Not so great. Tomorrow night is the Rooster T Feathers competition. In preparation for the contest I've been working on a tight five minutes. This is counter to how I usually do things, but it's what it takes for this situation. The problem is I'm tired of the material. So I did not give a great performance.
The most self consciuos bit I've done in a long time. I felt nothing for the audience. It was like they were standing in my way to where I wanted to go. Instead of bringing them into myself with my material I used to it to push them away. They laughed in all the right places, but never committed to being my audience because I never committed to being their comedian.
As always the contest let me down. Heather did a great job setting this thing up. I've never seen such a lineup of talent, and such a great audience at such an event. She even added a twist to the audience voting which, had it not been for some coniving on the part of a couple comedians, would have ensured that the funniest comedians advanced. Not that I had any chance of winning, but the funniest comedians were not among the finalist this night.
This morning I ripped my novel to shreds and glued it back together. I've been dealing with the nebulously large thing that I can no longer deal with. So I broke it all up into little chapterettes and arranged them in roughly the order I expect for the finished product. This has given me a much realer view of where I am in the process of creating this novel, and has shown me some the holes I suspected were there.
I haven't been able to work on the novel since I got it organized. I had one day of furious work, but nothing since then. Today I looked up writer's block, and this is not really an acurate description of what I'm going through. I found an article that talked about all the anxiety of completing the first novel. Fear of Failure, Fear of Success and Fear of Finishing are all what I am feeling right now. I'm going to take a few days away from the novel to clear my head, and try again next week.
Had a great set tonight. I dropped a new joke from my set because I had no confidence in it and replaced it with a couple of bits I haven't done in a long time. I got some really good laughs.
I hate it when this happens! A while ago a comedian told me that I reminded her of a charactor from a novel that I had not read. So after several months I came across that novel at a yard sale. The book is CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES, the charactor is Ignatius Rielly. The man is a bufoon! As I started reading I was very much offended. I am nothing like this loud obnoxious asshole. How could she see me as him? Then I kept on reading. Slowly, very slowly for I was fighting it all the way, I started to see more and more of myself in Ignatius. This is complicated. I am still like him in many ways, but a few things happened in my life that steered me away from the path of fully being Ignatius. The first; I moved away from my family. Not that my family is bad, I just needed to spread my wings and fall on my own flat face. The second; Sex. Ignatius is not a sexual being. Once upon a time, I was not. However I listened to my real-life counterpart to Ignatius's Myrna. It's scarry to look in the mirror and see something ugly that you've never noticed before. I now understand some of the interactions with people that have always puzzled me.
Did a good set, which is unusual for me in competitions. I usually get all tense. I did well enough that I let myself believe that I actually had a chance at winning. Didn't happen. I was being delusional. You know what? It's good that I let myself believe I was capable of winning, because that's the only way I am ever going to win something.
Got there too late to get on the list. At ten minutes past seven I was comedian number 16. Boo hiss!