Recording my first podcast, and what I learnt along the way
I’ve long had a secret desire to hear my voice on the radio. I’ve entered podcast competitions run by the Royal Geographic Society, the BBC and She Explores, and entered audio poetry competitions in the hope that someone might hear my words and like them. I love talking to people, hearing their stories, finding out why they are where they are and learning about what’s shaped them. These are some of the things that make me tick.
Running counter to this desire is the fact that I used to hate the sound of my own voice ( I now have a gentler tolerance for it) and avoided almost any event or situation that required me to be heard out loud. Isn’t it interesting how the things that we want the most are often the things that we are most terrified of? My voice has always been that thing for me. It’s not just my spoken voice either, I also quashed my written voice for years, because I listened to that other voice in my head that told me ‘who’s going to be interested in what I have to say?’ ‘what have I got to add to the conversations?’ all the while knowing that I did actually have something to add to the conversation. Everyone does.
I also love singing, but only sing on my own because ‘I don’t have a good voice’. Thinking about my voice like this over the years has taught me to quieten my own stuff, keep it small. Interestingly, in my first career as a lawyer, I was probably louder, ‘safer’ behind a performative veil of professionalism, than I was being me. I could use my voice so long as it was as me, the lawyer.
In my case, I know why this narrative has developed over time. Lots of smaller events, or things that people had said to me, accumulated together in my mind which I then took as proof that I was not ‘good enough’ to use words, speak my truth, be heard. I wasn’t confident enough, wasn’t interesting enough. Being a litigation lawyer also wasn’t helpful, as the whole legal scenario opens you up to being torn down for saying anything that is even a little bit wrong, factually incorrect, drafted badly. Again, this is only something I’ve recognised after time away to realise it. I’m sure this will resonate with others - so many of us seem to be afraid to use our voices.
Which brings me back to recording my first podcast. Turns out that the recording part was the easy bit. I couldn’t have done it without my friend Maria’s encouragement. She is one of those people who just gets stuff done. I’d said I wanted to do it, so we scheduled the date and made the recording. You don’t need any special equipment to get started, we used my IPhone and found the smallest room to avoid as much noisebleed as possible. As I’ve now learnt, this is less important than sitting close enough to the mic so that your guest doesn’t sound like they are in a goldfish bowl, but I digress.
Once I had the recording, it sat on my computer for five months before I did anything with it. But knowing it was there, kept me thinking about it. It kept niggling me. The voice in my head had changed too. It had softened somewhwat, become more encouraging - ‘well it’s there, I may as well do something with it.’
Checking in with Maria really helped. She reassured me that it would be worth it, even if it was only her mum that listened to it. I can now see that taking the pressure out of each step, was absolutely integral to getting it done. Thinking about a sexy, shiny podcast series, that has a sponsor and shit-hot production values, stopped me from doing anything for years, but taking it bit by bit somehow meant it actually happened.
I credit lockdown and the time and space it created for me to finish editing the episode (not my finest job, but it’s good enough, and I’ve learnt how not to do it for next time). Once that was done, joining the fab team at London Writer’s Salon for Writer’s Hour meant that I was finally, finally able to get it over the line, both on this website and on ITunes. You can now listen to my first episode, When Arts meets Science, in all it’s imperfect, rushly edited, glory.
Recording that podcast, and posting it on here is one of my proudest moments. Only five people will probably listen to it, most people won’t even know it’s there, but I am utterly stoked with it for these reasons:
I spent time learning and creating with some of my favourite people. I now have a basic level understanding of Audacity, realised I work well with do-ers like Maria, and enabled my sister to see she is awesome at logo design. I love collaborating creatively, and seeing a finished product that I’ve made with friends and family has given me so much joy. I posted it and submitted it to Itunes on the day of Maria’s PhD thesis submission, as a gift and reminder to her of the stuff she’s done over the last few years. This was the best incentive to get it out there. And Maria’s parents love it too - which is audience enough for me.
Im learning to like my voice. My little quirks of emphasising words at strange moments. My capacity for swinging in and out of weird telephone voice to ASMR voice in one sentence. Doing the simple exercises in James Sills’ Do Sing book, and realising how much more range I might have than I initially thought. Like every other part of us, our voices are unique, and need to be understood and used and cared for if we want to use them to their full capacity.
I now realise how much work goes into making podcasts and radio programmes sound good. Those that are epic often have teams of people involved and that’s what makes them slick and great to listen to. I hear my nervousness and clunkiness, but am proud that I made this anyway, and proud of my awkwardness on audio. Harder to do it when you know it might sound rubbish, and dealing with that and creating anyway is definitely breaking down my old stories that I shouldn’t say anything unless it’s absolutely perfect.
Finding your own creative communities is essential. Writing, recording and editing can feel like lonely pursuits, but this was definitely a huge team effort. For anyone that is having trouble creating the space to write or record or research, come join The Writer’s Hour run by the lovely Matt and Parul, founders of London Writer’s Salon. For some reason, logging into zoom and sitting in silence with a group of others who are also beavering away really works. I’ve written more in the last five weeks than I have in the last three years.
I’ve produced something. I could have kept on trying to get my work noticed by other people, but that’s not what I really wanted deep down. I wanted to create my own work, meet those people that interested me and help them tell their stories. That was always the real driver. Now I know that, it will make it easier to keep doing this. In doing the work, the reasons revealed themselves to me, and it’s only in doing the work that you get better and improve. I think I’m finally starting to break through that fear of sounding awkward or being judged for not being as good as Lauren Laverne.
Now I just need to share all this with others. Am hoping that won’t take me another five months!
I would love to know how people feel about using their own voices? What thoughts and fears and ideas come up? Why can we be so afraid of how we sound and what we want to say? Do get in touch if any of this speaks to you, I’d love to chat about it.
Written during The Writer’s Hour run by London Writer’s Salon
