I had never made a podcast before. So, when I decided to transform my essay “Inequality and the Patch” into a podcast, inspired by Ira Glass’s This American Life, I had no idea what I was getting into. To be honest the hardest part of this assignment was not the writing but everything else; recording and using computer software. Still, I did learn some stuff as a writer.
- Short sentences can still pack punch and sound more natural- that’s how people speak.
- Don’t be afraid of change- cutting out and morphing lines from “Inequality and the Patch” was necessary to make it work in podcast form.
- Things will always take longer than I think they will- 20 minutes to finish sound editing. Try 3 hours.
Ultimately, I’m not sure if this counts as a lesson or not but when I made this, I realized part of being a writer is not just being observant about the outside world but observant about your own word. I noticed when I tripped up. I noticed my pauses. I notice the way my “Errs” are as midwestern and hard as a piece of aged Wisconsin cheese. This led me to have to make hard choices and sacrifices. I let some sections with poorer sound quality got in because they were better writing. That’s part of being a writer, making tough choices. You make those choices by reflecting on what’s most important. And that’s what I tried to do. I chose the takes that best convey my point. Thus, “Inequality and the Patch”, the podcast, was born albeit a little messily.
If you want to hear more of my inspiration, people with lovely “R’s”, go to my Works Cited Page for this section.
Note: All music used in this podcast is free to use from FreeMusicArchives.Org. The song used here is Prelude No. 22 by Chris Zabriskie. For further information once again, please go to my works cited page, link above.