{"id":23867,"date":"2021-05-12T18:32:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-12T22:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iantm.com\/books\/?p=23867"},"modified":"2021-05-12T13:01:27","modified_gmt":"2021-05-12T17:01:27","slug":"first-master-cd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iantm.com\/books\/2021\/05\/first-master-cd\/","title":{"rendered":"First master CD!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Burned the first master CD, 1.0 of the <em>Where All the Little Things Live<\/em> audiobook. When I started, it felt impossible, but I never framed it that way for myself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I ordered the CDs almost exactly a year ago\u00a0\u2014 a reminder that eventually it would be done. I set internal deadlines. Due to the pandemic, and the fact that I was involving so many others in the project, I didn&#8217;t always meet them, but those were minor bumps.  But in the end, I got here little by little, through consistency, positive self-talk, and of course, the support of others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Showing up is everything.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The most important thing was that I continued to show up. Tired from a day at work or just dealing with kids, I often felt like just heading off to bed in those later hours. Sometimes, I did. But I began telling myself to just do one little thing: fix that voice part. Record that one bit. Noodle on that music in that chapter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What happened was often more than I expected. I told myself 15 minutes, but sometimes it easily became an hour. There were instances where I had to intervene lest I be too tired to function the next day, but this approach worked to find the flow, accomplish <em>something<\/em> towards the goal, however small. More than once this improvised musical noodles turned into the more polished music that&#8217;s now on the CD. They wouldn&#8217;t have gotten there had I not heard the muse and jotted them down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Never perfect, but perfect enough.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t perfect and didn&#8217;t always work. But it worked enough! There were some large bursts of activity, it&#8217;s really through little accomplishments that it got done. Of course, that&#8217;s why it took almost a year. But that was never a real issue for me since it was for me. I was beholden to my backers, but I&#8217;ve found they&#8217;re a forgiving bunch as long as you communicate openly. And for the past year has been that much more bearable with this to work on. I loved collaborating on this \u2014\u00a0from editing to voice acting\u00a0\u2014 and it is so much more than what it might have been because of that. But I also reveled in every aspect of its creation: writing, illustrating, designing, typesetting, recording, editing, composing and mastering. I learned to enjoy the <em>process<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At times it felt like biting off more than I could chew, but because I&#8217;ve chosen to keep this a side thing it never felt crushing to go into the various aspects of this without knowing exactly how to approach them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What\u2019s next?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I don&#8217;t know how and when my next book will arrive. I just know it will happen at some point. I&#8217;ll be spending considerable time just enjoy the work of others, reading, watching, listening \u2014 all for creative input. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thank you to everyone who was a part of this, however big or small. Know that I heard you, and appreciated your support. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" data-attachment-id=\"23869\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.iantm.com\/books\/2021\/05\/first-master-cd\/img_1787-2\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iantm.com\/books\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/IMG_1787-scaled.jpg?fit=600%2C800&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"600,800\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;1.8&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;iPhone XS&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1620817625&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;4.25&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;320&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.016666666666667&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"First CD\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iantm.com\/books\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/IMG_1787-scaled.jpg?fit=768%2C1024&amp;ssl=1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iantm.com\/books\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/IMG_1787.jpg?resize=768%2C1024&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-23869\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iantm.com\/books\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/IMG_1787-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iantm.com\/books\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/IMG_1787-scaled.jpg?resize=225%2C300&amp;ssl=1 225w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iantm.com\/books\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/IMG_1787-scaled.jpg?resize=1152%2C1536&amp;ssl=1 1152w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iantm.com\/books\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/IMG_1787-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C2048&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iantm.com\/books\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/IMG_1787-scaled.jpg?resize=144%2C192&amp;ssl=1 144w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iantm.com\/books\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/IMG_1787-scaled.jpg?w=600&amp;ssl=1 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pbs.twimg.com\/media\/E1Dio4GWEAIeyP8?format=jpg&amp;name=large\" alt=\"\"\/><figcaption>Via @zenpencils (Gavin Than) \u2014 <em>The Creative Struggle<\/em>. No matter what you intent, I really believe this is true. You have to show up. No one is immune to <em>imposter syndrome<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 you just have to find your own way to move past it.  <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pbs.twimg.com\/media\/E1Dio4HX0AI4U85?format=jpg&amp;name=large\" alt=\"\"\/><figcaption>Via @zenpencils (Gavin Than)&#8217;s <em>The Creative Struggle<\/em>. This is the other bit. If I remember nothing else, I create for <em>intrinsic <\/em>reasons. Anything else would burn me out. It&#8217;s not always rosy. It&#8217;s work! And it&#8217;s not even the end result that&#8217;s really the goal. It&#8217;s the <em>doing<\/em>. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How do you write, illustrate, design, recording, perform, compose and master a book and audiobook? One bit at a time.  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iantm.com\/books\/2021\/05\/first-master-cd\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">First master CD!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iantm.com\/books\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/IMG_1787-scaled.jpg?fit=600%2C800&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paUyBu-6cX","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iantm.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iantm.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iantm.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iantm.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iantm.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.iantm.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iantm.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iantm.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iantm.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iantm.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}