So the reason I haven't been writing so much on here, which I wrote a post about a couple weeks ago, is that I was caught up in a writing project that required all my creative energy. It was a "reality show" story about my high school class, and I guess it was a hit.
Last night, I met with some of my fellow classmates and a former teacher of ours at P.F. Chang's for dinner to discuss the show and to celebrate that we were all together again. It was terrific.
It was a very, very different vibe from the one I got on Friday when I read a really, really good piece about childhood sexual abuse - my own - and stopped a party, where my reading was a scheduled event, cold for a few moments.
Afterward, lots of people thanked me for reading something that harrowing and emotional to them. (Two of them even requested copies of it, and I obliged them.) But that reading was really, really difficult. "Circle" is a personal, dark story, and I wasn't really close to the people who were in attendance at the party. My biggest fear, which it turns out was unfounded, was that someone would think that I was just a whiny kid who thought I had a bad childhood but just really needed to get over it. Instead, my piece was met first with this shocked, awkward silence, then mild appreciation. I guess that's how it was supposed to be on Friday.
On Sunday night, having completed a decidedly different and lighter work with a, dare I say it, ravenous fan base of very, very close friends who've known me since grade school, I was very, very happy. (They had me pose for a photo with my book!!! I read the dedication page to them, mentioning them all by name, and they seemed really happy with that!!! They all toasted to me, which was weird but exhilirating!!!)
Oh dear, I'm using multiple exclamation points, something that should never occur outside of a yearbook signing. Forgive me, Strunk and White.
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