Speaking Out

I had the opportunity to speak in public twice this past week. My first speaking engagement was at my local Toastmasters meeting. I enjoy Toastmasters and feel it has taught me a lot about public speaking. This was my first speech out of my “Interpersonal Communications” book. It was different from the other speeches I have done in that it involved role play with one of the other members. I had a lot of fun with it and my role play partner was superb. He played the part to the hilt and, even though I had written out the scenario, he added a few lines of his own and increased the drama in the scene.

My next speaking engagement was at my ACFW Chapter meeting. I think I enjoyed that even more because it was about my favorite subject, which is writing. I titled my talk “Making Your Characters Your Reader’s Best Friends”. There were only six people there, but that was fine. This was my first “public” speech away from the structure and familiarity of Toastmasters, so I was glad to speak to a small group.

I was a bit embarrassed when a word I was looking for, about two minutes into my talk, completely escaped my rational thought processes. Couldn’t even think of a reasonable substitute. I’m sure my face got a little red, and then one of my listeners rescued me and supplied a word. I sure was grateful!

In the process of writing that speech about characterization, I came up with a tag line for my own writing. “Freeing characters from their prison and healing the wounds inflicted by the razor wire.” Okay, it may be a little long and need some tweaking, but it will do for now. It is a premise I can use when crafting my stories.

I don’t seem to have that innate fear that many others express about talking in front of others. I’ve heard it said that is the number one fear of most people. However, I still see a lot of room for improvement in the delivery of my speeches. I still tend to write out just about every word I intend to speak. This is not good. Should I lose my place on the page, I can feel myself becoming very flustered. Add to that the fact that I am extremely near-sighted. So, I either have to have the words typed on the page in 16 font at the very least, or I have to have my nose constantly in my papers.

One of the remedies for this is to know my material so well that I don’t have to be constantly looking at the notes. There were times during my talk where I simply wrote “EX: listed the name of the book I was using to make my point, and knew what I was going to say. I don’t have to write out whole sentences, only key phrases. I need to do that more frequently, just capture the key points of the idea on paper without writing out whole sentences that need to be read.

I don’t practice my speeches, even for Toastmasters, but I should. Even if I were to say them to myself in the mirror, I would be familiar with the way the words sound out loud by the time I am ready to do the presentation. I’m sure my speeches would be much smoother in their delivery than they are now.

It is one of my goals or dreams to be able to speak in public about writing. I probably wouldn’t have much opportunity in the area where I live, though. It is a small town and I doubt if I were to give a speech at, say, the public library on characterization, that more than one or two people would be interested. Still, it is an ability I would like to perfect.

One of my goals is to speak at a writer’s conference someday. Of course, I guess no one is going to be interested in what I have to say until I prove myself as a writer. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a speaker introduced at a writer’s conference as “yet unpublished” or even “pre-published”.

So, I will continue to perfect my speech making skills in my local Toastmasters club, give a talk at our ACFW chapter meetings when asked, and write like crazy so I can get published and someday someone will introduce me as a “multi-published author”.

Of course, this is all and only if it’s His plan!

Thanks for reading my blog!