I’m very scared of public speaking. Always have been. I remember at school growing up, we had to give presentations a few times a year to the class, and they were the absolute bane of my existence. Thing is, when I imagine the Much Cooler Dan™, he’s the sort of guy that can stand up in a crowded room, command attention, and not stutter and slur his words.
I never clarified exactly what this entry in ✓ Project Bucket List would actually entail; I left it open-ended. While initially I imagined that it might be performing a song, it could equally have been doing stand-up or telling a story.
It’s April, and I’m in the swanky Bull and Gate Bar in Kentish Town, London. It’s a stylish place with amazing spiced pork belly bites that has hosted Coldplay, Blur, and Oasis. Someone leans across to me and says, “You’re on second to last“. My arsehole clenches, and my mouth goes dry as I smile and lie, “Sounds great!“
But let’s rewind. How did I get here?
Before Project Bucket List, I hadn’t actually tried writing before. I can’t recall what prompted me to try, but before I even knew what was happening, I was getting excited about telling my stories, great and small. My voice started to develop, and, with growing confidence, I started to think about how I’d share things with the world. Before long, I had the independent literary world in my sights, and one magazine in particular kept catching my eye: FOTS.
Friends On The Shelf is an independent magazine that publishes true stories from people around the world. They range from tiny slice-of-life musings to big, deep experiences that change lives.
I wrote to editors Vick and Rachel last year, telling them about the list, and inviting them to have a perusal through my stories to see if any were of interest. Out of everything they could have chosen, they picked the tarantula story, and after a few editorial revisions, it went off to press.
Before long, Issue 13 showed up in the post, and there on the front cover was a pen drawing of my silly moustache, and twenty-five stories that Kymberley and I read out loud to each other every morning in bed for a week straight.
Unexpectedly, I received an email inviting me to come to the launch party, and soon after, another asking if I’d like to read my story out.
And so, in the true nature of Project Bucket List, I swallowed my sense of panic, grabbed fear by the horns, and booked a train down to London to stand up and tell my scary spider story.
In the lead up to the date, I practice reading out my story and even obsess over a smooth, charming introduction for myself, mumbling it to myself in the shower. This feels like the sort of thing that I probably shouldn’t share in some vain attempt at making myself seem calm and collected, but alas, writing is about truth.
We arrive at the launch party, and the room is full of swanky writers, all confidently lounging around, catching up. It’s immediately clear that almost everybody here knows each other. It’s a fabulous, bustling community of people who share inside jokes, introductions, and exciting stories from their lives.
The FOTS team has really built something amazing. Being welcomed in with open arms was humbling, and as the room started to fill with more and more people, I got more and more anxious. The first few speakers stand up and read their stories, and I notice that I’m drifting in and out of awareness as my knee trembles under the table and I realise that I can’t find any saliva in my mouth. I realise how lucky it is that I read the stories ahead of time, and I will myself to be more present and enjoy the situation.
Eventually, my name is read out, and despite weak legs, I seem to be walking towards the front of the room. I stand there during the introduction and take a moment to look around the room. A sea of faces stares back at me. Then, somehow, I’m standing in front of the lectern, book in hand. That charming introduction I’d rehearsed in the shower is a distant, fuzzy memory, and all I have is the book, grasped clumsily in my hands.
I begin.
“I am a self-confessed bug man.”
There’s a gentle rumble of polite chuckles, and I’m in. I read as slowly as I can. Halfway down the first page, a horrifying realisation hits me. At home, I’d been practicing with my version of the story. Not the edited version. Suddenly, I’m thrown into sentences that I’d agreed to months ago, but no longer remember, and I find something interesting happening.
I’m looking up at the crowd more often. I keep checking the book for guidance, but I’m speaking to them, not just reading. How am I remembering this? I used to have to memorise words back at school for weeks! Then, in the middle of my anecdote about tarantula mating season, a flash of poetry crosses my mind in a fraction of a second: Shane Koyczan’s Tomatoes.
People always ask me, “How do you memorize all that?” And the truth is, the first girl I ever kissed tasted like tomatoes. I know this because the second girl I ever kissed tasted like pepper. […] It’s not a trick. I remember how things felt, which in turn makes me remember how things happened.
These are my words. My memories. I’m not saying them exactly as they appear on the paper in front of me, but I’m remembering Wayne, and Stu, and the warm, sweet smell of the air in Arizona, and – the fraction of a second passes, and I’m pausing as the room laughs at a joke.
I read it out, as slowly as I can. I stop and pause for effect. People laugh, and shudder, and laugh, and I smile; it makes me happy that they’re enjoying it. Before I even realise, I’m at the end of my story. There’s applause, I take a quick moment to press my hands together in thanks, fighting the urge to run back to my seat as quickly as possible, and then – five minutes later, I finally regain consciousness.
The rest of the evening is a blur, people congratulating me and telling me they really enjoyed the story. I point out to at least seven people that the fear of standing up there in front of everybody was worse than the fear of the spiders, and I receive reassurance and kind words from everybody.
Seems from the outside, I looked plenty confident and at ease. Very much a duck paddling madly under the surface. Alongside my moment in the spotlight, the other writers were Eleni Kyriacou, Denisa Popa, Julian Perry, Carl Heap, David J. Zell, and Sam Brown.
I’d like to end this one by saying that I’ve been filled with confidence at the idea that I can stand up in a room and tell a story, and people will a) like it and b) think I’m having a lovely time, but that’s not the case. The idea of doing it again is making my leg jitter once again, and so, I shall be taking the same stance as I did in the spider story. In fact, I’ll copy it verbatim:
Turns out fears don’t vanish in one go. Tarantulas? Fine. Orb weavers? Still nope. I think that’s the whole point of something like ✓ Project Bucket List. You don’t just “fix” yourself in one fell swoop. You step up and do the thing you’d usually run away from. But when it comes to spiders? I’ll take the win and leave the rest to braver souls.