Coming Soon!

Special Announcement!

If you are a regular reader of mine, or know me personally, you know that I am working toward a postgraduate certificate in digital storytelling. A large component of this program is a capstone personal project of our own design.

When I interviewed for admission in this program, the curator/director of the program asked me if I preferred to tell my own story, or tell other people’s stories. I actually laughed lightly in response and said, “other people’s, I don’t really like to talk about myself and I am not really sure I have an interesting enough story to tell.”

And yet, here I am, announcing that my personal project is an audio addition to this blog, a podcast series!

I am fervently working away at getting a season of ten episodes written, and at least two recorded, edited, mastered, and published by June 1.

The Practicalities

I guess it turns out, I do want to keep sharing my own story. I ultimately decided on this as my project for a few reasons. First, I still had a collection of notes, ideas, and anecdotes I had been collecting over the past three and a half years with the intention of writing blog posts with them. As my time abroad is soon coming to an end, I felt it was important to get them shared somehow before they were no longer timely or relevant. This project provides that opportunity and gives me a deadline for it.

And why a podcast? Well, the project needed to be a new concept, not an extension of what I have already been doing here on this blog. I enjoyed the work we did in this program in audio storytelling and wanted to give myself an opportunity to practice those skills more while still in the program in order to receive support and feedback. And so, the idea of the RB Abroad Podcast was born.

The RB Abroad Podcast will live here on this blog and will also eventually be available on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Spotify. The best way to keep up to date on my progress and to be notified when episodes are ready is to subscribe to this blog by email or with your WordPress account.

Getting Personal

I am excited about this project and have been creatively challenged and stimulated so far by the process, which has to this point been a lot of writing and conceptualizing of how the episodes will sound and how I will incorporate audio elements in addition to my narrative. It is both fun for me and utterly terrifying.

I vacillate between feeling really good about the episode scripts I’ve written and feeling like everything I am writing is lame and boring and I’m a fool for thinking anyone but me would care.

I daydream about producing the stories so perfectly that they when they are heard by Reese Witherspoon’s production company, they’ll immediately be optioned for a screenplay. But then I run through some practice narration and it sounds stiff and terrible, and I review my scripts and question every story and wonder why anyone would be entertained.

I get crippled by self-doubt. Who do I think I am, Elizabeth Gilbert? What makes me think that I can call myself a writer? A photographer? A podcaster? A storyteller?

UGH! AT WHAT POINT WILL I STOP QUESTIONING MYSELF ABOUT THIS?

At what point will I stop feeling like a fraud, an impostor, a wannabe?

That is exactly why I enrolled in this program. To further educate myself in these fields, to gain knowledge and skills and experience with experts, and ultimately a certification and title that makes me feel like I legitimately earned the right to call myself a digital storyteller.

In the meantime, I continue to tell myself to snap out of it. I am, so far, embracing this opportunity and pouring myself into its creation. I am drafting stories I’ve been sitting on for awhile, and I am sharing thoughts and recollections that are personal and heartfelt. I hope I can tell them in a way that gives them the justice and airtime I think they deserve, and I hope I can stay bold in the production and editing process and not stifle my storytelling out of fear or embarrassment.

Working on this project has made me feel as close to an artist as I have ever felt, and it feels good. I hope I can focus more on that feeling than on the fear and self-doubt, but it feels good even to just share that part of the process here, as part of the whole story.

One of the very first lessons we learned in the beginning of my program is that we are going to fail in some endeavors, but we won’t fail if we don’t try, so try I will. And I think that if my desire to tell the story is stronger than my fear of failing at it, then it means it is a story I really must try to tell.

I hope you are excited about hearing from me in a new way! If you aren’t already subscribed to my blog but want to be the first to know when the RB Abroad Podcast is ready, please subscribe/follow me today. I look forward to sharing more with you soon. Thanks for coming along with me on this ongoing journey!