The impact to podcast quality

Just read an interesting article about how a regular contributor to Podshow is leaving, because the burden of producing three shows a week was impacting the quality of the podcast.

It's been my sneaking suspicion for a number of months, now, that this will prove to be the case more and more over time, and when more and more people find out just how much work is involved in producing quality podcasts on a regular basis, there will naturally be a "culling effect" that weeds out the hobbyists and those who are really serious about fulfilling their lifelong, formerly-thwarted dreams of broadcasting their own content on their own terms, on their own time.

Gotta get "Fuel" done, already.

It's been dragging on too long, and it's time I got on with the business of just publishing it. I'm working on edits this week, and I'll have it done by this time next week. I swear. No excuses. Of course, here I am blogging, instead of doing edits, but I need a break from all the words. They're very small (and look smaller all the time) on paper.

It's perfectly acceptable to take a break from one form, for another. I'm giving myself permission to step away from the print for just an hour or so, before I go back at it. Edit a chapter, step away. Edit another, do something else. Think about New York City and the art scene there. Think about cable television. Think about Betty Friedan's recent passing and the time I met her at college. Think about my old friend Frieda, who contacted me after nearly 20 years. She found me online. I wonder if she regrets it, now that I've given her a few tidbits from my life that perhaps make it all sound dangerous and edgy. Ironically, I'm one of the least edgy people I know. I just like to tell the truth.

Then again, maybe that makes me one of the most edgy people I know...

Anyway, I'm looking forward to having "Fuel" done, so I can move on to other things -- like my Eleanor of Aquitaine book, which I've had in the works for a couple of years, now. I've got other writing I'm doing, my blogs not least among them, but Eleanor has always been in the back of my mind. Even after the agent that approached me about developing the book dropped me because I'm not a known name with an academic pedigree, and there are "too many" Eleanor of Aquitaine biographies out there. Ah, well. All the more reason for me to take this on, myself. It's going to be fun. I can feel it in my bones.

But first, I must finish "Fuel". My strategy has changed -- I had planned to read two chapters at a time, as I finished editing them, but this is proving too cumbersome, and I need to MAKE PROGRESS that I can feel good about. Having 1/3 of your book edited, and the other 2/3 just hanging out while you fiddle with Audacity, just doesn't move me. So, my new strategy is to finish all the edits and do the podcast book tour while the final copy is being printed at Lulu.com -- and then I'll need to proof it for errors, fix any, and then put it into the pipeline for real.

If I were doing a real-live book tour, I'd be doing it after the book comes out, I do believe. Or doing it just about the same time the book is being reviewed or on its way to the bookstores. I'll time this whole thing out in the same way. Focus on finishing the copy, then worry about the promotion, which the book tour essentially is.

I'll see if I can line up some real-live book readings, as well. Just 'cause I can.

At least, I think I can. Could be, the rest of the world takes a dim, dim view of self-publishing ("vanity publishing", they call it -- of all the nerve! Is it vanity, when you submit a book for publication by someone else? It's precisely the same impulse, only you're not stopped at the gate by self-appointed guardians of "good taste", who have all been over-educated to the point of complete irrelevance, anyway. Why would you hide your talent and your dedication, if you didn't have to? And now that we can all publish ourselves with Lulu.com, we DON'T HAVE TO.) So there.

Anyway, I'm rambling. And avoiding doing more edits. Time to pop a different disk in the CD player and move on to the next chapter.

If nothing else, remember -- this is an evolving process.