1x05 Shocking Jock-ing Discoveries.
Seven days is a really short time to produce a story. This week was a painful reminder of how short it truly is...
If you haven’t heard the episode yet, do check it out here:
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Interviewing ChatGPT for an episode was fun. It was also easy. I didn’t have to ‘book’ its time. It was available right away, on-demand. Life was so simple…
This week it was the exact opposite.
I must have said this a bajillion times by now - seven days is a really short time to produce a story.
It’s a bit easier when it’s a monologue like the episode I eventually published. But to craft an episode with more than one voice in it involves getting tape, cutting, editing, scripting, mixing, and mastering and that is a time-consuming process! Especially when there are other paid projects that I have previously committed to and thye have really tight deadlines…
I am increasingly getting the feeling that I may have bitten off a LOT more than I can chew. Sigh.
This week made that clear to me on multiple occasions.
And I was trying. I really was trying HARD.
Right off the bat, I looked at several stories that could fit the theme... And I did find a few good ones.
For example, I used ChatGPT’s explanation about “going deeper” and decided to look at the underground. Specifically, India’s underground hip-hop and RnB scene. I found that there was a rap battle happening in my city of Pune, India but it wouldn’t happen until next week. Then, I found a rapper from Pune, who had made it big but he was currently busy with a reality show and couldn’t be reached. Damn. Here was a story that was tailor-made for this theme except it was just out of my reach…
So, I started looking in the other direction – if I couldn’t go underground -below the surface- I could go above and beyond it!
9 billion light-years above and beyond the surface, to be precise.
What I mean is I found an article about Indian researchers from IISc capturing a radio signal from a galaxy approximately 9 billion light-years away. In other words, the universe was just 4.5 billion years old at the time! I figured one way of going “beyond the surface” of the earth was to go as far into space as possible. And, if you ask me, I’d say 9 billion light-years is pretty far! (pause) But that idea didn’t work out either – I just couldn’t reach the guy who found the signal and record an interview with him.
So, I was back to square one.
I briefly contemplated writing a short fiction piece on the theme. Or repurposing one of my older stories that I’d written a few years ago. But, for some reason, that always feels like I’m ‘cheating’ you guys somehow. Or that I’m being lazy. So that went out the window too…
I was striking out everywhere and I didn’t know what to do. I posted about my problem on a podcasters’ group I’m a part of. And several ideas and leads were helpfully offered. But, either I couldn’t take them on or they didn’t look like they’d yield results in time for this episode. However, it did yield an idea that I decided to keep as a standby just in case nothing else panned out.
And that was the story you heard today.
There was another option that I did consider.
I occasionally record brief bits of audio with my little one. And there were parts of the audio that I could use to construct a story that would kinda-sorta go with the theme. But only kinda-sorta.
And I didn’t know if I wanted to do that. Primarily because I felt that the connection with the theme wasn’t strong enough. Also, I wasn’t sure about making my little one’s voice public. The internet is ruthless and unforgiving, if you know what I mean?
So I consulted with the Missus. She seemed open to the idea - lovely woman that she is. She even gave me a few pointers on the script I’d written - good, useful pointers. I had the audio, I had the script. I had a vague sense of the overall sound design I was going to use with it...
But, ultimately, I decided against doing the story.
Mainly because I was (and still am) very uncomfortable with using my little one’s voice in my pieces. I’ve done it once before but I don’t know if I want to do it now. Things have… changed, since then.
I’ll tell you this, however. I almost convinced myself to produce that story. What did it for me was listening to the second act of the episode 789 of ‘This American Life’ titled “The Runaround”. Senior editor David Kestenbaum produced a fun little story with his son Max about the coping mechanism he uses for his ADHD. It’s a beautiful story and you should definitely check it out.
I was almost ready to bawl my eyes out when that story ended. Instead, I went upstairs gave my little one a tight hug and banged out a 2000-word script over two hours. Sadly, that script won’t see the light of day anytime soon, I reckon. :(
Maybe someday, it will be okay to tell you that story but today isn’t that day, clearly.
NEXT WEEK'S THEME: "Constant Motion"