Worthwhile (A Jonah Marais Fanfiction)

Chapter 36

Winter's P.O.V

"Well, what do you think?" I asked my management team sitting before me.

The room was silent as if everyone was processing the bomb that I just dropped on them. Just when I was contemplating that it was a bad idea, the room burst into applause. I was taken aback and for a moment, I thought that they were mocking me. But the smiles and proud looks on their faces were genuine.

"I think we could go over the details once more?" My publicist, Samantha, suggested.

The team concurred to the suggestion.

I took a deep breath before going over the whole plan, "So, I have decided to write and produce my own album. I won't have any co-writers and I need to work with a minimum number of producers. This album is more of an entry in the diary of my life. There will be around 16-17 tracks, followed by a world tour. This time I want the tour to be quite different. Like maybe we could have dancers and acapella groups and guest appearances? I want this to be way different from my previous albums and tours."

"We'll go over this one by one. To make sure that we make what you want possible." Jeff, my record representative, beamed at me. "First, tell us about the songs you've written."

"Around four songs have been written, including the title track 'pretender'. I have a clear idea of what this album is going to be about. I want people to understand the pressure and stress I was put through and the amount of scrutiny and criticism I faced for being a musician. There are going to be a few tracks about my current relationship. A couple others about how I changed over the past few months while I was on a break." I explained.

My management was scribbling down every word I was saying. Samantha kept giving me encouraging smiles. I was thankful for that. It had been six months since I had interactions with someone else other than my family.

Joel, our sound engineer and producer, looked up from his laptop, "What about the producers? You must have thought over who you wanna work with."

I nodded in agreement, "I did. I decided that it would be amazing if I could get Taylor to be my executive producer along with valerie! As for the producers, I really want to work with valerie!, Jack Antonoff and FINNEAS. I want to executively produce it as well."

"What about the tour? Did you picture what you want?" Killian, the tour manager, inquired.

I got all giddy at the mention of tour. A stupid grin overtook my features, "Oh yeah! I am particularly excited about that! It's going to be grand!... Imagine flickering lights and dancers and sets and acapella groups and costume changes and video concepts and..." I took in a deep breath, "And stadiums..."

Everyone stopped doing whatever they were doing and stared at me, blinking furiously. I bit on my lower lip as I glanced over all of them.

My manager, Martha was the first one to react. A loud squeal followed by a big hug and some tears was how she acted. Following suit, the rest of the room erupted into hoots, squeals, jumps and loud clapping. My team shook my hand, hugged me and patted on my back.

The main reason for their over-the-top enthusiasm was my deniability of playing stadiums for my last two albums. 'Serenity' and 'Made To Love' were immensely popular to the extent that I needed to play stadiums. But my anxiety forbade me from going near them. Martha and Killian somehow were able to take me to see a stadium but I ended up having a panic attack at the thought of performing in front of 80,000 people.

Taking into consideration my deteriorating mental health, I persuaded my management into letting me play smaller arenas but more shows. Where I could have done ten shows in ten different stadiums, I was actually performing thirty shows in smaller arenas.