Inertia

At the beginning of the year, I decided to start a project. This year, I am going to record four stories for radio and submit them to This American Life.

It's April. That means a quarter of the year is over. And that's fine. I didn't expect to complete one story per quarter. I've never done this before; it's going to take me a while to get started. Here's the problem: I haven't started. At all. In January I was scribbling down ideas for possible subjects but none of them are any good, at least for the type of story used on TAL. Most of my ideas are more like news stories, not narratives.

I have some serious writer's block, or recorder's block, or documentarian's block; I don't know what you call it in radio. After reading advice from Ira Glass and many other brilliant radio personalities on Transom.org, it seems that there are many ways that radio stories can be born. Unfortunately, I'm having a hard time making any of these strategies work. I know it will get easier after my first time, but at the moment I feel like it's impossible. Here are my strategies for getting started, and why I haven't been able to move forward with any of them:

1.
Brainstorm for a topic.
I can't think of any good story ideas, at least not narrative ones. This American Life is all about narrative. The only ideas I can seem to come up with are more like news stories or essay topics. I don't know how this method even works for narrative. Do you invent a story and then somehow find someone who has had that experience? How the heck do you find them?

2.
Interview someone with a good story to tell.
I can't think of anyone who has a story that lots of people would want to hear. Now I know that this is a fault of my own. I know that I know lots of people with really compelling stories to tell, I just can't think of who they are, or what the stories are. If anyone can help me out with this, I'm open to suggestions.

3.
Just roll tape on anything that talks.
I think that this might be the easiest way for me to get started. I think if I'm just in the mindset of recording audio, I could get inspired pretty quickly and record at least enough material for a very short story. I love editing audio, so I'd have no problem cutting four good minutes from several hours of audio.

Unfortunately, this is still going to prove extremely difficult for me. I think a lot of people are freaked out by the sight of a microphone, and since I'm a shy and non-confrontational person, the last thing I want to do is force someone else to be uncomfortable by shoving a microphone in their face – especially if I don't really have a good reason for doing it. That feels really creepy. I'm not always the best at making conversation, so things could get awkward really fast if I don't have any prepared questions.

I have the same problem with photography. I generally hate posed pictures of people. Candid shots are way more fascinating to me, but I feel like a creep just taking pictures of people for no reason, even if I know them. I really want to, but I just get so uncomfortable doing it, so I never do. None of my good photos are of people, because I can't shoot them.

~ ~ ~
The problem with these road blocks is that I don't know whether I'm supposed to go over or around them. Are there other, better ways to find stories, or do I just need to conquer my fears and start rolling tape, and make thousands of mistakes? I don't know. I wish I had a radio mentor, someone who could guide me through my first steps. I know that once I get started, I can do it. I just have to figure out how to stand up before I can take those first steps, and I can't seem to muster the strength to do that.