It’s been a busy few weeks but it’s high time I checked in here for a quick update:

I received an extremely pleasant surprise earlier in the month with an email from ACX (Amazon’s Audio Creation Exchange) informing me that they’d offered a stipend to narrators interested in producing an audio book version of Streetlights Like Fireworks. I had been wondering about creating an audio book and, just for the heck of it, put Streetlights in the running on ACX a few days beforehand to see if I would hear from prospective producers. I was thrilled when, in the hours and days following that email, I started hearing from a wide range of talented narrators interested in the project. It was really exciting to hear words I’d written in the narration samples as I listened and tried to decide who should narrate the book (it was a bit strange, actually, to find myself in that position of wearing the producer hat). One narrator, Adam Verner, totally nailed it with the way he read Jack, the main character of the novel. He just sounded so much like how I imagined Jack’s voice. So, here we are just a few weeks later and things are coming along really nicely.

At this point, I’m in the review phase of the project, listening to how the entire book works as an audio experience. This is totally new to me, actually, since I’m much more of a reader and have probably only listened to a handful of audio books in the past. To be honest, it’s kind of mind-blowing to drive along (that’s how I’ve found it best to listen) as I hear a book that I actually wrote being narrated. I guess in some ways, it must be what it’s like for a writer whose book becomes a movie (well, sort of) to see how the characters and story are interpreted.

By the way, the timing of this couldn’t be better since I’m writing a follow-up to Streetlights Like Fireworks right now and it’s a great way of getting back into that world after switching to the Jump When Ready world for the past couple of months while I wrote the third book, Stepping into the Sky (that one came out at the beginning of the month too, by the way).

So, January was a really exciting month (couldn’t think of a better way to kick off a new year, actually). I’d love to know how others feel about audio books. Do you think a book must be read to be truly experienced? Or, do you enjoy audio books just as much, but in a different way? It seems to me, they are something of a different animal. Anyway, I’ll post here when the audio book for Streetlights Like Fireworks comes out. I suspect it will happen next month. Early March at the latest.