Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
In a shocking twist, I've signed myself up to perform, on a stage, without a musical instrument.
I've done this before, but it's not a common event. In 3rd grade, I played Schroeder in "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown." I couldn't tell you how I did. It was 3rd grade. I'm impressed I memorized all my lines.
The only other non-musical performance I've done was perhaps 5 years ago, at a Neither/Nor cabaret night, a now-defunct event put on by the now-defunct Bald Faced Lie. I did a dramatic reading of the Time Travel Spam, set to a too-loud Yello track (tech rehearsal? what's that?). That went pretty well, aside from the fact that some people couldn't hear me over the music.
Other than that, I played and performed cello in an orchestra from 3rd grade on. So, I'm not exactly a stranger to getting up on stage and performing, but it's not something I've done solo very much.
The other twist, and the one that I am assured changes the game, is that I'll be reading my own work. It's a story I started writing about a year ago, and never finished. I was writing it on my oh-so-clever Alphasmart Dana (the device on which I wrote two of my novels), and ended up leaving it to sit for a while. Bad choice: the Dana has the old Palm Pilot habit of wiping its memory if the batteries run all the way down. Oops.
So that first draft of the story went away. Suddenly, this weekend, I was inspired to try writing it again. This was a good choice: the first draft was getting longer and longer, and I couldn't figure out how to reign it in. I'd imagined a short story, and it was getting into novella territory. When I wrote it again, with a very conscious audience of Spin the Bottle, brevity came much more easily.
The final story (which I will publish after I've read it, currently scheduled for September 4th) is only about 1500 words, and includes all the elements of the first draft. A very pleasing outcome for me. That's more like what I wanted in the first place. On top of all that, it times out to about eight and a quarter minutes when I read it aloud, and Spin the Bottle has a 10 minute limit. Perfect.
The story is to be read in the final slot of the evening, which is traditionally reserved for smut. What I wrote is pretty tame for smut, but it's much more risque than my normal subjects. It's a nice diversion from my normal topics.
But, the problem, I am assured, is that reading your own work is a completely different ball of wax from reading what someone else wrote. I can't see it, but I'm also not a performer, particularly compared to Bret Fetzer, who gave me this warning. He's read dozens and dozens of his own stories on stage, so I assume he's got a slightly better handle on it than I do.
So if I get a strange gleam in my eye and dive for my bag when we're hanging out, chances are excellent that you're about to get a preview of the story, and I'm about to try my hand at reading in front of an audience. Assuming we've got eight and a quarter minutes free, of course.
Posted at 23:26 permanent link category: /theater
Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater