A few months ago, I attended a men’s soccer World Cup game between Argentina and Switzerland, with 70,000 other spectators and a TV audience of millions.
For the next few weeks, I’ll fall asleep reading Stephen King’s 11/22/63, a terrific 800-page novel about traveling back in time to stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy that sold 84,000 copies in its first week.
However, most of us do our thing over in the corner, out of the limelight.
Yesterday, I sat with a small crowd on a beautiful Saturday fall day, watching Luther College triumph over Ripon College, 35 to 20, in American football.
Last Sunday, Rebecca and I were mesmerized for two hours as the Oneota Valley Community Orchestra performed Letters from Lincoln and other works to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary.
With a high school auditorium about 25% full.
Occasionally, I ask myself how much my reader audience size matters to my commitment to writing. That’s the point of this story’s opening image. And to the contrast I’ve drawn between the vast audience some have and the relatively tiny numbers most experience, including me.
In the photo below, Argentina’s Lionel Messi, the world’s greatest men’s soccer player, is taking a corner kick.
What if, instead of millions, only a handful were watching, would that change his attention, intensity, or commitment to craft?
I’m guessing not, and I need to remind myself why.
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When I write, I imagine an audience of one, a fiction I use to keep my fingers moving. I think of you, in Section F, Row D, seat 4, as I search on a make-believe playing field for a synonym, rearrange a paragraph, audition titles, add a dollop of humor, and discover an enlightening simile or metaphor.
This morning, for this story, it’s whiffle ball, baseball lite, played in the backyards of millions of kids growing up, including, I suspect, America’s greatest baseball players, without an audience.
Before I played Little League with crowds of 50 or more, including my parents and brothers, I honed my skills with Timmy and Tommy in our driveway, combing Mrs. Thompson’s flower beds for foul balls and admiring our towering homers that landed on the Welches’ roof.
The game mattered, and so did how much fun it was.
Once we started playing in front of others, things changed. Often, for the better. It’s a kick to have people watch, to pay attention to what we are doing, to hear them say, “You really got ahold of that one, didn’t you?”
Or, “I love your baseball metaphor.”
Who among us wouldn’t want a Stephen King’s stadium full of new readers every week?
But I wonder: I’ve been to seven Bob Dylan concerts, and he never, ever talks to his audience, except to introduce the Band. Lately, over the last decade or so, he doesn’t allow phones because he wants the experience to be only about the music.
I suspect the same is true for him. It’s about the words and the melodies and the performance. And the audience, big or small, doesn’t matter much, except, of course, to pay the bills and probably to stroke his sizable ego.
Yesterday, my friend Steve and I played catch until our 77-year-old arms gave out. It’s all still about the game.
Our audience was the black walnut trees, two deer, and a ground squirrel.
The audience is icing on the cake. But it ain’t the cake, not for any of us.
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