Author: Joe Hallett

Member of the Horror Writers association (horror.org) an internationally selling author of Horror, science fiction and urban fantasy.
amazon · Audible · Emergence Ascended · Emergence Collective

Audible update: Chapter 2 and 3

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If you are new to my blog you may be wondering what is the Audible updates I keep posting. I get a fair amount of requests to have my books available on Audible. I am poor, my books do not sell enough to pay for a narrator to record them (or even a nice dinner) so as with most things I do, that I need done and lack resources to do, I learn how to do it, and do it myself. While it is not a perfect solution, it has worked out so far.

I started the “Audible project.”  I scrounged enough money to buy a decent microphone. I employed a friend to do the recording (but that did not work out) so I decided to do it myself. I started recording in my dining room, the only space available. That began a crash course in acoustics and learning to use the recording software (I am still learning but figured out enough to pass.) My first episodes were a disaster and I apologize to the brave souls who endured that.  Little by little I improved both the sound quality and my terrible narration. Narrating is a skill that does not get enough credit so give Kudos to your favorite narrators, the unsung heroes. I got used to hearing my own voice and I think my sight reading skills are improving.  

I graduated from the dining room table to a cozy closet space that has drastically improved the overall sound quality, although there is nothing I can do about the murder of crows that live in my neighborhood. I had previously recorded up to chapter 21 of Emergence Collective, but decided to start over with the improvements. I had originally planned on replacing the episodes one at a time to maintain continuity with the story, however I got heavy handed deleting drafts and organizing Anchor for Spotify and accidently deleted some of the recordings (I mentioned this in a previous post.)  That forced the decision to scrap everything and start from scratch.

I do not mourn the loss of those hours recording and editing. That time is served well by giving me practice and a learning experience.  Here I am now, Chapters 2 and 3 published yester and I am back in the saddle so to speak. My intention is to record every Sunday morning. That being said If you are reading this blog, you get to have free access to the Audio version of my books, narrated by me.  So I toss my ego aside and try not to cringe at my voice, I hope you enjoy the story. If you do, The best way to support me is to buy my books (of course) and leave a rating and review on the platform that you purchased it. I am now published world wide on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and others. The reviews are very important (Not just to give me the warm feels) but it helps get me noticed and helps readers find new books to read.

Emergence Collective

Emergence Ascended

Amazon Author page

Spotify

Alone · amazon · Emergence Ascended · Emergence Collective

Emergence Ascended now on Paperback!

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Just a quick promotional blurb. Finally, After dealing with Amazon’s horrible publishing software, Emergence Ascended is now on paperback. Also Soon to be Available, Emergence Collective and Emergence Ascended will be published at Barnes & Noble and other digital bookstores internationally!

Emergence Collective
Emergence Ascended

Audible · Emergence Collective · reading

Audible update: 0 success, almost.

Joe HallettLeave a comment

It was a close one. Computers are weird and I think that they have a will of their own sometimes.  It all started with a zoom meeting with my son’s teacher. I started the meeting, but the Zoom did not detect my microphone. For the zoom meeting I just use the microphone on the laptop, so I figured there would not be an issue, but no joy.   We managed to get through it using text, but it was clumsy. Moving forward, after getting the recording studio (my closet) all situated and ready to go, blocking out the time and getting a fresh cup of coffee (not only recommended by writers all over the globe, but a requirement.) I sat in my new comfy chair and opened audacity. Opened my book (yes, I am reading from my personal print copy) and hit the record button. 0 success. That was the error code I saw. Audacity failed to recognize my Yeti microphone. Failed to detect anything.

So, I messed around, frustrated and disappointed. I had put the Audible project on hold for the holidays and finally got around to starting it again only to be thwarted but determined to not let it beat me. I did eventually get the recording done! It is now available on Spotify. 

I hope I don’t sound boring on my intro. I was trying to decide on how I wanted to go about restarting the project now that I am satisfied with the audio quality, which had been a thorn in my side. Do I re-record chapter one or keep everything the way it is and just move forward. But in my ADHD addled mind as I was organizing I decided to clean up the drafts (somehow my blogs migrated to Spotify as drafts) I got trigger-happy and ended up deleting the first episode on accident anyway, making the decision for me.

Thanks for stopping by!

30-minute shivers. · about me · Audible · Author · blogging · Emergence Ascended · Emergence Collective · Horror · Instagram · NaNoWriMo · narrators · readers · reading · science fiction

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

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I have always liked that saying. I don’t know why. Maybe I enjoy duality. As I poke my head out of the cave of 2023 into the dawning of 2024 I am looking ahead for a great writing year. I have some great intentions, both long-term and short-term.

