I made martinis the other day. It was one of those beautiful days over the Easter weekend that felt like a gift and duped me into believing that it was summer. And that I could still hold my liquor.
I don’t use a recipe for martinis, nor do I measure, much, so it’s really hard to describe these drinks, except that they involved a lot of rich, dark blackcurrant juice, and various other sliced fruits. I tasted them before I served them, of course, adding a little of this, a little of that, slopping juice all over myself and the kitchen. Some time later I managed to serve up a round of them.
But one sip in, I wasn’t satisfied. They were a little too acidic. They were missing something. And so I continued mixing the drinks in the very glasses of our guests: adding another splash of juice, a slice of tangerine. Demanding that they take sips to make room for the next ingredient. Quite drunk by this time, I had what seemed a profound revelation: I was revising my martinis – so to speak – after publication. Maybe, I thought, our friends might like to enjoy their flawed libations in peace. Maybe I could add the tangerine in the next, um, edition.
I’m fascinated with that boundary between draft and final version. More fascinated than I realised, I guess. Even when supposedly relaxing I find myself pushing and prodding at it, testing its limits. Trying to understand it better. This fascination taken on more dimensions lately, as I look forward to April’s edition of the Draft reading series, on the theme of rejection.
It’s very black-and-white, this business of rejection, acceptance. It divides process very starkly from product. Perhaps in a way that diminishes both. It introduces the idea of judgement. Yes, this is worthy of publication. No, that isn’t. And somebody else gets to make that judgement, somebody external to ourselves.
In order to put together the series, we have to become judges. There has to be some kind of process of acceptance and rejection.
“How do you choose your readers?” Somebody asked me the other day.
I didn’t know how to answer. I said: “We approach them, sometimes they approach us. We brainstorm at meetings … ”
“No, not how do you find them, how do you choose them?”
I can’t even remember how I answered, but I know I wasn’t satisfied with what I said, because I’m still mentally revising it. Here’s how the dialogue continues, in my head.
“It’s hard to say. It’s not a come-one, come-all process, exactly, but it’s done in a kind of sideways, not-completely-rational fashion. I for one am wary of taking on the role of judge. Of yeah or naysayer. Which is not a criticism of anyone who does take it on.”
“But some readers are good and some are not.”
“I know. But I think it’s good to have some not-so-good ones on board.”
“What? Knowingly, deliberately, you put people through the mysery of listening to a bad reading?”
“No of course not. It’s just that there should be a place where it’s okay to have a wild variety among the readers, not just of age and experience and background and subject matter and form but – well – quality. Whatever that is. There has to be a place where it’s okay to read badly. To be a bad writer, even.”
At this point, my imaginary listener walks away shaking his head, but I continue trying to work it out.
It’s not that I want to put people through the misery of hearing something bad or mediocre or hopelessly rough, it’s that I hope to cultivate an atmosphere where it really doesn’t matter. To extend the environment we need to create for ourselves as writers – that openness to whatever comes – one step further, and take it out in front of an audience. I want to invite audience members to listen, in the same spirit as the readers write.
This is the experience I hope people will have at Draft. Of course, I have no idea what anyone does bring to it. Maybe if we served martinis at readings I’d be shaking people by the shoulders and asking them at every moment what they think. But we don’t. And that might just be a good thing.
mm
