Let's Talk about The Wandering Inn

Summary

Andrea Parsneau, the beloved narrator of "The Wandering Inn," addresses fans in a heartfelt video, announcing her departure from the series after Book 15. Despite being the voice behind one of the longest-running solo narrations, Andrea cites burnout as the reason for stepping down. She emphasizes that this decision was made out of love for the series and its community, and she urges fans to welcome the new narrator with open arms. Throughout the video, Andrea expresses gratitude for the incredible journey she's shared with "The Wandering Inn" family and assures fans that she will remain involved in creative projects.

Highlights

• Andrea struggled to express her departure in a simple video format, but chose authenticity 🎥.
• Her decision to step down comes without any controversies or financial disputes ❌.
• Burnout was the main reason for her stepping back, due to the extensive demands of the job 🔄.
• She feels immense gratitude for being part of a remarkable journey with 'The Wandering Inn' 🌍.
• Andrea encourages kindness towards the new narrator, who is highly skilled and prepared 🗣️.
• Fans can still find Andrea involved in various creative projects as she continues her career 🎭.

Key Takeaways

• Andrea Parsneau is stepping down as the narrator of 'The Wandering Inn' due to burnout 🤯.
• She assures fans that the decision was made with love and no drama involved ❤️.
• Andrea asks fans to support and welcome the new narrator with kindness and understanding 🙌.
• Despite leaving the narration role, Andrea remains involved in creative projects and the community 🌟.
• Andrea is grateful for the personal and professional growth experienced through 'The Wandering Inn' journey 💪.

Overview

Andrea Parsneau, known for her compelling narration of 'The Wandering Inn,' shares an emotional farewell video, in which she reveals her decision to step away from narration after Book 15. This candid discussion revolves around her personal struggle with burnout and the need to pass the baton to a new narrator who can bring fresh energy and skill to the growing series. The challenges of voicing thousands of characters with distinct voices and accents over hundreds of hours have taken their toll, making it difficult for Andrea to fully deliver. Despite the bittersweet decision, Andrea remains in high spirits, focusing on the incredible journey and accomplishments.

In the video, Andrea offers reassurance to fans regarding the transition to a new narrator. She highlights how this decision was purely hers, free from drama or external pressures, underscoring that her departure comes from a place of love for both the series and its community. She candidly discusses how stress and creative fatigue were factors that led to this moment, portraying them as an inevitable aspect of running one of the longest fantasy audiobook narrations. Her message is filled with warmth and sincerity, hoping the fanbase will accept the new voice gracefully.

Moreover, Andrea expresses her gratitude for being part of 'The Wandering Inn,' showcasing her sense of belonging and community formed within this wonderful universe. She promises to remain active in the creative scene, hinting at ongoing and future works. This heartfelt farewell isn’t a goodbye to her fans or the series entirely but rather a shift in her role. The overall spirit of her video emphasizes continuity, support, and the endless possibilities that come with new beginnings, aiming to leave fans with optimism and excitement for what lies ahead.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 02:30: Introduction and Announcement Andrea Parso, known as Maui Maven and narrator of 'The Wandering', introduces herself and shares the challenges she faces in articulating something profoundly personal in a format suited for social media. She expresses difficulty in conveying the depth of her emotions and the importance of the message she wants to share.
• 02:30 - 06:30: Reflections on The Wandering Inn Experience The chapter titled 'Reflections on The Wandering Inn Experience' captures a moment of introspection and acknowledgment of the audience's potential perception. The speaker addresses the authenticity of their content, recognizing that it's not typical social media filler. They express a commitment to honesty and authenticity, suggesting a deviation from the norm, and hint at something noteworthy, or different, likely motivating the creation of what they describe as an unusual video for them on social media.
• 06:30 - 13:00: Challenges and Reasons for Stepping Down The chapter addresses the significant change in the narration of 'The Wandering In' series. The narrator announces stepping down as the narrator after book 15, 'Garden of Sanctuary.' Despite the light-hearted tone, the narrator assures that this decision was not made lightly. The chapter emphasizes facing adversities and difficult decisions in life.
• 13:00 - 16:30: Message to Fans and Future Involvement This chapter reflects on the author's experience with their "The Wandering In" community. The author expresses gratitude for the sense of belonging and community that this time has provided them. They mention drawing upon the community for joy and connection even amidst challenging times, framing these experiences as gifts received from their involvement.

