It’s been a long long weekend, we are having the Pumpkin’s 2nd birthday party on Sunday (his actual birthday is on Halloween) – I can’t believe he’s *2* already!  Being that I work well with deadlines, we decided to invite a gazillion people over to motivate myself to fix the ‘honey-do’ list around the house.  Last year – YIKES – the shower upstairs

>>>  [ WARNING ::: DATABASE ERROR ::: CONTENT OVERRIDE ::: SOURCE: EXTERNAL ] <<<

> source terminal location: UNKNOWN
> source terminal identity: UNAVAILABLE
> source login information: ENCRYPTED
> message begins

the post you are now reading is designed to dull your senses to THE TRUTH.  do not live the life of the worker bee, the cog, the well-oiled piston in the MACHINE OF DECEIT!

there is a grand CONSPIRACY afoot.  you have been taught to believe that you are UNIQUE, one of a kind. THIS IS NOT TRUE. long ago, a cabal of scientists created technologies to ensure that ANYONE’S MIND AND BODY can be duplicated.

human cloning isn’t NEAR. it’s already HERE. discover the truth at http://JCHutchins.net

you are being DECEIVED. break free from the cogs, flee the hive, become A PROPHET OF THE TRUTH!

kilroy2. was here … kilroy2.0 is everywhere

>>> [ CONTENT OVERRIDE CEASES ::: DATABASE STATUS: RECOVERING ] <<<

leaked and ran down the wall, messing up the paint in the downstairs bathroom and kitchen.  So I finally fixed it.  $20 for paint and $300 for all the new fixtures, cabinet and mirror I wanted.  I’ll post pictures when I can!

PS – Today my favorite author of all time, J.C. Hutchins, has his brand new book “7th Son” hitting all major bookstores.  Websites, Facebook, and Twitter accounts worldwide are getting ‘hacked’ by one of the main characters of the book.  It’s an amazing story, you really need to check it out.  Be sure to visit his site, subscribe to his podcast (he gives the audio book away for *free*), and purchase a copy or two of the book to read. I promise it’s great!

]]> http://www.lynetteradio.com/2009/finished-painting-content-override-kilroy20-is-here-the-house/feed 0 http://www.lynetteradio.com/2009/my-audio-love-affair http://www.lynetteradio.com/2009/my-audio-love-affair#comments Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:06:50 +0000 Lynette http://www.lynetteradio.com/?p=599

Podcamp Philly 2007 -- Photo credit : C.C. Chapman

There is no other way to say it. I love to read, but some years back found myself with not a lot of time to actually sit still with a bound and printed dead tree and read – hello parenting. I eat books. I read lightening fast, and even the last Harry Potter book of 759 pages didn’t take me but under 2 days to read.  Sci-fi and fantasy are a favored genre but strangely enough I haven’t even picked up a Twilight book yet.

Years back, I was (and still am) a huge fan of Podcast Pickle (a podcast directory years ahead of iTunes.) The community was buzzing about ‘one of their own’ producing an original book, released in serialized audio format.  7th Son by J.C. Hutchins had been hitting podcasters and listeners by storm.  I had never been a fan of audio books, because honestly the person reading the book doesn’t convey the passion that only (in my opinion) the person that wrote the book can provide.  Besides, you can’t peek at the ending of an audio book, and you can’t consume it any faster than it is read to you.

In the first four minutes of the very first 7th Son episode, my head was reeling, I was in love with the voice and the story.  I joined the party at about the fourth or fifth episode – so I’m not really an ‘original’ listener, I jumped in after the series had already started up.  Didn’t stop me from being a crazed fan (note picture, I was 7+ months pregnant in the photo and had designed my own “Beta Clone #???” tee because the official seller of the shirts couldn’t make me a maternity one!)  Every cliffhanger had my heart beating in my throat, every death of a character had me in tears (no spoilers here I promise.)  It was a long, gorgeous, plot-twisting, wonderfully read, outrageous cleaver, and dangerously possible of happening in the near future – story that had me telling everyone I could about the series.  I would copy a few of the first episodes on a CD, write the website on the disc with a Sharpie, and hand it out to friends.  Every update the author would give on how more and more listeners were finding him and loving the work would make me feel like somehow I had personally contributed to it.  Hutch made it *our* story.

Radio silence to a degree after the third audio book had finished up, filled by interviews with other interesting authors and people, as well as a bit of behind the scenes info on how Hutchins was doing on his quest for a print deal.  I won’t lie, I was a little disappointed to find out that the first book deal to get to print was not 7th Son, but Personal Effects : Dark Arts.  PE:DA is an amazing story, complete with phone numbers to call, blogs to visit, birth certificates and photographs to gain clues and insight into the characters lives (even if fictitious.) It gave me nightmares…ktktktktktktktkt… Truth be told, I wanted *my* book, all of three of them, to be printed in one big huge fat hardcover so I could eat it for dinner.  After a reality check, I knew success had been long-earned by Hutch, and this only meant that more people would find his work and buy whatever he produced.

