My Audition Video + Podcast: Pigeons Rock by Novelist K. Rooney

Progress — oh, you thrilling and unhinging thing — I finished writing my book, yes, I started recording an audio version via a compact homemade audiobooth (thank you, Mother Nature, for cooler days), and then there were setbacks of sorts.

All last week, I couldn’t figure out why, oh, why, my voice sounded hollow and flat on the audio recordings. Each day, I made changes that improved the sound, but only a little. When I was ready to chalk it off as “that’s just how I sound,” I hit on tweaks that, thank the goddesses, made the needed difference.

Yay! But — what a sinking feeling, too — should I or shouldn’t I start all over and re-record everything? Ugh… the idea of putting in all those days again…

Monday morning I awoke in a “give ‘em hell” frame of mind and took it from the top. I was rehearsed and felt not fully confident, but stronger. Whad’ya know, over that single day, I caught up to where I’d left off!

That same night, I got an email from Shut Up & Write. through Meetup. It was a call for entries for a TV pilot about writers.

Normally, I click contest notices into the junk bin. This time I actually opened the email, read it, and decided, “Okay!” Call me masochistic? Ordinarily sure, but in this case, much of the attraction was that the deadline was in two days, meaning I would give it my best shot without torturing myself for an extended period. Moreover, I now have the video to use here and to show you!

Besides a very specific type of video, they asked for a brief autobiography, a synopsis of the novel, and the first ten pages. Mind you, I am very-very protective of my novels. Fortunately, these people appear quite legit and they didn’t ask for a social security number, a bank account, or any other suspect info.

The TV show/pilot is called America’s Next Great Author, which the producers liken to The Great British Baking Show, in terms of goodwill among participants and all involved. All the people in charge are authors who’ve published many books as well as carved out careers of teaching others to publish.

Anything to do with authors, especially of fiction, I’m all over, so I wish them the best of luck, with or without me.

Here’s what I put together after countless attempts. I also tried to somewhat pretty up the finished clip for you, in terms of color and sound correcting, and adding titling. Dang though, no matter what I did, iMovie muted the ending, so this is it in its unvarnished glory (and I cringe each time I watch it, wish I had time for yet another take). If you want to follow along, the script follows beneath this YouTube window…

Script to the above audition for America’s Next Great Author

(ANGA’s pitch video strict instructions: 1:15 maxm and must include, in this order: name, where from, catchy autobio detail, book pitch.)

Hello, my name is da-AL, which is spelled d-a-A-L. I’m from many places and currently reside in Los Angeles.


Most people are interested to know that my father invented my name. And — that no one else on this planet shares it.

Okay, now let’s get to my novel!

Flamenco & the Sitting Cat is my love letter to anyone who thinks they’re too broken, too old, too whatever to find happiness.

In it, heart-cynical Lali Catala shows how every single one of us, at all our many coming-of-ages, deserves happiness, with others and alone.
Closing on forty, her career as a journalist is bombing.

She aches for a life partner. However, the mere mention of the love-deadening convention called matrimony gives her hives.

She’s so lonely that she’s even writing to Abuela, her deceased grandmother.

Whad’ya know, Abuela answers!

How do you feel about writing competitions?