Tag: Flamenco & the Sitting Cat

I’m on Sherry Mitchell’s Podcast + Questions, Notes, Tips

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Onward I march, two steps forward and one step back, wearing my new hat of “podcaster.” This week I accomplished a little more on my novels (h-e-r-e) than last week, but I’m still wishing for a time when I’m not so green at podcasting and I can get back to my books. Read further down for the latest on what I’ve learned about this new audio angle I’ll use later with my fiction storytelling.

"Reach the Unreachable" podcaster Sherry Mitchell, founder/owner of Glorified Fitness Incorporated (GFI).
“Reach the Unreachable” podcaster Sherry Mitchell, founder/owner of Glorified Fitness Incorporated (GFI).

Very fun news is that podcaster Sherry Mitchell invited me to be a guest on her show, “Reach the Unreachable”! The show is on her site, so for this week, I decided to promote hers rather than release a new show at my podcast.

Sherry Mitchell is the founder and owner of Glorified Fitness Incorporated (GFI) (visit her site h-e-r-e). After working in IT for more than 30 years, she retired to fulfill the vision she received from God six (6) years prior. GFI is a Fitness and Learning Center located in North Columbus, OH where holistic fitness for the body, mind, and spirit enables clients and staff members to Reach the Unreachable in their fitness goals.

Note: The interview lives on Sherry’s site, so for this week, I decided to promote her show rather than release a new episode at my podcast. Notice any sound glitches? See the “Guesting” and “Sound” bullets further down.

Click a platform below to hear Sherry and me:

Questions, Notes, & Tips (for blogging, turning blogs into podcasts, and more)

  • Guesting: As a guest on Sherry’s show, I was so nervous that it took me several moments longer than I anticipated to collect myself and I was late. If I ever am a guest again on a show, it would help if not only was I on time — but if I was early. That way we could chat and get comfortable, as well as test how my end of the phone connection sounds.
  • Sound: My nice earbuds broke, so I bought some really cheap ones. Hmmm… I’m wondering if earbuds make a difference in terms of sound recording quality…
  • Facebook groups: Have you used those and have you found them helpful for promoting your blogging (or anything else)?
  • Apple: They have a page where podcasters can ask to be considered by them for promoting. Now that I filled it out, I’m wondering if I also need to create a whole website presence at their site, beyond what automatically loads there about my show via anchor…
  • Equipment: Someone asked me whether what I use is expensive. Fortunately not at all, if you consider that I already had a closet to double as a sound booth, an ancient iPhone 5s to record my voice on via the free version of Voice Record app, a 2017 iPad for a teleprompter and to light the inside of my closet, a 2015 iMac, iMovie to edit and use their free sound effects and music breaks, the free editing app and music within AnchorFM. What I bought recently was a Blue Yeti mic (around $100), a cheap set of gizmos to help it along, including foam stuff, cords, and a tripod to hold it up.
  • Monetizing Part 3 (parts one and 2 are in t-h-i-s post): Yay! I reached the minimum “unique listeners” Anchor requires for them to send me ads to earn money from — but where are they?!
  • Junk mail: now as a podcaster, I get even more than ever. One says I’m extra popular in Japan, but I don’t know what they mean by that and I have my doubts that it would be worth forking over cash to find out.
  • AI: A friend hates Anchor’s automated voice… so if she listened with her sound off so it’ll get me higher ratings, would that be naughty?…
  • Overcast: I first wrote of my frustration with them h-e-r-e and now have given up on ever seeing my show there — dunno how to even log in, no matter what I do…
  • Wonderful Book on Podcasting: Here’s the review I did for it on Amazon and Goodreads: “Profit From Your Podcast: Proven Strategies to Turn Listeners into a Livelihood,” by Dave Jackson, founder and host, School of Podcasting. Having recently started my own podcast show, I know from experience that this book offers far more than any of the other ones I’ve read. Outstanding tips, not just the handful of worn-out ones you get everywhere else. Jackson offers practical, real-life advice, from his own experiences and those of other seasoned podcasters. He goes miles beyond “how to get your first 1k listeners,” to discuss how to branch way, way out. There are chapters on how to give seminars, retreats, juggle real life with work, set financial goals rather than just listenership ones, and lots more. Down-to-earth inspiring, neither outrageous nor overwhelming.
  • Novel writers: Just finished a great novel with a writer for a protagonist by Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout. “My Name is Lucy Barton” gives us writers wonderful encouragement to “be ruthless” and not to worry about protecting others with our work.

