Reading Old Writing S0 E2 - Margway

Last time, I tested the technical method of distributing audio files through an RSS feed on the blog. This time, I’m testing the concept for the “show” and the workflow required to produce it. Add this feed to your podcatcher of choice to listen and/or click the “play” button that should theoretically be somewhere in the vicinity of this text.

This is a reading from a 2012 short story I wrote called Margway, which is a spin-off of sorts from my NaNoWriMo 2011 project. The character of Margway was a side character and did not feature much in the novel draft, but I thought it was an interesting character in and of itself. In re-reading this today, I was surprised how much of an impact it had on me, and I remembered why I liked it in the first place.

P.S. You might be wondering why I don’t just copy and paste the text of the writing into a blog post like a normal person. The reason is simple: While there may be some seeds of good ideas here and there, the writing isn’t that great, and still requires a lot of editing. This one is a third draft from 2012, and I still noted numerous places that still needs polishing before I would even consider submitting it for publishing or self-publishing. Posting these as writing would require a significantly higher time investment to bring them up to the standards of quality writing, and that simply isn’t possible at a rate of one per day. This writing matters–to me, at least–unlike the average throw-away blog post.

But when I read them out loud, it’s a different story. Something I’ve noticed from listening to audiobooks: Performing a work out loud can smooth over and hide the rougher areas of grammar that’s dull or otherwise full of glaring errors. So, I read them. Better for me, better for the production, better for keeping things moving along.