It was today. Of course it was today. Today, the day after the national celebration of love, Rachael and I came face to face with our greatest enemy.

The air was palpable with tension. He (for it must be a him) tipped his hat, narrowed his eyes Clint Eastwood style and grinned at us, white teeth gleaming. He stood there, old west style, challenging us to come out to meet him.

We cowered for a moment, remembering all the havoc, all the tears, all the pain he had caused us in the past. And yet, we rose out of the corner and strode into the sun, blinking, but ready for the challenge.

It was him. Our old nemesis Audio.

To those who have not yet read our book, and that number is significantly large, as only a select few have, the above passage means nothing. But it means oh so much to those of us who have been there and done that.

Audio was our greatest challenge in creating No Lost Cause.

I won’t attempt to recall every time and every way that it tortured us during filming, just rest in the knowledge that it was frequent and it was intense. In hindsight, it was hilarious. Not then. Then it was heartbreaking.

Today we did a test run with a new mixer and microphone I purchased for our future audio book recording. This is the same equipment that was used for our Historical Love Letters recording. That went off without a hitch. It seems that it’s only when Rachael and I are together with Audio that the problems occur.

We ran through levels, tested the best location in the house, and determined after many, many attempts, and after about four or five or a million hours, what the appropriate mix should be.

We also discovered how unpracticed we are at narration. Rachael’s pronunciation of ‘allured’ is something I wish you could all have experienced. But this is nothing new, we are unpracticed at a lot of things. That’s never stopped us before.

We plan to begin recording later this week.

Lookout, Audio. This time, we’re gunning for you.

My special thanks to Alastair and Lani at StoryWonk for helping me determine what equipment to purchase. Thanks to Rachael for the photo of our enemy.

Right at 35 days before my 35th birthday, Rachael and I found out that a book we wrote about our experience making our first film “No Lost Cause,” was being returned to us by the publisher after a year of waiting for it to be printed. Instead of wallowing in our collective misery, I committed to blogging every day while I searched for ways to overcome this perceived rejection and obstacle to our goal. I currently also have about three other projects brewing at the same time, and write about the progress of each of them. This is part of that series.

Read the first entry here: https://ashleyraymerbrown.com/2015/01/23/35-days-to-35-dealing-with-rejection/