There are moments when you wonder why on earth you thought something was a good idea.
Standing in front of a microphone, clutching several sheets of paper and looking out at a room full of people waiting for me to say something vaguely entertaining, was definitely one of them.
I had signed up for my first open mic night.
Writing something in the safety of your own home is one thing. Pressing Publish on a blog is another. But actually standing in front of a room of strangers and reading your own words aloud is an entirely different experience.
There is nowhere to hide.
I was nervous. Very nervous.
I had chosen to read Welcome to the Beautiful Chaos, one of my observational pieces about village life. I knew where I thought the funny bits were. The worrying question was whether anybody else would agree.
Then something rather wonderful happened.
They laughed.
Not politely, either. They laughed in the places I hoped they would laugh. I began to relax. I stopped worrying quite so much about the microphone, the pieces of paper in my hand and whether my knees were doing anything embarrassing.
For the first time, I could actually feel an audience responding to something I had written.
And I loved it.
When I finished there was warm applause, but perhaps the nicest part came afterwards when several people came over to tell me how much they had enjoyed it.
I walked in that evening wondering whether I really belonged there.
I walked out wanting to do it again.
Over the past year or so, writing has taken me in directions I never expected. Stories have become books. A blog has become this new website. Words that once sat quietly on my computer have somehow found readers.
And now, for the first time, I’ve stood behind a microphone and read some of them aloud.
Not bad for a bloke who was wondering what on earth he was doing up there.
More reading of the chaos: Welcome to the beautiful Chaos
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