Fall-ing forwards
Picking things up again as we hurtle into autumn
Hi friends. It’s been a minute, hey?
If you’re new here, welcome. If you’re a seasoned reader - hi again, I’m TSarzi (“sar-zee”). You’ve probably forgotten who I am since the last time I wrote one of these was in June. So much for my noble quest for consistency.
My excuse of course is that I was taking my first ever show to the Edinburgh Fringe. July was a frenzy trying to get ready, August was groundhog month, and September happened but I only know that because I checked my diary and it is definitely October.
More on all that shortly. Briefly now, a quick (re)intro:
Whose Ornaments?
(Nobody Likes Your) Ornaments is my newsletter where I keep you posted on the general goings on in TSarzi HQ, and also share some behind-scenes stories about my own process and - more often than not - pratfalls, in the hope of demystifying this whole creativity business.
The title comes from my song Ornaments, which is about someone who has grown overly fond of their trinkets and opinions, and walled themselves up from the outside world. The song is about someone else, but like most things I write - and perhaps this is true of all artists - it’s as much about me as it is about them. My ornaments are my unrecorded songs, my half-written novels and my grand plans for elaborate stage shows.
We are all guilty I think of creating perfect interior worlds where everything has its place and nothing can be critiqued - the trick is to not become hostage there. It took me many years and a great Sisyphean rock of self-will to overcome my fear of getting onstage and being seen - and that rock is one that just keeps on rolling back for more. I still have the urge - often, maybe always - to lock myself back up, hoard all my perfect little ideas and immaculate melodies and just keep them indoors where they - and therefore I - can be safe. But the world was never changed by a song no one heard, and you can’t publish half a book (unless you’re being exceptionally post-modern).
So this newsletter is part of my attempt to share honestly my own experience of creativity and the frequent reluctance, shame, bafflement and self-recrimination that goes on behind the veneer of A Show, An Album, My Wonderful Life on Instagram etc.
I believe demystification helps everyone uncover their own creative courage - and I really think that in the current state of things, courage and creativity is needed more than ever.
May we all go forth in the world, armed with our ornaments - and may we find that in fact there are those who DO like them!
This is where the metaphor breaks down. And so we move on.
Dispatches
2 gigs in the diary in October. I purposefully kept my diary pretty clear post-Fringe because I had no idea what state I’d be in by the end of it. I think it was a wise choice, for which I thank my past self. Learning to not overload the plate has been a valuable lesson inherited by 2023.
Gigs
7th October, Sheffield
Sharrow Festival - Samuel Worth Chapel (in the cemetery! spoooooooky)
14th October, Belper
The Queen’s Head - playing with my ol’ muckers Ichabod Wolf & Del Scott Miller as the oddball assortment three-for-the-price-of-one Outliers. Ichabod had his beautiful track Painted Horses played on BBC 6Music recently, selected by the discerning ear of poet Helen Mort - so we’ll be envy-applauding him as befits our role as Fame-Adjacent lackeys.
NB - I’m currently working on a brand new shiny website, but in the meantime, you can always keep up with me on Instagram or Twitter (while it lasts) - or bookmark my Linktree, which I keep updated with my latest projects and news.
Victoria Wood on acid
Ok, now back to me.
So 2023 was the year I had committed to take a solo show up to Edinburgh Fringe for the first time, by hook or by crook. And I did it!
Gone to the Dogs ran for the full month at Gilded Balloon Teviot. I performed 23 shows in 27 days - more shows than I performed in 2022 total, and more consecutive performances than I’ve ever done in one go.
It was both one of the hardest and the most exhilarating and empowering things I’ve ever done. By the end of the run I honestly felt I could tackle anything (September had things to say about that, but I was riding high on adrenaline).
Honestly the response was mixed. It’s a strange show and it’s not the kind of thing you can kick back and half enjoy. People either loved it or hated it.
Here are some of my favourite quotes from reviewers, audience members, and fellow Fringe artists who came to see the show:
“Victoria Wood on acid”
“Imagine if the history of England was told through the subconsciousness of a drunk Lewis Carroll against a backdrop of surreal music”
“Haunting and beautiful and mad - in the best possible way”
Shout out as well to the disgruntled lady who came on a comp ticket and very frankly afterwards told my producer: “I hated it. She’s clearly very talented - why doesn’t she do something else?”
Lady, I ask myself the same question many times a day. But we each of us must go where the muse takes us.
