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Welcome to my blog. It’s my first attempt, folks. Hope you enjoy it.

I thought I’d inaugurate my site (and my ramblings) with a peek into what it’s like to create an audiobook, lift the curtain as it were to see some of the nutty experiences that break up my workaday life in the studio.

This happened to me just the other night, Monday, January 7, 2008. That day I began to narrate a new title, SPIN by science fiction author Robert Charles Wilson. It’s a really well-written tale about Earth being trapped in a bubble where time flows differently than the rest of the universe. It’s being released digitally by Macmillan Audio (formerly Audio Renaissance) and should debut in March.

It’s late Monday night and I’ve given myself a deadline to hit: 100 pages before I call it a day. Slightly bleary-eyed, I make it to about page 90 when what do I find but a curse in Flemish. And not an everyday curse, mind you, but a whopping sentence-long string of profanity that I just know will keep me at my desk for hours.

See, the hardest part about doing an audiobook is looking up the words we here in America don’t use in everyday conversation. Sometimes this is easy: it could be nothing more than an obscure English word like macadam. (Might not seem obscure to you, you probably see it every now and again in print, but when’s the last time you SAID it? I had no idea if it was mc-AD-am or MAC-uh-dam. Makes a difference.)

But sometimes it’s anything but easy, and that’s usually when foreign languages are involved. I’ve done books that have lengthy sections in French, German, Japanese, Cantonese, Italian… I’ve even had to dabble in Khmer Rouge! It’s enough to make even a goy like me say “Oy.”

But the great part is when you’re working with a producer, the director of the piece, ’cuz then it’s THEIR responsibility to look things up. All I have to do is remember how they pronounced it long enough to pronounce it accurately myself on tape, then I can swiftly forget it and focus on the next tough word.

Only trouble is, I’m producing SPIN myself. No help, alas; I’m alone in the booth.

So I hop onto Google and plug in the key words FLEMISH and DICTIONARY. After looking over a half-dozen translation sites I realize I have no chance of finding curse words here. Dictionaries just don’t include them. My best bet is to find the Flemish language’s pronunciation guide; basically, just a primer on how they pronounce their Zs, their Cs, etc., then piece the whole thing together letter by letter, sound by sound. Begin to see why I’m despairing at this point?

So I head back to Google and change my parameters to FLEMISH and PRONUNCIATION. Well, imagine my surprise when I see a link that actually lists the option to “learn to curse in Flemish.” I clicked on it and prayed.

It took me to a site put together by a guy named Luke Swartz, a twentysomething who’s traveled extensively around the world and blogged just as thoroughly about his experiences. One of his pages details the Flemish language and had a link to the “learn to curse” site I so desperately needed at this point. I clicked it… and damned if I didn’t get an error message. “Cannot find server.” Turn around. Nothing to see here, folks, move along.

I began hunting around Luke’s site and finally located his e-mail address. Figured what the heck, I can send out an e-mail like a bottle on the ocean and hope he gets back to me sometime in the next week. If so, I can go back and fill in the appropriate curse. Having said that, I realized it could very likely be months before I heard anything back, if at all. Just because it’s the Internet doesn’t mean we get immediate access; we’re still at the mercy of when someone chooses to read their mail.

I e-mailed Luke and explained the situation, said I was an audiobook narrator who needed to know how to say something accurately in Flemish, and could he point me to the appropriate site? I had an English translation of the curse, and thought briefly about including it, to show him the kind of thing I was looking for. The problem is, it really was a horrible curse. It was the English equivalent of saying, “Goddamn my balls a million times, Jesus!” – apparently, the absolute worst thing you can say in Flemish. So I didn’t send him the curse, leery about cussing in an unsolicited e-mail. I merely asked him to get back when he could and left it at that.

Imagine my surprise when, less than an hour later, I get two e-mails from Luke. The first has a working link to the cussing site, as well as a slight explanation: it’s technically a “learn to cuss in Danish” site, but he explains that Danish and Flemish are basically the same language, and gives me a quick primer on slight variations in pronunciation between the two. I was ecstatic, but wondered briefly what could be in the second e-mail.

Check this out:

<<Actually, never mind–I found a link to SPIN on Amazon.com (gotta love “Search Inside”)!

I’m assuming you’re talking about “Godverdomme mijn koten miljardedju”?>>

And not only did he proceed to explain each and every guttural G and silent J, he’d also recorded an audio file of himself pronouncing it for me. Wanna hear it?

Click right here to hear Luke swear in Flemish.

My jaw literally dropped open. I stared at my computer screen in wonder, marveling at the ease with which this information dropped into my lap. Oh, and even better, Luke signs off his e-mail by saying, “My dad’s a big fan, by the way! (He’s addicted to books on tape…)”

I knew this Internet thing was big, folks. I knew it was here to stay and I knew it was a unique tool. I just didn’t realize how quickly or thoroughly it would make our jobs and our lives easier. Six degrees of separation used to be the standard by which we were all connected, yet that’s no longer the case. His dad is a big fan? It’s ONE degree of separation, folks. The Net has made Kevin Bacon superfluous.

I shot Luke a note of thanks, saying, “You give your father my best wishes, and tell him if he ever listens to SPIN, his son’s stamp will be all over it.”

Okay, gotta run now. I have to learn how to say “Me love you long time” in Portuguese.

Thanks for listening!

Scott Brick