i had so much fun telling a story to a live audience, i think i’m going to do it again

So I did my live reading of The Body Snatcher at Geeky Teas yesterday, and I felt great about it.

At the beginning of the show, I asked the audience how many of them were subscribed to my podcast, and only four or five people raised their hands, out of about 60 people in the room. As a podcaster, I would love for that number to be, like, ten times that, but as a guy who wondered if anyone would show up to watch him read a Victorian horror story, I was thrilled.

I know that it’s a big ask to come see me read a story that’s over 150 years old, especially if you don’t know me as a reader and storyteller, so the fact that all these people showed up for me, well … that’s really cool.

I told them at the top of the show that I genuinely did not know how it was going to go, that they could be at the very beginning of something I do for a long time, or they could be at the opening night and closing performance of a very bad idea. Either way, I promised, it would be a memorable experience.

Friends, can I tell you how wonderfully surprising it was to feel the entire house connected to me and the story for the entire time? This is a dense story, the writing is challenging, and I knew I had a lot of work to do, to bring it to a contemporary audience in a way that was accessible while remaining true to the material. I was just overjoyed to feel the audience was with me the entire way, a lot of them connected enough to laugh at the very subtle, very dry humor that shows up briefly in the third act.

As a proof of concept, as an answer to the question, “Will an audience show up for me, and can I entertain that audience with a story?” This was an unmitigated success. I am definitely going to do this again, with a modern story from a contemporary writer.

While everything inside the house went well, I did have a complete technical failure on my stream to Patreon, and I still don’t know why. With about 20 minutes left in the reading, my laptop just went to sleep for no obvious reason, and it took the livestream down with it. I couldn’t exactly stop in the middle of the show to troubleshoot it, so if you were watching, I am so sorry it shit the bed. As a fun bonus for me, the local recording failed right alongside the remote recording, too.

So that sucked, and the next time I attempt to livestream something like this, I’m going to get someone else to handle all of it for me, so this doesn’t happen again.

Finally, on a very personal note, this entire experience was deeply meaningful to me. From the moment I had the idea to do a live show like this, all the way through doing the entire show, I never once doubted myself, felt like an imposter, heard Carrie’s mom screaming “they’re all gonna laugh at you!” or anything like that. I felt excited to get up in front of an audience, and entertain them for about an hour. I felt excited to do this thing that I sincerely and genuinely feel good about, this thing that I absolutely own as an artist, this thing that I have worked hard to master, that I believe I am pretty good at doing.

It’s always been a challenge for me to embrace the joy and or have any sense of deep satisfaction in my creative work, but all the work I’ve done to overcome and heal so much trauma seems to be working, and I have time and space to feel confident and secure in my creative self.

For maybe the first time, ever, I don’t feel like I need to make myself small, or beg for permission to make the art I care about, and if that feeling persists … well, I am so excited to let it fill my cup until it overflows with creative ideas. Maybe I’ll even find my own story to write in there, somewhere.

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Hi, I’m Wil. I’m so happy that you’re here. This is my blog. I host It’s Storytime With Wil Wheaton. If you’d like to have my posts delivered directly to your inbox, here is the thingy: