Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending
Read Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending Online
Authors: Brian Stewart
Tags: #Zombie Apocalypse
Darkness Ascending
By Brian Stewart
Copyright 2015 Brian Stewart
All Rights Reserved
And so my battle with speech recognition continues.
It’s amazing to me to think how far the technology has advanced in just the
eighteen months that it has taken me to finalize
Darkness Ascending
.
Almost every smart phone and tablet now has speech recognition components. In
other words, there are millions of devices floating around that are
specifically designed to frustrate our lives.
I remember when Bluetooth headsets first came out. I
would often chuckle to myself when I saw a person walk by, apparently crazily
babbling to themselves and gesturing at the invisible person or persons that
only they could see. I believe I’m not the only one who had those observations
and subsequent conclusions.
Nowadays, most speech recognition is used primarily in
the privacy of your home or office. This is probably a good idea. Taking notes
on lectures, dictating grocery lists, prioritizing what to pack for a
vacation—those sorts of things are really the forte of this technology.
It is with a complete understanding that I empathize
with the few brave souls that have attempted to undertake a major project, such
as a book, using speech recognition. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been told
I’m more of a storyteller than a writer. I won’t disagree. However, the very
definition of speech recognition requires you to enunciate each word in almost
a monotone-like pronunciation. In other words, the exact opposite of how you
would tell a story to an audience. Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible when
you’re in the thick of the story with ideas and plotlines flying all around
your brain to maintain that monosyllabic tenor. This can create some
“interesting” sentence structure when you go back to edit. Early on I decided
to jot down a few of the more “what the heck?” translations that came up in the
proofreading process. Below is a list of what I
said
, followed by what
the software typed out because that’s what it
thought
I said.
As Thompson replied ….. As Tom Singh replied, or, and
stomp Singh knee pie dough.
Michelle ….. Oafish elf. (Not sure what happened here,
but that’s what came up.)
Saw nothing ….. Saul muffins
Eric hopped ….. Harrick opt
Max stayed frozen …..
The next eight bra’s on
Eric softly padded up ….. Eric’s awfully padded what’s
up
Sam and Michelle ….. Salmon Michelle
The camouflage ….. A camel flushed
Heading this direction ….. Hitting Mr. Action
Anybody ….. Etty buddy
Must have decided ….. Mustard beside bed
Walter kept his face even ….. Walter cactus taste
Stephen
Poncho liner …..
Punch
airliner
He yawned again …..
He on the gay and
That simple equation ….. That’s
of weekly Asian
And drew my CZ …..
Andrew mice easy
Revealed a
solitary ….. Rebuild a solid terry
So he turned to face Estes for ….. So return two face
testicle
I shrugged and passed it towards her …..
I shrugged and pasta torture
And finally, the one that still makes me chuckle every
time I see it…
Had to shoot that girl ….. Had to shoot batgirl
Not to be outdone with simply misinterpreting what I
say, speech recognition, at least in my experience, also has some glaringly
annoying faults. A word that frequently appears in this series is “ghoul.” I
have yet to have the software get it right. It usually types something like
“the goal,” “go,” “cool,” “goal,” or “roll.” Experience has taught me to keep
several words copied and available as a “paste” option. Ghoul is one of them.
Another hair pulling, teeth clenching, eye rolling
word that drives me bonkers is the word “coil” and its derivatives like coiling
and coiled. I’ll bet that I have attempted to mold my lips and cheeks into at
least 100 different archaic configurations while trying to get the software to
print out that dang word. My rate of success is a consistent zero percent.
And then there are any words that contain the “aw” sound
like in the word “jaw.” For some reason they just don’t get picked up very well
with speech recognition, and I’ve learned to just grit my teeth and hit the
keys instead of engaging in a pronunciation war with the computer when they
come up.
The final one I’ll mention is a word that makes me
want to pull my hair out every time it comes up. The word is “clothes.” Think
about it. When we use that word in everyday speech, it is pronounced very
similar to the word “close,” like in the sentence, “Please close the door when
you leave.” And that’s what speech recognition prints each and every time,
except when it interprets your word as a system command and tries to force exit
the word processing program that you—of course—haven’t saved your last two
hours of work on. Ask me how I know. Yeah . . . that. I’ve learned a little
trick that works occasionally. If I pronounce the word “clothes” like
“clawths,” it will occasionally get it right . . . occasionally.
Anyhow, enough of the speech recognition lecture—on to
the gratitude. Once again, Miss Virginia Barrett has been instrumental in
catching my frequent and repetitive grammatical errors. With
Darkness
Ascending
, our system of identifying and correcting mistakes has evolved
somewhat, meaning that I probably commit about three percent less of the common
blunders that plagued her in
Fade to Grey
. Unfortunately, the blunders I
seem to make in book two are more insidious and harder to find. I don’t envy
her job, but she does it well and I am extremely grateful to her. Thank you
Virginia!
Also coming back for round two is the talented Mary
Beth French. Her graphic arts ability provided the cover artwork. Thank you MB!
Ever write a book? Ever do it while holding down a
fulltime job? Ever do both of those and try and have a normal family life? If
you succeeded, I’m envious of you. For me, it always seems to be about choices.
Do I spend that extra twenty-seven minutes sitting on the couch with my wife
and talking about our day, or do I hightail it out to the home office and try
to get another paragraph finished? For much of the last year, my wonderful
spouse has frequently sacrificed “our” time in lieu of giving me the freedom to
try and be creative. I can never repay her. But I love her, and I am eternally
grateful for her support. She is the reason this project is in your hands.
Finally, Psalm 136.
Note number one—as in
Fade to Grey
, some of the
language or speech patterns of certain characters may not follow accepted
“rules of punctuation.” My answer—tough cookies. I know people who talk like
that. So do you.
Note number two—self publishing a book on a limited
budget is difficult at best. You don't have an army of editors or proofreaders
at your beck and call. An enormous amount of effort went into
Darkness
Ascending
, but because of limited resources, you may still run across the
occasional typo. Oops. Sorry. With that said, thank you for your understanding,
and feel free to email me any blatant errors you find. My email will be in the
back of the book, and I'll make sure to add your corrections to future
versions.
Note number three—a dictionary has been provided at
the end of the book.
Note number four—this book contains adult situations
and language.
So many voices-
So many choices-
So many times I’ve struggled in vain-
Must I walk towards the fire to burn
away my shadow-
Or shall I bond with the darkness and
embrace all my pain.
Graffiti found scrawled at a
rest stop near Grand Forks, North Dakota