Canada Day brings new Abigail items

This is what all the hard work was about: a brand new CD, with recordings of author Mark Walma reading the four stories from Abigail Massey at McAdam Station, Volume 1.

Plus a fantastic new display box for all four of the Abigail books (the first three collections of stories and the new Christmas novella, "coming this November").

"I'm pretty happy with the results," Mark said as he prepared for his appearance at the Canada Day celebrations in McAdam on Tuesday. "Lynn did an awesome job with the designs of the display case, the CD cover and the novella."

Mark explained that, even though the red stickers for the CDs themselves are beautiful, Lynn has expressed a concern that they might peel off and damage people's CD players. "So we've decided to forego them for now," he said. "They're beautiful, to be sure, but I'd rather sell unadorned CDs than do any damage."

The entire Village of McAdam celebrates Canada Day in style, with local artisans and crafts people setting up tables around the Train Station for the day and a big parade through the community, starting at 10:30 a.m.

"It's always a lot of fun," Mark said. "It will be a beautiful day so we hope we have huge crowds to come out and get to know the Station and the Village of McAdam."

Podcast CDs of Abigail finally completed

"I'm feeling a combination of excitement and relief right now," Abigail author Mark Walma said Sunday afternoon. "After a lot of work and a lot of worry, I'm very pleased to be able to announce that the books-on-CD version of Abigail Massey at McAdam Station, Volume 1, is now completed and bring printed."

Walma has worked throughout the weekend, ironing out final technical problems, editing the recorded versions of the stories, and preparing to record, just to make sure the new release will be ready for his appearance at the McAdam Station on Canada Day.

"It became a bit of a race against time, unfortunately," he admitted. "I think I underestimated the complexity of the project when I first launched into it but I'm pretty pleased with the result."

Mark explained that he feels the new version of the Abigail stories will help people with vision impairments, children and elderly people enjoy the stories too.

"I've had a lot of really positive feedback from people when they hear about this new project," he said, "and I was committed to getting it launched by Canada Day."

Mark said he expects to give away the copies of the new CD to people willing to make a donation to the Station's restoration fund at the Canada Day celebration, rather than selling it for a set price.

"My thinking is, if someone is willing to donate ten dollars or more to the Station, I'm happy to give them a copy of the CD," he said with a smile. "It's all for a great cause."

The difficulty pod-cast journey

Creating podcasts and books-on-CD is turning out to be harder than expected, Abigail author Mark Walma now admits.

"I got into it on a whim, to be honest," he said. "A person with a vision impairment emailed Abigail some time ago saying that, although she has heard the Abigail Massey books are pretty good good and although she had purchased copies for friends and family around the world, she still hadn't been able to enjoy the stories herself."

Mark first sent the woman the stories in their electronic (Word) format, so that a program on her computer could read them to her.

"But I thought, 'maybe I can do better'," he said with a laugh. "I didn't realise what I was getting myself into."

First, there's doing the recording itself. Mark had to bring together the right equipment and software just to get started. Once that was done, he needed to find quiet time to read the stories into the computer.

"All it takes is for the dog to bark or a loud truck to drive by and you have to stop and rewind," he said. "I had one 'take' ruined when someone flushed a toilet!"

Then came the actual reading part of it.

"Reading like that isn't as easy as one might expect," he said. "There's nothing like a digital recording to show you how many ums, ahs, coughs and sniffs you commit in a single minute of reading. And then there's the problem of stumbling over words, mispronouncements and stuff like that."

It took him more than two hours to record each of the four stories from the first volume in any kind of decent shape and editing each one has taken many hours more.

"You want to remove the blemishes, sure, but you also want to make sure you get the pacing right," he explained. "You have to deal with the fact that, when you do so many 'takes' in the course of reading a single story, you're going to have sometimes significant differences in volume as well."

And then there's the problem of time. Mark's goal is to fit the four stories from the first volume on a single CD. Well, most CDs handle only 80 minutes of recording. And not a minute more.

"Each story turned out to be between 18 and 25 minutes in length," he said, laughing. "So, when all was said and done, when I had the recording of each story in pretty good shape, I found out I was still about two minutes over the limit."

So now it's back to the editing booth.

"I'll get there, I'm sure," Mark promised. "It's just a much more difficult journey than I expected."

First four podcast recordings are complete!

The podcast recordings of the first four Abigail stories are now in the bank. Or in the hard-drive's memory, at least.

