READING is Fundamental?

Or, for a Writer, is Reading just plain harrowing?

Depends, right? Doesn’t it depend on whether you are reading a thought balloon in the funnies, or your own work out loud to your writing group, or a neighborhood library?

Worse, doesn’t it depend on whether or not you are at an uptown bookstore by invite? To read excerpts of your novel to members of the general public?

Just suppose your far-fetched writer’s dream has come true and you have contracted with a traditional Publisher. Further, you have jetted to – for the purposes of this discussion, let’s just pretend you have flown to Iowa City, Iowa now, and you have 737ed there because you were invited to read clips of your novel at the legendary Prairie Lights Bookstore.

Let’s keep upping the reading ante: You haven’t walked into Prairie Lights cold. No exaggeration. You can’t read your material out loud at this famous bookstore without researching the store. In your research, you have found out you are expected to perform for a little over an hour to between fifty and standing-room-only people. You will not just be “reading,” you will be playing hard ball, like in the Majors. The understanding between you and Prairie Lights’ management is that because of the show you put on, they will sell a passle of copies of your humble story to your dazzled listeners.

Stop reading this now and think. Consider, if you will, the level of reading skill you, a right-now nearly unknown writer must develop between May, 2026 and that time in the future when you are reading in a venue like Prairie Lights’ upstairs café.

Fellow writers, this happens.

Currently, I am facing the distinct possibility that in the not-distant future, I will be expected to rise to the performance level of READING  I have described above.

Right now, all I can say is, “Mein Gott!” How lazy have I been in not seizing every single opportunity to read my work in public! How sloppy have I been in not working harder to the bring down the speed at which I read!

And right here, my hat is off to Substack for demanding that I begin to embed video material in my posts. Using my phone to record myself, out-loud reading my own material and later examining the recording for quality presentation(or not), will be my key preparation tool for performing at Prairie Lights Bookstore.