I'm starting to prepare for my reading on Thursday. I've done all the easy, peripheral things (choose an outfit, decide where to have a drink beforehand, scoped out the parking) and now I'm left with only the reading itself to prepare.
I'm not nervous about speaking in public: on the contrary, I do this all the time. It's a part of my day-job and I'm very comfortable in front of an audience. Usually. This is different, though. I sense that approaching it through any of my familiar routes will be completely wrong but let's try them for size.
Sales pitch? I think not. Workshop? The piece is a little too short, at around a minute, to convincingly constitute a learning session. Facilitated discussion? Well, all feedback is good I guess, but I only have a three minute slot so the interaction might be somewhat curtailed. I could approach it like chairing a meeting (too formal), or like presenting a report to clients (no humour or emotion).
All I'm really left with is to approach it like reading a poem - something I have done often but only to my daughters and my nephew. I hope this will turn out to have been good practice. I'm not sure how other people prepare for these occasions. I can't go wandering lonely as a cloud as I must go to a series of meetings in Leicester tomorrow. I cannot languish lonely in a garret as I have two Sicilian girls staying with me this week and the children are on half term.
This is probably the single, sole occasion when I wish I had a dog. A dog would make an attentive, encouraging audience without any discouraging feedback. Perhaps I'll see if I can borrow one tomorrow night.
How does that quote go again? "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read".
I'm not nervous about speaking in public: on the contrary, I do this all the time. It's a part of my day-job and I'm very comfortable in front of an audience. Usually. This is different, though. I sense that approaching it through any of my familiar routes will be completely wrong but let's try them for size.
Sales pitch? I think not. Workshop? The piece is a little too short, at around a minute, to convincingly constitute a learning session. Facilitated discussion? Well, all feedback is good I guess, but I only have a three minute slot so the interaction might be somewhat curtailed. I could approach it like chairing a meeting (too formal), or like presenting a report to clients (no humour or emotion).
All I'm really left with is to approach it like reading a poem - something I have done often but only to my daughters and my nephew. I hope this will turn out to have been good practice. I'm not sure how other people prepare for these occasions. I can't go wandering lonely as a cloud as I must go to a series of meetings in Leicester tomorrow. I cannot languish lonely in a garret as I have two Sicilian girls staying with me this week and the children are on half term.
This is probably the single, sole occasion when I wish I had a dog. A dog would make an attentive, encouraging audience without any discouraging feedback. Perhaps I'll see if I can borrow one tomorrow night.
How does that quote go again? "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read".
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