hey folks, look who finally learned how to make cover art!
This was only my 2nd year as a podfic'er, and I went a little nuts. Do you know how much fic I wrote this year? 2k words. Do you know how much podfic I posted? That added up to over 120k. It was a year with a lot of firsts for me. I started off in January offering podfic for the Fandom Trumps Hate auction. Incredibly, two of my lovely Carry On friends ended up in a last-minute bidding war, which was exciting! I also tried offering a podfic in other fandoms, but it only got the bare minimum bid. So lesson learned-- Carry On is still the best fandom around :D
It turns out I'm more multi-fannish as a podficer than as a writer, however. I ended up creating for several new-to-me fandoms, with one podfic for HP (I know, I'm sorry.) 2 for A Knight's Tale, a movie I fell in love with, and one for the Dark Rise series, as well as 36 for Carry On. (But even that fic has a Carry On connection, since it's by a CO fic writer we know and love).
I crunched the numbers yesterday, and I was incredibly surprised at how much it all added up to. I'm going to break this down by fandom instead of month. Here's what I did this year:
Nothing Ventured (M) 1h 22m
Down a Dark Desert Highway (T) 13m
Scare me up a little bit of love (M) 49m (so far)
This Is Your Place (M) 2h 10m
Secret Crush (T) 27m
The Wedding Planner (T) 46m
The Longest Night 10m
Two Truths and a Lie (T) 47m
Quidditch and the Art of Friendship Refusals (T) 1h 17m
That makes a total of 67,890 words of fic recorded, edited and posted this year, or 8 hours of podfic, **NOT including the Carry On Countdown***.
This was a year of firsts for me! I finally learned how to make cover art:
I also included music in for the first time, starting with the A Knight's Tale fic, Nothing Ventured, which has quite a bit of music in between all the scene breaks. But the main thing is, I finally sat myself down and learned how to use Audacity beyond copy-pasting and background noise removal. I'm still not great at it, but I put in a huge amount of effort to get better sound quality, and if you listen to my first several fics, I think you'll agree that it paid off. I'm much better at getting consistent volume and getting rid of intrusive background noises. I also put in some time to learn how to use the mic correctly so I didn't have so much to edit out on the first place 😅
The podfic that took the most time *BY FAR* was 'This Is Your Place' created for Fandom Trumps Hate. Not only is it my longest posted pod to date, I was learning a lot of these things as I was trying to edit, and I also got a cold at one point and my voice sounded like an entirely different person was speaking... it was a lot. I struggled with this one for 6 months. But on the other hand, I feel that the reception to that podfic has been especially heartfelt and I believe it touched people. The fic was certainly worth the time I took to try to get it right! And a lot of my later efforts went more quickly because of all the things I learned in the process of making that podfic.
My other main hurdle is finding a decent place to record!! For half the year I was recording in the back seat of my car, as a solution for the fact that my home is never quiet. It was sort of cramped and uncomfortable, but it got the job done. I was recording in my car in all sorts of weather, from freezing cold to sweltering, and finding any little halfway decent place I could park and get some privacy without looking too sketchy-- mainly a lot of tiny parks with secluded parking lots. However, my junky car has finally been hauled off to the scrap yard 😥 so now what will I do? I don't know, but that's a problem for 2026-me.
Fandom Trumps Hate ! 'This is Your Place' and 'Quidditch and the Art...' were both for the Fandom Trumps Hate charity auction, and thank you to everyone who bid on me! I have one final podfic to make for this event, which I'll be working on in 2026.
Pod-o-Ween: 'Down a Dark Desert Highway' and 'Scare me up a little bit of love' were both for this Halloween-themed podfic event!
Carry On Tenth Anniversary Exchange 'The Wedding Planner' was a CO Tenth Anniversary gift for Jess!
International Tumblr Podfic Exchange 'Two Truths and a Lie' was a gift fic for this event!
Carry On Countdown 2025 [Podfic Edition] I chose, recorded, edited and posted an incredible 53k worth of words in two months for this event. this adds up 8 hours and 5 minutes of podfic over the course of 2 months. I'm floored. --this has to be a separate post because it feels like its own special side project. There were 31 podfics in all, but all posted as one work.
My grand total this year was over 120k words, and 16+ hours of podfic posted!
But guess what? My posted stuff is kind of the tip of the iceburg as far as projects I've been working on. I have 14 projects that I've at least started and several more I'm planning, and some of them are very long. There are 5 longfics that I've recorded and edited at least a few chapters of, but I'm waiting to post until they're all done! (These are going to remain a secret for now 😉)
I feel like this post is very braggy, and it is, but this has been my year of over-the-top podfic creation. I predict that I'll keep going for a little while then hit a wall. Someday I hope I'll get back into writing, but for this year, it's been fun to marinate in other people's words 😎
stormborns
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