Have you ever had to speak in front of an audience? Maybe you’ve been part of a show or sung in a concert; or perhaps you were forced to do one of those dreaded group presentations in front of your classmates at school. Most regular human beings would find this at least the slightest bit terrifying. At first, anyway. I’ll remind you of some of the signs: clammy hands, tummy on spin-cycle, jelly legs…sounding familiar? Yep, thought so. We’ve all been there. At least, everyone I know has. You’re one of the lucky ones if gut-wrenching nerves are a non-existent trait in your public-speaking personality. It’s terrifying, being exposed like that: what if they think I’m too quiet? What if they don’t understand me? What if they think my shoes make my ankles look stumpy? Crap. They’re all looking at me. Pairs and pairs of eyes just staring; stuck to me like glue. Gulp.
Now while these feelings are quite horrible enough thank you very much, I can now hold my hands up and say that it is just as scary – if not worse – hearing other people speak words that you, a tense, white-knuckled audience member, have actually written. Terrifying? Yes. Exhilarating? Absolutely.
Let me back track slightly. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the initial motivation behind Fairley Rachel was to give me a reason to write without reason (it makes sense in my head, honest). I desired an outlet that would force me to write, and allow me to explore my writing style and interests. This I have done and enjoyed, albeit not as often as I promised myself I would; sometimes the urge to binge-watch Downton Abbey when I get home at night is just too strong. But I’m working on that.
And so it was that a few months ago, I found myself signing up to the Young Writers’ programme at Edinburgh’s ever-evolving Traverse Theatre. I love the Trav. It’s gritty and adventurous. Plays you see there are new and different and bold, and sometimes they even give you a pie and a pint. What more could you possibly want?! So if you have never been, trust me when I tell you it’s great. Anyway, there I was, all signed up to a playwriting course at Scotland’s leading new writing theatre. “Not intimidating at all”, I told myself. Wrong. It was insanely intimidating, and I quickly discovered that writing five minutes of script is not as easy as it sounds.
But after five incredible workshops with some of Scotland’s most prolific playwrights, lots of support and encouragement from my lovely (very talented) classmates and several last minute panic writing evenings featuring multiple cups of tea – I did it. We all did it. A real-life script, with characters and stage directions and – dare I say it – sense: it felt brilliant. We’d rehearsed, the actors were ready, the tickets were purchased and then: crap. You see, I’d kind of forgotten up until this point that people were actually coming to watch. A living, breathing, audience with opinions and giveaway facial expressions was going to be there, in the Traverse Theatre, watching the performance. I was amazed at how nerve-wracking this was! All my work was done; I was just a lowly audience member, yet I felt like I was about to give a life-affirming speech to thousands of people.
But… It went well! People actually enjoyed it; they laughed. And there I was spending so much time fretting about it not being good enough, that I didn’t allow myself to relish in the buzz of that moment. Safe to say I gave myself a good kick up the bum for being so negative afterwards. If you don’t love what you’re writing, or whatever it is you’re doing, then this will absolutely show to the outside world. Personally, I’m guilty for being very hard on myself, or massively playing down things that I’m currently doing or creating, and I think a lot of people will be able to relate to this. But the Young Writers process taught me that in order to get other people excited about what you’re doing, you’re the one who has to be the most excited of all. Shout about it – tell everyone. If you’ve taken the big and rather scary step to start pursuing something you love then don’t hold back for one moment. Grab it with both hands and give ’em hell. I don’t know about you, but that’s exactly what I plan to do from now on. Why don’t you join me?
Fairley Rachel 