The Dog, The Book-ends and The Imposter

The Dog

This is the story: It’s the most wonderful month of the year - that being ‘Spooky Season’ as it seems so charmingly named. For me, Halloween has always been much like Christmas - a cold, dark season built on spiritual superstitions and dressing up in your finest, most impressively loud outfits.

It was more low-key for me this year. Perhaps you might assume that as I’m on the brink of the big four, zero, it’s time to tone things down a bit. Well you shouldn’t. When you assume, you only make an ass out of u and me. As demonstrated, maturity is not on my list of priorities. I might also point out that ‘low-key’ involved a smattering of face paint, dog-sitting with friends, Cards Against Humanity, a children’s garden slide, and wine. And more wine.

But it’s the dog-sitting that gives me the segue I needed.

My ‘Spooky Season’ was book-ended in quite a meaningful, and pleasingly neat and tidy way. I had moved into my sister’s house to look after their beautiful and 100% pure-bred Daft, Vizsla while they took the kids to Disneyland.

The Left Side Book-end

On the first night - Tuesday - I settled her down (the dog, not my sister - she was on a plane somewhere or other dreaming of Butter Beer) and my hubby and I went to see the latest programmed play at Alphabetti Theatre in Newcastle - Out-Out! (The title of the play, not a quirky description of our evening).

I have watched this amazing theatre and its community grow over the years, and have even had a couple of scratch pieces performed there. If you don’t know Alphabetti, get to. Even if just for a visit to the bar for an ale and a non-intrusive creative vibe. It’s lovely. One of the schemes they have in place for new writing is their Response Programme. Writers, I urge you to check it out.

So, we watched Out-Out! by Joana Geronimo, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I grabbed a writer’s pack and prepared to switch on my brain in any way that might enable me to write (over the next three nights) a short response piece. I had until midnight on the following Friday to submit my piece. I’d only ever submitted to the scheme once before, and back then, I’d taken a day off work to really sink in my teeth. This time, not so much. Here’s the scenario:

Living at my sister’s house.

Working from my sister’s house.

Looking after the daft dog.

Looking after this wonderful cold virus that had now invaded my body.

Writing a 10-15 minute play.

I was exhausted. But not short of inspiration. My script opened with the actor being very much… a dog; sniffing walls, sniffing people, looking for biscuits. I’d written a dog before and had some success with it in my play, Sleeping Truths Lie. So it gave me an opener that I felt semi-comfortable with at least. It was the next ten or so pages that I found a challenge. Will people understand how this ties in to the themes in Out-Out!? Am I making it clear? Is this just all over the place? Am I really setting this in a working men’s club urinal? I powered through.

I spent the next couple of evenings formatting and tidying up the script - completely convinced that this was nothing more than a writing exercise, and that was absolutely fine by me. The Response Programme wasn’t about the outcome for me at this stage. It was pulling myself out of an ‘I quit’ pit that had been dropping ever deeper with every shortlist that had come before, and the silence that followed. These writing opportunities were my chance to kick myself up the arse and start writing for the joy and the challenge again. And, although this time was tough, I was still really proud of the effort and the proactivity of the process.

The Right Side Book-end

On the last night - Tuesday - I settled her down (again, the dog. My sister had had her Butter Beer and was en route home with the clan) and we went again, to see Out-Out! This time though, it would be followed by the first performance of the Response Play, Aaand Sleep, by Mel Hunter.

Let’s rewind. Following the Friday deadline and having submitted my play, I received an email the following Sunday. It wasn’t like any other email I had received, although at first glance I thought it indeed was much the same. How kind that they had reached out to give me some feedback, I’d thought. Then I saw the word ‘delighted’ and another, ‘chosen’, and in a flu-riddled haze, I looked up at my husband and said, “I got it!” A statement which then escalated into both of us on our feet, hugging and chattering, and the dog getting just as excited, barking away - was it danger, or were we going to the park?! It’s the park, Willow, it’s definitely the park! Did I just get my first ever paid theatre gig? Yep. I did. I then rang and text everyone close to me, as if I’d just won the lottery. No cold medicine in the world would come close to this.

The Imposter

Shortly after I had told people about this win, I found myself re-reading the email. I’d read this wrong. Surely. Oh my god, what if I really had read this wrong. The imposter had crept in, and was here to stay. Of course, I had read the email perfectly correctly. But that didn’t stop the chattering of doubt.

Back to Tuesday, I was dressed and ready to go. But I was anxious and having palpitations and sipping red wine to try and calm my nerves before we left for the theatre. And all of these delightful messages from my over-chatty, ADHD brain were taking their front seats:

They chose you because nobody else submitted anything.

They had to choose someone. Yours just maybe wasn’t as shit as the others.

You wrote about a dog and a hypnotist in a urinal. This isn’t going to work.

Nobody is going to stay for the Response Play. They’ll all leave after the main event.

Hello Imposter Syndrome.

Oh no - this is not Imposter Syndrome, you’re giving yourself too much credit there. It’s just the plain truth.

But it wasn’t the truth at all. I got there, and was welcomed by the Response Programme mentor, Paula. She (perhaps unknowingly) immediately put me at ease. She told me, without knowledge of the cruelty going on inside my nattering mind, that of the above, none was true at all.

There were still nerves, of course. But I could suddenly see my surroundings again. No matter what, it was going to be OK. I was surrounded by support and kindness and creativity. And it was going to be OK.

The play (Directed by Kay Greyson and performed by Joe Cooper) went down a storm. The relief, the happiness and the overwhelming gratitude I had (and have) to all involved was just spilling out of me by the end. I walked away feeling like I was on solid ground again; that the ‘I quit’ pit had been covered over with fresh soil and I could see everything in the light of day again.

And it doesn’t matter - whether I ever get another ‘delighted to tell you’ email again.

It never really did. Because what has mattered more to me than anything else is that I know now that the Imposter is usually very wrong, and so I keep going.

I just keep going.