How Did We Get Here?

I have a single week of lectures left in the first semester of my Masters. I'm still coming to terms with that one. How did we get here so quickly?

Let's go back, to before the Masters started. Let's go back to March. In March, I was acquiring copies of transcripts to be sent off as part of my application. In January, I moved from one bedroom in the house - the largest - to another - the smallest, and ended up misplacing a few things as I tidied up. I know where my original transcripts are. Unfortunately, there are also about three thousand other sheets of paper in that one place, and that may be an underestimation.

So, new transcripts, application completed, and I waited. I got an interview, I was offered a place, I almost cried (yep, that happened) and I paid my deposit. We've reached May. By July, I know how much the course will cost. I checked my budget, and I knew then that I could afford a laptop and a camera - specific ones that I'd had my eye on for a while. I practised with the camera. I got used to framing things, to playing with depth of field. I didn't know much about photography, except that depth of field was cool.

I was still shooting in Auto. Then: September.

The month dragged by after I paid my fees. I was waiting all the time. The day of my orientation, I met up with a friend of a friend, from Germany. The orientation was boring. It rained heavily as I walked home, and for the next two weeks I was sick. Brilliant start, right?

Well, yes. The first lecture was moved forward in a timetable change, and even then I didn't meet my classmates properly until Wednesday - everyone was in, and our lecturer encouraged us to meet up for coffee after the first lecture. And that lecture was, in itself, an ice-breaker. We went for coffee, we set up our own little Facebook group, we added each other, marvelled at how many people were from Galway, and at the little coincidences that seemed to pop up. I had a couple of mutual friends with various people already, and live near one of my friend's girlfriends. (By near, I mean she's essentially around the corner. And we've never met. Whatever happened to suburban values?)

Week two, lectures started.

So, we'll fast forward through this. We've been through this, mostly. I put together my audio drama, I took some photographs that I love, I gave a presentation on the Selfie, as understood from a reading of Susan Sontag's On Photography. Pretty early on, I considered many of my classmates friends. By Halloween, having only just parted from someone's company, I was texting to say I considered him one of my best friends.That was perhaps the most embarrassing thing to happen that night, and it's not really all that embarrassing. (I did try to teach people to do the Time Warp, but I'm not embarrassed by that.)

The path became clearer the further I walked.

By the end of week eight, I was exhausted, stressed out, and feeling entirely comfortable in the company of my new friends. We were also getting ready to start our next projects, including creating a new soundtrack for a video - foley, dialogue, environmental noises, music, everything. By the end of week eleven - that's where we are now - we're getting ready to write essays, and complete reflective journals. We've met industry professionals who work as photographers, marketers, a social media strategist, a videographer, to mention just a few.

I can remember it all, yet I don't understand how we've gotten this far. We're almost done with our first semester. We've had several varieties of home-baked food. We've been to see some less-than-conventional films. We have our in-jokes. Some people have nicknames they don't want. We've gotten used to using ProTools - I even composed some music for it for my group's soundtrack in our second project - and we've been dabbling in various aspects of the Adobe suite. We've had to use Macs for everything, to the point that when I return to my Windows laptop, I scroll in the wrong direction way more often than I'd care to admit.

But see, it's more than all of that. I'm now at the point of wanting to produce short documentary pieces. I want to create audio dramas, to actually release to the public. Eleven weeks ago, I thought my main focus would be on photography. And while I love photography, while I still want to pursue it, to develop (ha!) my abilities further, I'm not restricting my options so much anymore. I want to work on sound design more in the future. I want to write about visual culture, and new media. I know that by the end of next semester, I'll be looking to learn more about multimedia authoring. I'm dying to learn more about video production already.

I feel like I've come a long way with a lot of amazing people, and I'm not entirely sure how I managed to get here. That said, I love it. I love every bit of it. Choosing this course was one of the best decisions I've ever made, and I refuse to apologise for getting sentimental over it, not after everything I've done in the past eleven weeks, not after the people I've met. I can't be sorry for that.

Learning by Doing

Week nine. That's how they define time in my college, by how many weeks into an academic year we are. By this point, I've been to see one night's worth of short films, one 3D museum experience, and one actual museum; I've read more for a single class than I think I did in my entire final year of my Undergrad; I've baked three times for friends in the course, and been out with them three times; submitted one photography project, and one audio design project, with artist statements for each, and; met some amazing people I am proud to call my friends.

The semester thus far has proven to me once again that I find it easier to learn by doing, by participating in the material, practising with Pro Tools and the Adobe Suite, and implementing suggestions from various and assorted guest speakers.

What has this meant, in reality? That, I think, is something best looked at across three areas: photography, audio design, and professional development.

Photography

For the sake of understanding how my understanding of photography has changed, we need to go back to before I started the course. To eliminate most of the history of my life with cameras, we'll start in July 2014 - when I bought my DSLR camera. Everything before that was with camera phones and standard digital cameras.

