August and Everything After
This is my time of year. My birthday time. The summer starts to disappear and I can put on a cardie without looking weird. I get intermittently optimistic between bouts of extreme self-doubt. I think it's quite hard to shift the new-school-year-psyche even though I left school a very long time ago.
I find myself sandwiched between excitement at the very good opportunities offered by the day job, to feeling a little pinned down by the different responsibilities life is throwing at me more generally. That's the thing about being slightly hopeless. You get to surprise yourself with good stuff as and when it may occur.
I'm actually taking time out to write this. I have a deadline looming, and will have to submit a story by the morning. I will manage, but I've just had the stuffing knocked out of me and needed a break.
I will explain... comedy-wise this has been a good month. I've had some okay gigs, and I've had some bloody brilliant gigs. My head has been swelling and I have dared to hope, to dream that I might actually be getting somewhere with this comedy malarkey.
I found myself staring at cute, expensive shoes in a window at the weekend. Oh imagine, when I am doing comedy professionally, I might be able to afford such shoes for my stage-wear! Dreaming is necessary, because, believe me, comedy is expensive. We may have made budget holidays this year by camping at the Endorse it in Dorset festival and at Edinburgh Fringe, but with only one pay-packet coming in, we are still brassic.
Going to the festivals was so worth it, though. Dorset really was a proper festy - camping in a field that had had cows in it, eating tiny portions of thai curry, listening to bands so obscure I'd not heard of most of them. Bloody good fun! The comedy tent was what we would call in comedy terms 'a difficult room', not being a room as such. But we did our thing, and I got a pat on the back from Tony Cowards after my set(the nice kind, not a cow pat)for achieving laughter. Of course, Ewan had to go one further after that and he leaped over the barriers into the audience during his singalong set (thankfully breaking no ribs this time). Many thanks to Paul Redwood for inviting us back. That was ace!
Then - thanks to the lovely Jo and Woodwood, we got invited to Edinburgh to do guest spots at Dr. Ettrick-Hogg's Manly Specimens at the Meadows Bar in Buccleugh Street. That was very kind, and we had some lovely, attentive and chuckly audiences. We certainly got bitten by the Edinburgh bug (not midges)and are thinking of running our own show next year - hope I can get the time! We also got to see lots of wonderful shows - as I talk about here (Gudspellah).
Since then, cheered by responses to my comedy, I had been glancing at the Funny Women website every couple of days to see what updates they had on the competition (I did a heat in May). . I still mean the compliments I meant then, but when I write 'crossing my fingers for myself', this is because I felt that I had done pretty darn well and was actually hopeful of getting through this time. Yes, the competition being so much bigger this year was a bit daunting, but I still hoped.
Actually, I was given news on Friday that meant I would be unable to attend the final, and was stressing a bit about having to write to the organisers to tell them, but I thought I would wait for the shortlists to come out first. Turns out I was stressing over nothing. I'm not even commended.
Just goes to show, I am such a Violet Beauregarde that I am letting the fact that I wasn't placed actually get to me.
The thing is, I am my own worst critic, but a little voice is telling me this isn't fair... I'm telling little voice to pipe down, humour is very subjective, and if the subjective opinions of, admittedly, quite a few judges don't find me worthy, well then, maybe my stuff just isn't what they're looking for. Maybe I should enter FHM Stand Up hero, or something? Except, I'm busy on those dates so can't.
My friend, the lovely Leanne Mckie did get a commendation, so they do have some taste. She should have been shortlisted though - you was robbed, girl! Robbed!
I find myself sandwiched between excitement at the very good opportunities offered by the day job, to feeling a little pinned down by the different responsibilities life is throwing at me more generally. That's the thing about being slightly hopeless. You get to surprise yourself with good stuff as and when it may occur.
I'm actually taking time out to write this. I have a deadline looming, and will have to submit a story by the morning. I will manage, but I've just had the stuffing knocked out of me and needed a break.
I will explain... comedy-wise this has been a good month. I've had some okay gigs, and I've had some bloody brilliant gigs. My head has been swelling and I have dared to hope, to dream that I might actually be getting somewhere with this comedy malarkey.
I found myself staring at cute, expensive shoes in a window at the weekend. Oh imagine, when I am doing comedy professionally, I might be able to afford such shoes for my stage-wear! Dreaming is necessary, because, believe me, comedy is expensive. We may have made budget holidays this year by camping at the Endorse it in Dorset festival and at Edinburgh Fringe, but with only one pay-packet coming in, we are still brassic.
Going to the festivals was so worth it, though. Dorset really was a proper festy - camping in a field that had had cows in it, eating tiny portions of thai curry, listening to bands so obscure I'd not heard of most of them. Bloody good fun! The comedy tent was what we would call in comedy terms 'a difficult room', not being a room as such. But we did our thing, and I got a pat on the back from Tony Cowards after my set(the nice kind, not a cow pat)for achieving laughter. Of course, Ewan had to go one further after that and he leaped over the barriers into the audience during his singalong set (thankfully breaking no ribs this time). Many thanks to Paul Redwood for inviting us back. That was ace!
Then - thanks to the lovely Jo and Woodwood, we got invited to Edinburgh to do guest spots at Dr. Ettrick-Hogg's Manly Specimens at the Meadows Bar in Buccleugh Street. That was very kind, and we had some lovely, attentive and chuckly audiences. We certainly got bitten by the Edinburgh bug (not midges)and are thinking of running our own show next year - hope I can get the time! We also got to see lots of wonderful shows - as I talk about here (Gudspellah).
Since then, cheered by responses to my comedy, I had been glancing at the Funny Women website every couple of days to see what updates they had on the competition (I did a heat in May). . I still mean the compliments I meant then, but when I write 'crossing my fingers for myself', this is because I felt that I had done pretty darn well and was actually hopeful of getting through this time. Yes, the competition being so much bigger this year was a bit daunting, but I still hoped.
Actually, I was given news on Friday that meant I would be unable to attend the final, and was stressing a bit about having to write to the organisers to tell them, but I thought I would wait for the shortlists to come out first. Turns out I was stressing over nothing. I'm not even commended.
Just goes to show, I am such a Violet Beauregarde that I am letting the fact that I wasn't placed actually get to me.
The thing is, I am my own worst critic, but a little voice is telling me this isn't fair... I'm telling little voice to pipe down, humour is very subjective, and if the subjective opinions of, admittedly, quite a few judges don't find me worthy, well then, maybe my stuff just isn't what they're looking for. Maybe I should enter FHM Stand Up hero, or something? Except, I'm busy on those dates so can't.
My friend, the lovely Leanne Mckie did get a commendation, so they do have some taste. She should have been shortlisted though - you was robbed, girl! Robbed!