It's June! Hard to believe we're almost halfway through the strangest year I'm sure many of us can remember. A big insecurity here in the UK is the lifting of the lockdown and the fear that things are happening too quickly - some kids back at school, more shops opening up. We won't be doing anything majorly different until August when schools are planned to come back in Scotland - we'll just need to see where we are then, and again, it's only what we're comfortable with. As a diversion, let's take a look at this month's IWSG question: "Writers have secrets! What are one or two of yours, something readers would never know from your work?"
Hmm, I don't think I have secrets as such - nothing overly dramatic, anyway - and I'm pretty open about stuff, but one thing that wouldn't be obvious from my work is that my childhood dream was to be an actor. This went as far as performing with the drama club in comedy revue shows during high school, with our own self-penned material, but stage fright was pretty much a constant - I soon realized that the writing part was what I preferred, and things just developed from there!
I'm sure many more fascinating secrets will be disclosed by the authors found at the IWSG sign-up list here. I look forward to checking them out!
29 comments:
Sorry, but I didn't disclose any deep secrets either. In Michigan, we're just going to open up libraries, restaurants, etc on Monday. I'm still nervous about going out much.
I would much rather be behind the scenes than on the stage myself. :)
I'd rather write, although back in the day, I wasn't adverse to singing in front of a crowd...
Actor to writer - but you are still creating.
I wanted to be an actor, too! Where else can we be a cowboy one day, an Indian Chief the next, and a spy the day after that? I settled for writer, not really. I chose writing because I could do it in my pjs. Happy IWSG Wednesday, Nick.
A lot of actors go on to become writers. Look at Mara Wilson, the child actor who was in Matilda and Mrs. Doubtfire and is now a successful writer. And actors wouldn't even be able to act if writers didn't create the story for them in the first place.
My secrets are my name and what I look like, which I've never revealed on my blog.
Before deciding on writing as my creative outlet, I dabbled with film and animation, initially wanting to do that. Always have to find our way, one way or another. :)
I think writing and acting actually go together. Once we've been on the stage to portray characters, it can really help us understand what actions portray certain emotions and that can help strengthen our writing. Like you, I had stage fright. I pushed myself through a bunch of it for high school, college, and community theater (for a while), but I did not go professional. :)
I've given some of my characters the jobs that, as a child, I thought I'd like. And quite a few I knew I wouldn't!
I started with photography before moving into writing. Creative people like creative stuff.
Here our state is dragging its feet on fully reopening but below us Georgia opened fast and was okay.
I wanted to be an archaeologist. I still love history and geography. We opened back in March and our state is perfectly fine! Hope you guys get back to normal soon.
That's interesting about starting out to be an actor and deciding writing the stories was more to your liking. I'll bet it was fun doing the comedy though. Here's to Scotland opening up and breathing freely again. You live in one of my favorite countries.
I would have never been able to get on stage, but I always thought being an acotr would be fun. All those different personalities to slip into!
I had wanted to act and enjoyed doing plays in class in school, but my shyness and insecurity won out on that one.
From what I understand (shy girl who became a teacher) it gets easier the more you do it. But if the writing was what you loved...
I can see you as an actor! I love the theater. Was part of our local theater as a kid. I miss it, sometimes. Backstage is the best!
Oh my gosh! I wanted to be an actor too! But it turned out I was especially terrible at memorizing my lines. hahaha.
I loved working backstage in theatre--props and ASM. They only got me on stage a couple of times, and I've done background work on a movie. That experience was fun, but convinced me I'd only go back on set once I'd written the screenplay!
Places opening again is scary. I don't know how they're deciding it where you are. In Pennsylvania, USA, one of the biggest factors is how many ICU beds are available. They repurposed some refrigerated trucks from transporting frozen food to being mobile morgues. So, really, our guidelines for opening are less about it being safe and more about having a way to deal with dying people and the corpse they leave behind. And that's just ... time for all horror writers to retire because journalists have the most frightening stories now. Ha ha. Yeah...
I think that your experience acting and doing comedy helps your writing. You have to make up a story on the spot, understand character motivation, and the importance of good dialogue. I also have experience with theater. I love Improv.
When I graduated high school, I had plans for pursuing theater. Probably a good thing that I didn't, because I now know I'm not that good on stage. :)
As Natalie wrote, we’re just starting to open up. I’m still going to be careful. Don’t want a 2nd wave.
I'm not looking forward to the return to school for my kids in August. I'm hoping they do more online. At the same time, my son thrived with online school and my daughter struggled, so it's a mixed bag. I used to love acting, and still sometimes think about trying out for community theater, but I wouldn't even know where to begin at this point. Plus, I REALLY don't need something else heaped on my plate. Still, I ponder...
I haven't come across too many secrets this round. Of course we all have a secret wish to become a best selling author, but we're not going to tell anyone, are we?
Wow I would never have guessed that you were once an actor, so that is a pretty cool secret!
Anne from annehiga.com
Hi Nick - I agree ... finding out you wanted to be an actor is interesting to find out - but we find our own route don't we ... and I'm glad you've found yours. Good luck with more books, articles etc - take care and look after yourselves - Hilary
Maybe you'll still end up doing acting.
Not totally unrelated, that's for sure. You're a creative type.
I go from being nervous about covid to feeling like the news and many government officials are making too big a deal of it. At our hospital near Houston, we are still waiting for the first wave. Haven't seen that many cases yet, and most are surviving it.
"I'd like to see equal recognition, and that could include things like reviews in the New York Times and equal opportunities for things like audiobooks, movie adaptations, and so on."
I mentioned equity as well. Or a level playing field. I'm not sure "big" reviews make all that much difference as glowing NYT reviewed are sitting on the $2 table at B&N and Half Price Books. Equity in presentation and pitch is what we need and you nailed that.
Hate to do this with my Google account because I don't use it for anything. Good luck with the WIP.
About last month? I was an artist relations manager, product specialist and clinician in the music biz. It's all about understanding vocational theater!
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