Correspondence with M.M.

A few days ago, I sent a rather loquacious -- perhaps embarrassingly so -- e-mail to a writer who I esteem highly, earnestly expressing thanks for an article he wrote last year on the acting trade. As mentioned in a previous post, I've been considering auditioning for community theater productions sometime after the conclusion of my internship in June. Just for fun, you know? I'm a bit of a chickenshit, though. Easily discouraged. Yet his funny article supplies me with confidence every time I read it.

Anyway, I received a response to my e-mail:

"Dear Vince
St. Patrick bolloxed up a perfectly nice pagan country but the damage is done so no use complaining The acting trade is great fun if you can stand the constant rejection . When you get the job its all worth while . It doesn't matter whether you are small brown big white male female fat thin blonde asian black these days as all are part of the fabric of our society . Its still racist but less so and if you have a desire go for the acting life . Learn all you can about stagecraft as its the basis for all acting and the most important thing is listening to the other guy its not acting
You also have a great way with the words so dont neglect that part of your life

Thanks for writing Vince
Malachy"


Okay.

For an aspiring writer to hear from an accomplished writer whom he admires that "You also have a great way with the words" ...

Got to say, my spirits are higher than you can possibly fathom. I do hope that it was actually him who responded and not his webmaster, though.

And even if that's the case, I take some measure of comfort in knowing that someone thinks I'm a decent writer.