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Godspeed, Crazy Mike Journal (Week 6)

August 29, 2021 by cpgronlund 1 Comment

The Not About Lumberjacks homepage. Along the top: "Not About Lumberjacks" and menu options for the site.

Mid-page: The Not About Lumberjacks logo against a strip of forest (photo).

Bottom: "What is this all about?" and website description.

8/22/21 – Sunday

I’ve wanted to do more with video to promote Not About Lumberjacks. I’m fine using my phone’s camera to get started, but I’ve never been pleased with the sound I get from the phone. (And I’d argue that good sound matters more than a better camera with a nice depth-of-field blur and other things people seek in visual quality.)

I have a tiny shotgun mic that does a good enough job, but at any distance (or outside), it tends to pick up background noise.

It probably sounds funny to some that I’m concerned so much about sound when a huge aspect of Not About Lumberjacks is recorded audio. And if I wanted to do sit-at-my-desk stuff with my Shure SM7B on a boom arm, that would produce great sound.

But I want to be able to record in different places…even at home.

So…I’d been saving up, and [with getting a new full-time job], I splurged a bit and got the Rode Wireless Pro II kit.

The Rode Wireless Go II system:

Receiver with LED screen set upright on a black tabletop. The two transmitters (one with a wind muff attached) are placed facing up on the table.

This will allow me to record nice sound to my phone, even if I’m on the other side of a room or walking across a field toward the camera. It’s a wireless receiver that can run a line into my phone while recording video (no need to synch audio and visuals), and two people can record themselves with the transmitters.

If something happens with the signal to the receiver, the transmitters record internally.

I’ve not started a Patreon for Not About Lumberjacks because sound for video has been an issue.

But that’s fixed, now, so I’m sure I’ll be doing even more to let people know Not About Lumberjacks exists and stay in closer touch with fans of the show.

8/23/21 – Monday

Today was the typical writing and research day.

I know some people gather all their research before starting a story, and I always research up front if it’s a story requiring that. But as you get into a story, little things pop up that you may not have anticipated…or been able to predict because sometimes you change things along the way.

Because “Godspeed, Crazy Mike” involves a homicide investigation, many things I’ve written in the moment need to be verified as correct.

A segment of rough dialogue from "Godspeed, Crazy Mike." A yellow highlighted section reads, "...We’re going to get an officer to take a statement and we’ll be in touch if we need anything else.”

I need to verify this little point.

Some writers are fortunate to have a team that researches for them or experts they can run everything past. I suppose it’s not out of the realm of possibility to contact my local police department and see if someone there would be willing to look at the story and point out any errors or even make better suggestions.

But as a guy with a full-time job and a very small operation, I’ve found once you involve more people in an episode…the longer it takes. And there’s always going to be those people who read not for pleasure, but to find that one thing that might be their specialty so they can tell you how you got everything wrong. (A writer friend once had a woman show up to a book signing just to tell him he got one tiny thing wrong; another writer I follow online shared a story about mentioning cement in a story — and having a fan go off on him because what he wrote about was actually concrete.)

With so much of “Godspeed, Crazy Mike” roughed out, much of what I’m doing right now is additional research as I complete scenes.

I always tell myself to tackle stories that require no research to slow things down, but even in some of the more fantastic stories I’ve written, there always seems to be little things requiring the attention of research.

I’ll admit that sometimes it’s kind of fun…

8/24/21 – Tuesday

Much of “Godspeed, Crazy Mike,” takes place the morning a co-worker discovers Mike’s dead body behind the maintenance barn where they work. And because there’s enough to bring in homicide detectives, the medical examiner, a crime scene investigator, and others…there’s a lot going on.

So…I made a timeline of the morning to give things a feeling that people don’t keep popping up conveniently. (“Okay, we’re done talking with you…oh, look, the next person we need to question just-so-happened to arrive!”)

In stories, you’re always going to cheat things a bit; otherwise, you’d bore readers with all the waiting that would happen. But too much of that, and it seems forced.

So, a timeline allows me to mention someone arrives in the middle of other scenes so the main detectives don’t seem to be walking through convenient arrivals the moment scenes end.

8/25/21 – Wednesday

More writing and research today.

I love how you can not only find so much information online, but how easy some programs make organizing research right there where you need it.

Scrivener has a little research tab, and I can cut and paste things found online, make notes, or even attach photos, PDFs, and other files.

View of Scrivener with a PDF about contamination control of crime scenes opened from the Research tab on the left side of the screen. A red arrow (to illustrate the point) shows which file is opened.

It’s so much easier than the days of printing things out and shuffling through a big folder in an attempt to find what you need while in the flow.

8/26/21 – Thursday

Just a normal writing day. Nothing too exciting to report — other than a bit more progress.

8/27/21 – Friday

While Not About Lumberjacks efforts right now are almost exclusively on “Godspeed, Crazy Mike,” (and the rest of 2021), things sometimes pop up that make me think ahead to 2022.

In my big file of story ideas, I have one based around the old Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) books. Earlier this week, I stumbled upon a decision-tree map of some CYOA stories, which got me thinking about the idea I have.

So…I ordered a couple CYOA books (I’ve never read one), to match up with some of the smaller story maps I stumbled upon.

Two Choose Your Own Adventure book images. Bottom book: Island of Time, which is mostly covered by the top book, Surf Monkeys. Surf Monkeys cover depicts three young teenagers in the middle of the ocean surfing on waves...and appearing to be chased by a cargo ship.

