Radio stories - a sound-byte identity

One of the attractions of writing is the initial privacy of that activity. Private until we choose to share. Many of us were odd sort of children who kept to our rooms whenever we could, our only companion a good book, craving our space and nothing more than time to spend between the pages. Not so odd probably. The modern equivalent might be kids holed up with their laptops, phones and tablets, although that activity seems more conversational with less time for individual reflection (more for collective reflection, maybe).This brings me to publicity, and the flashing promotion of my novel on the left. The browse window has been back for a few days now, and I can upload pictures again. Interesting strobe-like effect. If you are adversely affected by such things, turn to another site immediately!

And radio. I have been able to discuss my writing and the upcoming launch of my novel on our local Community Radio lately - 6EBA FM, and RTR FM, with another to come on Radio Fremantle.  Not just me of course - all the local people with books coming out at the moment, leading up to the Perth Writers Festival. It's a time-limited thing, our15 minutes, and a good thing too. I have done a bit of acting, so have tried to employ some of those skills (don't apologise - never apologise! Keep talking. Speak up.) It ain't easy though. Acting should have taught me the art of being prepared and simultaneously appearing spontaneous. Instead, I think I've been something of a loose cannon dabbling in a genre that, itself, is something of a loose canon!  As for the acting it's been a few years now. I'm rusty. It might be a bit like  riding a bicycle, something else I've recently taken to doing again. You never forget, but the more time passes, the steeper the rises.

 

The Community Radio stations are gentle and generous. They give you some space and time to create or negotiate a public identity, but even so, air time is a commodity and there is little room for the finer details of discussion. More generous than the commercial stations though, I'd say. And for an interviewee, saying a lot in a short time is probably a skill that gets better with practice. For the novice high on adrenaline though, it's easy to stuff up and say something that you kick yourself for later.

 

To maintain some semblance of sanity I tell myself that radio is ephemeral, like a bus ticket, soon blown away in public consciousness. It is, of course. A single interview is almost immediately lost in the flotsam and jetsam carried away in a vast ocean of sound waves. Where do they end up, all those interviews? Lost, or gathered together in a huge sink like that great Pacific garbage dump? Carefully archived as historical sound recordings? Recorded, streamed or i-somethinged?

 

I hope they're not kept. Like a photograph, a sound recording fixes a person in time. One is caught in a particular light and at a certain angle, in the midst of movement, or posed. Composed or windblown. The voice itself gives out information and an impression. Nerves place it at a higher pitch. The words thrown out on the spur of the moment can be potentially harvested and used in the future, in the expectation that that same person will tell the old story. What if that person decides to change the story? Is inconsistency the equivalent of lying? Perhaps consistency is the equivalent of lying, or at the very least, intransigence. Too much rumination? Not enough?

 

I'm sure all this is old hat to those who have gone ahead, those who have joyfully put the work into many, many publications, and who are experienced in negotiating the concurrent public persona. And I have to admit, for a newbie it is fun to be asked what you think about this or that, as if it and you matter, although it could be difficult to strike the balance between having a serious discussion (not too serious) and coming across in the public self-pleasuring mode. Such insecurities are sometimes accompanied by a vague sense of shame. For a couple of hours after an interview a person might feel compelled to roll up into a ball and never show her face again. As the famous Howard Jacobson once said (I first heard it on the radio) writers can be very thin-skinned.