What platform do you listen to music and podcasts on?

Novel Writing + Creative Kolkata + Tagore by da-AL

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Tagore (c. 1925), by unknown author, State Archive, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47866012
Tagore (c. 1925), by unknown author, State Archive, Public Domain

(Click here for an audio/podcast version of the post below.)

How’s your novel coming along? If you’re writing one, did you outline it first? Or is it evolving?

“I have spent many days stringing and unstringing my instrument while the song I came to sing remains unsung.” Rabindranath Tagore

What’s your creative writing style? I outlined my book, wrote a bunch, thought I was about done — and then a new character introduced himself! Working on, “Flamenco & the Sitting Cat” and “Tango & the Sitting Cat,” is a fascinating process that’s taught me much, including about India and it’s most famous writer.

“Reach high, for stars lie hidden in you. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.” Tagore

Blogging has brought me the unexpected joy of meeting many new online friends from India, thereby stoking my curiosity about the country. It was only natural that my books include someone at least partly from there.

“Depth of friendship does not depend on length of acquaintance.” Tagore

A character in my book is named Niks. It’s the year of 2002. He lives in Southern California, the best place to surf and earn a living as a model and an actor. He’s a gay man in his 40s. His parents were studying business when they met at UC Berkeley’s International House, a social club intended to help foreign students feel less alone. Pasta is the dish he makes best because his Italian mom taught him how to cook. His love of great Indian literature is thanks to his dad, who grew up in Kolkata.

“A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.” Tagore

Are you from India? If so, feel free to correct me and/or add to what’s here…

“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.” Tagore

Kolkata has been called the “City of Furious, Creative Energy” as well as the “cultural [or literary] capital of India.”

“If I can’t make it through one door, I’ll go through another door — or I’ll make a door. Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present.” Tagore

Tagore performing the title role inValmiki Pratibha (1881) with his niece Indira Devi as the goddess Lakshmi, by unknown author - Indira Devi Chowdhurani. Rabindra Smriti — Kolkata: Visva-Bharati, 1974., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16150280
Tagore performing the title role in Valmiki Pratibha (1881) with his niece Indira Devi as the goddess Lakshmi, by unknown author – Indira Devi Chowdhurani. Rabindra Smriti — Kolkata: Visva-Bharati, 1974., Public Domain

Did you know that the world’s largest non-trade annual book fair takes place in Kolkata?

“Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.” Tagore

The region is home to India’s major publishers. So are many great thinkers, such as Rabindranath Tagore (May 7, 1861 – August 7, 1941), India’s equivalent to Shakespeare.

“The most important lesson that man can learn from life, is not that there is pain in this world, but that it is possible for him to transmute it into joy.” Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath with Einstein in 1930, vy UNESCO - UNESCO Gallery, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27489646
Tagore with Einstein in 1930, by UNESCO – UNESCO Gallery, Public Domain

Tagore was much like Leonardo da Vinci. He was a revolutionary politically and artistically. At eight years old, he was already a poet and went on to be a musician, artist, Ayurveda researcher, actor, playwright, and more.

“Love’s gift cannot be given, it waits to be accepted.” Tagore

Quite the globe-trotter, he introduced the world to India’s creative treasures.

“Love is an endless mystery, because there is no reasonable cause that could explain it.” Tagore

In 1913, he became the first non-European Nobel-prize laureate.

Rabindranath Tagore Cherishsantosh / WikiCommons
Rabindranath Tagore Cherishsantosh / WikiCommons

More quotes by Tagore…

“If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars.”

“A lamp can only light another lamp when it continues to burn in its own flame.”

“Love gives beauty to everything it touches.”

“Dark clouds become heaven’s flowers when kissed by light.

“Music fills the infinite between two souls.”

What’s your creative writing style?