Writing Like A Rock God

On Friday I gave a reading of my short story Count DireLife (which you can read here) to a small audience from various artistic backgrounds. Though the venue was huge and the microphone hissy, I came away with a great feeling of achievement, a little applause, then a little more as the MC encouraged it and a compliment or two not so much about my story but about my delivery and confidence.

I feel as though I underwent an initiation process, rather like the journey a band might take. The band starts playing small venues, their friends attend, sometimes the drummers Dad will come, there will be a few old blokes at the bar and maybe the girl who runs the cloak room will step away from the coats and take a look too. I wonder how lonely the lead singer must feel when he or she says “Thankyou.” to the sound of their lover and the old bloke clapping.

I wonder how many bands just play that one gig and give up. I doubt there are many. They will have written their songs, practiced their set, thought about their costume and given it their all. Which is what I did.

And then I had a moment of crisis. What if no one really wants to read my words?

Though Friday was the first time I ever read my work aloud among strangers, I have shown my work to others with varying degrees of success. I’ve had people tell me they loved my work, they find it too flowery, that it was evocative, that I have a beautiful way with words, that there was simply too much detail, that it was depressing and very unusual.

I just want people to read it, and to appreciate it.

I’ve never had any one yell at me to get off the stage, or throw plastic cups since they stopped serving bottles. I had a pleasant response, the only coughing came from me, I met a nice group of people who I hope to see again and most of all I had fun.

What would the rock god do next? Having secured a venue they would sneak through town at night and post flyers advertising their next gig. And so it would go on, until the band has a following and finally a manager, who has contacts and knows people and is often over bearing and one day you know they might make it. And maybe they might not. They will have had a load of fun, a stack of stories to tell and by the time they have hit mid forty their sex god pose will have been perfected to a state of imperfection.

So let’s hope my debut with the squeaky microphone in a fabulous venue is the beginning of my gigging career. As I will be reading I don’t need to practice my pout, but I just may have to mix up some paste and get posting flyers all over town.