Juiced On Writing

The Blog Mastermind program has asked me for a few weeks to record an insert (a podcast) to put up here on the Juiced on Writing blog. If you have been anywhere on the net, you’ll know how popular a method this is in communicating with an audience. I don’t dispute this at all.

However, I just can’t do it! Even in real life, I’ve always communicated more in the written sense than orally. I’ve long told a story of being sent to a speech therapist when I was very young because I stammered a little. Only to be diagnosed with the technical sounding condition of – “her mouth can’t keep up with her brain”. (It was the 1970s and New Zealand – things were much simpler then). My brain-racing stayed with me ever since.

Going through a career, I used it for my greater good – I was often the silent person in a meeting, actually listening to what everyone said, and then quoting them back a few months later. An active listener and people watcher, I’ve often been caught “staring” at people and making them uncomfortable.

My listening and focus ability actually made me a highly successful people manager (probably helped by brain-racing I suppose). When I spoke people sat back and listened. However here in the U.K. my own kiwi accent often got in their way of understanding. But I was often able to quickly understand other team members with particularly heavy accents of their own (some British, some Indian) because of that focus.

As far as I can make out, these are attributes shared with many writers. And ones I should be proud of.

But they’ve got me in a higgle when contemplating the Blog Mastermind challenge of recording my own voice. I have to admit that my focus on dialects (especially having one whilst living in a different country) means that even listening to recordings on others blogs over the net has me more wondering about the American or Australian twangs I’m listening to, rather than the content. And everyone hates to see their own photos or hear their own voices played back to them, right?

I love podcasts myself, which is quite contradictory I know. And I must admit the idea of recording a series as a podcast does pique the inner-geek (or outer, as mine is quite large) in me. But…

And as for a blog themed on writing – in itself, putting up a recorded voice seems counter to actually writing something (unless it’s a reading, perhaps?). It certainly goes against that internal brain-racing of mine. I would be forced to read off a script to make anything understandable.

Thankfully I’m not following the Blog Mastermind to the nth degree. I’ve so far not put up a newsletter either. If you want one, do let me know. And if you want to hear my voice sounding all kiwi and embarrassed, I might only accept at least 10 comments for that one.

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