We’re thinking of starting a podcast.
How was that for coming out of left field? 😀
Actually, we’ve gone beyond thinking about it, we’re doing it.
Actually, we started throwing the idea around when we were driving back home from New Orleans after our cruise in May. We have a ton of ideas to talk about and well, once I get started, I never shut up so it should be a piece of cake for me. Kevin is not sure how much he will talk but I’ll see if I can’t coax him out of his shell.
We’ve been told, over the years, whenever someone overhears us talking about something that we sound cute together and we’re funny how we debate things. Granted, we are both like minded and agree on a lot of issues but we are going to challenge ourselves to think about, and argue for/against, the other sides of issues simply because we want to be fair to all listeners who may disagree with our views and to try and not come off as arrogant know-it-alls.
Another reason I would like to try this is I would like to leave an auditory diary, of sorts, for our kids/grandkids. (We don’t have grandkids – I’m wishful thinking here). In addition to reading about our lives through this blog, I thought it would be fun for our kids to HEAR our thoughts, too.
Luckily, Kevin already has most of the equipment we need to begin. He’s a musician on the side (plays electric guitar) and he used to be in a few bands and has accumulated equipment over the years, not to mention, whenever he finds a good deal out and about on his thrift shopping expeditions, he will often times come back with a microphone, or some other piece of equipment I have no idea the function for and voila! We have what we need.
We have been using Audacity to record the podcast. Kevin has also created some original music so we already have a catchy riff to play at the beginning of our podcast like the true professionals we aren’t are.
I’ve done quite a bit of reading about how to start a podcast and here is what I’ve found.
- Choose a topic you can commit to.
- Define your show description and artwork.
- Set up and thoroughly test your equipment.
- Create a plan for your episodes.
- Record your episodes.
- Edit and publish your episodes.
- Launch your podcast to your audience.
Let’s break this down:
- Choose a topic you can commit to.
When I first broached this subject with Kevin, that was his first question: “What are we going to talk about?”
“Are you kidding me?” I responded. “Let me list out some things we can talk about, take notes.”
- Cruising tips
- Accounting
- Healthcare
- Religion
- Politics
- Making money thrift shopping
- Repair tips
- Parenting
- Family parties
- Recipes
- BBQ tips
- Landscaping
- Relationships
- Booking vacations online
- Passwords
- Photography
- Interviews with BB and Roy
- How to be frugal with money
- Building points with credit cards
- Finances
- Road rage
- Conspiracies
- History
We have been married for nearly 30 years and we have a lot of life experience in the subjects above. Are we experts? Of course not. But that’s the beauty of us doing a podcast, we’re just a regular joe/jane who have tried and failed at different things in life and we feel like we can offer tips and suggestions on how to navigate this life a little easier, hopefully. Maybe.
I will warn you now, we are both opinionated and are not interested in walking on eggshells to avoid offending anyone. We say what we mean and we mean what we say. However, we’re not jerks, either. That’s why I mentioned we will try very hard to look at all sides of an issue because let’s face it, life is not black and white but 50 shades of gray … without the S&M. ha!
What will work in one situation will not necessarily work in another situation.
Not to mention, I think it’s important that we ALL get in the habit of looking at situations from all angles. Common sense is a lost art, everyone runs on feelings now, logic has all but disappeared. No one looks at the big picture anymore. (For example: Free healthcare for all! Sounds great, right?? Reality check: who is going to pay for it??)
So, I think we have a pretty good start on gathering topics to talk about. I realize that some of these topics are hot and get people fired up and I can’t promise we won’t be fired up about some of these things, but I believe it’s crucial that we all train ourselves to entertain opposing viewpoints (without calling each other racist, homophobic, bigots, etc because we dare to disagree) because who wants to live in a world where everything is run by a select group of people who happen to shout the loudest?
You know who you are.
2. Define your show description and artwork.
I haven’t quite gotten the show description down now but basically it goes like this:
“Join two ordinary people as they explore various hot-button topics and challenge themselves, and their audience, into breaking down common misconceptions and dare to offer alternate views in order to promote critical thinking and restore common sense.”
It’s rough, but you get the gist of it.
I came up with a logo of sorts. It’s not very good and it’s elementary at best but it will get us started at least.
The podcast is called “Right From Us” which of course is a play on the name of this blog “Write from Karen.” And we happen to lean to the right though I daresay I’m more Libertarian than conservative right now because I feel like most conservatives right now are a bunch of pussies. See? We haven’t even recorded our first episode and I’m already pushing buttons.
After looking around, I think I’d like to try Anchor to host our podcasts. Our goal is to upload several episodes before properly promoting it so check back often, you might just stumble onto an episode.
Be gentle with us. We really don’t know what we’re doing but we’re going to have fun figuring it out.
3. Set up and thoroughly test your equipment.
Kevin set up the equipment and we have tested it out. We are setting up shop in Kevin’s office at our house, not the rental house, so we can just sit down and start talking without a lot of prep work. We haven’t quite worked out when we are going to record. I would like to stick to one day/time to record so that it’s just another task we have to complete. I want to make it a habit so we don’t have to even think about, just get it done. Maybe Saturday/Sunday nights? We haven’t ironed it out yet.
4. Create a plan for your episodes.
This part is me. I’ll write out some sort of outline, points we want to make/talk about so we aren’t doing a lot of “ums” and dead air and we scramble to think of something to say. I mean, we’ll do that anyway, I’m sure, but that’s what editing is for.
5. Record your episodes.
Self-explanatory. Average podcast length is 43 minutes. Knowing Kevin, and especially at first, we’ll be lucky to get 20 minutes. Though I don’t know, once I warm up to a topic, I can be long winded. *ahem* Or maybe we can break it down into part one and part two. Some of the topics might require multiple parts. (Foreshadowing)
6. Edit and publish your episodes.
I’m counting on Kevin to do this part. He has the most experience with Cakewalk and he will be the one who will want to cut some stuff. This is going to be an interesting experience because he tries to tell me I shouldn’t put some of the stuff I put on my blog that I do so Lord knows how he’s going to feel about some of the stuff I say on the podcast. I can see most of what we say end up on the cutting room floor. I’ll have to monitor, erhm, I mean, we’ll have to compromise.
We are shooting for one episode per week. I can’t imagine I can get Kevin to do more than one episode per week. But who knows? He may really get into this and want to do a bi-weekly schedule. We’ll see.
7. Launch your podcast to your audience.
I’ll announce new episodes on this blog and on Twitter. I really don’t do any other form of social media. I deactivated my Facebook account – it’s just too much of a time suck and life is too short, you know?
Anyway, we’ll try this out and see how it fits. If it takes off, we can look at monetizing it. Wouldn’t that be something?
Baby steps.
Write From Karen 