Thursday! Between the Zines: What's This? A Surprise?
V3, I36
Why yes. It is a surprise. Are you surprised??
You probably also want to know what kind of surprise it is, since it’s not always a great idea to go around pushing strange “play” buttons on the internet. This guy I know has a cousin whose friend pushed a play button he didn’t know once and he lost an arm. True story. Or so I heard.
Anyhow, let me tell you about this embedded sound file right here. It’s me! Reading a story! Specifically, it’s me reading last week’s “The Princess and the Frog Bandit”. I enjoyed reading this, so much that you might well hear me reading other stories and perhaps other poems. I did a few of those for folks who signed up to be patrons on my Patreon, though I’ve not done one for a long while. I’d like to do more, though I have a horrible time remembering to do them. We shall see what the future, and my memory, holds.
Still, hey listen!
What did you think? I didn’t use any fancy equipment — just the basic voice memo app on my phone with no microphone. That explains the lack of deep resonance my voice usually has1. Honestly, I’m not sure if I’ll move to a better recording setup, which requires I be in a certain location with certain programs up and running. It seems better to me right now to record when I can, where I can, so I don’t have all that extra time to obsess over getting things perfectly perfect. They2 say that perfect is the enemy of good, but perfect is also the enemy of the complete. And that’s where I’d like to hang out with you for a moment.
One of the things that’s kept me from doing more with my writing is the sense that most of what I do is unpolished and not entirely professional. I see excellent work from other writers and poets and artists and I think, “Whoa, man. Why doesn’t your stuff look like that? Why does it look like you wrote is in crayon after reading a really crazy page from The Necronomicon?” Very little of what I do feels perfect, even when it’s finished and, I’ll be completely honest with you, it bugs the living heck out of me.
Okay. Wait. Let me throw some quick definitions in here. When I say “perfect” in this context, I mean “complete”. That is, when I think a story is perfect, I don’t see anywhere I could tinker more to improve it. I can’t add any more nor take any more away. It’s ideal for what it is. On the other hand, “finished” is…done. Complete. The story is told enough that most anyone who reads it will have a satisfying experience3. Those are different things — often very different. A complete story can be ragged and loaded with loose ends. It can have hooks unhooked, teases unfulfilled, and itches unscratched. In fact, you could probably say a very good complete story must have some straggly bits4.
The problem I have is, while I know a good story doesn’t need to be perfect (indeed, is better if it’s not perfect), I still want my stuff to be perfect. I want shiny polish and gleaming surfaces. I want it to excel! Most of it doesn’t. Most of it is…pretty good but nothing for which anyone’s going to erect a statue.
The desire for perfection shouldn’t stop me, but often it does. No matter how many times I write in Thursday! that art can’t ever be perfect, how art needs imperfections because imperfections are where you find the soul of the work5, I still fight against the urge to stuff everything I do in a dank cellar because it all sucks. The fight is real and happens with nearly every piece I write.
That’s why I want to keep the spontaneity of the recording up there. I didn’t think about all the flaws and I’m not really thinking of them now. I pronounced the words correctly, didn’t stumble more than a time or two, and even did a teensy bit of voice acting. It’s fun and I think you had fun right along with me when you listened. Doesn’t that matter more than hours of setup and tinkering to get perfection? I think it does and I’d like to keep that.
Oh, but that reminds me! There’s one other place I do that “oh, what they heck, let’s just write this” kind of work: my Instagram feed. Sometimes a snatch of rhyme will come to me when I take a picture. When that happens, I don’t think about it all that much; I just let it fly. Probably, that’s the right way to go about art. Probably.
Speaking of that, another surprise.
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It’s true! My voice resonates like a richly-bearded Oak Ridge Boy. Women for miles around have to be warned before I speak loudly, lest they fall into a sudden swoon!
You know….they. *shifty eyes*
That doesn’t mean “happy” or even “good”. Since the main job of a short story is to convey a feeling or experience (or more than one), if the story conveys the feelings, it’s done its job. That experience may not be good nor happy but if I read a story and feel a feeling from it, that’s satisfaction.
You might say that, sure, but would I? Probably. Well, okay. Yeah I might say that. In fact, I just did. There. Ha!
I probably shouldn’t hide this in a footnote but here goes: When you see imperfections in a creative work, know that the artist probably saw them as well and chose to leave them there. Those imperfections are deliberate choices just like the polished bits.
Also I couldn't not see the seahorse.
This was great! I would love to see more of this, especially given your background in audio. It sounded great, too… Phones have come a long way!