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. 

The Brass Ring?

There is no brass ring.

The music business has changed.

If Bob Dylan were starting out today, he'd be uploading his recordings onto some internet site, and hoping that somebody would "discover" him.

He'd get lots of "friend requests" from people who never bothered to listen to his music, but want him to listen to theirs.

Money talks.

If you've got money to pay for a demo, you can make any piece of junk sound good.

If you're putting off paying the phone bill because the car insurance is due, you're not buying any demos.

No one is listening.

Even with your bright, shiny demo, who's going to listen to it?

Anybody who's got any money to pay you, isn't trolling the internet for songs.

Why bother?

Did you ever sit and doodle a nice drawing? And you thought, hey, that's nice. But what am I going to do with it?

Well, just look at it and enjoy it and pat yourself on the back, because you did a nice drawing.

That's why bother.

Please yourself.