Last night I listened to the interview I did on the Steel on Steel radio program. I’ll try to post it here tomorrow; my Tech Support staff isn’t available on weekends.
I fielded all the questions quickly, never said “uh” or “um” or “y’know,” generated a few bone-tickling witticisms, and did the best I could.
But I don’t know what to do about my voice. It’s horrible. I sound like I’m 110 years old. Even my wife said I sounded “like an old man”–and a little old man, to boot.
I’ve always had this problem. Many years ago, when I was still just thirtysomething, I was trying to get something done on the phone, and it just wasn’t happening. After quite a while, the operator said she’d have to hand me off to someone else. The next thing I heard was this:
“Samantha, I have an elderly gentleman here who needs help.”
“I wasn’t elderly when we started this!” I cried.
What am I gonna do? I need to do every radio appearance I can, because I need the exposure for my books. But my voice! The horror, the horror! And I don’t know ahead of time what the questions are going to be, so I can’t write the answers and hire somebody else to pretend to be me.
Squawk, squawk, creak… Your screen door doesn’t need oiling: that’s only me.
Lee
Out of the huge receipts yiur books are generating for you, why not spend a few dollars on a speech therapist? It will be money well spent
Just a thought! LOL
The thing is, I don’t sound so awful in person. In fact, I’ve always been an excellent public speaker. It’s just that, as soon as my voice gets involved with electronic transmissions, it turns sour.
If you would compel your friends and family to buy my books, then I just might get big enough royalties to be able to afford some kind of doodad that would correct what the other gizmos do to my voice.