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..."