I recorded a podcast which will never air. Alone, talking to thin air and a microphone for 40 minutes.
It was a great experience.
No, really.
I think I can make it sound a bit less strange.
So, I participate in Appsnack, a weekly Swedish podcast covering Apple news. Appsnack normally has three or more panelists, dropping down to two when necessary. As always when more than one person is involved, scheduling can present challenges. In this case, everything was prepared but it started to look like we would not manage to coordinate enough to get an episode recorded during the week. This sparked something in me. I felt I had a fun chance to try something different. And so, I sat down during the last slot I had available and recorded the whole thing myself. Then, I also did a quick editing and mastering, prepared the links, exported the final file, leaned back and breathed.
The fact I am most happy about is that I did it, and that the episode was about normal length. The last part was a surprise as my natural tendency is to rush through things when I am doing the talking. All the rest was good reminders and clear room for improvement.
Doing an episode by myself felt a lot more like doing a presentation than a "normal" podcast episode or anything else. That sounds pretty natural now, but I was not really expecting that beforehand. I noticed myself getting into my presenter stress state, where I feel especially unable to think and talk at the same time. Knowing I would listen back and do a quick edit, I did give myself a few more seconds of breathing room between things, but it was not enough to break myself out of presenter stress and get my thoughts to flow more freely.
Listening back was very informative, too. I was surprised to hear just how monotone my speech sounded, how little I went up and down, varied my volume and so on.
Taken together, I think it was great to do everything as if it was going to be released unto the world. It all went well enough that I would have felt okay about releasing it. When schedules came together the day after, the world also benefitted from getting a "real" episode instead. And I feel a ton of positive motivation to do this again and get better at …
… well, pretty much everything.