Happy Wednesday! It’s Pi Day, so I hope you get to enjoy some pie. We had ours for breakfast.
This weekend marked the (early) beginning of performance season. My son is the most heavily involved in the arts, but my daughter and I both have our things as well. Between now and June, we have 7 concerts, 3 recitals, 1 theater gala, and 1 audition. I used to say at least my kids don’t do travel sports. Hahaha! Um.
Anyway, while all that is going on, I’m working through reviewing the print proof for Drumbeat. I’m viewing the document on my Mac while I have Siri read aloud to me from my phone. It’s delightful. I have it set to the male UK voice, and it’s got a bit more inflection than the default female US voice. It’s also somewhat gentle and refined. It makes me blush and feel guilty having “him” read all the swears and the sex. The way “he” says certain words is…interesting.
On to the WIPpet. This follows right after last week’s, where Nate called out Mack and Trevor for being big babies. Edited slightly to remove spoilers. Also, swearing. Feel free to have male UK Siri read that bit to you.
WIPmath: 3/14/2018 = 3 + 14 = 17 sentences.
“What?” Trevor snapped. Mack would’ve agreed with him, except he was too irritated, both that Nate had figured it out and that he and Trevor had a temporary common enemy.
“Look,” Nate said. “Every last one of us knew [what happened with] Jamie.” He poked Trevor in the chest. “And you.” He flicked Mack’s arm. “You’re acting the same way my brother did the first time I introduced him to Izzy. I thought he was going to take him out back and interrogate him using secret government tactics.”
Mack glared at him. “What would you know about anything?”
“Ooh, look who’s gone all defensive. Must’ve hit a nerve there. Can we just put this aside and have a good time? I want to see Cian dance and then make sure he’s doing all right. That would be a hell of a lot easier if the two of you chilled the fuck out.”
Trevor had the good sense to look defeated, so Mack gave in as well.
Like what you read? Be sure to check out the other entries and add your own. Just post a bit of your WIP, connect it to the date, and link up with us. Many thanks to Emily Wrayburn for giving us this space. Happy reading and writing!
Following along while another voice reads is a wonderful way to catch all the little stuff. I just recently discovered this. While I don’t have Siri, I do have the read feature on Word, and there are three choices. I generally choose the female voice, but one of the male voices works too. The other male voice? Eh, not so much. Regardless, I do like that I can adjust the reading speed for my southern ears. It’s not perfect by any means, but it certainly does help.
Seems like Mack has his knickers in a bunch. Yes, he does need to chill out and enjoy. Maybe Cian’s dance will be enough of a distraction for him to do that. Maybe not, considering. *chuckles*
Were you the one who recommended having voiceover read it? I honestly can’t remember who it was. It’s been so much easier than simply going over the print proof. I can’t stand most of the Siri voices, so I have mine set to the UK male because he’s not annoying. I haven’t tried voiceover in Word.
Mack is definitely being too uptight here. It’s not Cian who is about to distract him, though. 🙂
I mentioned it, but I probably wasn’t the only one. It’s my newfound writing tool, and I hold onto it for dear life. It’s helped me conquer my skip-word tendencies.
Hehe. I totally had ‘Daniel’ read that out to me. 😀 The way he says ‘Ooh’ is just so… ‘ooh’.
I feel like I’m sitting at the next table along, listening to their bickering. 🙂 It’s very awesome.
Hahaha! The way “Daniel” reads certain things is very “ooh.”
This scene is even a bit more fun with Nate’s commentary on the things that would be spoilers. This book is a little more challenging than the others for not revealing too many details about the previous book. Still, I’m glad the scene works! 🙂
Interesting. Now I have something new to try: reading aloud via computer! Not sure how to do this yet, but I have word and a Kindle, so something should work. The scene shows off the frustrations for all three and hints at more to come!
I’m finding it’s so much easier to go through it if I’m listening to it while reading. I’ve caught a number of small things I’d have missed otherwise.
These guys are definitely frustrated with each other, but like most things, they’ll work it out eventually.
yeah, definitely seems like that hit a nerve.
I may have to try having my computer read aloud to me. I’ve tried reading my WiPs aloud, but that’s never worked well for me.
Ah, Mack. Always pretending to care less than he does.
I tried reading mine out loud too, but for some reason, that distracts me. It’s been really good having it read to me while I follow along.
I love using text-to-speech for my works. I have a horrible tendency to say things like “she walked over to to the bar” and I always miss those slip-ups when I’m reading.
Great snippet, I can feel the tension between them all.
I miss those too! I’ve found a couple of spots like that, though the proofreader was really good and caught most of my random errors. This is the final read-through.
I’m glad that tension is coming through in my snippet.