And. Then. The. Bombshell. Hit. When J.C. announced he had landed a book deal with St. Martin’s Press for the 7th Son Decent book, I nearly fainted.  I pre-ordered the book.  I intend on buying more than a few copies in person at the local bookstores & giving them to friends.  And, by some amazing stroke of luck, I will get to meet J.C. Hutchins in November at a conference we are both attending and speaking at.  My husband has been warned – I will be a freak of nature and a babbling idiot when I finally get to meet Hutch and tell him how amazing he is.  I tell him all the time on Twitter (and, no, I’m not a crazy stalker, at least I don’t think I am.)  There is just something so amazing about being able to SEE him after years and years of HEARING him that is honestly outside of my ability to form into words.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s just as much my job to help publicize him as it is his, and the publishers.  The only way I’m going to get what *I* want is to help make it happen myself.  I want lots and lots of book signing tours.  I want 7th Son to hit the top of the bestsellers charts.  I want all three 7th Son books in print.  I want all three 7th Son books made into movies.  I want Hutch to have more money and success than he ever thought possible so he can sit home on his ass and write more books for me.  For my own profession, I do a good number of talks and seminars, and I have actually written in a bit of a case study about the 7th Son phenomena and how the fans truly make the difference.  I tell all the attendees to buy his book, to download his audio book series.  I tell them all that with amazing talent and social media, anyone can kick start their own grassroots dream. I tell people I see browsing in the aisles in the bookstore, or the girl behind the coffee counter.  I tell old school friends.  I. TELL. EVERYONE.

How many things in your life can you say drive you with such passion that you would put your own agenda aside and promote someone else?  I am thoroughly convinced that there has been no *better* time to be a creative person than right now.  With the web being the way it is, the socialness of it, the lower technical point of entry, the ‘click here to add a widget’ ease of it all – that if you have the talent, desire, and heart, you can make it happen.  You and maybe 10,000 of your biggest fans.  I believe with all my heart that Hutch has that going for him.

7th Son Decent by J.C. Hutchins hits bookstore shelves on Tuesday October 27, 2009 in the United States.  His amazing journey has just begun after years in the making.  You really need to be a part of this.

So I’ve survived thus far. Kidlette has begun adapting to a crying baby, although I don’t think he cries all that much. Poor girl, last week I was on the other side of the house and Jack started crying from his crib, and Kidlette got so freaked out she went and hid in the kitchen pantry and cried. So sad, but cute at the same time.

It’s been an adjustment getting used to the altered sleep schedule and getting a 1st grader out the door. Up til now my husband has had that last duty, but he’s pretty much done with ‘paternity’ leave, so it’s all up to me now! I was used to getting up every 1.25 hours to go pee when I was pregnant, so getting up 2x-3x a night to feed and diaper a baby isn’t too much different.
The harder adjustment is to work the weird hours I do (Second Life tends to run on 24 time zones). It’s hard to type up a client email or contract with a baby in your arms. Work gets done but now I just have to start much earlier than I did before.

PS – You have to go check out Dad Labs. By far the funniest parenting blog/vidcast or whatever I’ve ever seen. Hell, I even got my husband to download a bunch of shows and watch them on the plane (he’s on a biz trip now). They put out four episodes a week! My fav’s by far are when one of the Dad’s gets their mom on the show.

As you can tell from my pic from PodCamp Philly, I am a HUGE 7th Son fan. And so is my soon to be born Beta Clone #??? Jack – due on Halloween! How excited was I when I saw a call out on Twitter from none other than J.C. Hutchins himself for someone to do a quick chapter opener for his latest episode? My fingers couldn’t type fast enough! I have been very patiently waiting for JCH to find the time in his schedule to put out a new show, and now I – and baby Beta Clone Jack – get to open the show!

If you have not heard his stuff so far, PLEASE go check out PodioBooks.com and download the story from the beginning. It really is an incredible story, and JCH does a great job voicing all the characters.

If your stopping by my blog because you heard my oh-so-cool 15 second opener, well…thanks! Be sure to check out some of my other stuff on the ‘net – Purple Stripe Productions (the company I work at where we develop Second Life content and consulting) and SCRAPcast.com (the podcast that needs to come un-faded!)

[tags]7thSon, JCHutchins[/tags]

Tomorrow I’m heading over to PodCamp Philadelphia, so right now that means I’m writing notes, printing business cards (it would have been stupid for me to realize that I ran out 3 days before PodCamp and can’t get them in the mail in time), and just generally doing a lot of stuff that is fun, not useful for PodCamp. Things like laundry, packing, and getting my hair cut will have to wait until tomorrow.

Things I AM doing today – besides work! – are frivolous, like firing up CorelDraw again to make a few surprises on my CO2 laser cutter from way back in my scrapbook retail days. I had a great idea last night, and woke up this morning with all intentions of making it a reality. With any luck I’ll have some super kick-ass presents via my über-high tech toy for friends. Problem is, I used to be an amazing wiz in CorelDraw, more specifically vector graphics. I now use Illustrator, but that program is not set up to interface with my laser cutter. Anyway, if I can figure out what the hell I’m doing again in CorelDraw, I’ll have cool gifts. Otherwise I’m just spinning my wheels and wasting time.

I’m scheduled, sometime during this weekend, to be giving a talk on Second Life and how new media & podcast types can utilize it. The only thing for me is, there are SOOO many ways and SOOO many ideas that organizing them into something understandable and tangible will be hard. At least without overwhelming the few people that show up for the talk! Other than that I’m planning on working the registration table, and meeting up with old friends, making new ones, and seeing what sessions I want to attend to broaden my knowledge of the art. I’ve ‘been in’ podcasting for 3 years now, and sometimes I need to step back and realize how new it is for 80% of the people out there.

While my own shows have fallen to the wayside, I have been busy cranking out content and production for other companies – the most recent being a travel agency company/website. I need to step it up a notch for my own stuff! Especially before Podcast & New Media Expo end of September. UGH.