I spent most of today outside of my box expanding my horizons. I went to my first web conference (my first anything conference) called Northern Voice 2008. There, I learned things about blogging and social media on the Internet that I don’t entirely understand the basics for. I went alone (which means I had to make friends with people I wouldn’t normally get the chance to be around and thus have a really hard time relating to with such a basic technical awareness!). Next, then I came home to update my blog software, only to find myself learning command line, of all things! I will talk more about command line in another post as it is its own little box.
Northern Voice is a conference about the voices of the web, blogging - live, video, micro and otherwise, pod-casting (weee!), social media, wiki, tagging, stats etc. Today’s schedule had two streams: either spend time in the 101 section learning about each type of media or attend the random sessions of interest pertaining to the media. Myself, having never had formal instruction in any of the above, decided that it would be best to establish the basics. Wrong. The basics meant: why should you blog? what is a podcast, what is a wiki? was therefore, believe it or not, below my skill set! So, I hit up the instructors for pod-casting tutelage on the lunch break and learned how to fix my broken podcast, which now works but is incredibly slow to upload due to the formatting of the file (I believe). Tomorrow I will learn about how to make that more efficient. To be honest, if the only thing I come away from this conference knowing is how to get my podcast up on my site, I will be more than happy. My one suggestion would be that they have 200 level courses for those who want to develop basic skills in the function of their media of choice and consequently make the sessions longer.
Tomorrow there is a whole gamut of things on the NV08 schedule, I am mostly interested in the future of social media (for Yoga West) and getting published (book to blog or blog to book). Then I have a choice, I can stay for the afternoon events, or I can go to the library to participate in a workshop on fantasy writing called “Possible Worlds”. Since I will have enough to run with on the blogging front I think it will be time for a break for computers - writing workshop it is then.
I am going to go and rest my brain, here’s to renewed zeal for the blogosphere!
L.
Technology, my weakest link.
I recorded the podcast, edited it, felt somewhat dismayed at the imperfection of the whole thing, but decided to publish it anyway. Then it didn’t publish. I have decided to bide my time and continue to work with it until I have attained a sufficient level of knowledge to work the technical part. Yup, there is no point in rushing things, the technical learning curve was greater than expected, I am willing to live with that.
So, here I blog.
This week I found the Margaret Atwood Society online, and thought how amazing it must be for her, a writer who continues to not only live, but write, to have her own society of people actively analyzing her works. I decided that since I have become rather taken by Margaret Atwood’s wit and slightly tongue-in-cheek style of writing, that I would join the Society so that I too could contribute. It turns out that they are looking for papers on The Penelopiad, which I just happened to have in audio format. What an opportunity! I plugged in, grabbed my knitting and started listening.
I wasn’t entirely sure that I liked the book at first, which was partly due to my unfamiliarity with the reader, but also that it wasn’t written in the same contemporary style as the handmaids tale and the edible woman. Then, as I got into it, I began to see subtle inklings of her wit and modernity and I quite liked it. So, I am going to pick up the text from the library and try my hand at a scholarly paper.
I equate the word scholarly with university educated, a concept I continue to struggle with. I question whether university is the only way to educate, being that I don’t feel that my university education gave me the depth of knowledge that I assumed it would. Though I believe this is partly because of my majoring in French Literature, I don’t feel that my writing skills are even close to good enough to begin a master’s level education (or even good enough to merit the grades I earned with them). I find myself at a loss in textual analysis, grammar and spelling. I enjoy creative writing, but I know that knowledge in these aforementioned areas is essential to produce engaging work. I would really like to be a writer as prolific as Margaret Atwood, but is it possible to do so with an incomplete university education, and one in French to boot? I guess we’ll find out!
Honestly, I don’t believe that technology is my only weak link. I believe that I need more practice with the microphone, I need to spend more time on what I write, and work on the depth of my ideas. Perhaps weak chain is better than no chain at this infantile point in my career? I am excited to press on!