The technical writer and table-top role-playing geek in me looks forward to matching scenes up to the maps…and eventually creating a story for Not About Lumberjacks based on the concept.

(Sadly, there’s no real way to create an audio story where listeners can choose their own adventure, but I have a bonus story idea [not audio] for fans…)

8/28/21 – Saturday

Took Saturday off from working on things.

My wife and I hadn’t visited my mom for awhile (we usually visit weekly), so we spent the day hanging out with her.

When we came home, instead of plopping down to write, we plopped down for a drink and then listened to music (Wardruna), until going to bed early for a good night’s sleep!

A living room and small dining room flooded in blue LED light. High up on a built-in shelf, a white orb LED glows.
A peaceful way to end a day…

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: a-peek-at-process

Godspeed, Crazy Mike Journal (Week 5)

August 22, 2021 by cpgronlund Leave a Comment

A full rainbow over trees as gray clouds break behind it, revealing blue sky. (It was a nice morning in North Texas last week.)

8/15/21 – Sunday

Took a slack day and did nothing creative. Combined with taking it easy yesterday, it’s the first time in a while that I took a weekend off writing and podcasts. (Well, I did record an episode of Men in Gorilla Suits in the evening.)

8/16/21 – Monday

Creative time for the day went toward editing the latest Men in Gorilla Suits episode.

Because we shoot for an every-other-week schedule for Men in Gorilla Suits, every couple weeks—for at least a day or two—it gets more attention than writing and Not About Lumberjacks.

8/17/21 – Tuesday

A very busy day, combined with tending to bills and other things during lunch, meant no creative work for the day.

There was a time I wrote daily no matter what, but along the way I valued sleep and not stressing about things so much. The goal then became, “Did I write more days than not?” With working full time, having a life, and other things that happen during any given week, four out of seven days seems like a good target.

I still do more than many people I see who claim you must write daily, even if it’s just 10 words. That seems like a recipe for stress.

Even people who write fiction full time take breaks (often for months…even years), so cut yourself some slack!

A bear sleeps against a tree bough.
An accurate representation of my writing productivity so far this week. (Photo: Chris Tellez)

8/18/21 – Wednesday

Got the latest episode of Men in Gorilla Suits online. (Since reorganizing much of the office, I really need to treat the space for recording. Lot of echo. You can see how I handle that for Not About Lumberjacks at the end of the first post of this series.)

Lunch break writing was a return to “Godspeed, Crazy Mike.” It felt nice getting back to writing.

Yesterday, I wrote about how I once wrote every day no matter what. For years, I had a hand-written note above my computer monitor. It was a slogan I thought of one day when I didn’t feel like writing after an extremely hot day working in a warehouse.

The note:

“Every day I don’t write is another day I have to go to work!”

At the time, I believed that I’d be writing fiction full time at some point. I still don’t rule it out, but I know most people who write fiction don’t do it full time.

Still…I loved the saying so much that I made an image that’s been my computer desktop for years using the slogan.

Computer desktop. Image: a hammer strikes a red-hot piece of steel, creating sparks against an anvil. Various software shortcuts display on the left side of the screen. Text reads: Every day I don't write is another day I have to go to work...

In recent years, I don’t view my job as a thing that gets in the way of writing fiction, but rather, a thing that allows me to write what I want with no care if it sells or not. Many of my favorite stories exist because I have a day job.

It’s one thing to use a job you don’t like when you’re younger to motivate you to write regularly, but I’ve been fortunate to move on to jobs I’ve liked — with coworkers who support the things I do.

It feels like it’s time for a new desktop.

8/19/21 – Thursday

So…about that new desktop…

Computer desktop. Image: Various software shortcuts display on the left side of the screen. The Not About Lumberjacks logo displays in the middle against a gray back ground.

Logo design: A cartoon head of a serious-looking lumberjack. A circle around him reads Not About Lumberjacks in a quirky font. He is flanked by two icons of pine trees.

As far as writing, I continue finalizing sections of “Godspeed, Crazy Mike.”

8/20/21 – Friday

Up early, and got some good writing done. I hit a point where I needed a little map of the scene where Crazy Mike’s body is found, so I roughed out a diagram on one of the main notecards I’m using to track story details.

The map is based on Volo Bog, a place a little north of where I grew up in northern Illinois. I still wanted a bit more room in case I had notes, so I figured I’d use a satellite view of the bog at the size to shuffle into my note cards. (I could keep it all together that way and write on the back.)

So, I did what I do when I make notecards for Dungeons and Dragons and cropped an area from a screenshot at size.

A notecard with character names and a rough map drawn on it. The notecard is held over a Google Maps satellite view.
A satellite view of the buildings at Volo Bog State Natural Area.

In the end, I left the image on a full page because it was even easier making notes where I could see everything and not have to flip things over and write on the back.

Also, I will never tire of how much the World Wide Web helps with research. (To think, I started writing on a typewriter and had to go to libraries for research…and hope they had what I needed).

An FAQ about what a coroner does from the Lake County Illinois Sheriff's Office.

8/21/21 – Saturday

More good writing and other snazzy things.

I mentioned on Wednesday, that to some degree, I used to write in opposition of day jobs. But how, along the way, I got better jobs I didn’t mind…and eventually good jobs with great people — making it easy to write what I want with no concern beyond creating (and sharing) stories.

