Lauren Weedman, on break from recording Love Junkie audiobook, befuddled by porn. POP Sound Studios, Santa Monica, CA.
Lauren Weedman and I recently completed our first creative collaboration.
I wrote this memoir, called Love Junkie. It came out a few years ago.
Lauren, who’s a hysterical, hyper-talented writer/actress/comedienne, read the book for an audio version. I gave direction.
I’ve been a fan of Lauren’s for years — ever since she popped up in an online UCLA course I was taking on book proposal writing. Even her posts made me laugh so hard I could barely breathe. Then I saw one of her live one-woman shows. That was it. Fan for life.
Memoir is gnarly. Don’t try writing it at home alone. You have to create a narrative that pulls you along, makes you turn pages. You also have to tunnel deep. Experience and share insights.
Writing memoir takes the stuffing out of you. It will also transform you, if you let it.
So when Audible.com wanted to make an audiobook, I leaped at the chance to let someone else read the story of my life. Let someone else bring their energy to it. Add their own layers. Make it something different. New.
Lauren was perfect. She even had a play named Cringe — the original title of Love Junkie. She was fearless, irreverent and funny. And she killed the performance. She inhabited the character with uncanny ability.
It just came out this past Monday! Check it out. Here’s the link:
http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B00BD4NZ72
If you are interested in the Love Junkie audiobook, but you want a taster first — just pop over to the homepage of this site, grab your Creativity Contract — and send me an e-mail. I’ll send you an exclusive, personally selected audio sample that you can’t get anywhere else. I chose a few really juicy, entertaining bits to share with people who join our Writers On Fire community.
Lauren’s pictured here on our last day of recording. There were some Playboy magazines there in the studio. Lauren thumbed through one on a break. Here she is, befuddled by the Playboy women. They looked like living Barbies. Smooth, hairless, plastic — and without genitals! It was the strangest thing. It was also a perfect contrast to the raw and uncensored — non-air-brushed — scenes in Love Junkie. The whole vibe we had going on, we two women. Bringing the book to life in a new way.
Somehow, for a moment though, the Playboy women made us feel like we were sweaty, sloppy beasts in comparison. I know I sank into that moment. Then Lauren snapped me out.
“They probably don’t even smell!” said Lauren, making that brilliant face.
Then we both laughed so loudly, the two sound guys probably thought we’d lost our minds.
Lauren closed the mag and placed it back in the rack. We went back to work.
I think we both like our men and our women real. And our prose raw.
How about you?
No comments yet.