Trust Fall

Any good theater geek can tell you about the title of this post - it's one of those exercises we used to use (and which appears from time to time on your lesser sitcoms, for HILARIOUS effect) to foster the ensemble spirit.

If the truth were told, I can't actually remember our ever in fact using this exercise.  It's possible we did; my theater days are FAR enough behind me, at over twenty years now, I am no reliable witness as to what might have gone on, or what we did on our own time to foster our own actor-osity.  But the exercise does *exist* at least, and it does kind of make a point.

I've come up against the interesting fact that, in life, trust isn't always a two way street.  This of course is obvious stuff - the very essence of storytelling would be destroyed if human beings treated with one another equally in such things.  BUT the point on which this particular issue is interesting to me, and interesting today, is that it isn't always a matter of some betrayal.

Mr. X and I have known each other now for nine years.  For the past six or seven, he has been one of my trusted readers.  It isn't because of our relationship - at least not its emotional component - but because of that brain of his I like so much.  He does represent a likely member of my audience, but he is also a remarkably good DISPASSIONATE reader.  This isn't to say he has no bias - his opinion of me, and of my writing, tends to be on the very high side generally - but it does allow him to consider my work in itself, even though he likes it.  He's been probably the best reviewer of my pacing and of my POV (as a woman writing first-person male, I do very very well, but he has helped me tighten that and just occasionally given the go-ahead on certain aspects of narration), and been a fundamental part of The Ax and the Vase since the beginning.  He's also been tireless in taking each piece as it came - including the entire manuscript, once I had a draft - and responsive in the best possible sense of criticism.

X too, of course, is a bit of a writer.  More often than not, this is an informal thing - but recently, it came up that he's got a regular, public gig ("and I helped!").  At his inaugural piece, he felt his voice wasn't dead-on, and I suggested he have a reader.  This is something I have done for many years in many contexts.  I've been a proofreader, editor, copy editor, and composer for everything from a book-length financial services guide to death and taxes to every newsletter for every job I've ever held, to PowerPoints, letters, proposal documents, team-building-rah-rah-blah-blah, and the resumes and individuals' professional documents of all kinds.  I can read for tone, for grammar, for length, for layman-accessibility, and for organization - and any combination or isolated aspect of these and beyond.  This has been a part of my career for almost as long as my career, and I've done it both personally and professionally all the way along.  It's no small part of my success, and of my visibility to executives who matter.  And it's 100% calculated, too.

So it's no accident that at every job I have, I become to go-to grammarian, and eventually the de facto house author, for *whatever* needs doing.

BUT.

This work doesn't necessarily translate into the personal realm.  Which brings us back to X and his own writing.


***


An awful lot of serious writers have a very, VERY hard time sharing their work at all.  Some of us feel we are good enough, we don't "really" need to.  Some feel we're not good enough, so showing our work is a painful experience.  But those who most want to get PUBLISHED, particularly in the traditional (agent/publisher/actual books-on-shelves products) sense, sooner or later force ourselves to find good readers.

I had good readers in X and in Beloved Ex (hah - of all combinations) and a few others, but at last year's Conference, the Sarcastic Broads got together and, as much of a loner as I prefer to be, and as hard as it is for me to accept outside critique, I knew a good thing when I saw it, and have reaped the benefits many times over.  It's good for me, and good for all of us Broads, I think.

And so I suggested to E, if he's worried about losing his unique self-expression, he needs a reader.

The obvious nomination in this category, and I made it with caveats, was myself - and we had the discussion yesterday.  In the end, I think we tenatively decided to go for it - but the fact is, in really looking at it ... I realized that the reader relationship isn't always necessarily bilaterally beneficial.

It may owe to the nature of what he writes about, for which I really am *not* the demographic, but even though we may make it work, this is a dynamic I have said there's no-harm/no-foul if it doesn't work for him.

Funny how what looks analog in simple description, might not work out in parallel in practical experience.  And why, and how that is okay.

I would be LOST without X as a reader.  He's caught me every time I've done the authorial trust-fall.

Isn't it funny he might not be best served with me, though ...  Life's just not as tidy as a theater exercise.



The moral of the story is that simpatico is a jewel when you find it.  Find your Sarcastic Broads - or your X - or whomever serves your writing the BEST ... and keep an open mind as to who that may be.  Take the trust-fall.

They can be surprising, pleasurable relationships when you find them.  I am very much blessed in my readers!