For the past couple years, I’ve been working as a contractor at a company I like. I did one contract from May of 2019 until January of 2020. At that time, they wanted to bring me on full time, but…COVID-19 put a hiring freeze on the position.

I was brought on for a second contract in July of 2020.

Yesterday, I was offered a full-time position working with a group that’s very close to the first group I worked with. I loved the people in that first group (and the people I met in the group I’ll now work with on a full-time basis).

It would be easy to say, “Well, starting something new means more time learning about the job and less time writing stories,” but technical writers are always learning (and working on) new things. In fact, I started a novel on the first day of that first contract.

It’s not lost on me as I hope to get back to the book that it will be as an actual employee at the place where I started it.

A handwritten journal entry reads: 05-02-19 - Started a new job at [redacted] yesterday. And...started locking down some stuff for [redacted]. Decided it will begin w/ June in L.A. Maybe a letter from Edmund if research w/ that unit lines up. It puts June on her own...but close enough to visit Mrs. Sanders. Maybe landing the USO gig out in L.A.
But...things are moving...and that little movement feels nice.
I keep a hand-written writing journal. This is an entry from the day after I started at the current company I work for. Chapters of the novel mentioned here (and quite a few Not About Lumberjacks stories) were written in the cafeteria on lunch break.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: a-peek-at-process

Godspeed, Crazy Mike Journal (Week 4)

August 15, 2021 by cpgronlund Leave a Comment

8/08/21 – Sunday

First, on this day in 1984 (37 years ago), I left my hometown north of Chicago and moved to Southlake, Texas. (I no longer live in Southlake…left in 1987, but still live in the general area.)

It was a good writing day, with enough pushing on “Godspeed, Crazy Mike” to see where the plot breaks. Things like imagining something happening at a particular time or day in the story, only to change it. Mentioning some plant growing or a flower blooming, and realizing it contradicts other plot points or the season.

And in the process of all this, the suspects in the story just seem to happen naturally.

Obviously, I know who did it, but if I didn’t, I’m not sure who I’d suspect…

For those interested, here’s the opening…

(And no, I don’t write stories by hand…unless I have a job that requires me to be in the office. Then I do write by hand on lunch break.)

8/09/21 – Monday

The morning was mostly spent sharing online what other people I know are up to. Some charity stuff and some things people I know are up to and making. I may not get to writing until after dinner today.

“Calling Out of Time” has been out for a full week, and it has 46 listens at this point. That’s solidly average for the show. But…I’ve heard from quite a few people about the story, and it means a lot to me that it a fair amount of listeners always show up.

List of downloads from the U.S. and Worldwide...

I thought about September this morning. Each September, I take a month-long social media break. But…I know social media is one of the ways people find out about new episodes of Not About Lumberjacks. And if all goes as planned, “Godspeed, Crazy Mike,” will be a September release.

Part of me wants to now wait until October, but I think I’ll break the social media hiatus to post about the story when the time comes next month…

8/10/21 – Tuesday

I have never been the biggest fan of the “kill your darlings” philosophy when it comes to writing. I get that sometimes you can become attached to something that doesn’t work, but if you can see that something works and is something you love, the thought of killing it if it doesn’t serve some grand purpose is weird to me. (But then, the same people who say, “Kill your darlings!” often say, “Write the book you want to read!” They regurgitate advice that often contradicts other things they spew.)

But sometimes a thing you loved doesn’t work.

8/11/21 – Wednesday

And then, sometimes the thing you thought you were going to remove does work. Not even forcing it in there because I like it…it serves its purpose, and I know it’s the kind of thing listeners and readers will like.

That’s the thing: sometimes it’s important to put something in a story for the sake of joy. Even in short fiction, not everything must drive the story forward. Often, my favorite moments in stories are those that don’t drive plot, but perhaps serve a different purpose–even if it’s just appreciating a turn of phrase.

The bit I thought I’d remove, but ended up keeping, does give listeners and readers information about the protagonist’s personality. But I could have just as easily left it out.

But I know listeners often love those little scenes that are the same scenes many others would tell me to cut.

Why, it’s almost as if people have different tastes…

8/12/21 – Thursday

With the plot laid out and tested, it’s now a matter of going in and finishing sections.

While I usually finish stories in Word—just out of habit and because there’s something about it that helps me know the story better when it’s one big, scrolling thing—I build things in Scrivener. It allows me to set up each scene in a chunk that’s easier to see.

View of "Godspeed, Crazy Mike" in Scrivener. The story is constructed in chunks.
And yes, some of those section titles give too much away, so…Secret!

If a new scene needs to be made…in it goes. If I need to remove something, I can set it aside until I’m sure it’s not needed.

It’s easier for me to see progress this way, even though—in the end—I’ll compile all the sections and export to Word. There, I make sure the flow works and that it’s more than just plot points completed and called done.

(The polishing done is Word is where the story really comes together for me.)

8/13/21 – Friday

Wrote a bit this morning, and then—during lunch—I dug around on Epidemic Sound for music to accompany the story.

I create a folder for each story and drop in any tunes (or sound effects) that grab my attention

In my first pass with music, I use Epidemic Sound’s filters to find music that fits the mood of a story, and then sample things. Anything that sounds good gets placed in a folder. (I may not use some musicians for the episode, but if I have another story with a similar mood, I can peek into something older and see if there was music fitting for what I’m working on at the time.)

