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I happened to notice on Facebook one of my Facebook friends posting about a contest Cat Valente was sponsoring: tweet to her what manner of creature you would be if you lived in Fairyland, and what your name would be for a chance to win an ARC of the new fairyland book.
To tell you the truth, it was the challenge that got me involved; I haven't read much Valente. But what *would* my fairyland name be?
I spent about five minutes blinking at the wall sorting through possibilities that all seemed too ordinary, then said "Oh," got up and picked up Lark (my mandolin) and started playing around with her. Less than a minute later I turned on the Zoom mp3 recorder and recorded my fairyland name (it took me a couple of tries, but Reaper is a great sound editor.) I connected the Zoom to the computer, popped the file into Reaper, cut off the false start, trimmed the noise at the end I always get (touching the Zoom to turn it off makes noises) put a little bit of compression on it (the mando gets a bit harsh without it, in my opinion) raised the volume till it was peaking at -3 dB, converted to mp3 and put it into the hwaet site folder in less time than it takes to type it out. (Yay Reaper!)
Then I ftp'ed it up to hwaet and sent out my tweet: "I would be a willow tree at the edge of a quiet pool that spoke only phrases of music. My name would be: [fairyland name]
Though looking back on it, I wonder if a lute or a mandolin would have been a better choice. The problem with being a tree is you don't get out much.
At any rate, Cat liked it, so I'm going to be getting an arc of the second fairyland book in the mail. I (looks around nervously) just got the first book on Kindle so I could read it before the second book arrives. I've only read one other Cat Valente book and that was pretty surreal. (I think what bothered me most was books that rot in your hands as you try to read them. That's just not RIIIIght. That's the opposite of Bookness. The inversion of the Platonic Ideal of Book.) So I'm curious as to what these books will be like.
To tell you the truth, it was the challenge that got me involved; I haven't read much Valente. But what *would* my fairyland name be?
I spent about five minutes blinking at the wall sorting through possibilities that all seemed too ordinary, then said "Oh," got up and picked up Lark (my mandolin) and started playing around with her. Less than a minute later I turned on the Zoom mp3 recorder and recorded my fairyland name (it took me a couple of tries, but Reaper is a great sound editor.) I connected the Zoom to the computer, popped the file into Reaper, cut off the false start, trimmed the noise at the end I always get (touching the Zoom to turn it off makes noises) put a little bit of compression on it (the mando gets a bit harsh without it, in my opinion) raised the volume till it was peaking at -3 dB, converted to mp3 and put it into the hwaet site folder in less time than it takes to type it out. (Yay Reaper!)
Then I ftp'ed it up to hwaet and sent out my tweet: "I would be a willow tree at the edge of a quiet pool that spoke only phrases of music. My name would be: [fairyland name]
Though looking back on it, I wonder if a lute or a mandolin would have been a better choice. The problem with being a tree is you don't get out much.
At any rate, Cat liked it, so I'm going to be getting an arc of the second fairyland book in the mail. I (looks around nervously) just got the first book on Kindle so I could read it before the second book arrives. I've only read one other Cat Valente book and that was pretty surreal. (I think what bothered me most was books that rot in your hands as you try to read them. That's just not RIIIIght. That's the opposite of Bookness. The inversion of the Platonic Ideal of Book.) So I'm curious as to what these books will be like.
