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Sunday, March 3, 2013

When You're "Up There..."

A while back my girlfriend and I went to see David Sedaris. If you don't know who he is, he's a writer of short stories and essays. He's been published in The New Yorker as well as numerous other magazines, has several collections of short stories, and has a very unique sense of humor and style. We loved seeing and hearing him.

The reason I mention him today is because, back when we saw him, as he was reading a piece to the audience, we noticed that he was making marks on it based on how the audience was reacting. He was marking it up AS he was performing it... revision on the fly.

 Flash forward to last night.

There's an open mike night, called "Musings," at the local bookstore, Books At Sunset, a half mile from my house. I was up in front reading a story I had written about typography class and one day in particular. As I was up there in front of maybe 35 people, I was able to read and feel their reactions as I read from my story. I sensed certain parts were slow and not as interesting, as well as the parts that they enjoyed. It was like my mind was in high speed because I thought in two completely separate streams. One was reading and saying the words, while simultaneously one was thinking, "Okay.. that part needs to be cut. It just didn't work. Hmmm.. I could change that to this. And that part was way too long before getting to the point. Why did I even think this story was funny? I should have used that other story I wrote last week. Why do I do this to myself anyway? I practically read a first draft in front of a crowd. That's just asking for disappontment. Never ever do that again. Dang. I hope they like the end. That's probably the best part."

And it was. The last paragraph was the funniest part. But I bet I could have shortened the piece by half and made the whole experience better for all of us.

Wow. What a lesson.

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