Tips for Writers on Reading

by john | Jan 20, 2010 | Writing

Before I get into the real topic, here’s a question – am I insane for even considering publishing a literary journal? You know, the whole accept submissions, get subscribers, go to press kind of literary journal?

So more and more often I’m going to readings of things that people, myself included, have written. And more and more often I’m less than impressed with the way that writers present themselves when reading their work in public. I know, I know, it’s supposed to be a solitary pursuit full of staring out windows and empty whiskey bottles and perpetual gazing into navels, but folks, if you’re going to read your stuff in public, please take a little time to work on the craft of reading just like you worked on the craft of writing. It’s a set of skills – develop it! So I decided to put forth a few tips on how to improve your reading, based on my years in theatre and performance.

1) Stand up. Most untrained readers will benefit hugely just by standing up, or at least sitting upright on a stool. This opens the airways down to the lungs and diaphragm and allows you more access to air. More air = more volume with less strain. The chest is a big resonant cavity that serves as an amplifier to the voice, use it. Sitting, and especially sitting slouched over like a shy little mouse, compresses the esophagus and makes it harder to get to your Air Supply (and I don’t mean the “guilty pleasures” playlist on your iPod). So get off your ass, or at least, sit up straight like your mama told you.

2) If you don’t have much personality, don’t try to force it. You’ll know pretty quickly if you don’t have any personality, count how many time people look at their watch when they’re talking to you in a normal day. If the answer is EVER, then you’re probably boring. If you’re boring, don’t try to tell stories or jokes, just read your shit and get it over with! You might be the greatest writer since Shakespeare, but painful to converse with. Not necessarily your fault, but there’s no point in standing in front of a room full of people boring the crap out of them when they came to hear you read, rather than tell stories anyway. Now, if you’re a storyteller and still boring, then you’ve got bigger problems.

3) Pay attention to the guidelines of the show. If the producer/host tells you to keep it to five minutes, don’t read five pages of prose text. A page of prose takes several minutes to read, and even longer to read well, and that time is inflated by the size of the page, too. So don’t run long. If an audience is told to expect five minutes and you run fifteen, you’d better be brilliant. If they’re told to expect five minutes and you’re done in four, they feel like you’ve paid attention to the guidelines and have given their time some value.

4) Learn a little bit about technology. In some rooms there will be microphones. Sometimes, you’ll need them, sometimes you won’t. Either decide not to use them and move them aside, or learn enough to use them well. Standing in front of a room full of people fumbling with a mic just makes you look uncomfortable and stupid. It’s less high-tech than your TV remote, take a few minutes before the event begins to figure out height adjustments and how to tighten the mic on the stand. It will make you look like a pro, even if you’re not.

5) Practice. Really. I’m not kidding, practice. I have a very good friend who is an excellent actor, but can’t read in public worth a damn. He has a slight case of dyslexia, and even with text he’s very familiar with, this sometimes bites him in the ass. He has that excuse, and doesn’t read in public often, if ever. You don’t get that excuse, because you are choosing to read in public. So if you have a reading problem, memorize your text. If you stutter, get speech therapy. If James Earl Jones can get rid of his stutter and become who he became, so can you. And be familiar enough with your material to look up, meet someone’s eye in the crowd, and go back to the text without losing your place.

I don’t expect writers to turn into professional actors overnight, but these tips should help you present yourself better when you’re reading in public, and that should help you book more readings and sell more books.

Stage Fright?

by john | Jan 16, 2010 | Writing

I’ve been onstage for twenty years now, since my first role in high school when I was 16. In that time I’ve played supporting roles, character roles and leading roles. I’ve done contemporary shows, Shakespeare and modern drama. I’ve performed for full houses and crowds of half a dozen. There have been shows that moved me and shows that barely touched me. By this point, I can walk out in front of a theatre crowd of pretty much any size in pretty much any capacity and treat it as just another day at the office. It’s still special, but it’s not new.

But reading my work in front of people scares the bejesus out of me. It’s very different when I’m reading stuff I wrote. The stuff I do with theatre is someone else’s creation, someone else’s guts and blood spilled out onto the page. When I’m reading my poetry and other writing, it’s all me. And that’s a different level of scary than anything I’ve ever experienced in theatre.

Last night I had a blast at Just Do It. I read two of my pieces that were written specifically for the event, which was themed “Nobody Told Me.” One was titled “Girls Like You” and the other was “Octogen.” Suzy shot video of the performances, but it was overexposed and didn’t look good, so I won’t be posting that here. The first one was a lighthearted piece about getting dumped, and the second was a more serious piece about my aging mother. They were very well-received, and I sold a couple of books at concessions, which is always a plus. It’s always funny to me when theatre people who have known me for years read my stuff or see me read, because most of them have no idea that I write. I’ve written poetry much longer than I’ve done theatre, but with theatre taking up so much of my life for the last dozen years or so, many of my friends are shocked when they see me read poetry that I’ve written. It also helps that I don’t look like the average poet. So while I love reading my stuff, there is still an element of stage fright involved. Not gonna stop me, of course, because that’s the best way to promote my book. So come on out to Story Slam next Saturday to see me!