From late July to early October, I made one big mistake: I shot everything as JPEGs. They look great - the camera did a lot of the work, I just found things to photograph - but they're practically useless. That was mistake number 1.

The second mistake was in using Auto. Sure, you're guaranteed to use the best settings for the lighting available, but you have a lot less control over an image. In terms of learning how to take a good photograph, that's less than ideal.

The end of week eight - last week - marked the deadline for my first imaging project. Between week's four and eight, my understanding of photography, and ability with a camera and with Camera RAW, were put to the test. Thankfully, I took an approach to learning that my years studying Education suggested was the best option available: learning by doing. Practical work. 

I could read about taking photographs, or I could out with my camera and take and re-take photographs until I found one I actually liked. I could study Camera RAW meticulously, and watch dozens of videos online showing tutorials of how to use the program, or I could just try use it based on a couple of demonstrations to show me where the relevant sliders and editing tools were.

In the end, I had twenty six photographs to choose from, fully-edited to achieve the look I desired for the project. I needed ten. Thankfully, my classmates helped me whittle it down. I had thought maybe one person might help. I ended up with about eight people contributing ideas and thoughts while we waited for the Mac labs to open one Tuesday afternoon. Fundamentally, I feel like I could go out and do the project all over again, different idea, different concepts, and manage to do it in half the time, with less hassle. I understand the process a lot better.

Audio Design

Once upon a time, I took a class in college called Digital Storytelling. The course required us to figure out to use one programme particularly well; Audacity. Now, Audacity is great, but limited. Great in that it works, and it's free, and I have enough experience with it that I would have been extremely comfortable using it in college.

Instead, we were required to do all our sound editing in Pro Tools 10. A new interface to get used to, a whole other arrangement for tracks. New terminology. More complex. Not free - which meant I had to accustom myself to use of the Macs in college. (End result: scrolling in the wrong direction when I returned to my laptop.)

The learning of Pro Tools was just one part of the project I had to put together. I also had to record sound to actually edit, which, for me, lead directly into writing an audio drama. As I mentioned in my 'What's New(s)?' post, I wrote a short play called Love At First Date, which starred two of my former colleagues in the Mater Dei Drama Soc - the leads I had cast in our production of The Playboy of the Western World - Darren Lalor and Aisling Hayes.

Of course, I had problems with it. It wasn't just a script and some actors. It required me figuring out how to use the recording equipment, where to get the sounds I wanted, and then how to actually use them. Part of that included producing my own music.

I'm no expert at music. I listen to a fair amount - often albums on repeat - but I don't have any formal training that could have been useful in any way. In the end, I had to teach myself four chords on my six-string ukulele (that's apparently more difficult to play than a standard four-string, and therefore not suitable for a newbie - thanks Music Shop Guys all those years ago for not helping out with that piece of information!). Those four chords then formed the basis of the small piece of music that played during the drama.

Again, the best way to learn how to actually use Pro Tools was to dive in half-blind. We had done a project on it before, resulting in the reiteration of the word "Gatekeeper" on an almost daily basis. When volume is no concern, it gets even more fun. And that's the thing - the whole project was fun. Difficult at times - especially trying to get rid of wind from my dialogue tracks, or find a way to make the noise blend together well enough with my background noises to be less noticeable - but highly enjoyable all the same.

I feel like I could it again, with more interesting and daring ideas. Hearing everyone else's projects really helped provide inspiration to create more complex and entertaining pieces. Thankfully, people seemed to like my drama, something I was repeatedly surprised about to the point of failing to return the compliment (genuinely, too - some of them were frighteningly good!)

Professional Development

My course has three theoretical modules this semester - Visual Culture, which loans itself to the theory behind my entire Multimedia Imaging module; Communication Theory and New Media, and; Best Practice in Multimedia. The latter pair are vital for professional development in the mass-encompassing field of work that is multimedia. Communication Theory has, thus far, provided a step forward in the field of understanding the field, particularly with regard to any journalistic and creative-entrepreneurial endeavours. Various ethical concerns, concepts in the field, and case studies have been explored.

The end-result: a more involved approach to the content I'm producing. Now, I can't put it all down to this one module. I have wanted to work in this way for a long time. But what's important is that, about a month before my lectures started, I stopped updating this blog. I wasn't producing any content, good or bad. I put the theory into practice, and despite the notion that blogging is killing culture, I've been happier for doing it.

I've also been doing some work on some Brain Things that happened, but for the time being I don't have much to say about them. They exist as concepts, barely fleshed out, but they are the practical implications of a module that had, in its first half, required research and written content on a weekly basis.

When it comes to the Best Practice module, things get a little less consistent. That's no judgement on the lecturer, mind you - the guest speakers are booked according to their availability (and, obvious, field of work within the broader industry). The diversity of work represented by the speakers is astonishing, especially considering that several of them were graduates from the Undergraduate Multimedia course in my college (the students of which we share the module with.)