Author Mark Walma has completed the readings for "Passing the Test", "In Trouble", "Behind Bars" and Canada's Sweetheart", the four stories that make up Abigail Massey at McAdam Station, Volume 1.

"It's a lot harder work that I thought it would be," he said, his voice sounding a little hoarse from all the vocal exercise he's put in.

"There's so much to focus on when you're recording for a podcast: from keeping your voice at a consistent volume to making sure you don't read too quickly to trying to create and maintain interesting voices for each of the major characters."

Artist and designer Lynn Walma has already completed designing the cover package for the promotional CD the project team plans to make out of these four recordings. Fans of the books will find that the new CD cases look remarkably familiar, as Lynn has been careful to carry the same design elements from the book covers into the CD envelopes.

So that leaves Mark to iron out the final challenges he faces with converting his vocal recordings into a format that will fit onto a standard CD and play in your average CD player.

"I'm no techno expert," Mark laughs. "I'm learning as I go and, even though I'm pleased to have the recordings themselves put to bed, I still have a lot of work to do to actually 'write' the CDs themselves."

And then he'll turn his attention to putting samples of the recordings online as podcasts for Abigail readers around the world.

"I'm a writer by training," he said. "I loved writing the Abigail stories and I've enjoyed much of what has followed from their publication. But this technological stuff is really testing my ability to learn new skills and master the computer-related aspects of promoting a book."

Mark said his goal is to have the CD ready for release at his Canada Day appearance at the McAdam Railway Station in two weeks.

"But there's still a lot of work to do to meet that goal," he said, shaking his head. "I can only do my best..."

The challenge of the voices

The recording of a podcast in a dramatic reading style is a fairly challenging task.

Not only do you have to read the story in a clear, articulate voice; you also have to create consistent voices appropriate for the recurring characters in the story (or stories).

Abigail author Mark Walma is currently in the process of creating recordings of the first four stories in the Abigail Massey collections, the stories contained in Volume 1. He has built his own personal recording studio in his home, using two computers, the Apple "Garageband" program and a special, professional quality USB microphone he received as a gift last Christmas.

But building the studio was nothing compared to the challenge of coming up with distinct voices for the many characters in the stories.

"Yes, it's been tough," he laughs. "I'm a writer, not an actor or a voice-over specialist. I'm no Mel Blanc so I have been finding it a bit of a struggle."

He says the fact that the stories contain more female characters than male makes the challenge even more difficult. "Every story features Abigail, Martha and Miss Pierce. Plus you've got Jenny and Alice to account for. That's a lot of women's voices to create and keep consistent."

Mark reports that, despite these challenges, he has finalised the pod casts for the first three stories and, after doing a little polishing, is pretty happy with them.

"I got 'Passing the Test' done first and then played it for my partner to get her take on it," he says. "She really liked it, at least most of it. She didn't like the voice I had created for Miss Pierce, though. 'It's too nasal sounding,' she said. So I had to go back and re-record all of Miss Pierce's dialogue and then stitch it into the main recording. That was a fun experience!"

He plans to record the fourth story, "Canada's Sweetheart", in the next week or so and hopes to have a CD of the recordings for the entire fourth volume finished and ready for sharing before his appearance at the McAdam Railway Station on Canada Day, July 1.

"It would be great to have it ready for Canada Day," he said, "just to have something new to offer people in the long break between last Christmas' release of Volume 3 and the launch of A McAdam Station Christmas, our new Abigail Massey novella, this November."

Mark will be on hand at the Station on July 1 to take part in the Canada Day festivities. Come out and say hello!

It's Railway Pie time at the McAdam Railway Station...

Summer's here and that means it's Railway Pie time at the McAdam Railway Station and Hotel!

Every Sunday, the Station's gorgeous fifties-era lunch counter comes alive with the sound of laughter and clinking forks as people come from far and wide to tour the historic building and savour the selection of home-made pie served in the biggest slices around!

Abigail author Mark Walma will be appearing three times over the course of the season to greet the readers of the Abigail Massey at McAdam Station books and talk about everything from writing to trains to local history.

And Mark has some special surprises in store for people who drop by! Watch this space for details.


Meanwhile, reader Joanne Muys sent along this photograph of her cupboard, showing off her three Abigail Massey mugs that hang over the rest of her mug collection. Thanks Joanne!