I typically try finding one or two artists for each episode. Because Epidemic Sound is a paid service, I don’t have to list the music I used, but I like including it in my show notes and end credits in case someone wants to seek out something they liked.

While I don’t know which tunes I’ll use in “Godspeed, Crazy Mik,” I know it will open with Moorland Songs’ “The White Birch.”

Because I tend to use instrumental pieces, it’s not unheard of for me to listen to the tunes I save to my music folder on Epidemic Sound while writing and working on a story. While I prefer writing in silence, when the day begins and there’s some noise around that might distract me, there are worse things to listen to than music you feel embodies what you’re working on.

8/14/21 – Saturday

Today was the big season-opening day for the English Premier League.

The team my wife and I support, Leicester City, won their season opener.

We had a few beers (Rahr Oktoberfest), and then enjoyed a rainy afternoon being lazy.

After dinner, we watched some science shows and went to bed early.

I didn’t even think about “Godspeed, Crazy Mike” or any other stories until much later in the evening when I saw a tweet on Twitter than gave me a story idea worthy of jotting down in my big Evernote file of story ideas.

“Calling Out of Time” would not have been written without seeing something on Twitter that gave me an idea, and maybe something in 2022 will be the second story inspired by the site…

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: a-peek-at-process

Godspeed, Crazy Mike Journal (Week 3)

August 9, 2021 by cpgronlund Leave a Comment

Desktop with a desktop computer, a MacBook Air, and various pages with a story typed on them and hand-written notes about sounds for the narrated version of "Calling Out of Time."

8/01/21 – Sunday

The day was dedicated to sound design on “Calling Out of Time.” I’m getting used to Adobe Audition. Compared to the way I did things previously, there is so much more control compared to what I previously used. It’s not a matter of not knowing all the old editor could do — Audition does so many things better.

Little things, like controlling sound levels of effects and fading things in and out are much easier. And that makes what can sometimes feel like a bit of a slog…not as sloggy.

Multitrack view in Adobe Audition. Four tracks displayed.

Top (green waveforms) = Narration
2nd (violet waveform) = Music
3rd (yellow waveforms) = Sound effects
4th (Aqua waveforms) = Additional sound effects
Editing in Audition vs. Audacity is soooooo nice!

Putting episodes together is always filled with steps that make me think, “Why do I put so much effort into a thing so few people listen to?” But I know, even with a larger following, I’d still feel that way—there are moments of drudgery in every creative thing that can be so tiring. (I think that’s why so many people try something and stop. They envision grand creative energy washing over them, but some aspects of everything can be rather boring.)

It’s part of the process.

But another part of the process is remembering that it’s always worth it when everything is put together and a thing released into the world.

I should have “Calling Out of Time” out tomorrow.

8/02/21 – Monday

I released “Calling Out of Time” today. I put together the episode art before work and got things online. During my lunch break, I posted on Facebook and Twitter that it’s out there.

I got a text message from Rick Coste during the day that he loved the episode…that the consistency of stories and sound always work for him. And that means a lot to me because Rick’s podcast, Evolution Talk, was one of the things that inspired me to start Not About Lumberjacks…just the effort and quality he puts into all he does. I may never feel I hit his levels of production, but I’m happy to have a good target.

After work, I sat down with my wife, Cynthia, and listened to “Calling Out of Time.” I love this story and the way it turned out.

Maybe tomorrow, I’ll get back to “Godspeed, Crazy Mike.”

8/03/21 – Tuesday

“Calling Out of Time,” had a bit of a slow day yesterday.

It happens.

To be clear, no episode of Not About Lumberjacks gets the kind of downloads that would keep a saner person putting in so much for the show. With 40-60 hours going into most episodes (that includes writing the stories) — only to have 22 people listen on a release day — would be considered time wasted to a lot of podcasters.

But…I like doing it—writing, recording, and editing short stories. And the people who love the show really love it! (If I get 50 unique listens in the first week, it’s a good week. Most episodes have a total of 100 – 400 listens.)

It does make me think about ways to get more people listening, but it’s definitely a thing worth doing.

As far as productive work, I cut all the bad takes from the next Behind the Cut and roughly pieced it together on lunch break.

8/04/21 – Wednesday

Woke up and went for a walk with Cynthia, so it wasn’t until lunch break that I got busy. But the Behind the Cut episode for “Calling Out of Time” is done, meaning almost all attention will now shift to “Godspeed, Crazy Mike.”

It’s always hot in Texas during the summer, but the low 70s made for a decent before-work walk…

If you’re following along, I recorded “Calling Out of Time” on Saturday, July 24. All work shifted to that, and the episode was released nine days later on August 2. A couple days for Behind the Cut, which usually takes longer because I rarely record the behind-the-scenes look at the time of the story.

Add in the time to write “Calling Out of Time,” and I think you can see why I rarely release monthly episodes. Six to eight episodes a year is pretty ambitious.

It’s probably best to shoot for an every-other month schedule.

8/05/21 – Thursday

Got back to writing “Godspeed, Crazy Mike.” Just roughing out scenes with dialogue and seeing what more pops up.

All the whodunit aspects are done, but…while I don’t like to deliberately create red herrings (again, listen to the Behind the Cut episode about “Under the Big Top” for my thoughts about mysteries), this is where playing with how humans think can be fun.

People naturally make their own assumptions about things, and that’s how I prefer handling some of the misdirection in a mystery…because it’s more real to me than planting things that seem forced.

