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Sean VS Google Voice

Sean VS Google Voice

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I have accent troubles. Growing up in the Medway towns, I didn’t sound like the others at school and would have other pupils complain and say, “you fink you’re posh or some-fink?”

When I went to university in Buckinghamshire, people thought I sounded common. Other students would comment that I sounded like Michael Caine or a Cockney and mocked me with “core blimey, governor.”

Now I live in America, and people are excited for me to talk. I get everything from “are you Australian?” to “you sound so refined.” And anything in between: “can you say ‘I’m Sherlock Holmes.'”

I had to learn to be more pronounced. I could get away with a bit of a mumble and a drawl in England, but not anymore. I still have an Estuary English accent but talk slower and louder to be clear, and it seems to be working. Michael Caine actually talks like this so Americans can understand him, and I guess I’ve copied that, so I now do deliberately sound like Michael Caine. It’s worked well, except with Google Voice.

I can’t ask Google Voice for anything. I have no idea what I’m asking for. I don’t know if it uses my location and thinks, “He’s not meant to sound like that,” as I’m assuming they have Google Voice in England.

This means Google’s ability to transcribe my phone messages is neutered. Last month, I edited my book and made a stretch to read and edit 4000 words a day. To keep me accountable, I left my friend Wes a message each day to tell him I had completed my task.

Google completely mangled my words, including “Hey Wesley”, which became “Hey Baby”. The next day I tried again using an American accent, and the results were improved but still not great. Here’s a side-by-side comparison.

google voice 0google voice

Shiny New Website

Shiny New Website

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UPDATE!

It might not look it since I used the same theme, but you are looking at a brand new website. I’ve gone from the free wordpress.com to hosting my own site at hostgator using wordpress software. What does that mean? Well, it means I have to do more work and play around with the sites features. But it also means I get to play around with the site features! Using wordpress as software puts me in control, and that means I and use widgets and plug-ins to show off all sorts of stuff.

So what’s actually new? I’m all set up to show off my new book Catchee Monkey but I’ve also done the leg work for adding more books in the future. You’ll notice there is a progress bar on the right detailing the word counts of the various books I’ve got in development. I saw this feature on Hugh Howey’s website and knew that I had to have it immediately – then about 3 months later I got around to doing it. And I put samples of my scripts online as well should anyone want a look (Psst, he means you Mr. Hollywood Producer).

Feel free to take a look around. There are links to older stuff I’ve written in OTHER WRITINGS, the new ABOUT page will also be the text I use in my upcoming book. I’ve launched a newsletter to keep people in the know when a new book is available. And there’s a little hello to anyone that pirated my book, presumptuous of me to assume I’ve made something worth stealing, I know.

Basically, this is a long way of saying, look at the shiny new stuff.

The Badger King

The Badger King

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I was told I could stay. That this is the way it could, and indeed should, be.

He offered me a place in his court. Sitting at his side as ambassador for humankind.

Mum would be angry if I missed my tea so I chose to leave, promising to return that evening.

I never found the Badger King’s kingdom again.

Decision Making: choosing love or Fear

Decision Making: choosing love or Fear

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In the next 6 weeks I will publish a book to Kindle. I’ve been writing for fifteen years. At 16 I started working on little stories and developing scripts and that’s evolved into writing for a living for a music website or even odd jobs here and there writing TV segments and video game dialogue. I constantly got better, got bigger projects and I felt successful but I’d never written something solely by me and put it out there as a product. The reason was fear.

I’d work on my writing but I’d easily be overcome with the need to have a day job, to take a job that kind of involved writing but not the kind that I wanted to do. Well this year, 2014, I decided to write for me. I’ve developed a comedy-mystery novel series called REX & EDDIE MYSTERIES and the first book is called CATCHEE MONKEY.  I wrote it because it’s the sort of thing I wanted to read. I wrote it for the love of it. For the first time ever I set out to make something out of the love of doing it rather than fear.

Don’t get me wrong, the fear makes regular visits to taunt me and ask me what the hell I’m doing. Sometimes I listen and get caught in it. Luckily I now have a video clip of Jim Carrey giving an inspiration talk about the subject. It did the rounds on the internet a few months ago but its worth a re-watch:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajMpfPYlHi4

 

 

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