Critique on Public Speaking Book

For long, long, LONG time readers of this blog, you may recall that I at some point decided I would write a book on public speaking. I was doing a lot of teaching at the time on the topic at area and college universities as well as at writers conferences.  Based on what I observed, there are a glut of people milling about who are perfectly capable of being wonderfully adequate speakers, if they could just move past their fear.

Yes, I know..."wonderfully adequate speakers." Quite a lofty goal. And yet, it is.  Most people who give talks or workshops aren't setting out to earn their living in a speaking venue. They're not trying to be keynote speakers or stand-up comedians. They just want to get through the occasional presentation at work and feel good about doing so. We're so much a nation focused on being the best or #1 that we sometimes overlook "adequate" as a perfectly reasonable goal.

So I wrote a manuscript, The Occasional Speaker.   Then I rewrote it. Then I ignored it. Then I let a few people read it, listened to their comments, thought hard about how to improve the book, and ignored it again. Then this past summer when I won my week long writer's retreat at WildAcres, I took the manuscript, ripped it apart, reorganized it, and renamed it The Perfect Speaker (Doesn't Exist). I got home, and promptly stopped work on it. (I hope you all are gaining insight into the writer's process...)

A critique group I had been a part of before regrouped, and in January I gave the revised manuscript to 3 readers. I met with two of them yesterday to receive feedback. That's always a scary process. You absolutely want people who won't sugarcoat and will tell you the truth. Otherwise, what's the point? But ego is a tricky thing, and you sort of enter the room ready to duck if a hard ball comes your way.

I honestly didn't know what to expect. I've been through the manuscript and sometimes I read it and think, "Hey, this has some merit," and other times I read it and think, "Burn it now, quick,before anyone sees it." I've all but had the match in hand before I turn back.

So it was with a great sigh of relief that I received positive feedback yesterday. Not glowing. Both readers agreed I needed to tighten, condense, and do some reorganizing to get rid of repetition and create a smoother flow. No surprises there. One who read my early version said she liked that format better and thought it allowed for more humor. I'm not sure I agree. But it's worth pulling out the original format and comparing.

Having received comments and suggestions, I'm also currently motivated to work on the book--something I need to jump on before I blink and the feeling disappears.  I also still need to meet with my third reader and see if his reactions concur with the other two. There's always a wild card...

The question follows on what I might do with said book. It will be an incredibly hard sell to a traditional publisher, given that I'm not out earning millions as a speaker, re: someone worth listening to. Then again, the premise of the book is that you don't HAVE to be that big-time speaker in order to be a successful speaker.

I'm willing to self-publish and market myself, if need be. I could start teaching again, sign up with some speakers bureaus, approach regional companies and go with back of the room sales. I suspect that will end up being the case but I'll probably at least pull together a proposal and test the waters before I go that route. (Side note: When I was typing the title of today's entry, I slipped and typed, "Public Spanking Book." Freudian slip? Or maybe a hint from the Universe that the mistyped title will be a much easier sell than my book...)

I have got to get serious about prioritizing my work time or I'm forever going to be chasing loose ends instead of working on big projects. But that's tomorrow's blog...

Snowball--Alive & Well

Just a quick update on Snowball. I looked out my kitchen window yesterday and was thrilled to see Snowball race out from under a car alongside a gust of wind, pouncing on leaves. I haven't talked to my neighbor so I don't know where the little fella got off to, but I'm glad he's back.

SWAMPED with work. Article due today, revisions based on editor's request to another article, and new last-minute assignment where I have to track someone down for an interview. Add in an 11:20 vet appointment for the cats (nails and microchipping) and a 4 PM meeting in Greensboro where the readers for my public speaking book are sitting down to give me their feedback, and it's a full day. Oh, and I'm also judging entries for an Oklahoma humor contest. I thought there were 41 total entries and went through what I thought was half of the entries this weekend. Dial that back to 1/3. I just discovered the entries were shipped out of order and there are actually 62 of them. Ack! Might be nice if I managed to exercise at some point today as well...

Happy Monday.

