Rachael Eyre's Blog - Posts Tagged "reading-aloud"
Performing Your Work
From experience I've found that writers tend to fall into two camps. There are the outgoing, talkative and industrious types, who don't mind discussing themselves and their work, and there are the shy, reclusive types who find any form of self promotion acutely embarrassing. Guess which camp I belong in?
Don't get me wrong, I love writing. It's been my life for as long as I can remember. But the instant I'm asked to push myself and my work, I clam up. I'm afflicted by one hundred and one complexes: my gran's stern pronouncement "Self praise is no recommendation," my mum's horrible ex declaring that no one would be interested in what I have to say, my own crippling self doubt. In no area is this more entrenched than performing my own work.
Psychoanalysis time: my mum was a terrific reader when my sister and I were kids, putting on all the voices. She's still the yardstick by which I measure all storytelling. When I went to school, I copied her, because I assumed that's what you did. Unfortunately this helped establish me as a complete weirdo; teachers and classmates alike were unnerved by my enthusiasm. It made me so wretchedly self conscious, I'd stammer and stumble on words, meaning I was stuck in a low reading group for years. I flew through books in my spare time but couldn't manage a simple passage if asked to read aloud. We even had to wear badges according to our reading grade, for Pete's sake.
As you can imagine, my hangup increases tenfold if I'm asked to perform my own writing. The issue lies with that word "perform"; you're no longer expected to drone from the page, as was customary at school. The received wisdom is that if you hope to be a success, you'll be expected to read aloud, but what if you're an atrocious reader? What if you freeze up at the thought of all those pairs of eyes staring at you? You can't even say, "Oh, Stephen Fry can do the audiobook," because chances are there won't be an audiobook.
This is where the performance cheerleaders cite the example of Charles Dickens, a member of Camp 1 if there ever was one. His enormous success can partly be attributed to regular performances of his work; his favourite extract seems to have been Nancy's murder in Oliver Twist, which he enacted with creepy gung ho. If Dickens wasn't too proud to perform his work, the reasoning appears to be, then you should put up with it, you awkward little gobshite. You could argue that Dickens was already a celebrity, and people would have heard him recite any old tosh, but that's besides the point.
I was forced to confront my monster when I was asked to perform some of my work earlier this week. It was a twenty five minute set, mine to do whatever I liked with. I had an existing story that lasted fifteen minutes, pruned of my more subversive elements, but what the heck was I going to do with the remaining fifteen?
This being Election Night, it obviously had to refer to the occasion in some way. I was stumped until one of the girls in the staff canteen commented that the party leaders were "working like robots"; I quickly had an idea that there was a government facility creating bespoke politicians. One of these days I'll feature it on this blog, but because it includes a character from my current book and might be regarded as a spoiler, I'll leave it for the time being. I timed myself reading the new piece: ten minutes thirty seconds. I could always knock out bits I didn't think flowed.
The night of the show, my only props were the stories (in massive font, double spaced), a large Coke and a microphone. I dragged myself over to the performance space, my legs seemingly fused. A maddening tickle developed in my throat. I took a deep breath and started to read.
It was ... okay, I suppose. As you'd expect from having the last set on Election Night, attention was waning and people were checking the results none too subtly on their phones, but the people who were actually listening laughed at the jokes. Overall, it was useful practice, and earned £16 I wouldn't have had otherwise. Maybe I should brush up on my projection skills and perform at the next open mike night ...
Don't get me wrong, I love writing. It's been my life for as long as I can remember. But the instant I'm asked to push myself and my work, I clam up. I'm afflicted by one hundred and one complexes: my gran's stern pronouncement "Self praise is no recommendation," my mum's horrible ex declaring that no one would be interested in what I have to say, my own crippling self doubt. In no area is this more entrenched than performing my own work.
Psychoanalysis time: my mum was a terrific reader when my sister and I were kids, putting on all the voices. She's still the yardstick by which I measure all storytelling. When I went to school, I copied her, because I assumed that's what you did. Unfortunately this helped establish me as a complete weirdo; teachers and classmates alike were unnerved by my enthusiasm. It made me so wretchedly self conscious, I'd stammer and stumble on words, meaning I was stuck in a low reading group for years. I flew through books in my spare time but couldn't manage a simple passage if asked to read aloud. We even had to wear badges according to our reading grade, for Pete's sake.
As you can imagine, my hangup increases tenfold if I'm asked to perform my own writing. The issue lies with that word "perform"; you're no longer expected to drone from the page, as was customary at school. The received wisdom is that if you hope to be a success, you'll be expected to read aloud, but what if you're an atrocious reader? What if you freeze up at the thought of all those pairs of eyes staring at you? You can't even say, "Oh, Stephen Fry can do the audiobook," because chances are there won't be an audiobook.
This is where the performance cheerleaders cite the example of Charles Dickens, a member of Camp 1 if there ever was one. His enormous success can partly be attributed to regular performances of his work; his favourite extract seems to have been Nancy's murder in Oliver Twist, which he enacted with creepy gung ho. If Dickens wasn't too proud to perform his work, the reasoning appears to be, then you should put up with it, you awkward little gobshite. You could argue that Dickens was already a celebrity, and people would have heard him recite any old tosh, but that's besides the point.
I was forced to confront my monster when I was asked to perform some of my work earlier this week. It was a twenty five minute set, mine to do whatever I liked with. I had an existing story that lasted fifteen minutes, pruned of my more subversive elements, but what the heck was I going to do with the remaining fifteen?
This being Election Night, it obviously had to refer to the occasion in some way. I was stumped until one of the girls in the staff canteen commented that the party leaders were "working like robots"; I quickly had an idea that there was a government facility creating bespoke politicians. One of these days I'll feature it on this blog, but because it includes a character from my current book and might be regarded as a spoiler, I'll leave it for the time being. I timed myself reading the new piece: ten minutes thirty seconds. I could always knock out bits I didn't think flowed.
The night of the show, my only props were the stories (in massive font, double spaced), a large Coke and a microphone. I dragged myself over to the performance space, my legs seemingly fused. A maddening tickle developed in my throat. I took a deep breath and started to read.
It was ... okay, I suppose. As you'd expect from having the last set on Election Night, attention was waning and people were checking the results none too subtly on their phones, but the people who were actually listening laughed at the jokes. Overall, it was useful practice, and earned £16 I wouldn't have had otherwise. Maybe I should brush up on my projection skills and perform at the next open mike night ...
