Karaoke nerves, facing my fears, working on my screenplay

What I've been up to this week...

Subplots is my weekly snapshot of where I am in life, what I’ve been up to, what’s been preoccupying me etc. The life of a writer is pretty varied, and though much of my time is spent alone at the desk chatting to imaginary people, not all of it by any means. So here’s (some of) the rest…

Wednesday, July 17th

I’m going to karaoke party on Saturday. I’ve never done karaoke and frankly the thought of it terrifies me. Which is why I think I need to do it.

Anyway. Typical me, I downloaded an app and I now know I’m a baritone but haven’t got the greatest range. Apparently this can be ‘developed with practice’ but y’know, I have neighbours and all…

The singer I’m closest to in terms of range is Morrissey. Which would’ve once thrilled me but now, not so much. I can do a mean ‘Disappointed’, which is ironically what I now am in him.

I did find two songs I think I can sing. However, the first is Nirvana’s cover of ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night?’ And the second is PJ Harvey’s cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘Highway 61 Revisited’. I think this will be more fun for me but there are a lot of words.

Oh did I mention the theme is ‘girl groups’. Will I clear the room?

Thursday July 18th

Even though I feel like I’ve spent most of the last few days stressing about karaoke and deciding what songs are in my (limited) range (I now have a shortlist of 33, though none of them can conceivably be classed as ‘girl group’ songs, which is the theme of the evening), I’ve also been making huge strides in my screenplay.

But now the doubt kicks in. Is it great, and that’s why it’s pouring out of me? Is it a testament to all the books I've read about how to structure a story and write a concise and gripping screenplay? Or am I kidding myself and it’s crap?

Welcome to the latest instalment of ‘Imposter Syndrome’, which might’ve been a good title for this newsletter.

Anyway, I also went to a ‘confidence workshop’ yesterday, and it was surprisingly great. Too much to summarise here, and it’s late (almost midnight), but I’ll try to do so in a future post.

It must’ve had a fairly instant effect, though. During the Q&A at the end I actually raised my hand and asked a question. The first time I’ve ever done that in front of a large-ish audience of strangers. I told the group that, before asking my question, and they spontaneously clapped. Which was genuinely nice, and affirming.

Saturday July 20th - Karaoke Day!

A glorious day yesterday. A friend had told me Friday was due to be nice weather, so I’d deliberately worked extra hard on Thursday so that I could take the day off.

That had a two-fold effect. First, because I worked all day, then had a brief respite in the afternoon followed by working most of the evening too, I felt knackered yesterday and slept in shamefully late.

Second? I felt like I was on a roll, so spent the whole day thinking ‘I ought to go to the beach’, but also ‘I ought to work as it’s going well and who knows when that might end’ (beach won, in the end).

This is the curse of the writer. But, I reflected as I sat on the beach with my Liz Nugent and my ice cream, as curses go it ain’t a bad one, really.

Clear beard-based evidence in this shot would confirm that the author had indeed been eating ice cream.

Monday July 22nd

I did it. It was a big thing for me, until I was doing it, then suddenly it wasn’t. Isn’t that so often the way, though. Fear of the thing is far more of a handicap than the thing itself.

At the confidence workshop I went to one of the things that struck home was the idea that confidence doesn’t mean the absence of fear. Confident people still feel the fear, they just don’t let it stop them.

Your author, facing his fears (but not the audience)

Has anyone else got any stories of facing their fears? Or does anyone want to share something they’re struggling with?