AUDIO BIO RELFECTION
How did you decide what story (or stories) you wanted to tell in your audio bio? What was it like sharing this story, knowing that others would hear it? What challenges did you face in writing this narrative?
Originally it was very hard for me to decide which stories I wanted to tell in my audio bio. There was so much that I wanted to say that it would have been way too long and not connected into something worth listening to. I decided on which stories I wanted to tell based on what I ended up deciding was most important to me. It is very nerve wracking telling a story that was important to me knowing that somebody else would be listening to it. It felt a lot like picking out the most vulnerable pieces of me or the most important parts of myself and laying them out for everybody else to hear and judge me on. My biggest challenge while writing my narrative was my wording. Once I knew what stories I wanted to tell it was about finding the best way to tell them in a way that didn't sound too simple but all not too complex. I have a bad habit of putting in extra words when I don't need them. At the end of my narrative when I was talking about concerts I wasn't sure if the situation was clear enough in my first draft.
Describe your process of working on this audio bio. How did you approach it? What choices did you make in your writing process that were particularly effective? What do you wish you had done differently? Why?
I started my process by taking my "I am From..." poem and adding to it. I expanded on every section I had already written then added more. I decided at this point it was more beneficial to have to much material then pair it down and refine it which is exactly what I did. I took out some of the sections about my childhood because I felt like they weren't important enough to my story as is. Then I looked at what I had written then started to trim it down and reword certain things so ideas could be combined into one bigger more important idea. This was effective for me because I was able to get all of the thoughts and ideas I was having down on the paper in a concrete form so I could see everything before I started editing and deciding what was important and what wasn't. I work better when things are in a concrete form in front of me so this really helped me to keep track of my ideas and go where I wanted. If I could have done anything differently I wish I could have made my voice even more dynamic. My biggest problem was when I would sit down to actually record me telling the story I would start talking too fast and get really nervous and start stumbling on my words. This happening actually did surprise me though because I am a DJ at WQRI and have my own radio show so I'm used to seemingly talking to myself when other people are really listening.
Assess your audio bio. In addition to telling us what worked well, tell us what you “failed” at in writing this piece? How did you make use of those failures? Consider the quality of your narrative, the structure, pacing, and details of the narrative, the sonic elements you include, etc. What have you learned through the process of working on your audio bio that you want to carry forward for your work on the refugee project?
I feel like I didn't do a very good job in making my story something that somebody else would want to listen to. I didn't do a good job of assessing the "why should I care?" factor. It feels like some of my pieces connect but others don't. As a person I'm very bad at talking about myself and making myself sound interesting so this definitely carried over when I was writing my story. It was hard for me to tell what I just wanted to say compared to what was actually important for other people to hear then put it into a form where they would actually want to listen to it. I tried to structure my piece chronologically which makes sense to me but it isn't clear enough in the finished piece for anybody else to understand that's why it is in that order. If I had to do it differently I would have tried to take a bigger step back and really look at how my essay should be formatted and maybe shift some things around and change certain parts completely. From this process I've learned to not just look at my project in one way. It was very hard for me to tell whether or not I liked my first draft or second draft better because they were such different pieces and I can be very narrow minded. From this experience I am going to learn not to do this for the refugee project and really try and be creative and look at it from all sides. This should also hopefully be easier by having my group members' opinions and inputs as well.