Self-Driven Continuing Education

I’ve been working on myself. For a long time, it was easy to keep learning and hustling as a millennial. Well… It was tough. But my demographic is one that was forced to learn a variety of skills very quickly. Now that I have a stable situation, that hasn’t come naturally.

Instead, I’ve been actively trying to take classes and better myself. It’s not university and it’s definitely not an advanced degree. There is value in continuing education, though. Even if it’s self-designed and self-driven.

What are skills worth developing when it’s strictly optional? What can you learn for the sake of learning?

As it turns out, there’s an overwhelming number of things I’d like to know! Like much of my life, I’m forcing myself to prioritize. At this point, I’ve accepted that I’ll never know enough about website and app coding to build my own — and that’s okay! There are other things I’d rather learn. Some things I’ve been engaging with:

• One-off cooking classes

• Drop-in improv

• Financial education

• Educational opportunities at work

• Netflix animation educational events

• Spanish language refreshers and textbooks

Some things — like financial classes — are a lot easier to care about after you have skin in the game. Who knew!

I’m still working out what a reasonable “class schedule” is for me. But there’s more I’d like to learn about above and beyond the quick Google.

Cooking & Gardening

Though my space is limited, I’ve become very interested in food fiction. I’ll take a class on cooking something if it seems overly complicated or beyond my skill level. It likely isn’t! I just need an experienced teacher and demonstration rather than reading about it from a cookbook. I’m hoping to also get more into food production. Beyond the basics of my potted plant patio!

I also fancy barista and coffee classes at the prestigious and local Boot Coffee. This is an example of something that’s just interesting and less practical for me personally. But maybe I’ll give it a try someday!

Software & Processes

I haven’t bit the bullet on claases about software! I’m interested, but also don’t own any of the software I’d be interested in learning about. The Adobe suite and animation software would, of course, be my main interests.

Natural World

There’s a certification program in California called CalNat. You take coursework and do volunteer work around a particular California biome to be a citizen scientist. As a National Park enthusiast, this appeals to me a lot. It’s just hard to get into.

Voice Acting

This is one of those blue sky dream things that just seems interesting. If I can’t animate and have no near-term way of breaking into the writing side of animation, maybe a voice acting sample will serve me. 😉

What do you do to continue your education for education’s sake? I’m always open for ideas!

#AmNotWriting

I spent much of my Internet time in high school ‘lurking’ in message boards of the early Online Times. What I do lately reminds me of that. I' haven’t been writing (hence the title), but I have been following writers and reading about process, systems, and feelings about writing. Like anyone who’s ever thought “Is that writer for that show on Twitter?”, I’ve seen the hashtag #AmWriting. Well… I haven’t been.

I wonder if there’s a word in some other language or poetry that describes this period of the process? Time spent ‘Holding your breath’? A ‘Martin-esque intermission’? ‘Pencils down’?

Instead of writing (or drafting or noting or even dawdling in front of a blank document on my computer…), I have been trying to reconnect with my creative self. Which… is quite a challenge, actually. What does that mean? And further… what does that mean when you have a stressful 9-5 where your job doesn’t involve much creativity (beyond crafting a data story and a dash of brand theatricality)?

For me, it’s meant some to-do lists and trial by error. Here’s what’s worked so far:

• Taking classes (which is like being in grad school, but you’re at a Sur La Table or podunk improv theatre and designing your own curriculum)

• Podcasting (Still going strong!)

• Purging my To Read/Watch/Listen/Play lists (i.e. admitting what I definitely won’t ever get to, and going full Marie Kondo on that)

• Daydreaming about what I want in life (which helps to think about the kind of creative endeavors I want to have — some surprises here)

What will for you? I don’t know. But this multiple-year period of my life of #AmNotWriting is a bit like being bored as a kid; It’s allowed time to rethink & flourish. Some of the best clarity comes when you’re doing something unrelated to the task at hand.

Stay Tuned for what will happen here next.

Why a Podcast?

What should I do with all of this useless information in my head?

Though I would be flattered to think anyone cared about the depths of trivia I think about, the bottom line is that even most nerds let their eyes gloss over if I start to talk about the adaptation of Shakespeare into Saturday morning cartoon shows. Could I write a book on animated television show writing? Yes. Should I? Maybe.

They say great wisdom is knowing when to use great power.

So what do you do? When I can't talk to people on the street about cartoon writing, and there isn't exactly an M.A. in animated dramaturgy... When I can't go from zero to animated TV show writer, what is one to do? Chris and I started a podcast.

