I leaned close to the body of my crow preparing to execute a dive. Ilya's warm, steady heat kept me grounded, even hundreds of feet in the air. Wild wind whipped tendrils of hair free from my braid, nipping at the skin around my goggles and stealing my breath. The thin, well-worn saddle beneath me was nothing more than a strip of leather to bind stirrups to the reins trailing from my hands to Ilya's beak. An illusion of control. This ride depended on trust and mutual respect. Nothing less and no amount of leather would keep me seated on Ilya's back. Years of estrals instructions raced through my mind Keep your body low and tight in a dive. Give the rain slack. Keep your knees back so you don't put pressure on the crow's wing joints. I knew it all. Like my own heartbeat, I tucked close to Ilya's body and we dove. Water misted my skin as Ilya's storm crow magic split apart a cloud a second before we shot through it and plummeted toward the earth, my heart screamed into my throat pure, unadulterated joy erupting through me with every passing moment.
Speaker 1:I held my breath as we fell, counting the sinkings. We could only gain so much speed before Ilya's wings wouldn't be able to handle the strain of opening 15, 16, 17. We burst through layers of clouds, air is spread out below us. The city was a blur as we dove a sea of light and color, fast approaching 20,. I squeezed my knees and Ilya's wings snapped open like the slice of a blade catching an updraft to send a sailing in a gentle arc. Lightning buzzed at the tips of Ilya's wings as she let out a piercing call.
Speaker 1:I sucked in a lung full of cold air and let it out in a laugh, the thrill of the dive resounding through me like a thunder clap. I craved that feeling like starved lungs, craved air, letting it fill me until I felt impossibly alive. We circled wide and low, descending the rest of the way until Ilya's shadow blanketed the city streets. Arras unfolded beneath us like a colorful map, dense with thick green foliage and spotted with wildflowers. People called up to us, waving from crowded streets as revelers, prepared for the festival leading up to Neknok, the city's yearly hatch night. In a few hours, every single crow from across the kingdom of Rodeir would put on a masterful display of writing and magic, and the year's crows would be hatched. One of them would be mine. Tonight, I would choose my own crow and become a rider.
Speaker 2:Great, let's pause there. That's like where I actually would have stopped it, because it concludes that first opening hook. This is the opening hook, you know, and the way it hooks is through the excitement and the sharing of the excitement. Love what you're doing with your breath and what's interesting.
Speaker 1:That's really interesting to say because I was gonna say my one experience of that that I like right off the bat was as soon as you stopped me, I was like I feel like I need to breathe, I feel like I'm okay.
Speaker 2:But that's exactly. See, this is the thing. Breath is a huge expresser of internal emotion. Whatever you're feeling changes interrupts your breath, and you can hear what's going on with somebody inside by what's going on with their breath, and so, with a lot of pieces, what I'll do is I'll tell people, when you get to the period at the end of a sentence, just let go and just release your muscles and let the air fall back in, as opposed to pulling the air in, what we do is we get to the end of a thought, we get to a period and we go period, and then what you end up with is a pattern generator of.
Speaker 2:And after a while that can be pretty annoying if you're a listener.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and an editor who's like man Exactly.
Speaker 2:However, this particular part, her breath, is doing what the excitement is expressing, what the excitement is doing to her. Okay, so, no, I wouldn't change your breath here. Okay, great, great, because you're literally like that's actually part of your experience.
Speaker 1:So I wouldn't mess with it.
Speaker 1:You know, I felt there was a moment okay, so like if I was narrating this, you know, just working on this book, there was a moment where I felt like okay, here's where I dropped into it and I can keep going from here. It was like I think it was at water, missed in my skin. Before that I actually would probably go back and like redo the front part of it, because I was a storm. A journal like I just wasn't. I don't know if it's just that it was the beginning and I need to drop into it more or what, but yeah, I think that's it.
Speaker 2:And I would say to you, trust yourself, because I can tell you I did the same thing. I did this three times until I got it where I wanted it and I will say just wanna flag something nicely done Lines 40 to 41, when you finish that paragraph, letting it fill me until I felt impossibly alive. We circled wide and low, descending the rest of the way until Ilia's shadow blanketed the city streets. There's a slowing down and you immediately responded to the tempo change in your body, not in your left brain, and that's what you wanna do is let it inform you. And you did so brava, and you wanna be able to like. That's that instinct you. Also, if you're visualizing what you're doing, it's different from where you just came from, Driving down and then blanketing back up, and now fluff, fluff, fluff, fluff, fluff. Coming down and circling over is different and you let it in, you let it in and then you let it out.
