If This Is Thursday, We Must Be In...Where Are We?

[Peg Herring]

I wrote last week about easy jobs, and one that used to look easy to me was public speaker. On the surface, the person breezes in half an hour before her speech, checks out the sound equipment and lays out some materials, and then talks for an hour or two. Afterward she gets a nice check and goes home to count her earnings. Since I love to talk, it seemed like money for nothing, lunch for free.

It does get a little hectic, though, now that I'm doing it. Scheduling is not particularly difficult, but you'd better be detailed about keeping track of when to show up, where you'll be, and whom to thank as you speak. You also have to keep adequate records about publicity materials: did you send a photo to that newspaper woman who asked for a different head shot? Did you mail fliers to that library a month before so they could get the word out? Did you send a contract to that writers' group? I've learned the hard way that it's easy to get focused on tomorrow's presentation and forget that others need pertinent information well in advance.

Then there's the variety of programs. Today is "Romance Rules," a talk on romance novels. It's new, so I've been practicing and fine-tuning. Saturday is my writing workshop, where twice as many people as expected have signed up, so I have to make lots more handbooks and adjust some of the exercises. (Not that I'm complaining about having so many!) Monday is an after-luncheon speech to a group of non-writers, people interested in hearing about the process of writing and getting published. That one needs little substance and lots of entertainment.

So which one am I thinking about? All of them. I get an idea for spicing up the workshop, then a little joke for Monday pops into my head, then I force myself to go back to considering what I need for tonight.

Oh, and that's the other thing. Each speech requires a different bag: some larger, some heavier, but each one specific to the audience and the topic. So I have a selection of totes with the basics already loaded (pens, paper, bookmarks, business cards, etc.) and I have a list of "on the day of" for each bag so I remember to put in the rest (books, handouts, extras, cashbag, and prizes).

That's life on the road. I am not complaining. I love speaking, I love communicating with people who enjoy books and writing. I'm just saying, it's not money for nothing, even if lunch is free.