So there’s me, popping up my head after my writing winter of
discontent. It wasn’t writer’s
block. It was writer doesn’t give a fuck,
heels dragged through my last draft of the novel about characters and themes I
loved, absolutely loved. And I didn’t
give a fuck. Emotively, I did. Cognitively, I didn’t.
Once the novel was done and sent away to be slaughtered, deadlines
for two plays waited my attention. One
play, an old friend who needed cosmetic surgery. The other, only an idea. Deadlines don’t understand winters of
discontent. I needed a kick in the ass,
so decided to take a writing course. Bit
of structure, the fizz that comes from being around other writers, copacetic.
We have universities to the left of us, universities to the
right, here I am, spoiled for choice of where to go. On the home front, various things are being
juggled (none of which understand winters of discontent, either, needless to
say), so I opted for an online course.
This is a pretty funny idea because 2015 was
going to be the Year of the Real. Besides that, I’m not
terribly visual. In fact, I probably
have a visual processing delay. (When it’s
going to arrive, is anyone’s guess.)
Which means that my photographer son and resident hooligan spent a lot
of his childhood amusing himself by playing visual tricks on me. Why I thought learning visually without the
very necessary 3D contact with my classmates would work . . . well I wasn’t
thinking, was I?
It didn’t occur to me that I was in trouble when feedback
for my first submission honed in on my use of accents in the dialogue. (What
accents? thinks me.) Some feel it courageous I’ve attempted
accents. Some, that I shouldn’t be
taking on airs, using accents without a DRAMATIC REASON. Oh, and did I know that certain (low brow) Dubliners might use the word ‘feck’ but certainly never ‘wee’. That’s Northern Irish.
Oh. The ‘accent’ is
my husband’s speech pattern. Oh. Okay.
Light bulb moment. They don’t
know I’m not British. Telling them once,
doesn’t make much difference. Telling
them three times does. And this isn’t a
reflection on them. It’s a reflection on
virtual learning. In a 3D classroom,
they’d hear my voice week after week.
Online, I’m letters on a screen.
They aren’t here to get to know me.
They’re here to learn scriptwriting.
I did, however, understand immediately the difficulty from most of the course examples
being culturally embedded. (I may be slow, but I've been an ex-pat for a while now.) We read this
script, watch that film, my classmates are in stitches or deeply moved and I’m all
WTF????? Without the cultural context,
my learning skimmed across the top, no conversations where the Brits explained things to
me about their home grown drama, heard my reflections as an outsider.
My visual son says he doesn’t think creative coursework can
be taught virtually. Indeed, it would
take a lot of online chatting for this group of dispersed learners to become a
real writing group. To be honest, there
hasn’t been a week yet when everyone gets in the written assignment for the
rest of us to give feedback on. If life
intrudes too emphatically for them to get their work done, they most likely don’t
have time to chat either.
It’s not been a total loss.
We’re covering ground that I’ve not covered before and my two plays show
the results of this. But it’s feckin
hard work. (Yes, I’m low brow. No, I’m not from Dublin.) If I’m lucky, I may get a small paragraph of feedback from one or two of my classmates, an equal offering from my tutor. There’s no discussion. There’s no listening to discussions of the
other plays. There’s me. Squiggles on a screen. And waiting.
Waiting for their assignments.
Waiting for feedback. Some of
which never come, followed by more waiting.
So never again, unless I’m too frail to venture forth and
annoy the Brits. Hats off to those of
you who can learn virtually, but for this anachronistic speaker of crass dialects, 3D is where I
stay.
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