Hey all! Back with another blog post.
It's now been a little over two weeks since I uploaded the third episode of my look at the story of Suzanne Sevakis, Michael Hughes, and Franklin Delano Floyd. That story, while tragic and heartbreaking in a variety of ways, really helped inspire me to immerse myself in the podcast once again. I had been falling out of love in the preceding months, due to a lack of enthusiasm and a feeling that I was losing my sense of control over the podcast, but the story of Suzanne Sevakis' never-ending fight to make her life better showed me what a sad sack I was being.
Not only that, but those episodes were the first that I had edited and constructed on my own since episode six. So... it really helped show me how much I could be doing to get people's stories out there and do some good in the world in my own small way.
But, since that episode, things have just been hectic. I've been keeping busy at work, and had an in-law come to visit for about a week. Those two things, paired with the Fourth Of July holiday, really kept me distracted for about a week.
I have been working REALLY hard on the podcast. In fact, I've probably spent more time on the podcast over the past month than any month period of time preceding it. I built the website, put out a trilogy of episodes, have been hard at-work transcribing a script from sources written in another language (which I'll discuss in a moment), and have even been working hard on episodes beyond that (including my first in-person interview a month or so back, and research for episodes 30 and beyond).
So, it's just been a busy ass time for me. Been busting my hope, and I'm hoping the dividends will pay off shortly.
I've been trying ardently to get a regular release schedule worked out. My goal is to have two weeks between episodes, with the exception coming on the occasional week off (for holidays and such) or week gaps between multiple-part stories (such as the "Hughes" Family eps, which came out in successive weekends). That's the system I'd love to work out. Now that I've had time to fine-tune what I want out of the podcast, I'm hoping that I can stick to that schedule moving forward.
The upcoming series will be the exception. I've had an exceedingly difficult time with the story because it is takes place in another country, where - unfortunately - 99% of the sources are written in another language. Now, I've prided (is that a word, "prided"?) myself on being the sole researcher and writer for almost every episode of the podcast that has come out thus far... but this story has stretched that pride REALLY thin.
Let's just say that Google Translate is NOT perfect. It IS really helpful and effective in getting major point across, but in a format that emphasizes minute details and facts, it can be less than 100%.
Anyhow, I have been taking my time with this story because I want to get a lot of facts properly portrayed. And, because it takes place in another country with a foreign language, my pronunciations (which are famously bad) are going to be off. So I've simply been working on making sure things sound less terrible than usual. ;)
I hope that helps explain the delay a little bit. Just in case you're interested in finding out what story it is, let's just say that it takes place in a sleepy town called Alcasser...
It's looking like this series is going to become another one of my three-parters. I tend to enjoy that format, because I don't have to squeeze so much information into a single, standalone episode. I think I'll be doing many more of those in the future, or at least multi-part episodes.
Speaking of, it's looking like a story that I'll be doing shortly after the Alcasser three-parter will be focused on the West Memphis Three. Thanks to the supporters of the podcast over on Patreon, who voted for it to happen, I'll be tackling that in the near-future. The WM3 is one of those stories that I've always WANTED to cover, but didn't feel comfortable enough doing... thankfully, though, I've started to reach the point where I feel like I could feasibly cover the story in my own way, but it would likely take a multiple-part effort. At least, more than three episodes (which are the longest series I've done so far).
I've been throwing around the idea of making the WM3 series a five-parter, but that's just tentatively. You'll all be finding out more about that as the summer progresses and I begin to wind down my Spanish episode trio.
But, anyhow, that's about it for now. I just recorded an interview with the Fall Line Podcast yesterday, which went really well (I couldn't cheer on those two ladies more if I tried) and I also wrote and recorded a guest spot for another major, well-known mystery podcast. I won't give any details, but let's just say that I'm one guest out of several. Should be fun.
That's it for me. Until next time, peace out!