1. First
off, Guy, I hand you a bouquet of flowers of your choice for doing such an
excellent job of narrating my novel! Out of curiosity, what drew you to the book
in the first place? What made you decide to audition?
It was very intriguing, AEquana as a title was
evocative and mysterious, and the description of the story sounded subtle and
scintillating! And different than books I have done so
far.
2. You have a large repertoire of voices. My favorite, of course, is
the one you gave to Buck. Are there any types of voices that are harder than
others for you? Do female voices give you any
trouble?
Buck was great, I love
the character and his voice just came to me as I focused on him and your
description of him, and was delighted when you said, it was just how you heard
him in your head!
I really enjoyed
Talon's deep. calm, confidant voice, and AEquana, who started out more icy, but
warmed up a lot as her vulnerability was revealed, and her relationship with
Talon warmed up too.
Finding the voices
is an acting adventure, and can take a number of attempts to find the right one
- And sometimes, I will start with one, and as I am reading forward, it will
evolve to something different enough that I'll have to go back and redo the
earlier lines.
Women's voices, are a shift of the machine, breath control and
vocal placement all get shifted to a different gear, that's the best analogy I
can use, but once in that gear, it's fine, the real challenger is sudden shifts
back and forth from female dialogue to a male narrator and back again...Yikes,
it's like driving an obstacle course!
3. Okay, I have to mention
the lovemaking scenes. You got a kick out of me being embarrassed after hearing
you narrate those pages. Do those scenes ever give you pause?
I really enjoyed your embarrassment, as an
acknowledgment of my doing a good job. Because you seemed a bit worried about me
doing it.
Reading love scenes, I
am imagining both sides of the intimacy, it is like a rhythmic dance, that's a
poetic way of describing it.
4. You told me during
production that you prefer to read the material cold turkey, rather than ahead
of time. Why?
I like the process of
discovery, because it's how I read when reading something, hearing the voices in
my head as I read a book, and I am translating it to audio, it's like the way
simultaneous translators work at the UN. And when I work on films a lot of the
stars don't want to know their lines or rehearse much in advance, they want to
react fresh.
Not that I don't
ever read ahead, and note the characters etc.
5. Out of curiosity, was
there any part of AEQUANA that you liked the most? Was there a scene that forced
you to stop to collect yourself before going on?
Hummm, don't want to be a spoiler here....Let's say, I
love the sharpness of their first meeting, and Aequana's adventurous dash for
freedom (is that spoiling?)
6. Do you keep notes as you read aloud? Like descriptive reminders
as to which voice was for whom, etc.?
I do make notes, more and more, to keep track, but
sometimes I still have to go back and listen to a character's voice, if they
appear early on and then only come back much later...it can be hard to describe
exactly the voice you gave them in words; grumpy older Pentagon General,
southern...hummm? What part of the South, is he smart, nice, clipped and
curt?
7. Now that I look back on
it, because AEQUANA is generally told from the hero's point of view, I can see
how having a male narrator enhanced the story. Do you have any difficulty when
it's a woman's POV?
No problem from a woman's point of view, I
just pop on a wig, heels and dress to get in the mood....just kidding. (Though
it is a fun idea!) Really, I have so many close women friends, and have spent so
much time talking and listening...Also I have written a lot, and writing from a
woman's point of view is much harder than reading from a woman's point of
view.
8. Finally, I have to ask,
but what started you on the path of narrating books for
ACX?
I have avidly
listened to audiobooks for many years, and am very picky about narrators voices
and styles, and I have always loved to read aloud, and am an actor, and had been
working on submitting Narration samples to various audiobook publishers,
including Audible, so I when was emailed about the creation of ACX, and watched
a seminar about it on the SAG/AFTRA website, and I thought, WOW, this makes it
easy for me to make it happen.(Not that there isn't a big learning curve,
especially since you are recording the book as well as
narrating.)
And I have been
learning more and more all the time, and getting more wonderful projects from
wonderful (and really lovely) authors, and my latest, booking is an author who
heard me on an ACX book and contacted me for her bestselling Scottish romance
series, and she got onto ACX so we could work together on their
platform.
The process of
collaborating with an author on taking these book to a new medium has been
great, as with working with you on AEquana. Uploading chapters, and getting your
responses was so delightful! I didn't want it to end! (And yousaid you didn't
either!)
* * *
AEquana is Now Available unabridged from Amazon, iTunes, and Audible .com
