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| Photograph: Connor Brook |
Kirsten Stoddart is
an Australian-born writer, production manager and PhD candidate at the
University of Salford. She completed an MA in Scriptwriting at Bath Spa
University in 2013, and has worked in film and television production since
2004. Kirsten's PhD research focus is the effect of the rising industry of
Subscription Video on Demand original series on the employment of women writers
for television. Her broader research interests include women's employment in
creative media, gender, scriptwriting and media production.
Twitter: @KirstenStoddart
Winning the
coffee mug prize for best paper of my session at my university’s recent postgraduate
conference was not only nice, it also marked a big transition in my
transformation from industry to academia.
There is a lot
these days written about industry-academy interchange. It leads government
policy and dominates the thoughts of university administrators as a result.
But sometimes
it seems there is not as much thought given to what that really means,
especially at postgraduate level.
My field, for
example, is broadly film studies and specifically screenwriting in which I have
an MA. In addition though, I have over a dozen years experience in film and
television, mostly in production.
The PhD came
about because as an aspiring scriptwriter, I would look at the workplaces I was
in and notice that not only were there always more men than women, there was
also a significantly gendered assumption that the men were better and more valuable than the women. So here I am, one and a
half years into my PhD, researching women writers for scripted television and
the effects of S.V.o.D. (Subscription Video on Demand) on their employment.
Coming from an
industry background can be an incredible boost for your research, because it
means you really, really care about
the outcomes. I care about what happens to women writers because I identify
with them.
But coming from
an industry background also provides a huge challenge, in my specific case,
when it comes to writing “the academic paper”.
My first
submissions to supervisors took achingly long, and nearly drove me to the edge.
I didn’t know how to structure these factual sentences. My innate desire and
training was to entertain my reader- “show, don’t tell”. That is what every scriptwriter
is told. But in this new world the APA was foreign, and, sometimes, I did not
understand what journal articles were saying to me because of their formulaic
structures and, often, their use of jargon and specialist language. Sometimes,
they seemed to obscure as much as they revealed. This was the reverse of “show,
don’t tell”.
I printed off
piles of articles, borrowed twenty-three books from the library. I read books
about feminism, post-feminism, third-wave feminism, intersectional feminism. I
discovered entire new areas of study I’d had no idea even existed (hello,
Organization Studies). I became increasingly overwhelmed and wondered what I
had got myself into. I spent nights reading, highlighting, writing, panicking,
crying, caffeinating. When I submitted my work, I felt it was all artificial.
There were
times when I thought I would not make it through my first year. I had to
resubmit my assessment paper because it wasn’t academically structured. And I
knew that. But somehow, I kept pushing. I kept going.
In March, I
re-submitted my paper and it passed. That deserved a holiday so I took a break
– and promptly forgot how to write again. Cue a repeat of the whole experience.
But this time,
it lasted a shorter time. I took a couple of weeks off, and then I came back. I
set my alarm every morning. I got a Nespresso machine (yes, it was an important
part of this story). I wrote down my writing goals for the day, week, month. It
was a work plan for the year. And then something happened: the words began to
come. Slowly at first, and then, suddenly, I realised I could meet these
writing goals if I just told myself I could. Instead of panicking, I celebrated
small victories. Five hundred words – go for lunch. A thousand words – take the
evening off. I sit down at my desk at about 8.30am, and, if I don’t meet my
daily or weekly goal, I don’t beat myself up, because I know I can get caught
up if I just keep going.
Something wonderful
happens when you allow yourself to be flexible. Sometimes two hundred good
words is better than a thousand manic ones. You can get it done. You can share
your work.
Even so, I
couldn’t believe it when I won that prize. Simply, that was because I was still
putting myself into the Imposter Box. I’m not an imposter, though. I’m just a
different kind of PhD student, coming from a different background and
environment. And I represent the challenge of integrating industry and academy,
but I also represent that it can be done. I had to re-train my brain, and my
brain and I are getting on just fine now. Yes, I still get anxious when I feel
like I’m behind. But I also know that I can pull this off because I care. And you can, too.
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