A writer’s life has all sorts of quirks to it. You find yourself tuning into strangers’ conversations in bars and restaurants and coffee shops for ideas for your own dialogue. You absent-mindedly start describing in your head something you see, as if it were expository material in a novel. You note the physical descriptions of people you encounter to use as a model for a character. You see abysmal things in the news, especially now, and start thinking about how your characters would handle it.

These are things you accept about being a writer, as you accept that the characters you’ve created have become almost a real part of your life, prone to appear in your dreams or wake you up from a good night’s sleep to nag you about something they disagree with. Rather like being married.

In the past few weeks, I’ve been in the process of converting my eBooks to audiobooks, using Kindle Direct Publishing’s Virtual Voice. Yes, this is an AI-generated voice, and most people know how I feel about creatives using AI to create rather than using a much more powerful tool–the human brain. However, I also can’t afford having my books professionally narrated. I’ve tried that a couple of times and didn’t make back even a tiny percentage of the investment.

When I received an email invite to beta test Virtual Voice, I pondered the prospect for several days, weighing the pros and cons, the biggest con for me being hypocrisy. However, for about a year, I’ve used AI to generate copy for social media posts and ads. I simply do not have the turn of phrase or any ability whatsoever for that sort of copywriting, then I noticed the AI-generated posts started to engender more engagement than my feeble efforts. I’d already settled my conscience with using that, so why not Virtual Voice?

I was pleasantly surprised with the result of the first book I converted, my standalone novel, Love Death. I was pleased with the “narrators” one could choose from, and I’m around 90% satisfied with the results. Though the Virtual Voice “narrators” do try to imbue appropriate emotion at appropriate points, sometimes it’s more than obvious that a computer is talking to you. Again, however, it was acceptable, especially when I could go in and edit how the “narrator” pronounced specific words. (As I get more books converted, I’ll likely do a post on how to use Virtual Voice at some point in the future.)

But back to the writing life. Because I was in the middle of this exercise, one night after I’d published Spy Flash III: The Moscow Rules as an audiobook, my brain woke me around 0200 to tell me it didn’t remember hearing several scenes from the story, “Pick the Time and Place for Action.” Since the narration is taken from the file you upload for eBook publication, I knew I had to check to make sure I hadn’t left those scenes out. I had to argue with myself to keep from getting up and doing that right then.

The next day, I checked, and the fault wasn’t mine–so far. Those scenes were in the eBook. Okay. What do next?

When I looked at the audiobook for Spy Flash III in my KDP account, I realized I could edit it after it had been published. (You can do the same in KDP with eBooks and print editions–great for fixing the typos you inevitably find.) I clicked on that button, went to the narrative, and sure enough, the scenes were there, but I had somehow skipped reviewing them. I suspect it was because I took a break, and when I returned, I restarted the edit at a different place.

My bad, after all.

A few minutes to listen to those scenes, make a few pronunciation changes (as well as fixing a typo), and I hit “Publish Your Audiobook” again.

Whew!

I relate all this to show non-writers how writing, fiction or nonfiction, permeates every aspect of your being. When sleeping, your brain drags out things you might not think of when awake, and my brain did that the other night. I consciously didn’t recognize I’d skipped reviewing a whole critical section of that story, but my subconscious did. Thank you, subconscious. Saved again.

It’s also good to know that that same brain that sometimes can’t recall where my glasses are (usually atop my head) or where the car keys are (usually in the drawer of a cabinet by the door to the garage where they’re supposed to be) isn’t totally gone to mush.

The writing life always has surprises in store. Thankfully. Otherwise, how dull would that writing life be?