Aloha from Hawaii! Your host is celebrating a lot of things right now: Bastille Day, the ability to travel responsibly, the birthday of a certain overworked and abused producer-intern, and oh yeah, the fifth anniversary of The Land of Desire!!! I’m celebrating by answering some excellent questions from you, dear listeners. Merci beaucoup.

Episode 70: “Fifth Anniversary! Listener Q&A”

Transcript

Bienvenue and welcome back to the Land of Desire. I’m your host, Diana, and this month, The Land of Desire turns five! I can’t believe it! I wanted to celebrate by reaching out to all of you to answer your questions and say thank you! Thank you so much to everyone who wrote in over the past few weeks, whether you had a question, an episode suggestion, or just said hello. I won’t be able to answer every question I received, but here are a few of my favorites!

I’ll start with this question from Matt, which is by far the most popular question I received: What topics do you have coming up? How do you decide what to discuss?

When I first started The Land of Desire, I planned out all these epic miniseries. In a testament to my ability to scope projects appropriately, I originally intended to launch this show with a ten – yes, that’s right, ten – part series about the history of the Louvre. Needless to say, don’t expect that series any time soon. The problem with a big miniseries is that it’s easier to burn out – or worse, realize that your audience doesn’t actually care about this subject when you still have four more episodes to go! So I try to force myself to scale back and do more one-off episodes because they’re simply more sustainable. I mean, look at “Women at War” – that miniseries began in September 2019, and by the time it finished, I’d changed jobs, nursed my sister back from a car accident, begun sheltering in place and witnessed at least two waves of a global pandemic. These days, if I get any bright ideas like “Time for a deep dive of the entire Hundred Years War!” I shake my head, take a deep breath, and say, “No, let’s talk about the potato.”

Often when I’m beginning the process of brainstorming a new subject, I’ll take a look at my own personal life for inspiration. What am I reading lately? How have I been spending my time? What’s already got my attention these days? It’s a much better jumping off point for me than forcing myself to go back to a subject I selected for myself months ago. Take last month’s episode, for example – by the time this episode goes up, my boyfriend and I will be taking a very exciting vacation to Hawaii. Obviously in June I wanted an excuse to daydream about tropical islands some more, which led me down the path of studying the cultivation of vanilla. Since I’m in vacation mode, I’m trying my best not to think about next month’s episode topic. Empty head, no thoughts. It’ll be as much a surprise to you as it will to me.

Rhian then asks, : how long does the research process usually take?

For a single standalone episode, it’s about two to three weeks of research, while a miniseries of course can be much more research spread out over the course of months. My production schedule is always the same: aim to be done with research by Sunday night, aim to finish the script by Monday night, aim to finish recording and editing the vocals by Tuesday night, then on Wednesday mix in music, write the blog post and draft the social media updates. God knows it almost never works out that way. My research always starts in the same place: my enemy and my friend, JSTOR. The absolutely amazing San Francisco Public Library system offers me free access, and I take full advantage of it. I read 8 billion papers about a particular topic until I’m able to figure out what kind of slant or focus I want to take, and supplement with books and other scholarly works once I have a better idea of where I’m headed.

Steven asks How do you prioritize topics for the podcast ? (And how do we influence that process!)

Haha, you don’t! Sorry, everyone! It’s interesting to me that there’s one question nobody ever asks: how do I stay motivated to keep doing the show month after month? This podcast has now been my constant companion for nearly one sixth of my life! It’s a heck of a commitment! And one of the most important ways that I stay connected to the show is by creating a show for myself, and sharing it with others. Capitalism is a hungry beast which wants to monetize everything – anyone listening who has any kind of hobby is probably familiar with this feeling. Are you planning to do it full time? Is it like a side hustle? And so on. The Land of Desire is first and foremost a passion project, and the way that I stay passionate about it is by not feeling obligated to deliver episodes on topics I might not be feelin’ at the moment, or subjects that I don’t personally care about. Sorry everyone, it will always be a whimsical endeavor!

Steven had another really good question: What topic did you think was the most interesting of the topics you have covered?

Oh man, it’s so hard to choose! I absolutely loved learning about the history of the catacombs, it had everything I love: secret societies, hidden passageways, urban p...