Speaker 1:Is there any part of this that right now, before we move on to the next one, you would have me do again? Is there anything that you were like? Let's try this instead of that.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, if we were actually doing a directed session, I might have stopped you just to tell you hey, nice, tempo change, let's do it one more time, because now that I've said the word oh, wow, tempo change. And you acknowledge, oh, that's right, that's what I did, I don't need to tell you to do anything, you've just clocked it in your mind. When you do it again, it'll be even just a hair more pronounced. I trust actors that way. I don't wanna do it this way, because I'm the director and the director knows what to do and I want you to change your pace. I don't wanna do that.
Speaker 2:I do not wanna be literally dictating, and that is one of the big challenges I'm sure you've encountered. This is when you are a narrator and you are a director. One of the things that happens is you go through a text and you know how you would do it if it were your gig Uh-huh. But you cannot direct somebody to be you. You have to listen to the integrity of their performance and make sure that they create an arc where there are arcs, or mind the transitions, but you can't have them do it the way you would do it.
Speaker 1:And you know what the fun part is about being the director is that, yes, going into it with the mindset of how I love being surprised by how someone else sees something that I just was like like never would have done that myself, never would have seen it. I think that that's the most exciting part about going to the theater too Just having people experience things in a different way than you. It comes across a different way. It's something you might have known, that story you might have chosen, that action you might, but it still is a revelation to you, seeing it through their eyes or hearing it through their voice. I love that part. Yeah, all right, let's move on to the Speak Easy. Speak Easy. This is so cool. I don't know if I can fit all of this into just one thing, but now I'm kind of thinking like maybe Robin will be my first three guests. Maybe maybe I just recorded three months. We are actually going to end today's episode there and, as a surprise bonus, we will have the second half of it released a little later this week. When Robin and I get together, we end up just talking a little too long about stuff, so we had this conversation scheduled for two hours. That went on for four, but I don't want you to miss out on anything that she had to say, so we'll have that whole extra episode posted for you later this week. In the meantime, here are a couple of takeaways that we had from this episode. One stars they're just like us. Even Robin Miles forgets to plug in her mouse when she gets into the booth. You know, we all forget our water. We have to go and turn the thing off, or you know whatever it might be, so don't feel too bad if that's something that you struggle with too.
Speaker 1:Number two get the help that you need. You might not be in a place in your career where you're ready to hire a production manager, but maybe you have a spouse or a kid or a friend or someone else in your life that can help you with some of the areas that, if they got taken off your plate, it would free you up to do better with the narration. Three left brain, right brain. Set yourself up for success. Know what you're doing and when, and don't try to force yourself to go back and forth too much. Four mentorship matters. Look for a mentor that can help you get where you need to go or can help you with specific things in your career that you have questions with, or if you're at a point where you can start offering these things to other people. Be a mentor. Give someone else that next step up.
Speaker 1:Five tempo versus pace I absolutely loved this. The speed with which your words are coming out or the speed with which you are using the punctuation both of these things can help shape and craft a story in very unique and subtle ways. Six make conscious choices, whether it's about italics, whether it's about who you are, who you're speaking to, what is happening in the moment. Be conscious with everything that you're putting out there. Seven no one cares what's under the hood of your Ferrari. Technique is only meant to be on display during things like coaching and practice. Otherwise, you're just wanting that to feed a seamless performance that looks easy. Eight pointless originality no thanks. Nine trust your instincts. And 10, nerves are totally normal.
Speaker 1:It has been an absolute pleasure to share this episode with you and, if you liked it, I would so appreciate if you could follow the show and maybe leave a kind review or five stars on Apple or Google. This is what helps other audiobook lovers know that we are a good listen. Like I said, there'll be a whole second episode of Robin available very soon. But if you just can't wait and need to coach with her now, you can reach her at R-Miles R-M-I-L-E-S at Voxpertisecom that's V-O-X-P-E-R-T-I-S-E dot com. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you on down the road.