Godspeed, Crazy Mike Journal (Week 6)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!