I’m becoming a ‘jack of all trades’ at the moment. Learning how to not only sing for people, but book theatres and venues, as well as how to market myself and get my Julie Andrews show out there (sorry Opera peeps. Still love the stuff and still singing it but obvs my focus is in Julie at the mo. I’m a Julie bitch). I’m focussing on getting people in now. I can do the best show possible but if people don’t know about it then there’s no point, so today I was on the streets of Lytham doing my singing thingy in the bitter cold and rain and giving out flyers. The 5th January at the Lowther Pavilion in Lytham at 2.30pm. Here’s the link for tickets. Tell anyone you know who lives in the vicinity. https://lowtherpavilion.co.uk/shows/a-spoonful-of-julie/
I had some help too. My first singing teacher who gave me free lessons when I was 15 used to live in Lytham, so she mentioned to people she still knew up here that I would be singing. One lady called Barbara said she would come and listen. Ended up having a cracking day with her. She got some flyers, chatted to people telling them about what I am doing as I was singing, we went for lunch together (and she paid), and then we went and did it again. Not once did she moan about it being cold. We just both got on with it and we were enjoying each other’s company. She’s said that she’ll tell her bowling club and put some flyers in the hotels. I also had another lady helping me too. Denize, who runs her own ‘Lytham lifestyle’ page and I contacted her. Said she could do a feature and advert for £75. Ok. Great. I love what she did. Here’s the feature.
She also came to listen to me today, took a video and as she was leaving said ‘I don’t want money for my feature. Pay me in cd’s instead’. LOVE IT!!!!!!! What I’ve realised is that the people who you pay to do the job end up not really doing such a great job, but it’s the ‘people’ who help you to get it out there. On a heart level. Not on a money level. The marketing people at the theatre have done nothing really apart from put it on the website and I had to say ‘what about posters and flyers? How many do you want?
They should have been asking me for them, not me pushing to sort that out. I took them today to the theatre, so I’m really like ‘put the fricking posters up and some flyers out so I can get people in’. I did get a good response today though and I have already sold a few more tickets. Every little helps. I’m learning that you have to do it yourself if you want anything done. Denize has also got me in for singing at the late night shopping opening on the 5th December and I’ll be there next Saturday too for the switching on of the Christmas lights.
I do feel stressed and I do feel the pressure. I wake up sometimes in the middle of the night and I’m tense and grinding my teeth, worrying about it all. Only natural I think when I look at what I’m doing.
Me and Stuart, who has done my score decided to have champagne on my last night in Nice. I’m so thrilled with what he has done. He’s put his heart and soul into it and he’s a real perfectionist and I couldn’t have asked for more from him, so we wanted to celebrate (well I said ‘Stuart I would love to have some champagne to pat ourselves on the back’ and he said ‘oh, I have a bottle and I’ll put it in the fridge’ to be exact). We even cooled the glasses (I can do posh at times). The start of something. Another theatre as part of Cheltenham Ladies College has given me a date too. On the up……that’s posh too. He had said he would take me out to the mountains on my last day. I was really looking forward to it, and he has a beautiful Mercedes convertible. I’m not usually into that kind of stuff but I was with this one (the car I mean, not the mountains. I’m usually ‘oh you have a posh car, and………). I envisaged seeing the views from the top and even having a bit of Bridget Jones hair, and we set out and 10 minutes later something was sticking out in the road and it damaged his tyre and that was the end of that. I didn’t see mountains or views. The only view I saw was in the garage waiting for the tyres to be done. I was cursing French roads for a few hours.
Anyway, one minute I’m happy on his balcony looking at an amazing view and later on back at my studio I made some food, and then couldn’t eat it because I just got this grip of fear and anxiety and it all just felt too much to deal with. Cash flow for it all, getting people in, making it work, hiring theatres and taking on costs for them all (the Cheltenham place is the most expensive too, called The Parabola arts centre, but as soon as I saw the photo I knew I wanted to sing there).
I was singing my show through yesterday and I’m scared that I can’t sing it well enough to keep people entertained. I am singing the stuff of a real legend and will my show do it for people? All this stuff goes through my mind but that just the fearful sabotaging side we all have and it won’t win. I’m better than that. It can try but I’m on to it and I know. This shit is not the real shit.
So it’s full steam ahead. Make my first show work ( I MUST OWN WHAT I AM DOING WITH IT first and foremost), do it for the people and financially make it work too. I am going to get it recorded so that a promo video can be made.
That will help with marketing for the shows after that. Just let it get off the ground and get going. I see myself doing it with an orchestra in the future. I see it. I had the vision of that 2 years ago.
I did actually get to see the lady herself last week. I went to see Julie at The Royal Festival Hall in London. She was talking about her new book. I took my friend Daniella and we had great seats in a box. We both loved it. She is gracious, quintessentially British (which I find impressive as she has lived in the US most of her life but has totally kept her English accent and vocabulary).
This lady is class through and through. I can’t imagine she has bad words to say about anybody, as she managed to turn everything into a positive. This lady dishes no dirt. She kept saying ‘lucky me’, but that lady created her own luck by being who she was. Talented, someone who worked hard, and someone who was a pro through and through. A real pleasure to see her in person.
I know with all this I need to keep working on my inner self. I need to see this succeeding (which I do really deep down). I’m good enough, I’m not too fat, I’m pretty etc……(my ego can rip me apart at times). I am enough. I can do a great show for people and I can shine. I can only make it work when I truly believe it will work. I’ve said that at some point next year I will stop singing on the streets. I am happy to do it for now to get my show out there, but I’m no longer willing to let that be enough. I am valuing myself more to see I deserve more. I am no longer happy being in the background. I want to be up front, the star, the person people are coming to see.
I see it in the clothes I am wearing too. I want to wear nicer things but I also see how hard that is too when I have been used to keeping myself small, but I also see that it’s hard to wear stuff that is nicer because I know a part of me doesn’t value myself enough or think I’m pretty enough. I see it. I’ve always had a shy side and this is it. I would say I am always aware of all these little things, so I’m going to work every day in telling myself positive things and saying ‘I am worthy and I am enough and I can do this and I will be awesome (like how the Americans believe they are awesome). I see how I’ve kept myself small in some ways and I don’t want that anymore.
I am excited about it. I need to vocally work on this stuff. It is different to singing opera. I need my middle voice to be stronger (my weakest part), so I need to work on it and have the courage to bring me to the table with it. Do what I want. My own Nicola Julie things. I’m not her, I’m me. I’m glad I’m still singing my opera stuff. After all I am ‘Opera for the people’ and I won’t stop this side of things. I need it for my stamina and technique. I was down in London having lessons again. I still feel there’s so much to learn. My teacher is so amazing. 81 and full of energy. I am so grateful he bumped into me that day in Oxford St and offered me lessons (way back in 2016 when I was singing on Oxford St wondering what the hell I was doing in London).
This week is just carrying on (not much travelling, phew!!!!!!!!! because if one more train runs late I won’t be responsible for screaming at someone), and then the week after I go to South Wales to start rehearsals with Gary, one of my pianists. Back up North because on the Friday I’m being filmed for the TV. The TV company who film The Hairy Bikers. When I left New York and came back to Hebden Bridge I really found it hard at first. How is anything going to happen here? I’m not going to do my mission etc…..but I am, and stuff is happening and I feel like a horse with blinkers on.
It’s just me and my singing thingy. Tunnel vision. Fighting for me and my dreams. Thriving and not just surviving.
For more info check out my website at: http://www.iamnicolamills.com
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