Goddess Fish Promotions Presents

‘Tis the Season to Feel Inadequate
by Dorothy Rosby

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Christmas comes but once a year; chaos never ends! Happy Halloween, merry Christmas and joyful Lumpy Rug Day. That’s real, by the way. Lumpy Rug Day is celebrated every May 3, though “celebrated” might be too strong a word. It’s the American way to create a celebration for everything, then turn it into a chore or worse, a nightmare. ’Tis the Season to Feel Inadequate is a collection of humorous essays about how we let our expectations steal the joy out of Christmas and other holidays and special events. It’s understanding for those who think Christmas form letters can be honest—or they can be interesting. And it’s empathy for anyone who’s ever gotten poison ivy during Nude Recreation Week or eaten all their Halloween candy and had to hand out instant oatmeal packets to their trick-or-treaters.

Pronouncing Really Big Words and Other Challenges of Recording Your Own Audiobook

It may have been while I was trying to learn how to pronounce paraskevidekatriaphobia and friggatriskaidekaphobia that I began to question my decision to record my own audiobook. Tis the Season to Feel Inadequate, Holidays, Special Occasions and Other Times Our Celebrations Get Out of Hand focuses heavily on Christmas. But it also covers many other prominent and obscure holidays which explains why I had to learn to pronounce two words that mean fear of Friday the 13^th. 

‘Tis the Season to Feel Inadequate is my fourth book of humorous essays but it was the first one I’d decided to record. I’ve done voiceover work so it wasn’t a completely farfetched idea, but recording 50,000 words is not the same as recording 30-second commercials and 20-minute videos.  

It would have been easier and possibly less expensive to hire a narrator, but as a humor writer and speaker, I’m very conscious of the importance of timing in humor. I also wanted to make sure the emphases and vocal variety were the way I’d heard them in my head when I’d written each piece. And I’ve always loved doing live readings of my work for author talks. Plus I envisioned families listening as they traveled together to grandma’s house for Christmas or Thanksgiving. 

To prepare myself, I consulted with a voice teacher and took a class on audiobook production. I did a lot of other research as well, including listening to audiobooks. Of course, I’ve done that before, but while I was preparing to record my own, I was listening for different things than when I’d listened purely for entertainment in the past.  

I recorded in sixty-to-ninety-minute sessions and it took me a total of 11 hours to record the book at a local recording studio. I learned to practice everything I’d be reading at each recording session many, many times because time is money in the studio. I couldn’t afford to bumble around too much.  

And it all paid off. Overall I’m happy with the book and hoping to record another one down the road. And I’m proud to say I can still pronounce paraskevidekatriaphobia and friggatriskaidekaphobia though I hope you never ask me to.  If you’re an author wondering if you should record your own book, I’d say that depends. Recording a book is not so much reading out loud as it is performing what you’ve written. If you’re into that, it’s definitely worth considering. And if you have experience doing voiceover work or as an actor or public speaker, by all means. 

Excerpt from Essay: Cooks in Crisis

Every year while I prepare our Thanksgiving meal, such as it is, I tune into the annual live call-in show, Turkey Confidential, on National Public Radio. Food experts talk turkey about all sorts of dishes I’d love to gobble up. 

And on the biggest cooking day of the year, Turkey Confidential guests come to the rescue of cooks in crisis across America. I’ve never had the nerve to call them myself, though I’ve had my share of cooking crises, and not just on Thanksgiving. But there are a few calls I could have made over the many years I’ve listened to the show. 

1. Help! My goose is cooked but my turkey isn’t. I told my guests we’d eat at noon. Then I told them one. It’s now two. The relish tray is empty and someone sampled the pumpkin pie, but the turkey juices are far from clear and the little pop-up thingie shows no sign of popping up. Opening the oven every five minutes to check probably isn’t helping.

I should have seen this coming. Our turkey wasn’t quite thawed even after it sat in our fridge for four days, maybe because our refrigerator runs a little cold. That usually isn’t a problem since I mostly just use it to make ice cubes.

If that weren’t bad enough, our oven has been running a little cold too, maybe out of sympathy for the refrigerator. 

My question is, should I go ahead and serve my guests leftover tuna casserole now and have the turkey as a bedtime snack? A lot of people sleep after Thanksgiving dinner anyway.

Amazon | Audible

Dorothy Rosby is an author humor columnist whose work regularly appears in publications throughout the West and Midwest. Her humor writing has been recognized by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, the National Federation of Press Women and the South Dakota Newspaper Association. In 2022 she was named the global winner in the Erma Bombeck Writers Competition in the humor writing category. She’s the author of four books of humorous essays.  

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