The wins
The show was a success in so many ways. The Edinburgh Fringe is a notorious gamble and the soaring success stories are few and far between. Yet still we expect - at least we secretly hope for - an apotheosis of sorts. A completely transformative experience that plucks us from obscurity and sets us on our way to fame and glory.
And in that light - that highly improbable, out of our control light - it’s easy to look back on this incredible feat of willpower and imagination and logistics you just accomplished and immediately write it off. The urge, once something is in the bag, to instantly rate it on what it failed to accomplish, rather than how far it has moved you forwards, is something I apparently still struggle with.
It’s been just over a month since I performed the final show, and I’ve already moved into the headspace of ‘oh, that was just some thing I did’. I’ve already taken away its magic! This thing I’ve wanted to do since I was a teen, this thing I have been terrified to do for so many years - this thing I was still terrified to do, even as I was doing it!
“Oh, that old thing? It’s just a thing I did. Anyone could do that.”
I allowed myself about one week of feeling epic, a couple more of feeling proud - then in the space of one month I’ve allowed that to dissipate into something mundane. Already I’m thinking of next year’s show; thinking about how I need to record the music as an album and release it asap; thinking about how I still don’t have an agent, a manager, a tour booked. I think of the failures (and even calling them that is telling) - the things I have yet to do, rather than all the things I did.
The very fact of doing something that scared me so much proved that I could in fact do it; and therefore, since I did it, it proves it’s not that hard at all. Therefore I shouldn’t make a big deal out of it.
This is stupid recursive chicken-egg thinking, but I think it is common. We discard our hard-earned wins as soon as we get them. Joy, pride, exhilaration, satisfaction, a feeling of enoughness - these are hard things to inhabit longterm. It’s so much easier to berate yourself. After all, whatever you achieve, there will always be so much that you haven’t done.
Some cool things that happened:
So to counteract this dumb thinking, I’m making myself share all the pretty-amazing-actually things that did happen, because I did what I said I would do and took a show up to the Fringe for the first time:
4 stars in the Scotsman - and a print review!
Longlisted for Neurodiverse Review award
Nominated for an Offie
And less press-impressive but no less important, on a personal level:
It gave me phenomenal confidence as a performer. I think I learned more about my abilities and my resilience in one month than 5 years combined
My voice got stronger than ever - this has shifted things to a new level of versatility and endurance
Alongside the many wonderful reviews from press and audience, I also had so many brilliant conversations with people - audience but also other artists who came to see the show. These were some of my favourite parts of doing the Fringe, and I have to remember to hold onto these memories as much as the black and white words and the stars that go on socials and funding bids and emails to programmers and all the rest.
The experience itself is something that was most valuable - how I felt at the time, something ineffable and nebulous which cannot easily be translated into words, and certainly not star-ratings or eye-catching quotes.
I’m very proud of having done what I said I would do, and taking this first show to Fringe. I did it before I was ready, which is the readiest you can ever be.
The difficulty of writing about the thing
When I sat down to write this newsletter, I thought it would be easy (I always think it will be easy…I am always wrong).
This time, I had actually done A Thing! Surely this would be a doddle? I could talk about The Thing, having done it. My problem previously was always that I was preparing for Things, or in the middle of doing them - neither of which ever seemed conducive to interesting writing. This time I had a bona fide Thing in the bag to talk about - irreducible proof of being a Real Artist.
But it wasn’t so straightforward, actually. The Fringe is not quite done with. The issues that kept me from writing in July - last minute curveballs of planning and finance - are now in the process of being worked out in the aftermath. August seems a long time ago. The wins seem less shiny than they did at the time. I do not have an exiting calendar of upcoming dates to share. Honestly, I’m very very tired.
And in my struggle to write this latest newsletter, which really had all the components to be an easy one, it made me reflect on the reluctance I feel around writing about what is happening right now.
I wonder when we give ourselves space to write - or speak - about the things we are proud of. When we are working towards them, we cannot take credit for them yet. When we are in the middle of doing them, we’re waiting to see how they turn out. And afterwards, we are too ready to measure them against a cold bar of arbitrary success, forgetting all the striving and the uncertainty that took place before.
Yes, I’ve slipped into the first person plural because I think this is a condition of self-disparagement not unique to me. Also, I am gunning for the Booker one of these days.
I’ll leave it here for today - thank you for reading. I promise promise promise to try and write much sooner next time.
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