Finding my voice

I'm in a WhatsApp group with some other novelists. When I mentioned that I would be doing the audio recording for my book there were a flurry of comments;

‘Oh my God I wouldn't dare!’

‘That's brave of you!’

‘I couldn't stand listening to ten hours of my dulcet tones.’

‘Will you do mine?’

That's the point at which I began to wonder exactly how much I had bitten off. The publishers booked a studio in the center of Manchester for four days so we were on a clock. Thankfully there is an engineer to do all the knob twiddling and in essence my job is standing in a booth reading from a computer screen. Reading a book which I should know by heart, since I wrote it, couldn't be too hard. What could go wrong? As it turns out the answer is ‘plenty’.

The reason I offered to do the sound recording is because, firstly, I think I've got a good voice. It's relatively deep (people often mistake me for a man over the phone!) And (unlike a lot of writers) I've always enjoyed public speaking. Way back at school I was often the one to chosen read out in assembly and was on the school debating team. I'm not entirely sure about this as my claim to fame but, age sixteen I was part of my (comprehensive) school’s debating team against Bradford Boys Grammar School, whose team included a certain William Hague who later that year went on to give a (now infamous) speech at the conservative Party conference. They won but I think we gave them a decent run for their money

The Mercy Step is a coming of age novel loosely inspired by my childhood in Bradford and therefore the protagonist Mercy should (like my good self) speak with a Yorkshire accent. In addition if the audio publishers used an actor they would need someone who could not only do a Yorkshire accent but convincing Jamaican patois, Northern Irish, Polish and a smattering of Indian. I forgot about all those accents at the time I agreed to do the recording and only time will tell whether I managed to pull it off. Thankfully they are only minor characters.

So I rocked up at the recording studio in the hip cool and happening Northern Quarter in Manchester bright and early on Tuesday morning. The first problem was that the sound engineer was stuck in traffic so we started late. The second problem, (more of a catastrophe than a problem under the circumstances) is that I began losing my voice. I had no idea non-stop talking could be so hard on the vocal cords. The sound engineer thankfully had honey with him and I drank litres of water but it was still hard to going. An agent of my acquaintance once mentioned that all of her authors have bad backs and I am no exception. We got into something of them of a rhythm so after each chapter I stretched and did a bit of yoga and that helped I also found alternating between sitting and standing was helpful for the lower back. We had planned to go until 4:00 p.m. but by 2:30 I was practically croaking so we called it a day. I hurried home drunk a liter of water with ginger and honey wrapped my throat like an opera singer and was in bed by 7 pm. I had done a total of sixty pages out of 280. But the angels were watching over me because I got into the swing of it and the next two days went well. I finished it!

I have the utmost admiration for people who do audio recording for a living. It is fiendishly difficult to speak, emote and protect one's voice all at the same time.

Hope I've done my novel justice, only time will tell.

The Mercy Step is out on audio, e-book and print on 22nd July

2025.

I'm in a WhatsApp group with some other novelists. When I mentioned that I would be doing the audio recording for my own book there were a flurry of comments; ‘oh my God I wouldn't dare’, ‘that's brave of you’, ‘I couldn't stand listening to ten hours of my dulcet tones’, ‘will you do mine?’

That's the point at which I began to wonder exactly how much I had bitten off. The publishers booked a studio in the center of Manchester for four days  so I was on a clock. Thankfully there is an engineer to do all the knob twiddling and in essence my job is standing in a booth reading from a computer screen. Reading a book which I should know by heart,since I wrote it, couldn't be too hard. What could go wrong?  As it turns out the answer is ‘plenty’.

The reason I offered to do the sound recording is because, firstly, I think I've got a good voice. It's relatively deep (people often mistake me for a man over the phone!) And (unlike a lot of writers) I've always enjoyed public speaking. Way back at school I was often the one to chosen read out in assembly and was on the school debating team. I'm not entirely sure about this as my claim to fame but, age sixteen I was part of my (comprehensive) school debating team against Bradford Boys Grammar School, whose team included a certain William Hague who later that year went on to give a (now infamous) speech at the conservative Party conference. They won but I think we gave them a decent run for their money

The Mercy Step is a coming of age novel loosely inspired by my childhood in Bradford and therefore the protagonist Mercy should (like my good self) speak with a Yorkshire accent. In addition if the audio publishers used an actor they would need someone who could not only do a Yorkshire accent but convincing Jamaican patois, Northern Irish, Polish and a smattering of Indian. I forgot about all those accents at the time I agreed to do the recording and only time will tell whether I managed to pull it off. Thankfully they are only minor characters.

So I rocked up at the recording studio in the hip cool and happening Northern Quarter in Manchester bright and early on Tuesday morning. The first problem was that the sound engineer was stuck in traffic so we started late.  The second problem, (more of a catastrophe than a problem under the circumstances) is that I began losing my voice. I had no idea non-stop talking could be so hard on the vocal cords. The sound engineer thankfully had honey with him and I drank litres of water but it was still hard to going. An agent of my acquaintance once mentioned that all of her authors have bad backs and I am no exception. We got into something of them of a rhythm so after each chapter I stretched and did a bit of yoga and that helped I also found alternating between sitting and standing was helpful for the lower back. We had planned to go until 4:00 p.m. but by 2:30 I was practically croaking so we called it a day. I hurried home drunk a liter of water with ginger and honey wrapped my throat like an opera singer and  was in bed by 7 pm.  I had done a total of sixty pages out of 280. But the angels were watching over me because I got into the swing of it and the next two days went well. I finished it!

I have the utmost admiration for people who do audio recording for a living. It is fiendishly difficult to speak, emote and protect one's voice all at the same time.

 Hope I've done my novel justice, only time will tell.

The Mercy Step is out on audio e-book and print on 22nd July 2025.