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.
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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.
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Replying to @vgr
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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