Let's Talk about The Wandering Inn Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 Hello everyone. My name is Andrea Parso, the one and only Maui Maven and narrator of The Wandering in among other works. I have sat down to film this video no less than seven, eight times this week, trying to figure out how to put into words something that is so close to who I am, so close to my soul, my heart, my the core of my being. And it is so difficult to put it into pixels. It is so difficult to boil it down to a social media post that you're not going to scroll past or ignore or or just kind of
• 00:30 - 01:00 glaze over that that it's not going to be just another piece of riff raff on your Facebook page. There there's really no getting past that. But what I can do is try to be honest and authentic and me and do that as quickly as possible rather than figure out how to soften the blow. So, let's start out with why am I making a random video? That's already a cue that something's up, right? I don't make random videos to put out on social media, so already there's something up.
• 01:00 - 01:30 So, let's just go ahead and address the the 800 lb gorilla in the room. As of book 15 of The Wandering In, Garden of Sanctuary, I am no longer the narrator of The Wandering In. I know the it's a big change. It's a big shock. And when I tell you this decision was not made lightly, please don't take the fact that I am laughing and smiling as anything to diminish what's going on. I have just chosen to face the adversities in my life or the things that I find difficult
• 01:30 - 02:00 to deal with with laughter rather than tears or at least tears of some sort of semblance of joy that I can pull from it if not joy, community and belonging. And if there is one thing that I have been gifted with, and there are many from my time with the wandering in, it is a sense of belonging and community. I have felt like a part of the wandering in family, like in like an insider, if you will, from the very beginning. And I
• 02:00 - 02:30 will count myself the luckiest narrator in the world to say that I got to be a part of this. I got to be a part of something so big and so massive and so beautiful. It is my proudest accomplishment. It is my greatest journey and all that I can hope for is that the new narrator experience is the same. It is an incredible world with unbelievable potential for growth and challenges and just insane off-the-wall
• 02:30 - 03:00 things that you have to figure out how to do. It's an incredible world that deserves the absolute best. And why am I stepping away? That's probably one of the biggest questions is why? Why would you do this? I was not fired. Pirate and I did not fight. It is not money. It is not a huge dramatic fallout. It is not some big theatrical thing. Uh the only thing theatrical is me. I'm burning out. I'm
• 03:00 - 03:30 burnt out. And as the world of the wandering in has grown, we have a record number of characters. We have a record length. We're the longest running fantasy series, the longest solo narration of a fiction book, the longest solo female narrator of a fiction book. There is, if there is a title, we have earned it, guys. It has been the most incredible run. There are over 600 hours of audio. I someone did the math and it
• 03:30 - 04:00 is you could listen for like 75 days straight at eight hours a day and you might make it through. It is so amazing how much is out there, how much has been made that my voice has been brought to this amazing story and exists out in the universe. It's just the coolest thing. But with that amazingness, with that incredible growth in this story that's so huge and so alive, Pirate is an
• 04:00 - 04:30 amazing writer and the world feels already alive when you're reading it. I don't have to bring anything to life. It's already there. I just need to put it to voice. That's it. And that seems so easy. That part seems so easy. Really does. It seems like that'd be the most straightforward bit. But I demand the best of myself. I demand the best for my authors. And we
• 04:30 - 05:00 when we're talking about the wandering in, we're talking about the top tier. We're talking about this deserves the absolute best. I am in accent lessons every week. I am constantly getting coaching and training. I'm always growing. I'm always trying to learn. If you've ever come by and listened in the Discord, you know how many times I retake those lines. And for anybody who's never been to the Discord or has doubted that the wandering in is run by or is uh narrated by one person, it is
• 05:00 - 05:30 me. There are no audio effects. It is my voice all the way through. It's just me with this. This nonsense is authentic. When the world got past the point that I could handle, when the world got past where my skill could meet it anymore, the the dozens of vocal patterns and thousands of characters, literally
• 05:30 - 06:00 thousands. I've collated all my characters and stuff for for the new narrator who I'm really excited for you guys to meet. And man, there are thousands, guys. It is it is an incredible cast, but it's also an immense amount of pressure because there's a lot of them. There's a lot of them and every one of those people deserves their day in the sun. Every one of those people deserves their time to shine. They deserve that voice. They deserve that effort. And when I felt entire countries being introduced that I
• 06:00 - 06:30 didn't have another accent for a whole other part of the world that I didn't have a response for. I didn't have a voice an accent to try to give to it. And when I realized that I felt myself running out. I felt myself running out of characters, running out of voices, running out of juice. Because at the end of the day, that's what it is. It's creative juice. It's what we run on. You'll see this in the statement because it's the way the best way that I found