Writers Get Animated is part-theory, part-improv. In it, we try to explore all of writing's little nuances in cartoon shows. Everything from the most emotional moments of Futurama, to the best-constructed fart jokes. Usually the fart jokes are more fun to talk about. The podcast is only a thinly-veiled attempt to meet people in Big Animation. In addition to academic breakdowns (aka English-majoring-the-crap-out-of-things), we also just have fun. 

It Writes Itself! is an improv game we developed to showcase our creative (and ridiculous) talents. Chris and I spin some metaphorical wheels (they're in an app), and then spend 7 minutes developing a pitch for a crossover concept between two properties and an added gimmicky cliche. For example: Popeye and Akira as teenagers. In this concept, Popeye fills the roll of the titular Akira. He has a jet ski instead of motorcycles and eats some bad spinach that turns him into the monster. Ultimately, it is Popeye's untamed tweenage rage that prevents him from controlling his temper.

There's also a healthy portion of commentary in there, though. We dish on diversity in animation, how cliffhangers work, and what 'tone' means in animated television writing. Hopefully many more meaningful topics. Though like with any podcast, we have more fun along the way than we should.

Here's a primer in Writers Get Animated:

• 022 - Modern Day Fables: Zootopia
• 017 - Of McStuffins and Puffins
• 009 - A Tale of Two Scoobies
• 016 - Minority Report

If you like that, subscribe to us on iTunes. Leave us a nice review! Keep posted at @WGAnimated on Twitter. Like us on Facebook. Tumble around with us? 

...okay, the last one doesn't work as a call to action.

Make English Majors Show Their Work

If you didn't know, I moonlight as a copywriter. It's nice money and I control how much money I make / how much work I have at a time. Don't get me wrong; it's also a huge pain in my ass. For many reasons. But the biggest is without a doubt the fact that everyone in America thinks they can write. You can't.

Disclaimer: I am not claiming that this blog is a shining beacon of quality. I usually write these in one quick session and maybe, maybe, I'll proofread them. This blog is a hobby. My professional one gets a little more scrutiny from me.

The Hubris

Any copywriter can tell you about the client (or agency superior) who has constant edits for their writing – most of which actually detract from the writing. That's because they do no have in mind how the audience would read it; they have in mind how they would write this. As a writer, you can never match their voice. It's a faulty way of measuring the subjective quality of a piece.

But advertising is a stubborn old mule.

Most people are only concerned with getting the right answer. For those of you who did not grow up in 80s or later, this may sound familiar. There was a time that math class was only concerned with the right answer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIKGV2cTgqA

Math Education ('Maths' to the British in the audience) hit its stride and started teaching how to do math instead of how to get the right answer. I never got multiplication in elementary school until a teacher showed me how to do lattice multiplication. I never got another multiplication question wrong ever again. Because I didn't have to do it in my head. I learned how to multiply.

Unfortunately, writing never received the same treatment.

The Problem With How We Teach Writing

At best, students will be able to do a rewrite of their English paper. They'll get spelling and grammar corrections, but not edits of how to improve the structure of their paper. If they do get structural edits, they may be based on a premise that the student didn't intend to convey.

In math and physics, we'd always have points taken off for not showing our work. The same should be true for English majors.

When students turn in a paper for English class, they should have to turn in an outline, short responses to the research books they read, and quick answers about what their premise was. Otherwise we're not teaching writing; we are teaching students that getting the right answer is more important than doing it right. And that's how we get clients and bosses who think they can write – but never had to work for it.

Sadly, it'll take more than just changing how an English degree works to fix this. Not every professor knows how to write or even how to grade work in progress. They're a product of this system, too. I got my English degree from one of the most renowned programs in the country. I didn't learn how to write until I became an intern at a magazine after graduation.

What Playwriting Gets Right

Even though my English classes didn't teach me how to write, my Playwriting professor did.

(See? There is a reason this is on my creative writing blog!)

We had to talk about concepts for scenes in class. Our monthly journals were reflections on our writing processes. Our peers even helped us describe in one sentence what the main character's objective was in each scene. We were graded on process.

Later, while trying to figure out how to be a journalist and copywriter, I'd return to my playwriting knowledge. Writing in both of those fields has a goal of conveying a feeling to an audience. Oh hey, that sounds like an objective. And each paragraph is a tactic for getting the reader to feel something. What's fun about writing for the web is that you get to UI/UX design, writing a new pages for if you succeed or fail in your objective to make the reader feel something.

So if you have a playwriting education, you're probably more qualified for that technical writer job than a run-of-the-mill English major.