If you will be in the NYC area on June 12, please drop by McNally Robinson NYC, 52 Prince Street, at 7 PM. Andrea Buchanan, Caroline Leavitt, Rochelle Jewell Shapiro, Rachel Zucker, Miranda Field, Jessica Berger Gross, and I will read from our essays in About What Was Lost: Twenty Writers on Miscarriage, Healing, and Hope.
Dear Dr. O'D.,
I dread my public readings. Anticipating getting up to read aloud from one of my essays, short stories, or novel in progress always makes me feel horrible, sick inside, as if it is very dangerous to expose myself to strangers this way and what was I thinking to agree to this? As the reading grows nearer, I am always considering canceling, rationalizing very seriously why this would really be the best thing to do, under the circumstances. I don't cancel, and the actual readings are always fine. The actual readings are great, as a matter of fact. So what am I doing to myself? Is there a way to approach reading aloud to strangers that allows me to feel less crazy?
Anxious Reader
Dear Reader:
I would have to know more about you to speculate with any confidence about the issues that might underlie your pre-reading distress. In my experience, though, there are three fairly common scenarios that can engender fear of appearing in public. These are:
1. A traumatic public screw-up, or series of screw-ups, in the past, involving public shame and humiliation. These can include flubbing a crucial scene in the school play, forgetting your bar mitzvah speech, or wetting your pants during a first grade dance recital.
2. The (usually repeated) experience of attempting to communicate complex or controversial ideas to a hostile, impatient, or dismissive audience, such as family, classmates, or co-workers.
3. A history of unwanted attention to one’s appearance.
The first two categories of experience affect both men and women. If, as in your case, the actual readings go well, the aversion to performance usually diminishes with time, as positive experiences and associations begin to outnumber and overshadow negative ones. (Presumably, in the second scenario, you will have either found new people to talk to or given up trying to discuss anything more complicated than the weather at family or coffee-machine gatherings.)
The third scenario is more common in women and in men who have a visible disability or strikingly unusual appearance. This difficulty is harder to overcome, because it tends to be reinforced consistently. Conventionally attractive women are targets for sexually tinged stares and comments; less ”desirable” women and men who are perceived as defective in some way must endure sneers relating to their supposed defects. It is thus sometimes hard to imagine fading into the background and letting the words take over—until the actual event, when the power of the material works its magic. The next morning, though, the coach is a pumpkin again, and the aversive experiences start anew.
Discovering the cause of these uncomfortable feelings can help you move past them. If none of the possibilities outlined above feels right, try a visualization exercise: sit in a quiet place, at a time when you are not likely to be interrupted. Imagine that you are about to give your next reading. You are just outside the bookstore, coffee house, or whatever the venue is, preparing to walk in. Now imagine what the audience will be like. Don’t try to reconstruct the audiences of actual past readings; let your imagination go wild. Who is waiting for you—your second-grade class? Your crazy Uncle Louie? The wolf? What are they waiting to do—laugh at you, leer at you, eat you for dinner?
Write down all of the thoughts and feelings that surface when you anticipate reading in front of this audience. See if anything surprises you or opens a door to other memories or associations. Follow these threads—with a trusted friend or a counselor, if the feelings threaten to become too intense or complicated.
Once you have a sense of what you are actually afraid of, you can find ways to reassure yourself that you are not as vulnerable as you feel. For example, if you fear flubbing the words themselves, practice repeatedly in front of your friends or your cat until you feel confident that you can perform the piece with ease. If the fear is of ridicule or dismissal of the material itself, ask trusted readers to vet the piece for you. Aversion to being looked at can be addressed by visualizing a supportive, mature audience that has assembled to share the beauty and power of your words—in other words, the audiences with which you are actually blessed.
Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. Her book, Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity, will be published by Seal Press in June and is now available for pre-ordering. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.
ok
Posted by: DFDF | May 31, 2007 at 07:08 AM
ok
Posted by: DFDF | May 31, 2007 at 07:08 AM
http://feetpornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://youramateurporn.blogbugs.org/
http://doublepenetrationpornlove.blogbugs.org/
http://ebonypornmovieslove.blogbugs.org/
http://doggystyleloveporn.blogbugs.org/
http://fetishpornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://amateurxxxmovie.blogbugs.org/
http://anallovepornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://clipanimeporn.blogbugs.org/
http://asianloveporn.blogbugs.org/
http://bbwloveporn.blogbugs.org/
http://bisexualloveporn.blogbugs.org/
http://bigboobsstarsporn.blogbugs.org/
http://blowjobloveporn.blogbugs.org/
http://cumshotloveporn.blogbugs.org/
http://femdompornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://gangbangpornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://gayanalpornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://gayasianpornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://gaylatinopornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://gaybearpornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://gayebonypornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://gaytwinkspornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://hardcorepornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://indianpornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://interracialpornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://latinopornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://legspornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://lesbianpornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://masturbationpornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://maturepornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://milfpornmovieslove.blogbugs.org/
http://petitepornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://shemalepornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://smokingpornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://sologirlpornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://teenpornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://upskirtpornmovies.blogbugs.org/
http://voyeurpornmovies.blogbugs.org/
Posted by: bolino | July 30, 2007 at 06:38 AM