Sunday, December 5, 2021

My Podcast Experiment

 

I'm a firm believer in "trying things". How does one know if they'll succeed or fail if they don't try? I've tried lots of things -- songwriting (succeeded!), novel writing (succeeded in my mind, if not in sales), and now podcasting (failed miserably).

But now at least I know.

I don't mourn the demise of my podcast, Hitsvilly. There probably won't be any new episodes forthcoming. I tracked my "listens" and found that my original concept didn't resonate with anybody. So I tweaked it and still it didn't catch on. I guess the subject matter is only interesting to me. That's okay. I'm more of a written word girl than a conversationalist. What matters is pleasing oneself, and my writing pleases me. I'm pretty good at it. If I want to talk about country music (and I do) I'll put pen to paper, or more accurately, tap it out on my keyboard. I'll leave podcasting to the experts.

But, see, I no longer have to wonder. Wonder if I can make a go of it. Now I know -- I can't. I've failed at plenty of things I tried, and I succeeded at plenty of things I've tried. Life is a crapshoot. And I learned something from every success, every failure. That's how life goes, unless you don't even bother to try.

I'm pretty convinced there's something I gleaned from the demise of Hitsvilly. I'm not yet sure what that is, but it'll hit me sometime. Something I can pluck from the detritus and use. Every single experience, even the absolutely most devastating, embarrassing failures, are nitrogen for something yet to come.

Failure doesn't cause the world to end. Lack of trying shrivels the soul. 


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