Listening to Talera

I've already mentioned here that I've been letting my Kindle read books to me on my long daily commute. I've been enjoying that process, and feeling less like I'm wasting my time with the driving.

I decided last week to load my Talera trilogy onto the Kindle and let it read those to me. I've finished listening to Swords of Talera so far and am about a third of the way through Wings Over Talera. Witch of Talera is up next. After that I may keep it going by listening to Robert E. Howard's Almuric, which is also a sword and planet work.

I make a habit out of reading my material out loud before I ever submit it, but listening to the 'whole' thing is actually pretty helpful. I noticed in "Swords" that I repeated the word "well" a lot, and I had not picked up on that merely by reading it. I may start doing this for manuscripts before I submit them. The Kindle voice doesn't offer inflections well so you can also get a feeling for how important it is to convey the emotion in the dialogue rather than by attaching tags such as "he shouted," etc. All in all, I think it could make a useful writing tool.

I'm also finding, happily, that I'm really enjoying listening to my own works. It's kind of weird in a way, but you know I really like these stories. I'm proud of them. I'm so glad they are out there.

By the way, if anyone reading this has read Witch of Talera and feels the urge to review it on Amazon, I'd appreciate it. "Swords" and "Wings" both have reviews but "Witch" doesn't. I'm not sure it makes any difference but it couldn't hurt.

Thanks to everyone for listening.





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