Blog No. 247
My trusty friend Arvin and I have now reached our sixth episode (out of eight) of Flags and High Fives and this one was a doozy. I don’t want to give too much away (since it is coming out tomorrow) but it contains three interviews we did with former fans of Wii Like To Podcast. I used to have some basic interviewing skills (or at least knew some of the basic theory). I have enough now to know when an interviewer is bad, but nowhere near enough to not be bad myself. The point is, we had three interviews and I had very little idea what I was doing. I was just getting by the best I could (thankful I was talking to people who generally liked me going in).
It was a big challenge that I was not excited for. In the end, they went rather smoothly, but I was then left with three half-hour interviews that I had to some how cut down into five to ten minute segments for the show. Talk about something I don’t know how to do. My best angle was to listen to some of my favourite podcasts and try to pay attention to how they do it, but most of them have interviews chopped up with the host talking around it, or the host and interviewer chatting. That is currently way out of my realm. I could possibly hack something like that together, but I’d have write it all out with Arvin, then record that, edit it, and add it to our already formatted show. I’ll leave that for a future podcast.
The fact is that I just don’t have enough experience or knowledge to do anything too fancy, so I’m muddling through, doing the best I can, figuring it out as I go. It makes me acutely aware of that impostor syndrome thing. Where you feel under-qualified and expect people to figure it out at any minute (while in actuality you’re probably in the same boat as everyone else). Luckily this isn’t my job, so muddling by is good enough (for now) but that also makes me a little sad to think that I’ve spent so much time on something and the only thing I can reasonably expect to get out of it is my own enjoyment. It’s like those morning people who kind of make you sick. Is that what I’ve become?
There are worse thing, for sure. With that episode down (and two left to do in this series) I’m back to all hands on deck with the Crime Anthology. I’m plugging away at the layout (getting close to the end but still feeling a bit like an imposter). The thing is, some of it has come really easy this time and I find that scary. It’s still a lot of work, but other than a few things I’m still not perfecting, it’s just been doing the work. There is still a list of things I don’t know (like getting the first line of a paragraph to indent on an epub export). I know I’m not an expert, but I know enough to make it work (and look good). Also (and very importantly) there is a laundry list of guides and forums on the internet just a web search away.
Once they layout is done, the book will be sent out to print and the only thing left will be to finalize the launch. That’s another one where I feel in over my head (never send an introvert to plan a party). Christian and I have a lot of great ideas, but making it all work (and paying for it) is another story. Just know (for now) come hell or high water, this is going to be a launch you don’t want to miss. It’s either going to be a spectacular success, or a spectacular failure, but either way it’ll be a show!
Ben Van Dongen 