When you let human tendencies shape things, it’s fun to write…and carries possibilities without deliberately planting them, just to give readers and listeners something to chew on.

8/06/21 – Friday

Some days, it’s good to take a break.

This was one of those days.

I researched some video stuff, but didn’t do much with any Not About Lumberjacks things.

Bookcases illuminated by purple and green LED lights...
On the subject of video, I bought some colored LED lights for future videos…

8/07/21 – Saturday

It was a lazy Saturday around here, which meant I had time to work on “Godspeed, Crazy Mike.”

I’m still roughing things out and jumping around, shaping scenes with dialogue because…detectives ask questions. From there, I’m able to write other scenes completely–and make sure nothing contradicts earlier scenes.

I know there are mind mapping programs, and that even Scrivener has ways to plot everything out, but I find you can’t know everything until you get into a story and realize, “That thing I thought about while plotting gets negated by this…or makes no sense once I really look at it.”

With many other things going on right now, in ways, a mystery is welcomed. I almost chose a literary story, but that always requires more focus and staying in a certain mindset for weeks, and that’s not happening right now.

I’m pleased with “Godspeed, Crazy Mike” so far, and suspect I’ll only like it more as the story takes a better shape.

* * *

A Bonus Thing

Click here if you’ve listened to “Calling Out of Time” and want to see the timeline I worked from. (Or click if you’ve not listened and don’t care about spoilers.)

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: a-peek-at-process

Godspeed, Crazy Mike Journal (Week 2)

August 2, 2021 by cpgronlund Leave a Comment

Welcome to the second week (first full week) of this detailed behind-the-scenes look at the August (“Calling Out of Time”) and September (“Godspeed, Crazy Mike”) episodes of Not About Lumberjacks. (“Calling Out of Time” came out today…you can listen to it, here.)

Here’s what last week was like…

7/25/21 – Sunday

Work shifted from “Godspeed, Crazy Mike” to “Calling Out of Time.”

I recorded with markers, which means…when I mess up a line, I push the M key on my MacBook Air’s keyboard, and it makes a marker I can go to until I get a good take. It makes knowing where bad takes are, making it easy to delete them.

The vertical lines are markers, which allow me to jump to places where I stumbled in my reading. It cuts down the time editing significantly.

I used to spend 4-6 hours trying to find the best takes. It’s now roughly an hour-long process.

7/26/21 – Monday

The narration for “Calling Out of Time” is all together. I got to listen to it during lunch today, and I’m pleased with the story. I made notes on the manuscript of changes I made while recording, so the transcript will be ready to load when I release the episode.

As you can see, progress on “Godspeed, Crazy Mike,” shifted to “Calling Out of Time,” and that will likely continue through the week.

I also noted effects I’ll have to make and find for the episode. Once I make that list, I can get busy making sounds.

A blurred image from "Calling Out of Time." Red pen clearly states where Effects will go.
Click to see clear version.

7/27/21 – Tuesday

I entered changes and set up the transcript page (see previous photo) for “Calling Out of Time,” so all I’ll have to do when the time comes is link it from the episode show notes.

I’m not sure if anyone even uses the transcripts, and I understand why some people who post stories instead of scripts are apprehensive about them. It would be quite easy for someone to snag all the transcripts and publish an e-book or something. But if it helps someone with a hearing impairment, it’s worth the effort to me.

Theoretically, it also makes it easier for reviewers to pull quotes, but…at least right now, over six and a half years into the show, it’s received virtually no coverage. Which is why I need to create a press kit and work at getting more people to listen.

7/28/21 – Wednesday

Spent the morning before work getting the latest episode of Men in Gorilla Suits out. Men in Gorilla Suits is another podcast I do…a thing where a friend and I pick a topic and discuss it 10 to 12 different ways.

During my lunch break, I went through the sounds for “Calling Out of Time,” and color coded everything so I know what I need to find, what I need to make, what I might already have, and some things I may find or make.

(Yellow = Find. Blue = Sounds I Will Create. Purple = Either Find or Make. Green (Not Shown) = Ready Sounds.)

Blurred, color-coded list of effects for "Calling Out of Time."
Click here for clear image.

The sounds are broken up by scene, which I do on the big printed version of the episode…where I make notes about everything: sounds, rerecordings, music, and updates for the transcript.

It can be a time-consuming step, but it’s good to have everything ready up front, so you’re not in the middle of putting an episode together and running to the closet to make a sound you forgot about. (Although, it always still seems to happen…)

Regarding music. I get most music these days through a paid account through Epidemic Sound. It allows me to sort by moods, genres, and so many other things. Once I find an artist I like, I listen to their works on the site and save them to a folder I create on the site for the episode.

At this point, I grab anything that sounds like it might work for the story…and then go through with the story in hand, listening to pieces of music while narrating to see what sounds best at certain points.

Blurred story with written notes where the music will go in a section. In the background, a view of Epidemic Sound.
Click here for clear image.
Some additional notes about the music choices for “Calling Out of Time.”
(Sorry, you don’t get a clear version of that blurred bit…it’s too revealing!)

7/29/21 – Thursday

This is where the whole process becomes rather repetitive. Spent my lunch break finding and thinking about how to make the sounds that will accompany “Calling Out of Time.”

I have everything assigned, and know what sounds I need to make. Most can be done in our apartment, but a walk to the park down the street is likely in order.

