A few nights ago, I unsuccessfully tried to start a podcast. Not a full-blown hour-long affair where me and some friends talk about if a bear could eat a pizza. But rather, in my ongoing quest to find a way to do this newsletter regularly with a lighter lift, I tried rambling into a microphone for 10-15 minutes. To my disappointment, my trial didn’t result in something I could release.
I’m comfortable with public speaking, and leading people through live virtual workshops has long been part of my job. But for whatever reason, sitting down to record audio proved to be an entirely different experience. I didn’t have the time to write a fully edited essay last week. My hope was that my improv ability and devil-may-care charisma would help me deliver a casual yet substantive spoken anecdote about creativity. But when I went to record, I found myself retaking every stumble and thinking again about how to phrase each sentence. Effectively, I was writing an essay in audio format — saving no time at all.
Eventually, my cat Mars came in, yelling up a storm, rendering the whole effort moot. I called it a loss and made myself grateful for the apparent patience of the people who read this letter.
It was confusing to me why the attempt went so astray. But what I later realized, however, was that I had failed to account for the subtle differences between live virtual facilitation and recording audio.
In a live performance, if you stumble over your words, you power through. If you get off-topic, you loop back to the idea you were speaking on. Audiences expect that and are more forgiving of occasional missteps. Ideally, however, in a prerecorded spoken piece, you’ll edit out the mistakes and do as many takes as you need to get the best flow of ideas. It takes more time, but the result is more polished. However similar the necessary skillsets seem, it’s not a one-to-one translation.
It’s much like what you see when a YouTuber tries to make a feature film. Look up critical reviews for the movies made by once extremely popular YouTubers like Fred and Smosh. You’ll see that their skills at making brief kids’ comedy sketches didn’t translate into making quality feature-length films. It’s all video, but short-form and long-form video storytelling are essentially two entirely different disciplines.
It took me years of narrowing down my interests before I decided I wanted writing to be a major part of my life. But as soon as I decided on that path, the possibilities and thousands of niche skills within writing opened up. Writing is a form of storytelling, which can mean you’re writing essays, running tabletop games, or attempting podcasting. It’s also editing, which can have you working on websites, cleaning up emails, or reworking novels. Every interest is a seed that branches into dozens of adjacent paths.
In a previous letter, we discussed how it is alienating to be “bad” at a skill you feel you should be better at. Exploring any one of these branching paths is prime territory for creating frustration, embarrassment, and eventually total abandonment of that path. I just about felt that last week with the recording session. The branch l went for looked similar. I thought I knew how to climb it, but it had its own grooves and knot holes, which made the session different from what I expected. But I’ve decided I’m not failing at something I’ve already done. I’m folding my adjacent experience into something new.
I’m not failing at something I’ve already done. I’m folding my adjacent experience into something new.
To me, it’s essential to appreciate the small conceits that every genre and medium has. If I want to record audio, I’ll need to either embrace the benefits and commitment of editing down the pauses and missteps. Or I’ll need to find the proper platform to live stream and be comfortable with the fact I may say some ideas inelegantly. Whether I defy these conceits or play into them, understanding them lets me maneuver through the leeway and expectations of a given art form.
So please, look forward to a few weeks from now when I decide to embrace one path or the other. Catch me either rambling live or delivering a finely tuned audio experience rivaling the quality of This American Life or that War of the Worlds broadcast where Orson Welles convinced everyone that a real alien invasion had taken place.
Hi Jade!
Great post. From my podcasting experiences, having a conversational Q&A with one or two people is fun. This allows a host (or two hosts) to lead a conversation with one or two guests. Of course, it can be as formal or informal as you would like. There are not rules for creating what you want to make!
I like your thoughts on how recorded audio is often in live forms or in edited forms. Regardless of what you pursue or do not, I enjoyed this written post!