Behind the Wheel

A peak behind the wheel of Sunday Driving

Welcome. This is the first of what will hopefully be a lot of blogs, most of which will compliment/go along with Sunday Driving. How they link will be more or less obvious depending on the post, some will pretty much only be linked through wordplay in the title making it driving themed, others will be directly tied to a thought/story/moment from an episode. Regardless, it gives me another medium in which to share my thoughts to whoever cares to listen and even a chance to explore new topics that I can’t/wouldn’t share in a vocal medium. They won’t be hyper official or professional, even though I have a small level of instruction in formal writing, I don’t want to depart far from the informal and personal style I have established in the podcast. In theory, this will have a similar charm and interpersonal connection that the podcast does.

Now for this post’s topic specifically. Other podcasts probably have really cool or really insightful details as to how they are produced, mine is less glamorous. I would assume at some point I will become a little more advanced or highly produced, but for now I am extremely elementary in my podcast production. All I do is pull out my phone when I get in the car after work, open the Voice Memos app, set my phone on my leg, hit record, and drive. I say whatever comes to my mind at the moment. Even when I have friends or family tell me things they want to hear me talk about, I only do if I think about it in that moment. I don’t spend a ton of time at work or at home thinking about what to talk about, I feel as though the more off the dome it is, the more genuine it is. This podcast (my fourth podcast by the way) was started not with the intention of gathering a following, making money, or really any purpose other than giving me an outlet for my thoughts. I chose to make it the way I did because it doesn’t take time away from anything else I would be doing other than listening to a podcast while driving home, and this level of production makes it exactly that. No high-tech microphones, no video portion, nothing fancy.

All that being said, I would be remiss if I said I didn’t have goals or thoughts as to how I could grow/change it as I see fit. One thing I did try for one episode was a clipped on lav mic to my seatbelt, and I liked it, but the hassle of remembering the mic (I use them at work so I couldn’t just leave them in the car) and checking it was working properly was not worth the slight improvement in sound quality. For now I will just say “it makes it more real to sound worse” and move on. Maybe one day I will decide it’s worth it to use a mic everyday. Another change I’ve thought about is somehow incorporating video, but between the storage space on my phone (which is a constant battle considering I also use it for work purposes) and the lack of interesting video material (it would just be me driving) I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

Like I said, nothing too interesting. Make me famous and maybe I can upgrade, but for now I got Voice Memos, 10 listeners, and a dream. My plan for these blogs is to write for a month or so and then tell people about them, so future anyone who reads this (if anyone does) thank you, and I will see you next time.