Thursday, May 17, 2012

Random Kindness and Open Mic


This Kindness thing is contagious. No sooner have I joined The Kindness Project than I see The Bookshelf Muse is hosting a Random Acts of Kindness Blitz to celebrate the writing community.

They are giving away tons of really great stuff and celebrating kindess to other writers. How cool is that? You can win Scrivener software (pick me, please, please) and membership to Query Tracker, The Critique Circle, and more. Head over and take a look here.

One of the suggestions is to pass on gratitude to someone who has helped you or you'd like to honour or recognise. I want to give a massive shout-out to my writing group. We recently re-formed from The Writing Mamas to the Write On, Mamas! and they are the best group of people ever! So supportive and proactive and intelligent and funny and helpful. We are in the middle of sorting out a blog/website so I'll let you know when that's up. Then we are going to write and publish an Anthology, which has to be published by the end of September as we have a slot at San Francisco's Litcrawl. Yikes! No pressure then. 

This ties in nicely to my Open Mic reading last night. I wrote a 5 minute piece that will probably form the start of my Anthology submission. I had to keep changing it as a few people didn't understand my British references, such as "lashings of ginger beer". I keep forgetting that, although we all speak English, we are actually speaking a different language at times. If you would like to read it, I have uploaded it onto Scribd here. It was great fun - the whole evening was organised by the Tuesday Night Writers and it was their 2 year anniversary of these author readings and open mic evenings at Peri's Bar in Fairfax, CA. It was a blast. Fabulous, clever and very funny pieces and I felt honoured to get up there with them. There were 28 people signed up for the open mic bit, but they ran out of time and only the first 4 got to read - phew, I was number 3. It really makes you focus on your writing knowing you have to stand up in front of people and read it out loud. I even managed not to speak too quickly - yay!

So tell me - who else has done Open Mic readings? How did you get on? Which is the best place you've read?


18 comments:

  1. Hooray for Write On Mamas! Where would we be without our supportive writing groups? So glad you've found a great group to share the writing path with!

    Thanks so much for joining in!

    Angela

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    1. Yes they are so good and the reason why I even started writing my book. Thanks :)

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  2. Blyton and Snoopy, a staple diet of my youth! Love the part about your teacher confiscating 'Valley of the Dolls', only to be caught reading it in the staff room. Marvelous stuff!

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    1. Aw bless you for taking the time to read it. Knew you would know about Blyton :)

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  3. I just read Origins - so interesting. How can you not write that book when the spirits are behind you?!

    The Random Acts of Kindness for writers is so awesome. I think I'll participate, I just have to find the energy.

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    1. Thanks for reading, Gwen. Yes - nice to have their backing LOL Easy peasy to participate. Just click a few places and your done :)

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  4. I think we both know I owe you huge amounts of gratitude. You have been nothing shy of amazing in your generosity. I'm off to scribd to read your piece right now!

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  5. That sounds fun. I've never participated in an open mic thing.

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    1. It is fun - I am definitely going to do more. It really helps me with the quality of my writing.

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  6. I absolutely love all the emphasis on kindness that's going around the Internet lately. So encouraging, thank you!

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    1. I know - isn't it great. Love the blogging world :)

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  7. This is a great link up! I've never participated in anything open mic, but am now intrigued to do so :)

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  8. The world can never have too much kindness! I've been to an open mic as an audience member, but I've never - EVER - been brave enough to stand up at the mic.

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    1. I agree re kindness. It was much easier than I thought as most of the audience were writers and so were equally terrified! A very kind reception :)

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  9. Claire, I have the Scrivener software and it's very good! Hope you get the chance to try it out -- though it seems like you've gotten plenty far along without it thus far.
    Wish I could have come to the Open Mic! Hopefully next time I won't have childcare dilemmas...

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    1. Oh excellent. I am still on the trial version and I have questions. I am going to bug you! Shame you couldn't get to the open mic - next one's in July.

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