7/30/21 – Friday

Recorded some sounds for “Calling Out of Time” during lunch break today. The protagonist walks with a cane, so I grabbed my great-grandfather’s old [sword] cane and I little Ikea candle lantern (fitting—it was my Swedish great-grandfather’s cane). I made sounds to mimic the protagonist tapping the metal and glass of the phone booth he discovers.

Recording effects is always interesting. Sometimes, the thing you need sound for—if recorded from the real thing you need—doesn’t sound as much like the thing as something else entirely.

I tested sounds by tapping the metal on our patio door…and on the glass of an old china cabinet we have. But my wife seems to have a knack for imagining what will sound better than even the real thing in one’s ear…and she suggested the Ikea lantern.

It has the loose sound of a beat-up phone booth…not as solid as the metal on our patio door…and there was no risk to an antique cabinet’s glass, either.

I look forward to the weekend and hopefully getting all the effects I need together so I can begin assembling the episode.

View of a carpeted closet floor. A Zoom H6 portable recorder is on a Shure mini tripod. The bottom of a cane taps a black Ikea candle lantern.
Recording sounds in the closet.
Pulling at the top of the cane to reveal the sword inside.
And yep, it’s a real sword cane!

7/31/21 – Saturday

The morning was all about making sounds…and gathering and organizing sounds I already have.

“Calling Out of Time” is a simple story, but whew…it seems like a lot of sound design. Most of it, though, is made up from lots of little sounds…not big soundscapes. All those tiny bits do add up, though!

I still have a bit more to d, but I hope to begin really putting the episode together tomorrow!

Two pages with various sound effects I needed to make.
Two pages with various sound effects I needed to make.
Wave forms in an audio editor. Pop-up window for exporting a .wav file.
I tag all my sounds so I can easily find them again. Also, because I share them to freesound.org, I like including meta data for geeks who like that kind of thing.
A Zoom H6 recorder on a small tripod. Held in one's hand, it looks like an old-school Star Trek phaser.
Set phasers to record! (My wife is not wrong when she says holding a Zoom H6 recorder this way looks like an old-school Star Trek phaser…)

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: a-peek-at-process

Another Look Behind the Scenes

July 29, 2021 by cpgronlund 1 Comment

View from inside a sound blanket tent. A MacBook Air and Shure SM7B microphone with pillows and sound panels packed around. A light illuminates the story for narration.

Some fans of Not About Lumberjacks have wanted even more behind-the-scenes updates about what I’m up to. So, if you want more, look no further: I’m starting a weekly progress update about what I’m up to, creatively. (This one is from a couple weeks ago, but I’m thinking about posting new updates every Monday.)

It’s possible some weeks will not have a day-by-day chronicle of progress, while other weeks might have even more going on than usual. But on the day I started the September episode of Not About Lumberjacks, I began keeping a journal. I’m sharing it with you, here.

Godspeed, Crazy Mike

The September story is a mystery called “Godspeed, Crazy Mike,” and — as you’ll see in a moment — it’s a story that’s been knocking around my head for some time.

And also, to be up front: another reason for documenting everything going on is a proof-of-concept to myself that if I do create a Patreon for Not About Lumberjacks (as some have requested), that I can keep up with providing more than just stories. (And to see if would-be patrons find this kind of thing interesting.)

One thing I’m torn about is how much to include, here. I’d love to share photos, but some of them will likely contain spoilers. I can always blur out spoilery bits or not include photos at all, but I’ve opted to provide links to the full images for those who want to not only read, but see, everything going on. I’d love to hear what you think about how I’m handling it. Feel free to comment — I’d love to hear what you think.

With that out of the way, let’s get to work!

7/21/21 – Wednesday

After letting it sit for years, I decided to write “Godspeed, Crazy Mike.”

Fifteen…maybe even twenty years ago, I passed by a plant nursery. On the business’ sign was a simple message: GODSPEED CRAZY MIKE. I assume, maybe, they had an employee they all called Crazy Mike who passed away.

And that got me thinking about a mystery set someplace with plenty of plants.

I was born in Chicago, but raised north of the city in a town called Mundelein. In many ways, we had more in common with Wisconsin than the city. Not too far from my hometown is a place called Volo Bog. It’s a quaking bog, meaning the floating mat of sphagnum moss, cattails, and sedges gives the illusion of solid ground, but it undulates like waves from the water beneath it all.

I always loved the bog and all the marshlands in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin.

So…I decided to set a mystery at a bog.

Volo Bog. Tamarack trees surround the open water section of Volo Bog.

7/22/21 – Thursday

Woke up a little after 3:00 a.m. and wanted to work on the story. (A benefit of crashing around 7:00 the night before.)

Did a breakdown of the only mystery short story I’ve written, “Under the Big Top,” a whodunit taking place in a circus. I wanted to see how many characters were in the story and how they all came together.

A breakdown of the characters in "Under the Big Top" on a notecard.

I’ve talked about mysteries before, in the Behind the Cut episode from “Under the Big Top.” I mentioned it’s not that I don’t like mysteries, but they have certain expectations in their structure. You need enough characters to leave listeners and readers wondering who did it. By design, there’s a bit of an ensemble necessary to pull off this kind of mystery.

I had some characters and bits written from when I started thinking about “Godspeed, Crazy Mike” years ago. This morning, I looked at them and realized the story needed a few more people. And so…I came up with additional characters.