• 06:30 - 07:00 to put this. I've always run myself as 50% heart, 50% skill because I demand as much of myself as I from myself as I will demand from my skill set because I believe that's what makes this job art is us. our heart, our soul, what we can put into the story, how we can honor this author's words, and was no longer able to to meet the challenges with skill. I just said screw it and started
• 07:00 - 07:30 meeting it with heart and and that 50/50 has slowly shifted to be I am running purely on love for this series at this point. And I still love it. and I love it so much. I know it's time for someone else to have a chance. And I know it's the hardest thing I've ever had to do because I adore this series and I adore Pirate. We're friends. I I'm very fortunate that I can call Pirate a
• 07:30 - 08:00 friend. And my primary concern through all of this was y'all can be as mad as you want at me. You can. I get it. Burnout's a hard thing for people to comprehend. I get it completely. I hope that putting all of this kind of together, presenting these weird kind of statistics and and facts about the series that seem relatively out of pocket outside of this conversation, I I hope that by showing
• 08:00 - 08:30 that it gives some frame of reference for understanding. But I understand burnout's hard to conceptualize. Y'all can be as mad at me as you want and that's okay because this is 100% my decision. I need that to be abundantly clear to everyone watching this video. Pirate is amazing. Podium has been amazing. This isn't them. Pirate has been very generous. I have never been underpaid, but Pirate didn't do
• 08:30 - 09:00 this. I wasn't fired. I sincerely hope you guys can welcome the new narrator with open arms. because I can't imagine the pressure they're under right now. And I really need you guys to be better than we have seen in the past. I need you guys to be more please because I know the fans in the wandering in are different and I know I can tell you guys and you'll understand that I expect you to be kind
• 09:00 - 09:30 to the person who's taking over because are they going to be me? No, of course not. I certainly hope not. No, they're them and they are legit and they have more credits than I do as far as how many books they've done and stuff. They are a big deal and they are skilled. We have been working on this for months. This transition, this was not a fast decision. This was not quick. I wrote to the publisher at the end of
• 09:30 - 10:00 2024. From that day, from that time, we have all the publishers team, pirates team, me, there's we have all kept it very quiet. It has been radio silent because we needed to make sure that this was available. This video, me being able to talk to you, that we had the new narrator already taken care of before things blew up out of control, that we had answers for you guys because you deserve them. Like I I never wanted
• 10:00 - 10:30 this. From the very first announcement, I said the biggest thing to me is I I want people to know. I want I want to be involved. I I'll be there for everything they need. I'll teach them how to make the antennium voices. I'll teach them how to do the drakes. Whatever they don't know how to do, I'll be there. I will I will do everything I can because I wanted the best for Pirate and the best for the new narrator. And so we have all been working nights, weekends.
• 10:30 - 11:00 We have all been nose to the grindstone to make sure that we have everything in order for you to have an amazing book 16. I I love that I told myself I was not going to do a ridiculous crying YouTube video, but at the end of the day you If you've been to the streams, you know I wear my heart on my sleeve. I'm very I'm very much me. I I'm I don't
• 11:00 - 11:30 have a lot of falsity about me. I I'm I'm an actor because I embody the characters. It's one of the things that makes my job more difficult, but it also is one of the things that makes my job insanely fulfilling. I love it. But I'm a terrible liar. I'm an absolutely awful liar. So, I knew when I needed to sit down and make this video, it needed to be real. It needed to be honest. And unfortunately, very red-faced wet
• 11:30 - 12:00 Andy. This mess is authentic Andy because you guys deserve nothing less. And feel free to send me messages. Come check out the Discord and we'll have the FAQ up there with anything you want to know. If you put a message up, we'll have a channel up in the Discord that'll be available for anyone who wants to ask questions or anything like that. Because no matter how hard I think about this, no matter how many times I try to write down a script, I knew that
• 12:00 - 12:30 the one thing that I didn't want to do for this video was write a script. So, y'all get this. You get this. And this comes with you get this. you get me. And all I can say is thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for letting me be a part of this.
• 12:30 - 13:00 For letting me join in. I've never felt like an outsider. I've never felt like I wasn't one of you. Everyone has been amazing. And I I am so much of who I am as a narrator can be found in the pages of wandering in so much. I have grown immensely with this series. And all I can hope is that this does the same for the new narrator that they have if they
• 13:00 - 13:30 have a tenth of the experience that I had doing this be the best job of their career. You guys are awesome. So, I I hope you you accept this very moist video as a testament to how much you all have meant to me, how much the wandering in has meant to me, and how much it'll continue to because I'm not going
• 13:30 - 14:00 anywhere. I'm not going anywhere. I will still be involved in projects. I still have hell ghost songs still coming out in a couple months. We we are I am still a part of things and pirates team has asked if I'll still be involved in other projects and things and I said absolutely. So this will not be the last you see of me. Not even an inverse but it will be the last that I will be narrating the wandering in. That is a new chapter now. It's a new page. It's a
• 14:00 - 14:30 new narrator and they're incredible and I can't wait for you guys to meet him. So I love you all. I wish you all the best and be well.