A Writerly Afternoon

I spent  Sunday afternoon feeling very literary. A friend of mine who is the editor for a prominent online Science Fiction/Fantasy magazine invited 6 writer friends to join him for an afternoon of reading and evaluating short story submissions to the magazine. (He's new to the position and the magazine has a backlog of submissions--some writers have been waiting for over a year to hear a "yes" or "no" on whether their story has been accepted.) So he filled a room with pizza, beer, wine, lemonade, and dessert and we plopped ourselves around a table and read for 5 hours.

It was challenging as this was not slush-pile reading. (Slush pile reading is the first go through of the huge pile of collected manuscripts. It's called such because it's easy the first go around to eliminate a bunch of crap--or slush--found there based on little more than reading the first page, first paragraph, or for the really bad writers, the first sentence.) The stories we read yesterday had already made it through an assistant editor's hands so all of them had merit. The challenge was to separate the very good from just the good.

For the first hour or so the room was quite as we worked through the manuscripts, marking an "X" across ones we didn't feel measured up and assigning a value of 1-10 for the ones we thought should make it to the next round.  After a while though, patterns started to emerge, and we couldn't help but giggle.

"Oh my God, this is my third clone story," exclaimed one reader. "What's with all the clones?"

"This person just spent 3 paragraphs describing the color purple," said another. "Really, let it go and move on." 

More silence. Someone snickered and we all looked up. The reader looked at us. "This one is written from the point-of-view of an elephant," she said. We all agreed that should be an automatic go-through. (Kidding.)

Then there were the sentences we read aloud to amuse each other. A hazard of Sci-Fi or Fantasy writing is writers get carried away with unpronounceable character names and places. Inserting an apostrophe in place of vowels for a name is a favorite trick, such as "S'djme." As a writer in our group said, "They think anything with an apostrophe and a vaguly sounding Celtic name is going to get them thr0ugh." So there would be sentences that read, "S'djme rode the Vrturn, descendents of the noble Miturian Roskslors, toward Ti-quothis  clutching the Namr'iste Alqutian in his fist." Huh? 

My friend the editor grabbed a fresh story from the box, read a sentence and tossed it in the discard pile. "It was written in present tense," he explained and we all laughed.  

I had a hard time with it. Out of the 12 or so stories I read yesterday, there were maybe 3-4 that were a  clear "no" for me.  I liked all the others and had a difficult time choosing. It came down to who had the best package. One story I liked quite a lot had a weak opening and horrible ending--but the middle was quite intriguing so I considered saving it. But in the end it would take so much editing to get it to work it probably wasn't worth the time.  A lot of us felt like one woman in the group who placed a manuscript in the "no" box with a sigh and the comment, "I so wanted it to be good."

At the same time, out of all the stories I read, there was only 1 for me that stood out as an absolute, "YES! This one must go in!"

Even though there wasn't much talking during the day, it was fun to just be around writers and their energy for the afternoon. I need to do more of that. I've become a bit bored lately with writing and have been thinking I need to attend some conferences or workshops or just reinvolve myself with writers communities to stir up some energy.

Meanwhile, kudos to the writers who made it to the next round and for those who didn't, take heart. We still really liked your stories.

Quick! Need Your Input

I need new business cards designed and printed to reflect the upgrades to my web site.  Here are ideas I have for how to structure the cards but graphic design is not my gift, so please everyone let me know what you think.

My thoughts are these:

SIDE 1:

Simply has "Dena Harris ...write for you" in the format seen in the main header on my website. Question: Should the background for this side of the card be a solid color (and if so, what color?) or should I try to replicate the faded text that is the background on my web site?

SIDE 2:

 This side has all the contact info - phone, fax, e-mail. I want my web site address to stand out. I also think it would be nice to either:

• repeat the "Dena Harris...write for you" logo
• Or, include a line like, "Fast, Reliable Feature Article & Corporate Writing"
• Or it could read "Feature Articles & Corporate Writing"

I've already contacted a printer for a quote for a 4-color, 2-sided, quality stock card. I expect them to get back with me soon and I'll need to provide guidance for card layout. Your thoughts?