Each character gets a notecard of their own…with who they are, personality traits that come up while writing, notes to myself, and how they relate to the story and other characters. There’s a separate card with story ideas that come up while thinking things through. (Not sharing that card, though, because it gives everything away!)

Written on a Notecard: Wesley Moore. Groundskeeper at Sayer Bog. Finds Crazy Mike's Body. Loner; Not liked or disliked. Smoker - Finds Mike behind the MX Barn.

By doing this, you get a rough idea for the story’s framework. In my case, the morning produced the killer and their motive. (Was it Wesley…or somebody else? You’ll have to wait until September to find out!)

7/23/21 – Friday

Yesterday, I cracked open a couple of the old Writer’s Digest Howdunit series books: Scene of the Crime and Cause of Death. Mostly, I wanted to get the flow of what happens when a dead body is discovered and foul play is suspected.

Two books: Scene of the Crime and Cause of Death.

While laws change, some procedures have remained the same for decades. And because “Godspeed, Crazy Mike” isn’t a highly detailed procedural, I was able to get everything I needed to help rough out the plot.

List of all that happens after a dead body is discovered.

I normally have a couple ideas for a story and wade into it without a bigger plan. I find my way while writing. But with a mystery, an outline is needed for me…just to see the main storyline that will unlikely change much in the writing. Things around the main line may change, but most of this story is locked down from the start.

(The outline image contains a spoiler. Not a “Whodunit” spoiler, but a cause of death spoiler. Click here if you want to see it.)

Now, it’s time to sit down and write.

7/24/21 – Saturday

Yesterday at lunch, I roughed out the second-to-last scene of “Godspeed, Crazy Mike.” It’s the big mystery reveal scene, and I wanted to rough it out because everything builds toward that.

While I often have endings in mind when I start a story, most things I write are rather malleable. I plan to record the next episode of Not About Lumberjacks today*…and I didn’t know how it ended as I wrote it. I didn’t know until I got to the end…and then…I fumbled around until I wrote something that made me tear up. (Happy tears…not sad.) That’s how I knew it was done.

But a mystery is different.

Now that I have all the little intricacies of the whodunit aspect of “Godspeed, Crazy Mike,” the rest should be establishing characters and having fun with interactions until it’s a fully-formed thing ready to record.

* I did end up recording the next episode, “Calling Out of Time,” and it’s Behind the Cut episode this morning. So that will be on schedule for August.

Recording Photos

My desk. A PC tower and monitor on a desktop.
This is where I write…
Moving things around before recording.
Moving things around before recording. The hooks in the wall, while unsightly, serve a purpose…
A towel goes down, and the recording gear comes out...
A towel goes down (to stop reflection echoes from the desktop), and the recording gear comes out. And yes, that’s a camping headlamp…I forgot to charge my little LED light!
Pillows and acoustic panels further stop echoes.
Pillows and acoustic panels further stop echoes.
Setting up a foldable laundry rack behind my chair.
Setting up a foldable laundry rack behind my chair. (You’ll see why in the next photo.)
A recording "tent" is made with acoustic blankets.
A recording “tent” is made with acoustic blankets.
View from inside a sound blanket tent. A MacBook Air and Shure SM7B microphone with pillows and sound panels packed around. A light illuminates the story for narration.
Inside the recording tent…
Recording "Calling Out of Time" in the recording tent. I record into Adobe Audition on a MacBook Air.
Recording “Calling Out of Time” in the recording tent. I record into Adobe Audition on a MacBook Air. (All those vertical lines are markers where I flubbed lines while narrating the story. They make editing go much faster by jumping straight to a place where I can quickly find — and remove — bad takes.)

* * *

Volo Bog Photo by: McGheiver.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: a-peek-at-process

Planning to Build…

December 11, 2020 by cpgronlund Leave a Comment

I recently wrote about looking ahead to next year. As I continue planning, I recently looked at the top 10 episodes of Not About Lumberjacks.

Not surprising, many of the episodes with the most listens are earlier episodes — even though recent stories are getting more attention than usual.

One thing that surprised me looking at the top 10 episodes: the second biggest story on the site is Fly Me to the Moon. It’s surprising to me because it’s not an episode I pushed much at all (not that I really push any of them…I tend to post once and then move on). It’s a rather sad story I wouldn’t imagine people would go to over others. And it’s not one of the first few episodes.

For those who follow the show and now wonder what the top ten episodes are, here you go (and a reminder, the easiest way to view all stories on the site is The Quick List):

  1. Episode 1 – Gutterball (An English bulldog named Gutterball (and the family who loves him) must contend with the dog’s bad habit of eating everything in sight.) [320 Unique Listens *]
  2. Episode 10 – Fly Me to the Moon (A homeless man who talks with birds is convinced he can talk with his dead wife on the moon…if only he can fix a broken radio he found in a dumpster.) [303 Unique Listens]
  3. Episode 4 – Horus (Sarah Nelson gets more than she bargained for when she answers a job for a writer’s assistant and must deal with the writer’s parrot, Horus.) [295 Unique Listens]
  4. Episode 12 – Purvis (In 1984, a Dungeon Master struggles with keeping the few friendships he has together, all while dealing with a vicious bully. [Still my favorite ending of any story on the site!]) [250 Unique Listens]
  5. Episode 7 – The Other Side (After a divorce and layoff, Daniel breaks into his childhood home to see if something in his closet all those years ago is still there…) [223 Unique Listens]
  6. Episode 9 – Standstill (When she was younger, Maddy’s grandfather gave her a pocket watch that does much more than simply telling time.) [221 Unique Listens]
  7. Episode 2 – Pride of the Red Card (A mechanic is happy to hear his son wants to sign up for football; that is, until he realizes what his son really means is soccer…) [215 Unique Listens]
  8. Episode 16 – Bobo (A kid’s party clown comes to grips with what he’s become.) [212 Unique Listens]
  9. Episode 13 – Strange Audio (A podcaster discovers some ghostly audio while editing an episode of his show.) [210 Unique Listens]
  10. Episode 3 – Mr. Knowitall (Jerry’s brother inherited the family business — his sister, the family fortune. All Jerry got was a toy Magic 8-ball that does more than expected.) [188 Unique Listens]

