The first time I had my very own book launch, I attended it upside down.
I’d recently lost my first-ever convention appearance and signing panel (for Great British Horror 5) to another even bigger first: the first lockdown. My new book (Beyond Glass) was my first solo collection as a short story writer, and the shorter of the two books I released that year (the longer being the WJEC Eduqas GCSDE Drama Study and Revision Guide). Having missed out on all that ChillerCon and other events would have meant in terms of connecting with fellow writers and readers, one thing I wasn’t going to do was just sit around and wait for lockdown to end. I was going to sit around and do my launch online.
In preparation for hosting my first Facebook Live launch I consulted a friend, fellow author and prior Facebook book launcher (also online, also over Facebook). Knowing the importance of believing there is no such thing as a stupid question when you’re learning something new, I asked Simon everything I could possibly think of.
I asked lots of terribly sensible questions about everything I could imagine that could possibly be relevant or possibly go wrong. Much of what I thought of was about letting people know it was happening in the first place, along with deciding quite how public to make the event, before we got to questions about the content itself such as how to structure the Q&A, my reading and the extended chat where a signing would take place had this been the good old days when I would have been in the same building as my audience; when I would have had conversations with all of them in real time, instead of the only voice I would hear during the whole event being my own.
(Actually, other voices came to me in the messages that would pop up – not for long – on the screen, but by no stretch of anyone’s imagination was that ever going to be the same thing.)
Guess what I didn’t think to ask?
Here’s a clue. Putting my phone on charge seemed like a no-brainer. Better to irritate my phone battery than to have any risk of running out of juice mid-launch.
Obvious. Surely?
Obvious but wrong. Unlike my phone camera, I did not automatically appear the right way up thanks to my phone automatically ‘knowing’ where ‘up’ actually was. For the first few moments of my first launch, I joined the party upside down. Luckily, I found my own arrival very funny – I say lucky, there are past versions of me and present versions of various people I know now who’d be in serious danger of taking this technological faux pas as meaningful: the universe’s declaration that This Is Never Going To Work and Who Do You Think You Are Anyway? There are times I would have made this matter; written that story in my head and believed it was objective facts, not sense of self-esteem (or sense of humour) dependent perspective they really were. I didn’t do that. I did sign out, explaining in the friendly way you do when you’re just popping out for more beers for the party that I’d be back in a moment, on my fully charged iPad. I was back, faster than I could have imagined (and certainly faster than it felt, mid-swear-fest of changing from one device to the other); we carried on. We chatted. It was a chat – I did feel that – typed messages and all. I did believe in the presence of the unseen audience enough that I didn’t treat it as talking to myself, or therefore feel like I was talking and emoting into the void. Because it was more specific and real than that. I was talking to people who cared what I was saying. Who had shown up for me. Even if they were just little hearts in the corner of the screen. Even if they were non-digital negatives who weren’t even hearts in the corner. I believed in what I could not see. They were showing up for me. All I was doing was showing up for them right back.
Something will always go wrong. I’ve said it to every cast I ever directed before every performance and every LAMDA student I’ve ever prepared to walk into an exam room. I’ve said it to every interview technique client and public speaking client, every writer getting used to seeing their thoughts land on the page. Every human whose well-meaning parents or teachers, sometimes that very morning and sometimes decades ago echoing back through memory, have well-meaningly instilled the idea that ‘practise makes perfect’ and, by extension, that perfect is desirable. Nobody needs or wants perfect. Which is good. Because we’re not going to get it or be it. Not a chance.
We can be something much more use, though. We can be present. The magic onstage is not in “how do you learn all those lines?” but how deep is your commitment to your character, colleagues and audience that you’ve still got what you need in the inevitable moments the lines slip. The magic offstage is the same.
Showing up cannot be what we do when we’re sure everything will be fine. There’s no vulnerability there, no humanity. You’re not offering the audience anything true if you can’t be present as a real human being. Whether I’m at my book launch next Thursday (in the real-world this time!), with a coaching client or a student, or on an Instagram live, I’m a human reaching out to humans. I’m not present because of how great I think I am. I am present because what I’m communicating matters.
When we’re present, we’re not caught up in the script in our head and unable to input reality as a result of that script. We can listen. We can answer questions authentically, reply to thoughts and feelings with our own thoughts and feelings authentically, and ask authentically if we don’t understand. We can deal better with mistakes too. When, not if, it does go wrong is when the genuinely important thing happens: when you acknowledge it’s gone wrong, and acknowledge the emotion so it doesn’t have a chance to become awkwardness but opportunity: for humour, for increased sense of closeness with those hearing you. I’m not going to wait to feel perfectly confident and worthy of reaching out in order to reach out – with my words, my actions, my showing up. No one’s interested in perfect. Everyone’s interested in connection and celebration. Whatever goes wrong, the important thing is to have showed up. It’s the person who doesn’t press like but more than likes the article. The person who reads a story, doesn’t leave a review but keeps that match you struck as a fire in their heart and thoughts for the rest of their life. By showing up, you matter. Believe in the audience you never see. Showing up is reaching out – and it does matter, because our willingness to be seen makes other people feel less alone – even if we never know it.
Twisted Branches launches in southwest London on Thursday 26 October and online on Friday 3 November.
Oh Rachel👏 I enjoyed this so much!
‘No one’s interested in perfection. Everyone’s interested in connection and celebration’ So true!
Making notes in my journal 📔
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