I’m being slowly sucked into the podcasting world in a way I only quarter-intended. It’s a bit like Twitter. The barrier to self-expression is so significantly lowered relative to longform that your creative energy kinda just leaks there instead of being piped deliberately.
Conversation
I think the key for me has been giving up on 10 things:
1. Multiple takes
2. Scripting
3. Editing
4. A partner
5. High audio quality
6. Attractive voice performance
7. Standard lengths
8. Transcription
9. Explaining myself at genpop level
10. Garnishes like opening jingles
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I’d have made a much more attractive performer 10 years ago when I was a lot more articulate on my feet. Now I have to search for the right words and often settle for the wrong ones so I don’t talk unbearably slowly.
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I’m not a fan of my own voice. I have a known weak-vocal-chords problem (had some voice therapy ~2001 but got lazy about doing the exercises) that creates weird rough patches and makes me lose my voice if I talk too long. I’ll have to get back to exercises if I keep this up.
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My accent also gets inconsistent, especially under the pressure of live performance. A random collision of American, British, and Indian pronunciations and modulations.
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These things don’t embarrass me, but they are annoying in the same way a bad handwriting (which I also have) is annoying. Gets in the way of clear communication. In text you can at least type and choose a font. I wouldn’t mind a robotic font-voice. I’d pick comic-sans (oral).
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Live audio performance has 2 potential impedance mismatches
Speed of thought vs speed of word selection
Speed of word selection vs speed of modulation
For me V_T > V_w > V_M. Thoughts tripping over words tripping over sounds.
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In normal conversation it doesn’t matter because I tend to take long thinking pauses and also others take their turns, but monologues of the sort I favor in podcasts (even when being interviewed) require different tempo management tricks. I guess I’ll have to learn.
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Finally part of my ambivalence with the medium is that as a writer first, I appreciate and enjoy well-crafted sentences, and bad ones grate on my ears. Craft takes editing. Transcripts of live audio are bad writing. Maybe the newer editing tools will bridge the quality gap.
Replying to
By whatever processes you achieve it, your writing is of a very high craft, the choices and ensembles of words and allegorical flows so rich, it’s just hard to replicate orally. Don’t beat yourself up over what is ultimately a feature of your writing not a bug of your speaking.
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The process is composting, raking, and compressing a barrel of shit posts till it stops stinking and makes good fertilizer
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One of the reasons I love audiobooks. You get the crafted words, *plus* intonation. Best when the author is soma good speaker and reads their own works. Irrespective of content, Coates and Peterson are better listened to than read.
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I think the lack of polish is a good thing. There are enough flashy podcasts.
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