A World Without Books: The Micro-Podcast Episode on Dragon Daughter

Something else that happened last week was, my guest spot on the program, A World Without Books dropped. I discovered the website Without Books after listening to the episode about the book Sacred Fool, written by my friend and fellow author Mr. Dean Talamantez. I looked into some of the other Micro-Podcasts and I found it to be so great to hear from other authors about their work and where inspiration came from for them. I highly recommend binge listening to the beautiful snippets should you have time.

Now, I’m not 100% happy with my episode, but I figured, what the heck. I’ll share it anyway. I’ll say now, there is a noticeable break in speech for me near the end of the 3-minute episode. I call that out because it is most glaring to me. Initially, I was very upset by that because it seems to throw off the rhythm. I had hoped they might have cut that out. Alas, that was not to be, no matter how perfect and polished I wanted it to be. Yet the more I thought and overanalyzed it, I remembered the Without Books logo, which is the asterism (three asterisks: ***.) The website says this about the asterism:

“Our logo, the asterism, is a group of three asterisks designed to indicate a break in writing. These three stars should remind the reader to pause, reflect, and take a breath.”

From the Without Books website

One way I looked at it had me cursing myself for not controlling my breath better, and not being more calm under the strict 3-minute time limit. Especially since I had practiced so much I had committed it nearly to memory! That revised version was under 3 minutes for sure so I could have had it done exactly the way I wanted more or less. I asked myself why I didn’t just take more time and record yet another version until it was right (that was my third try). Ultimately, I was getting irritated with the process and decided it would be a good exercise for me in letting go and letting the chips fall where they may. I later realized that that breath I took during my episode was the a version of the asterism, which is the ethos of Without Books.

That said, I still don’t like my episode for other reasons like maybe I talked in too low a tone, or the audio quality. It sounds like a voicemail (this is the nature of the beast there at A World Without Books, all episodes sound this way, varying in degrees of clarity depending on the person’s reception), and yet, that very quality is also a part of the charm I think. It’s like leaving an intimate voicemail with someone curious about what you have to say. However, when I consider all that, it was still a cool experience and one I would absolutely do again. I do like it a teensy bit better than I did when I first heard it. And that is a win for me. Give a listen here. See what you make of it.