Telling Stories

by john | Jan 15, 2010 | Writing

So last night I was the featured speaker at the Charlotte Storyteller’s Guild meeting, and it was a blast. I read a couple of selections from Returning the Favor, and answered questions about self-publishing and things like that, and that got me to thinking.

I did a lot of things ass-backwards along this journey, and I don’t know if that’s a bad thing or not. The typical route to “success” as a poet in the US is to write a bunch of stuff, polish it either in workshops or solitude, and submit a bunch of stuff all over the place, collecting rejection letters by the pound until a few things start to get published. Then after you’ve had some things accepted by literary journals, who don’t actually pay anything for the publication, or make any profit themselves, you might get one of the small presses that print books of poetry to publish your collection instead of having to do it yourself. Then you buy a pile of the books to sell at readings, and hopefully your publisher can sell a few as well. In the meantime, you continue your life as a stay-at-home parent or English professor, because the number of people who make a living as a poet in the US is smaller than the number of people who actually are profitable on the major poker tournament circuit.

But instead I printed a book, ordered 100 copies, and got seriously motivated to sell them. Turns out that I’m not out much more money from doing it my way than I would have been if I’d gotten a book published in the traditional method and bought 100 copies from a real publisher. Maybe a couple hundred bucks, but not much more than that. I was tech-savvy enough to do all the layout myself, and even though I still missed some typos, I’ve found typos in mass market books as well, so that just goes to show that human beings have to read these things, and we miss things.

The polish is what I missed. I really do think that writing begets writing, and if you have any talent or skill at all, the more you write, the better you write. So obviously I think the stuff I’m writing now is better than what’s in the book, but that’s not the case with all of it. Frankly, if I hadn’t published the book, I wouldn’t have done nearly the work I’ve done getting out there in the public eye as a writer, and that has led me to a lot of good associations, like joining the Charlotte Writers’ Club and things of that nature. It also led to a rollicking adventure yesterday that I’ll write up when the time is right. Suffice to say I could go a couple weeks without eating any more fried chicken.

So I did plenty of things out of order, but I’m okay with that. What I’m not okay with is the paradigm of there being no commercially successful poets except for Billy Collins. Let’s face it, poetry is the same as songwriting, only accessible to those of us that can’t sing. And if Springsteen can get rich playing his poetry, I should at least be able to figure out how to make a little extra coin playing mine. I’m thinking on it. I have no answers right now, but there are a few percolating. If I can make it work, Story Slam will be the place it will happen, because I think they’re on to something big over there. I know I pimp that joint a lot here, but it’s for two reasons. First, I agree with a lot of their stated goals and think they’re cool people who deserve my support. Second, they let me come by and play, and have supported me, which is hard to find. I have no official capacity there, just a belief that there’s something going on that I want to be part of.

Tonight I’m performing at Just Do It! at Theatre Charlotte, which I’m very excited about. This is a series that gives people an opportunity to get rid of the excuses and Just Do It, whatever IT happens to be. In my case, I’ll be reading two new poems written for the show. Tickets are only $5, so come out and see it if you’re in town.

Flashes

by john | Jan 14, 2010 | Writing

And not the Girls Gone Wild type that have made Joe Francis a bajillionaire.

I keep track of tiny little tidbits of stories and poems in my notebook. But I keep my notebook on my phone and in my computer. I use a program called Evernote to keep track of my multiple to-do lists, and I use one of these lists for story ideas and things I hear that stand out to me. Then when I’m stuck on something to write, I roll these over and over in my head until something falls out. I also think Evernote is a pretty killer productivity tool since it syncs your electronic to-do lists between phone, web and computer, and if you’re as scatterbrained as I am, if it doesn’t make it onto a list, it never, ever gets done.

So here are some flashes that I’ve got in my little notebook right now –

black burkha in the carolina southern sun

standing on one leg on a street corner with no foot left

tie you to my soul with strands of blood and hope

I leaked milk and cried blood into the snow for you.

fly on concrete angel, let the winds of the city carry you away.

porn for breakfast.

she wore her androgyny like a badge of honor

I have walked through the fires of my souls and come through battered scarred but whole

girl can’t afford seminary tuition so she works as a stripper

He sees the world in colors

Right now, the last two are my favorites, the girl who is working her way through seminary as a stripper and the boy who sees the world in colors. That last one is a reference to autism that I saw on some TV show this week. Somewhere there’s a story about the confessional girl, living in a sinful world, dancing for dollars and working her way closer to God. What should I tackle first off that list? You tell me, I’ll write something tonight and bring it back to you. It might suck, but I’ll take the assignment.