Podcasting madness.

Well, it's October.

For a very long time, I've been toying with the idea of doing a podcast. I love podcasts. At one 221B Con, I remember one a host from an Atlanta podcast enthusiastically encouraging anyone who had the urge to do a podcast to do one. And at one Christmas, not so long ago, I was even gifted a Blue Yeti microphone.

But the idea of doing a podcast still seemed much to me like thinking of writing a book when I'm in Barnes & Noble: You look around at the massive amounts of stuff already existing and go, "What can I add to this that would be worth anything?"

I mean, sure, we all think we could just talk on and endlessly charm people with our stories and wit . . . well, at least I hope your ego has some moments of that, just to make me feel less of a narcissist . . . but actually putting that to the test? And doing it on a regular basis, like blogging? That just seems like work.

But then I heard a podcast that seemed like the sort of thing that would fit in the Sherlockian world, except that the particular one I was hearing was definitely not Sherlockian. And it was a limited series.

So I started recording things. And editing them together. And going, "Man, anybody who's a real sound engineer or a skilled podcast producer is going to hate the amateurishness of this." It seemed like the audio version of those people whose desktop publishing skills revolved around too much Zapf Chancery in the early days of the Macintosh Classic. But you have to start somewhere.

And it's actually a lot of fun . . . well, in parts.

I've seen tweets from more obsessive podcast editors on how much effort they put into their work, and now I'm seeing firsthand just how detail-oriented anyone with a touch of the obsessive-compulsive can get. I find myself perfectly willing to slop through some parts of the podcast, yet obsess maniacally over some other little detail that no one will ever care about. It's amazing.

And something I always thought I would never have time for. But when the bug bites you, the time starts getting cut from other things. Cooking, cleaning . . . blogging? Yikes.

But I'm sure if you've read this far, there's one thing you really want to know: What is this podcast and when will it be available?

If everything goes according to plan, you'll see an episode or two by the end of the month. And while I don't want to give the title away just yet, I will tell you this: It's not a chat show. It's not a talking-about-the-stories show. And where it's going to go, I'm not even sure. But it has definite places to go.

And yes, completely about Mr. Sherlock Holmes. To be continued.