I can do this job from home?
So you’re a spoonie and went way too hard at the start of the year and are a crumbling mess by mid-semester and have done a terrible job asking for help and can barely get out of bed some days, and have to work on a collaborative photography project. Well, I think, they’ve been telling me that most editorial work is done via email, with the occasional face-to-face meeting; I guess this is where I put that to the test? Surely, I try to assure my broken self, I can do this job from home? I can do this job from bed?! As I was to find out, the answer was, for the most part, Yes. But there’s value in face-to-face meetings.
I was paired with a photography student whose name was the only thing I knew about them. I had no idea of their age beyond them being an adult, wouldn’t find out their gender until the very end, could only guess at their race, ethnicity and country of origin —I just knew that English was their second language and they’d need significant help with the text of their book. That their religion might be a factor wasn’t something I even considered, until I belatedly had to at the very end of this collaboration.
I was interfacing with the platonic ideal of a photographer, the only aspect of which I glimpsed through our email exchanges. Try as we might to set up a meeting in reality, if I was well, they were sick; but mostly vice versa. We quickly settled into a routine of frequent email exchanges, and they were getting excellent feedback from their teacher on the work as it progressed, so everything seemed to be going to plan.
Before the Easter break they sent a PDF of what they had so far, noting that they intended to do another photo shoot with their subject during that period. I took a look at what photos and text they had so far, and offered some suggestions as to how they might better realise their portrait of ‘a day in the life of an international student in Melbourne’. How they might use this as a microcosm to explore the macrocosm of the issues, challenges and general activities any student might have on relocating to Melbourne from another country.
One of the key challenges their subject, Bastian, seemed to have faced on transitioning to their new life as an international student was simply cooking for themselves. Exploring this aspect of their life in more detail — the reasons why they couldn’t previously cook, and how they managed to feed themselves now — was an example of the shape our collaboration took. Pictures of them shopping and preparing a meal served as a meaty metaphor.
And the good news was that I could do all of this from bed! After successive revisions, once their photobook was more fully formed, we began the process of collaborating on the text to accompany their photos. And I only had to get out of bed to print out the latest copy of the PDF I’d been sent, then pour over it as my dog nuzzled next to me.
I finally had to get out of bed and sit at my desk and fire up Open Office once we reached the copy editing stage. At my request, they put all the accompanying text into a Word doc, and I began the process of correcting grammar, and reshaping some of the sentence structure. After touting the benefits of using track changes, I sent back just such a revised document so they could clearly see what I’d changed, explaining my reasoning for anything substantive in accompanying emails. Back and forth went the emails as the photobook began to further cohere.
When we reached the proof-reading stage — having failed again at arranging a meet-up in meat space — I got some additional exercise. I could do part of that job in bed, but then would have to get up and scan, page-by-page, the deliberately legible scribbling of my editorial red pen that marked any final corrections, or last-minute suggestions, to enhance the work, then fire off another round of emails.
By the time we were both happy with the result, fortune had it that we were both healthy and ready to sit down for a final review. But as we’d quickly discover, the only day that worked for us both was the day after their project was due. So, after some eleventh hour emails — copy editing and proofing the last minute addition of an Acknowledgments page — our collaboration was complete.
I’d successfully proven to myself that I could do this job from home — mostly from bed — but in hindsight realise there would have been fewer email exchanges if we’d managed to meet up (especially in the final stages) and sit down and look at the document together in InDesign — where a few words and some quick typing would’ve saved the sacrifice so many 1s and 0s made, traveling through the ether.
