Read Lord of the Rings Aloud

The deadline for posting your readings is tomorrow, January 25th. If you need a time extension or a substitute reader, please let me know. When you've completed your reading, please leave a comment with a link at this post.

Thank you!

Today is the last day to sign up for the next reading. (Sign-up post is here.) I have so many people signed up thus far- yay!! - that we may be able to do two chapters, Chapter 3 'The Ring Goes South' and Chapter 4 'A Journey in the Dark'. We can at least get partway through 'A Journey in the Dark', I believe.

I would love to have volunteers who are willing to tackle some of the more difficult reading. In particular the section of 'The Ring Goes South' where Gimli gives the Dwarvish names of the Misty Mountains (a fair jaw-cracker it is!) There is also a bit of Elvish if anyone is so inclined. Those who enjoy reading or singing the poems and songs are also sought after! And pinch-hitters (substitutes) in case someone can't complete their reading.

I will be giving out the assignments tomorrow, and as it has been, omg, a year since the last reading and we have a couple of new readers signed up- yay for new readers and welcome!- I want to go over the procedure.

Each person will be given about 3-4 minutes worth of reading (it varies obviously depending on how fast or slow you read). Voice posts are limited to 5 minutes, so if you go over, you will have to do your reading in two separate voice posts. That is totally fine.

I will copy and paste the text of your reading into a LJ comment for you so you know exactly what your assignment is. Please be aware that the text is OCR and has occasional errors. Read from the book not the text I give you unless you proof it first! Also, unless I specifically ask you to introduce your section, which I will do if you are assigned the beginning of a chapter, please do not include any introduction. Simply start reading your section. This allows listeners to go seamlessly from one part of the story to the next.

It is very helpful after you post your reading to edit the post to include the text so that people can read along as they listen. Be sure that auto-transcription is disabled in your voice post settings! Auto-transcription, to put it politely, sucks and you'll have a fine lot of gibberish instead of Tolkien. *g*

You will have a week to complete and post your reading in your LJ. Do not post it to the community, but to your own LJ! I'll have a post here where you can comment with a link to your reading. Be sure to unlock the post if you have your LJ flocked so that everyone can listen to it. Short time extensions are always available and so are substitute readers, so don't panic if you can't get your reading done for any reason - just let me know and we'll help you out.

Those of you in the U.S. and Canada should use the appropriate voice posting phone number. The FAQ along with links to the access numbers is here. If you encounter any problems, please don't hesitate to contact me and let me know. Since it's been a year since the last reading, I have no idea what new horrors LJ might be throwing at us, lol!!

People in the UK, my understanding is that the UK voice post number *still* cuts you off after a minute. :/ Yay, LJ!! Not. You can use the U.S. or Canadian numbers but you'll be charged for a long-distance call. A better work around is to use the site http://www.box.net/. You can record your reading on your computer and upload the file to box.net for free. This has worked well for a number of readers. You will need to set up an account with box.net, but it is free.

I think that about covers it. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask! If you've never done a reading before, don't be nervous. Just relax and have fun and remember that you're among friends and that none of us is a professional reader. We're all doing this for love of Tolkien!!