mike bennett

Hello Listeners,

I know a lot of you are checking in on this site and U&F.com daily to see if there's any word of Episode 37, so I thought I'd best let you know why it's taking so long. Basically, I have to work at my day job, and that means I have very little time for writing. Here's a picture taken of me and a recent class ...

 

That's me in front.

 

I work on the episode (text - yes, I'm still only on the text) for about 45 minutes in the mornings, but then I have to begin to prepare for my classes. I teach till 6, then I get the train home. By the time my wife and I have cooked and eaten dinner, the day's gone. I get to work on it for hours at the weekend, but it's a very big chapter - almost 20 pages - and so it's taking a lot of editing. Once the editing is done, I'll record it and get it online. It'll either be one big episode (probably movie-length) or two episodes of about 40-45 mins each.

I had hoped that sales of my eBook, Hall of Mirrors Vol.1, would be enough to make it possible for me to leave paid employment and work full time as a writer. However, so far only 1% of the U&F audience have bought the book, so I'm not able to retire from the day job just yet. I've also had to put the price of the book up to $2.99 - I figure if people aren't going to buy it for a buck, they aren't going to buy it for $2.99 either - and I read that $2.99 is a good price to set your book as it because sometimes if a book is too cheap, new readers will think it's probably crap and ignore it. But hey, it works out a dollar / pound / euro a story, so it's still a fair price.

Needless to say, U&F 37 is coming and will be with you as soon as possible. Don't check in every day though, it won't be anytime this week. Check back in 7 days, hopefully by then I'll have better news.

One day I'll be able to make money at this game, but until then - as always - I thank you for your patience.

 

Hello listeners Sincere apologies for the delay on U&F 30; a couple of weeks ago I went from being a part-time teacher to a full-time one, doing eight hour days plus commute. I usually get home at around 7pm, and when I do, I’m spent. I managed to get the Ep 30 recording done last weekend and I’m working on the edit whenever I get an opportunity. Right now, I’m about a third of the way through it. The good news is, I hope to get back to part-time employment soon, maybe next week if all goes well – even it means only a six hour day, that’ll be an improvement. Anyway, long story short: I’m not dead, I haven’t forgotten U&F or my audience, I’ve just been swallowed by circumstances. I thank you for your patience, and hope to get U&F 30 out to you as soon as I possibly can. M

Jon Cape has been hard at work on a full-length feature video that brings visual life to my reading of Lovecraft's "From Beyond". The finished work will be available soon, but to whet the appetite, here's a trailer ...

Currently recording Episode 23 and making slow progress. Why? Why when the text has been written and re-written till it reads perfectly, should it be proving problematical? Because nothing but nothing throws up sentences that don't work like reading them aloud. This goes especially for dialogue. So far I've recorded over an hour of audio, yet only covered two of 16 pages. That's because as I read, I hit things I don't like, and I re-write them, or just look away from the text and say whatever comes to mind naturally (again, especially with dialogue).

I find that the more crafted a piece of dialogue is, the less it sounds like something someone would really say. So I'm going to now go and cut about 75% of the audio I've just recorded, and save the remainder, knowing that that remainder, however small, will at least (I hope) be good stuff.

Then I'll record the other 14 pages :-)

Bugles parp and trumpets quack! Fish sauce crystallizes into a solid lump of anchovy goodness and middle aged men fall off gym balls at the news that I and my wife are going to be in New York to meet you, should you be around, on the evening of Saturday May 1st.

 

 

Uncle Velvet is trying to nail-down a suitable venue, but we need to know how many we can expect in advance, if possible. So if you can make it, let us know by posting here or on the Facebook Event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=110974775604721&ref=nf 

I can't sign any of my books, because as you know, they are only available in podcast form at the moment (I can try to sign a podcast, but it might be tricky). There may also be a reading, but it's impossible to say at this time, because we don't know where we're going to be. So the sooner you RSVP, the more likely that will be ;-)

I thank you, and look forward to meeting you in the flesh.