I will pause here and do my obligatory reflections of 2023. I’ll start with the fun stuff, I published another novel “Emergence Ascended.” I Wrote a novel for NaNoWriMo, which was a bucket list item. (Now I feel like I can legitimately say I am a Novelist.) I Did an interview on Youtube to promote my new novel (It didn’t help, but it was a fun experience). If you follow my social media accounts you may notice that I do not do the random selfie post as I prefer to stay in the background (Introvert stuff) but in the spirit of self-promotion I powered through.

There is probably more highlights of fun things in 2023 but sometimes I want to keep things for me. That being said there was some interesting things in 2023, just to keep it spicy. The big one is a series of events starting with a road rage incident, our vehicle got a nice bullet hole. Sent it to the bodyshop for repair, of which there was a break in and OUR vehicle was stolen to commit a crime. It was recovered a month later with a group of homeless occupying it in an alleyway. Toxicology report deemed it hazardous and it had to be ‘totaled’ by the insurance (we didn’t want to drive a Meth car anyway.) Replaced the vehicle with a new one from the insurance money. Whew. But that is not all. A month later a windstorm took out a tree, causing it to fall onto our home, and, Guess what?… The new Van. Yup. Lucky it was a glancing blow and our Insurance (again) fixed the repairs for that (No we did not take it to the same bodyshop) But wait there is more. Our upstairs bathtub cracked and flooded the garage. SO now we have a shiny new bath room remodel (that we are still paying for at the cost of 400$ a month)All in all, though it was a financially and mentally stressful year, we survived, and I still think the good outweighed the bad as far as 2023 goes.

Whats next? I have some very good intentions for the year coming up. First on my agenda is to finish “Yellow Man.” the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo. There are some good bones in the story, and I am working on fleshing out some details and adding things I missed or neglected in the first rough draft. Who knows how long this process is going to take me, but I am optimistic I can get it finished soonish.

I have several more stories I want to get down. Most are just thumbnail thoughts, and don’t have names yet. The “Bigfoot” story is next after Yellow Man. I love Cryptids and am excited to get that one rolling. I have two possible endings rolling around, I guess I will decide when I get there. Another one is the Will-o-the-wisp story. I want to get that one done before the BIG project. The Big Project is a storyline that will turn into a series (more than likely) with some vignettes here and there. There is a great setting that I thing I can create a small little world around with different adventures to play with. But this one I am going to give a lot of thought while I finish the other three stories. I want to get those out of the way because I predict that the big project will consume a few years (at the least, unless I get bored or distracted, which is probable)

Of course I will keep on keeping on with the blog. I will jot down some more short stories for your enjoyment. I am still compiling short stories for my book “30-minute Shivers.” A collection of short horror stories.

The Audible project, I intend to start recording (for realz this time) on Sunday mornings. I can enjoy my new “recording studio” and give you my least cringy narration to Emergence Collective on Spotify.

Thank you for spending your time visiting my blog; I sincerely appreciate it. I love interacting and building friendships, so feel free to comment and like. You can follow my socials and other projects by clicking the linktree. https://linktr.ee/jshallett

Audible · blogging · NaNoWriMo

Downtime

Joe Hallett3 Comments

Needing some downtime. NaNoWrimo was a great challenge, but to accomplish it, I put off and set aside a lot of things (I should have been doing). Sacrifices needed to be made. Catching up on those things and mental fatigue is telling me to chill for a bit. It’s the holidays anyway, so I am taking it slow between family gatherings and other festivities.

I feel that I had a productive year with my writing and art. Looking forward to 2024! My current work in progress, “Yellow Man,” will be my focus once I return to it. I finished the novel for NaNoWrimo, but it is not complete. There is a daunting amount of editing, plot holes, and things I want to add and clarify. The story is kind of complicated (because I am a masochist, I suppose), and it will take some finesse to clean it up for publishing.

The same thing goes with the Audible project. I have good intentions to work on it, but now I am busy again, and to do it right, I need the right mindset as well (and the holiday cheer Saturday night doesn’t help recording Sunday morning)

By the way, did you know that Kindle is an excellent gift? It’s instant, and there are no shipping charges!
Thanks for stopping by!

Audible · blogging · Emergence Ascended · Horror · NaNoWriMo · narrators · Podcasting

Im not stalling really.

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Yellow Man

I have been reviewing what I wrote during NaNoWriMo, the novel Yellow Man. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it since I wrote it so fast it felt like it would be a trainwreck. Overall, I am happy with the story. There is a lot to edit, no lie, and I missed a few crucial relationship interactions that I wanted to get in (I started a storyline between two characters but forgot about it halfway through). Since I barely met the word count goal, it’s technically not an entire novel, so I am glad that I forgot the extra content, and now I can take my time and add it in. I am also on the fence about the very, very end; I exposed maybe too much. I like to assume the reader is intelligent, so I try not to make some things obvious or point things out. so I might change it. If anyone wants to beta-read it and give me an opinion, That would be great! I am reluctantly starting the editing process (not my favorite part of writing) and I might share excerpts from it.