Each week, a speaker comes in, and we'll be assessed on journals written on reflection of the talks and topics. One very important question asked in the assignment brief is to consider the call-to-action from each session - what can we do to begin working in a particular field? Thus far, we've addressed Television, Videography and E-Learning, with speakers working in multimedia in IT and politics. Most recently, and most immediately implementable, a speaker from LinkedIn.

I've been in my current role as a bookseller for over seven years, so it shouldn't come as a surprise when I say that I've been updating my LinkedIn profile since that session with a mind towards future work. I don't plan on staying in a minimum wage, part-time job for the rest of my life. It doesn't make me happy.

Conversely, actually updating my LinkedIn profile, while not the most obviously enjoyable form of procrastination, has been a pleasurable experience. Taking into consideration a depth of work I've done, and my involvement across a broad spectrum of work, going into detail on teaching placements, too, I feel like I've actually done something with my life. What was once a relatively empty page is now a more vibrant history of my professional work. I wasn't entirely sure I knew how to begin, but eventually it all started falling into place.

Moving On

I feel like I've set a standard for myself for the future. For a long time, I've been a cram-as-study sort of person. That works for exams, but not so much for the long-term commitment of knowledge. So, I'm going to work out a self-learning methodology. I'm going to teach myself to study. This isn't just for college - I don't have exams as part of this course. This is for future learning, and for future work.

The inevitable conclusion to this is that the classes I undertake that have the least amount of student interaction are the classes I least enjoy. While we've had a couple of passive, take-notes-only sort of classes for some modules, there's a a greater balance of work and in-class theory in many of them than in others, and it's been in those classes that I've felt my learning has been improved.

We'll see where all of this takes me in the future. For now, I'm hoping the 'learn by doing' approach will get me through the rest of the semester, learning outcomes achieved.

A Professional Focus

I have a theory: I'm much more likely to get my Dream Job if I'm already working in the field in some respect. As far as theories go, that's not awful, right?

For me, it's publishing. I'll always be a writer, but there's only so much help I can offer to the writers who are looking for it from a desk in my small bedroom. I want to be able to help writers complete their books, publish their books, see their books for something more than a vague idea in their head.

However, since I have the whole "Do a Masters" thing to consider, I can't do either of two things at the moment: get a full-time job (period) or start my own business. With that in mind, I decided I would re-evaluate my plans for some books. Specifically, I would take the books that looked like I was just piecing them together and turn them into something more useful.

Seriously, though: I literally had a book that consisted of vaguely related ideas. Not. Any. More.

I'm taking what I call a "professional focus" on this. Yes, I've been treating my books professionally from day one, but to the end of being a writer. I've decided that my books should also be related to what I want to get from life.

I've already got Planning Before Writing and 25 Ways to Beat Writer's Block. To them, I'll be adding a few other titles, covering various areas of life as an author. The focus will be split between the craft of writing, the business side of things, and the lifestyle side of things - the three areas I had originally wanted to focus upon in my vaguely-connected books.

I don't plan on bombarding the market with them all in one go, of course. I want to take the time to write the properly, and to mix things up a bit so the books don't focus on one single aspect of writing. Today, while on my break in work, I put together short plans for four books, two of which I've wanted to write for a while regardless. It'll be an interesting project, and it fits into the general aim I set myself at the start of the year: establish myself as an "expert" in the field of writing.

To make a long story short, I want to be able to say to a publisher - either one I'm applying to, or one I'm submitting to - that I know a thing or two (or ten...) about what it means to be a writer, and I know how to make the process of writing and publishing a book so much easier than a lot of people make it for themselves. It helps to be able to prove it with more than a CV.

This is where the "professional focus" comes into play. I'll be working as a publisher, and working around the field of publishing, for pretty much the entire duration of my Masters. The entire time, I'll be preparing myself for the opportunity to say "This is what I can do; this is what others have said about it, and these are the pieces of paper from an established university that say I can do other things too."

I have to believe that I'm on the right track here. As it stands, I've already been told my experience is impressive. (It just didn't help that the company wasn't in a position to hire, because that's the publishing world for you.) I have a plan for myself, as difficult as that may seem for some people to believe. It's not so specific that outside variables can completely derail things within the next two years, and it's not so vague that when it comes to implementing the Grand Finale I'll be left without options.

I know what I want to do with my life, I have an idea about how to do it, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let myself get away with not even trying. I have a theory, and it needs to be proven.

And, just to make it specific about what I'm going to do now: I need to compile the plans for every book on writing I'll be writing and publishing over the next 18-24 months. I'll be typing them up, colour-coding them as Craft, Business or Lifestyle books, and placing them in a folder in the planned order of publication. On Monday, I'll begin the process of writing the next book.

***

It's worth mentioning, at the moment I'm offering friends a helping hand with their writing as a sort of free coaching service. (Sort of a coaching service, not sort of free.) Feel free to contact me with any sort of writing-related questions you might have. If I feel like it could benefit more from a direct conversation rather than an email reply, I'll put out the offer to you. This is all time-and-energy based, so if I don't reply right away, or I can't arrange a conversation (through Skype or Google+), don't be offended.