I decided to consider it a character-building exercise (pun unintended, but applicable) to act out and record a couple more snippets of my second book. It's an interesting sort of dichotomy I feel about these things. There's that introverted part of me-- the writer who discovers hours have melted away while imaginary worlds sprout up-- that understands the satisfaction is in the ideas and process itself. The something from nothing. The personal challenge.
Then there's the part of me that knows the real tangibility of a creation is not always in one's own head, but when it resides with others, too. As if it becomes More Real with each person it meets.
Now when I write, I read aloud all the time. It's a great tool for flow, for making dialogue sound natural and for figuring out what should be cut. It is also uniquely personal because it means committing characters to a sort of tone. Like illustration, it means offering some sort of guide to the reader of, "This is what I was thinking so-and-so was like."
So as I contemplated doing any readings, I initially hesitated. Did I really want my version of the reading-- my amateur acting, my interpretation and most of all, my bad British accent (for whatever reason, my alien character Rollie has always sounded English)-- out there guiding readers?
But here's the thing I decided. It's genuine. It was the best I can do for this moment. And as a writer, you can only keep those walls up so long before you can't see over them yourself. If I were taking them down, I might as well give it my all and go the whole way.
So at the top of the page, you'll find part one of chapter two. And here you will find the second part of that.
It's not perfect, but it was fun. And the view from over the wall is not bad at all.