On the Audible update: I will resume recording Emergence Collective on Sunday and share it on Spotify. The studio is ready to go so I am going to start from the beginning, chapter one, since the sound quality has much improved since the first recordings. Would you prefer pure book content, or would you like commentary before or after the episode? I might keep it pure. I dunno.

How is the new release of the book going? Slower than the first. I don’t really know how to grow an audience, this is my broad stroke attempt (the blog), other than that I think I have only one copy sold to a stranger the rest of the six copies sold are the three I gifted and my close family. My severe introversion seems to be a roadblock. I guess when I die I will start selling books, I cant wait! just kidding, but maybe if I do get famous, after I die, you can say that you were here when it started!

Thanks for stopping by Give it a like and comment! I

amazon · Emergence Ascended · Emergence Collective · Podcasting · readers · reading

Emergence Ascended is to be featured on a podcast December 8th

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Free Writer reviews is a podcast by T.A. Walker. She reviewed Emergence Collective, and I am happy to announce that she will review Emergence Ascended! T.A Walker (a.k.a the Bookie) has over 25 published works. Her work can be found on Spotify T.A.Walker audiobooks. Check out her work, its great stuff!

If you haven’t already read Emergence Collective, buy it now! So you can follow her read-along before Dec 8th, where she will read and review Emergence Ascended on Free Writer Reviews.

buy it here. Get the whole story experience.

amazon · Audible · Emergence Ascended · Emergence Collective · NaNoWriMo

NanoWinner 2023

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I completed the NaNoWriMo 2023 Challenge a day early! But I am not finished with the novel. I succeeded in meeting the fifty thousand-word minimum, but there is still a lot to do.

My takeaway from completing the challenge: First of all, I have been a member of NaNoWriMo since 2012. I have started it but never got anywhere. This year I officially registered for the challenge, (it has been on my bucket list of things to do at least since 2012)

Dedicating time to write every day and write enough to keep up with the daily word goals had developed into a habit. And when I am writing I am writing more, faster. Remember it too almost two years to the day to complete Emergence Ascended from starting it after Emergence Collective and that is a little over sixty-thousand words. So to do comparatively the same in thirty days blows my own mind.

It is changing my writing ‘style’. I was a ‘pantser’ as they call it, I write by the seat of my pants, making up the story as I go, typically. But For Yellow man I did write an outline, cast of characters, notes and fair about of research before starting it. So The value of the outline for me has increased substantially. Honestly I never wrote outlines because I am lazy. I will use outlines on future books, (Oh the bigfoot story is probably next FYI)

So, what now? Now, I am going to keep working on Yellow Man and finish it. I dread the editing phase that is coming. One of the reasons why it takes me a long time to get the story on paper is that I tend to edit as I go. During NanoWrimo, I didn’t. I ignored types, wrong words, grammar and punctuation to get complete the challenge, but now I have a nightmare to clean up. I am also taking the weekend off from writing, and prepare to start recording Emergence Ascended again. I have some projects that I set aside during NaNoWriMo that I desperatly need to attend to, Laser engraving projects for myself and a couple clients (Custom laser engraving stuff) Check out my etsy site to see what I am talking about.

All in all I am proud of accomplishing NaNoWriMo, (I get to call myself a novelist now) And I am glad os the skills that NanoWrimo has taught me. If I can do it, YOU definitely can, so I expect to see you next year!

amazon · Emergence Ascended · Horror · NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo:Final countdown

Joe HallettLeave a comment

NaNoWriMo 2023 is on the last four days! I kept up on the word count this weekend, and I am currently (as I write this) 42554 words. I did just under 5000 yesterday and around 2000 on Saturday. Thursday the 23rd was an American Holiday, which put me in a bind to keep up, and I was already behind and still am. The good thing is that I have less than 8000 words to finish. 2000 a day is doable, so I have high hopes of completing the challenge.

How is the actual story going? Yellow Man, my ghost story is turning out pretty good. I am on track with the elements I wanted to get into the story. It is nowhere near finished I will be writing on it after NaNoWriMo for certain, but it’s getting there. Not that I have really established my writing style or found my voice as they say since I am new to writing, NaNoWriMo has upended my comfort zone. I have no idea how the pacing is (A personal struggle), are there long drawn out boring parts, did I slip in that nugget of info to keep you guessing? I who knows, I do know that writing at this pace there is going to be a lot to fix, and the editing is nightmarish and I don’t even want to think about that now.

Oh Yeah, just a reminder, I do have a new book out, Emergence Ascended is out on Kindle. Be sure to get you copy! I look forward to seeing your ratings and reading those reviews!