Letting go of your work

I’ve discovered a slight feeling of discomfort on seeing my work published somewhere. I guess it’s a state of no return. I can’t take it back and have to let go and leave people to interpret it as they will.

Only time will tell if that’ll ever change. I’m sure it’s one of those things you get used to. However I had a similar experience on hearing my flash fiction story ‘Room Mates’ read aloud on the Mashstories podcast.

It made me see my work in a different light. Suddenly appreciating how the actress reading it had her work cut out for her, voicing three girls of a similar age with very little in the way of speech tags. Not something you consider when creating something to be read, with paragraphs and speech marks to make it obvious who’s speaking. So thank you Lorraine Ansell for a job well done (and for pronouncing my surname correctly).

Which brings me to my second moment of discomfort. I was curious to know a bit about the woman who’d read out my story, so I googled her and was rather taken aback to find IMDB listing her as a porn actress!

OK, I thought after a moments reflection. A girl’s got to eat and I should imagine that a bit of voice work must be a welcome change from the day job.

However, I also checked out her twitter account name (@LAvoiceart) to find that there’s more than one Lorraine Ansell and this one looked very different from the one on the IMDB listing!

Glad I got that straight! Anyhow, if you’d like to hear Lorraine Ansell reading Room Mates go here. If you’d like to read it, go here. And if you’re considering entering a MashStories competition, I can confirm that being shortlisted is a very positive experience all round.