Wow – Friday! I know, as someone enjoying reWirement, the days of the week don’t carry the same weight as they used to, but boy, we’re glad to reach the weekend. The previous week, it was about appointments and scheduled social events. This one looked wide open, but boy, were we wrong! So, I thought I’d wrap up this crazy week, in which we got four freelance voice jobs in four days, with a few stories from home.
 
One of those voice jobs caused a calamity in our lives, but nothing we couldn’t handle with a little juggling. On Sunday, I was preparing to host a whole bunch of family (including two tweens and two toddlers) for a plates-on-your-lap kind of casual barbecue. I’d done my prep work on Saturday and never was I more grateful for that earlier work than at 1 pm Sunday when Rob chirped, “You got a job!”
 
Passing his computer, he noticed an email from a voice agency we subscribe to: we pay an annual fee and they send us auditions for which we’d seem to be a fit. The funniest ones are described as wanting someone middle-aged – like late 20s, early 30s. We always get a guffaw out of that, and some of them I even get!
 
In this case, the client (for whom I’d auditioned months earlier) needed a 14,000+ word job done by that evening. The voice they’d chosen was unavailable. Um – what? It wasn’t being second choice that was scary; it was the time allotted to do the job. We responded that we could get it packaged up by the next day and then negotiated a more reasonable deadline of noon OUR time. This vast continent and its many zones make hitting deadlines a bit more of a challenge out here, as so much of the work comes from the east.
 
Rob printed up the massive script, only to find that certain boxes of narration were cut out. Okay, off my computer screen it would have to be, even though we worry about the hard surface bouncing sound back into the mic. (Usually I do jobs off my smart phone). As Rob went into his booth – actually a walk-in pantry – and I into mine, I frantically messaged our guests asking that instead of a 4:30 arrival, they try for 5:00 and everyone was fine. After all, messing with little people’s schedules can be pretty tricky. 
 
Long story short, we managed to record half of it, dive into the shower and get ready, and have appetizers out and ready to serve by the time everyone arrived promptly. Three hours later, we said goodbye to our company, finished cleaning up and headed back into the studio. We called it quits at 11 pm, Rob got up at 4 am Monday to start editing and they had their job on time and loved it. Whew!
 
That’s a little insight into the life of freelance voicework. The pay on this one made it worth the frenzy, but we’ve been lucky to get some smaller jobs this week, too. It’s not enough to live on if we had to, but I told Rob I only wished for enough to cover the bills. We’re not there yet (might be if we stopped traveling!) but it’s just a sidebar. A hobby that unites us in a task we can both work on together.
 
Granted, Rob has the heavier lifting – editing, taking out breaths, making segments fit the time allotted – and the poor guy is listening to me ALL DAY! If it’s not us talking, it’s me in his editing earbuds. I don’t know how he does it!
 
I’m still hoping an audio book or two comes my way and wondering if we’ll do one for Mourning Has Broken. The publisher doesn’t seem to be leaning in that direction, but for us it’s a no-brainer. Plus we can use actual audio when we refer to Lauren talking or singing. It’ll be an interesting project, for sure. So, we’ll see! Lots of irons in the fire where this book is concerned; makes me wonder what we’ll do next. 
 
I hope you’ve got some great weekend plans and I’ll be back with you here on Monday. Take care and thank you for sharing some time here every day!