Blog No. 251
At the beginning of the year, I got a big surprise from my buddy Arvin. He told me it was our tenth anniversary of starting Wii Like To Podcast. Not only was it a milestone, but he was itching to do some more creative stuff. I was happy to oblige and we kicked off the year with an Anniversary Special. It was a really fun trip down memory lane and it showed us just how big our little podcast was once upon a time. The fire was stoked, however, and we started to plan out a new venture that took the form of Flags and High Fives: A Podcast Retrospective. It was a look back on that first podcast and a way for the two of us to ease back into the medium (and with working together again). That first experience is coming to an end soon, but we are working to transition it into something else rather than let it slip away like we did before.
But, that’s a topic for another post. This one is about Episode Seven of Flags and High Fives. When Arvin and I first sat down and sketched out the series, we came up with general topics. From there we broke them into groups and decided how many episodes we should have. We had an idea to do six to eight and once the topics were grouped, we chose eight. Once we did the first episode though (the second attempt at the first episode) things didn’t shake out as uniformly as we planned. Going with the flow, something we really wanted to capture from the Wii Like To Podcast era, meant we covered topics as they came up in discussion. That meant that from day one we were re-configuring and redeveloping the episodes.
After shifting things around for each episode, we found ourselves running short of the original topics. By the time we were doing episode six, we had a gap. We knew what episode eight would be (and definitely wanted to keep that stuff for the end) but we didn’t have any ideas for episode seven. Actually, we did have some ideas, but they were either partially covered across other episodes, or were an obvious stretch and wouldn’t fill a single show. That left us in a pickle. We could either cut the series short, struggle to fill an episode with recycled stuff, or go on a mighty quest to find an interesting subject for episode seven.
Thankfully we didn’t have to go far. Since we did interviews with listeners in episode six, we took the opportunity to ask them what they would like us to cover. The overwhelming answer was to cover the making of Flags and High Fives. I was shocked to hear it. To me, it was just a thing I was stumbling through with my friend. We have had some fun and kept in better contact than we have for a while, but as far as the podcasting, I considered us amateur. That being said, a similar thing happened with writing. As soon as I had a book (something I stumbled through creating) people wanted to know how to do it. I suppose I was the same when I started writing. Even the little bit that I know (some of which I learned from other people myself) would be interesting or important to someone just starting out.
It took me a bit to wrap my head around the interest, but it makes sense now. So, tomorrow’s episode will be about how Arvin and I make Flags and High Fives, which is a podcast about how we made Wii Like To Podcast. (Take that Inception). It’s the second last episode in this series. We’re going to be doing something else after, but we’re still working out what that will be. We have some ideas, so it’s about what we want to do first and what is most practical to make now. I hope you listen tomorrow, and have been this time. If not, I get it. It’s an amateur show about a very specific topic. You may like it though.
Ben Van Dongen 