Why the Point is Quicker than the Edge
I’ve still got three questions to answer from CWPost. I’ll get to them. I promise.
But a birthday today got in the way, as did a grant proposal that I have to write for my day job in order to stay employed and keep my staff employed. So it’s important. And it takes up all my time for a few days – driving my anxiety up and me near into madness. Well… you get the picture.
So last week I did a fencing workshop/reading/Q&A at the Flushing Library with my friend actor/stage combatant/fencer Dave Brown. Dave’s the best because he does these things for me for no other reason than I ask him (and I take him out ot dinner). He is an extraordinary friend. We get to fence in front of an audience – and he’s the best fencing partner – totally trustworthy and only once in our time as fencing partners has he every hit me by mistake. Hah.
At the reading there were three kids who had read my book and who actually helped me give the synopsis of Open Wounds. That was the first time I’ve had people in the audience who’d read the book. Morya Haughton, the most excellent YA Librarian who invited me and rounded up the kids for the event, told me the library had six copies of my book and it was in constant rotation… and rarely on the shelves. That pretty much made my day.
So there were twenty some odd kids at the event and I didn’t know any of them and that was cool. They liked the swordplay – who wouldn’t and most of them stayed an extra 45 minutes after the event was over to handle the swords and ask questions about writing and fencing. Dave and I had a blast.
One young woman asked a question that really got to me. She was one of the people who had read the book. “Why is someone like Maddie (Cid’s grandmother) who believes in God, so cruel to Cid?” I had to stop a moment just to let that one sink in. My answer was pretty simple. “Because she is. Just because someone believes in God doesn’t mean they can’t also be cruel. It just works that way sometimes. It’s not pleasant but it’s true.” She nodded and looked away. It made me wonder what the question behind the question for her was.
I think human beings are complex and rarely all good or evil – usually a mixture of both to different degrees. Mad Maddie Wymann is like that. You know little of her past but it must have been bitter to turn her into the person she is. And when her son, Cid’s father, disappears, she grieves for him.
When she is lost, Cid grieves for her because she is all he has.
So it goes.
Flushing Library
I’m doing a lecture/reading/Q&A at the Queens Historical Society this Thursday. Let’s see what questions I get there.
Anxiety is Your Friend
Question number 3.
How do you deal with presentation anxiety? And how did you get over your fear?
Okay. Here’s one I actually have some expertise on. I know a lot about anxiety. You could say I’m an expert on it. I’ve lived with an anxiety disorder most of my life and in spite of this have performed as a reader, an actor, and a teacher in front of thousands of individuals over the last twenty years – and I’ve taught public speaking classes to just almost as many individuals.
The woman who asked this question had taken speech class and still had tremendous anxiety when she presented in class. I told her, “Welcome to the club.” The old stat from The Book of Lists is that people are more afraid of public speaking than death, taxes, divorce, and marriage. So If you’re scared of it you’re in the right spot.
So, to the first part of the question. Am I over my fear of public speaking? Yes and no. I still have some but I’d frame it as anxiety. Some days it’s higher and some days it’s lower but I am almost always anxious before events, the bigger the event the more anxious I am. But it’s normal anxiety – what you are supposed to have in situations like this – not overwhelming. And… the anxiety is much more manageable and that is why I can function and succeed with it. And yes, I even enjoy it (the public speaking not the anxiety – though we are friendly and exchange birthday cards).
What I did was do a lot of public speaking.
I practiced and practiced in my jobs. I liked teaching so I taught in all the different jobs I had. I watched other speakers and took techniques I liked, tried to avoid ones that I thought didn’t work.
I also took improvisational acting classes and found these to be tremendously helpful in building my confidence in my ability to deal with brain freeze (when you can’t think of what to say and stand there with your mind blank like you just drank a 7/11 slurpee way too fast) and in realizing there are many ways to get from point A to point B (ie: I don’t have to be perfect in what I say – I just have to get my point across). I will also say that taking acting classes and specifically improv classes helped me as a writer to see how ideas can be generated and grown very quickly with a minimum of effort. It also helped me to learn about character archetypes and how a 3-act narrative structure works.
I also swear by yogic breathing practices (pranayama), meditation, and asana (physical practice). I’ve practiced daily for the last five years and have been studying actively for fifteen. It has been the single most powerful collection of tools I’ve found to help me deal with life in general and anxiety in the specific.
Books to look at on public speaking:
The Exceptional Presenter (the best accessible, practical, and hands on resource I’ve found so far)
Public Speaking for Dummies (hey, don’t laugh, it’s a good resource!)
Resonate…
… as in evocative of past memories.
CW Post LIU Reading
The reading at CWPost was great. At least I had a good time. I think the students did also. As my friend and professor from undergraduate days, Dr. Joan Digby said, “There were a lot of people asking questions so that’s a good sign that you didn’t scare them away.”
I’ll get to the student’s questions and my answers over the next few day’s posts. Today it’s about the pictures and what resonates for me.
I went to Post as an undergrad and Dr. Digby (who is in charge of the honors program and has been so since I was there) has since invited me back a number of times to read short stories and talk about my various careers to students. It’s great to have a teacher believe in you especially long after your class-taking days are over. I’m taking her to lunch next time we get together. This kind of faith keeps a writer writing.
Art Museum at CW Post
So the reading, in the art museum at Post, as the inaugural event for their newly opened poetry center, was very cool. There was standing room only with over 70 folks in attendance – young adults to older adults pretty much 18 and up. It was something to stand there with my book in front of me and speak to folks who were in my seat thirty years ago.
It resonated like a long, loud, ringing, Om.
Post Toastie – Reading
I’m off to CWPost tomorrow, my alma matter, to do a reading at the new Poetry Center. The head of the Honors Program, Dr. Joan Digby (I get to call her Joan and not Dr. Digby these days and I still can’t get used to it) has been a supportive presence in my writing life since I was an undergrad with her in her newly started honors program way way back when.
She taught me one of my first and really powerful lessons as a writer. In a tutorial with her on writing we spent a whole semester rewriting and reviewing one short story that I wrote.
I rewrote is 16 times.
I counted.
And I still remember each of the 16 times.
This taught me the importance of rewriting – what it can do and how it can change and improve a manuscript. I’ll have to tell that story at the reading. It runs from 12:30-1:20. Here’s a link to the event at Post on their Greenvale LIU campus: Poetry Center.
Lunievicz 