* It’s not really common for podcasters to share their download numbers…unless they are impressive. Still, these numbers mean people all around the world–most of whom I do not know–have listened to stories I’ve written.

I put 20 – 60 hours into each episode of Not About Lumberjacks (forty hours really is about the average). Many people might see the show as a loss when weighing time put into it vs. financial rewards or popularity (both of which are non-existent for Not About Lumberjacks), but it’s worth doing…and sharing the results.

Obviously, with a goal of promoting the show more in 2021, maybe this won’t be the case in a year’s time. But even if it is, I have no intention of stopping.

* * *

Shop photo by Adam Patterson.

Filed Under: Blog

Looking Ahead to 2021

December 7, 2020 by cpgronlund 1 Comment

It was a good year for Not About Lumberjacks: six episodes totaling eight stories.

Two stories I wasn’t so sure about (Under the Big Top and The Cold of Summer) ended up favorite episodes of the year for some listeners. I talked a bit about mysteries and me during the Behind the Cut episode of “Under the Big Top,” about not being the biggest mystery fan out there, but still…appreciating the genre. As I look ahead to 2021, there will be at least one more mystery…and maybe even two.

2021 kicks off with a story about Death, and the rest of the year is the usual assortment of quirky tales, serious stories, and humor. (I might even redeem myself for the dread of Purvis in Year One with a lighthearted story about a bullied geek. [But man, I still think Purvis has the greatest ending of all the stories on the site!])

While Not About Lumberjacks has never been about download numbers for me (if you follow the show, you know most episodes get 40 – 50 unique downloads in the first week and eventually top out between 100 – 200), there seems to be consistent growth in 2020. Nothing huge, but enough that I hope to put out more than six episodes in the next year.

Each year, Not About Lumberjacks surprises me. Sometimes it’s a story I didn’t expect to be as liked as others blowing up (by this show’s standards, anyway), and other times it’s a story I knew would be very “me” ending up more touching than I hoped. It’s never lost on me how fortunate I am to have people appreciate how varied the episodes here can be. (I know many people want a familiar genre or feel to stories, and here, well…sometimes something actually literary is followed up by gutter humor that makes me laugh just thinking about it.)

So here’s to 2021! I might be jinxing us all if I say it’s guaranteed to be better than 2020, but that’s a low bar to cross.

But when it comes to Not About Lumberjacks, it’s a fairly tall order, and I’m excited to make next year even better!

Thank you so much for listening,

– Christopher

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Booger, Purvis, The Cold of Summer, Under the Big Top

The Productive Silence

October 8, 2020 by cpgronlund 2 Comments

This year’s September Silence was quite productive. I wrapped up stories for October and November…and have several of the shorter tales I tell in December complete.

There are still a couple places in the final section of the next episode I want to polish, but October will see a story release (probably the 24th, but who knows — maybe sooner).

November is the anniversary episode that is always the year’s most not about lumberjacks Not About Lumberjacks story I tell. The episode started as a work of micro-fiction for December, but kept growing into its own thing. I love the story and can’t wait to release it. Also, it will be narrated by the mighty Jesse Harley of the Canadian Politics is Boring podcast, so I look forward to that.

December’s micro-stories are coming along nicely. As always, some are serious, some are humorous, and it ends with a story Christmas tale…this time, a story about a Christmas road trip and being trapped in Kansas.

* * *

It’s likely I’d have written as much as I did in September even without the break, but I can trace some of what’s finished to not logging into social sites. When the usual urge hit, I opened Evernote on my phone and worked on shorter stories…

…And that was enough of a nudge to make this year’s social media break one of the more productive September’s in years…

Filed Under: Blog

Soon September

August 18, 2020 by cpgronlund 1 Comment

Soon it will be September…

Each September, I take a month-long social media break. I view it as my writing new year, even though it will not feel like fall weather in Texas until late October or early November. But in my mind, once the calendar rolls to September 1st, it’s like a starting gun has sounded, and my best months of writing are before me.

Much like some people get a bit reflective as the actual new year approaches, I tend to do that with my writing in August. I think about all I’ve written in the past year and what’s still in front of me. I think about novels and queries — and short stories for this site.

A part of me wants to put all bigger things aside and hole up writing short stories for Not About Lumberjacks the rest of the year. I want the weather to turn cooler and the days to become more quiet. (At least it’s staying dark in the mornings longer…and nights aren’t as bright.) It’s like something inside me knows the best time of year for what I love doing is near.

Soon it will be September…

(And I can’t wait!)

Filed Under: Blog

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