Friday, January 19, 2007

Audition Lines

It's no secret. I don't watch much TV. Very little. BUT, I have two shows I don't miss. Gray's Anatomy for one. And I'm a HUGE American Idol fan. As much as I think reality shows have pretty much gone into the toilet, I've been an AI fan since the beginning. The reason is, I love music. Love, Love, Love my tunes. I can be found at all hours with my Ipod hooked to my ears. Ask my husband, he gets the Itunes bill.

Anyway, with great anticipation, I sat and watched the first two nights of AI this week. If you've watched any of AI, you know the first several shows are all about the losers. Those auditions that absolutely suck. The contestants, it seems, don't realize they suck. Or at least, for some reason the judges that screen the thousands of try-outs let these losers slip through just for the purpose of ... TV RATINGS. For the viewers, it's funny.

But for me ... it's painful. Watching these folks give it their best and just dive bomb into a vat of pure humiliation. I'm finding it harder to watch these first few shows every year.

Well ... I got to thinking. That's how it is with so many writers. They're like those geeky singers. They write books they think are worthy of the NY Times Bestseller List and end up as $2.00 specials in Used Book Stores after a year. If they even get that far. Makes me wonder ... who are the Kelly Clarkson, Fantasia, and Taylor Hicks of the book industry? Who are the Paula, Randy, and Simon? And where do I fit in this contest? Am I a geek? Do I think I can write and I'm secretly being laughed at by the masses? How far will I go to be noticed? Will I stand in front of the "camera" with no bra under a satin shirt and dance like a woman who has lost her mind?

If I don't make it, am I going to stand in front of the "camera" and call the judges names and declare they don't know what they're talking about? How dare they reject my work! At least, in my world, we don't have to be in our 20s. In fact, the more mature we are, the better. But the differences between one contest and another are few.

Will I get to go to Hollywood? Get the chance to break out? Pass to the next round? And maybe, with any luck, be in the top 10 waiting for America's votes ... in book sales rather than text messaging. Waiting for the public to determine who is the next American Author!

Art is art ... and no matter how you twist it and turn it, we all start out in the audition line.

Blessings to you and yours.

1 comment:

dsprl2000 said...

Lessons from American Idol: It isn't always the winner that has the biggest career. Another thing to be learned is that onem can enjoy the singing of all the contestants.

Chances are neither of us will become as famous as Stephen King or Clancey, nor as respected as mAnn Rule or as rich as the author of the harry Potter books, but that doesn't mean that the twenty-one people who bought yourm book Thursday won't enjoy it.

The truth is, my book, Queen of southgate, may never amke a dime but it is the most demanded book at the Guilford County jail and had to be distributed by the Guards at the Women's prison in Raleigh to prevent a riot by people trying to read it.

More importantly, at least three former drug-addicted street prostitutes from Greensboro are m ow drug free and out of prostitution because of my book. To me that makes my book a sucdess and is worth more than all the millions Harry Potter made (although that would be nice too.)