AliceFraser
patreon
Breaking in, breaking down. Salon and Writers Workshop times this week
🕑 Added 2023-03-14 02:10:53 +0000 UTCThis Thursday and Friday I’ll be in Newcastle, continuing to break in my new show TWIST. Tickets are here, if you’re there.
It’s been a rough couple of weeks with this new show. I’m having a mild breakdown about how much to keep doing live work, given that some of my favourite people aren’t doing edinburgh this year, and as Laser becomes more and more of a person (making little friends and missing them when they aren’t there) it starts to feel more and more quixotic to do the thing that is in the top three of things I most enjoy doing, but that definitely earns the least money in the jenga tower of things that constitute my career.
But if I cut back on or step back from live work, there are wobbly questions in my head, apart from just how much I’d miss it. How much the live work feeds into a) audience building for my other stuff, b) legitimacy as a comedian inside the industry, and (most existentially) c) keeping my jokewriting sharp by running it through that live audience furnace/process.
Am I overvaluing it because I love it, or am I undervaluing it because I love it? Do I love it as much as I think I do, inextricable as it is now from the effort and logistics that it takes to get to gigs and festivals and to write a show?
Not sure how much of my feelings are informed by post-baby-new-reformulated-mix-of-hormones-PMS and how much of it is midlife crisis and how much of it is just trying to have a career in the Arts at this stage of capitalism.
I think because I am objectively good at delivering to deadlines it’s easy to assume that my work time can be eaten into infinitely. But when you’re working with a skeleton crew, actually, there’s no fat to cut at all.
The unquantifiable yet infinitely valuable thing that I’ve lost access to for the moment is dreaming time, because that’s really hard to schedule in when you have to do that multi-factorial moving-pieces childcare-maths - hey, should I pay someone $30 so I can stare out the window for 45 minutes and think about how to relate some jokes I have on AI to the storyline of my show, even if the result is to decide it’s “not funny enough”?
Anyway, there’s a glimpse behind the curtain of my late night thoughts at the moment. I hope it doesn’t come across as negative or whingeing; because I don’t feel mopey, I just feel a bit like I’m balanced on the edge of a steep drop.
Salon This Week
Will be at 8.30am Sydney time on Thursday
Link where you can convert into your own timezone here
Writers Meeting and Workshop
Will be at 8.30-10.30am Sydney time on Monday
Link where you can convert into your own timezone here
One-on-one Consultations
Still available HERE. I’ll be putting them out to the non-Patreon community in about a month, but for now they’re just for youse all.
Comments
Keith D. Jones
Awww, and now I feel guilt because it was a wonderfully vivid image you crafted, juggling the many precarious worlds that make up your life while balanced on a bowling ball . . . or was that basketball? I suppose it still works, holding up the heavens representing your lofty plans, dreams and ideals.
Good call, thanks for the correction. Lazy on my part
Thanks so much for sharing, Alice. Much love to you as you work it all through.
Thank you!
You don’t need to have anything prepped! The first hour is just writing together, the second hour is the workshop.
Sorry for commenting here, just a bit clueless. I'd like to join the writing workshop but I want to know if I've to have anything prepared?
Gabe
I wish you all the best Alice! <3
I dunno if any of this is of interest to you but this was in today's UK Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/mar/14/comics-motherhood-josie-long-mothers-day-taboos
Meagan
Of course you do! You’re the captain of your life, Laser is first mate. It’s one hell of an adventure, and we’re rooting (cheering) you on from our corners of the world.
I guess I wonder if I have a right to do impractical things any more!
Meagan
Most things we love doing are impractical if you think about them logically.
I will probably be frantically packing at salon time, but should be free and at home for the writers! I guess one way to measure the possible negative impacts of not doing live shows would be to not do them and see, but who knows how to tell what the risk is! Quite a few people seem to only do a new show every other year rather than every single year. It perhaps depends on how long you mind repeating the same material for ad hoc spots, or how long you want to count something as “new” or “in progress” for. Whatever you decide to do I am sure I will enjoy it :) Hopefully there’s many years worth of time to try different combinations. Maybe one day you’ll do your novel!
