Since I work at a college library, it was bound to leak to the English Department that I write fiction stories under the pen name Linda Kage. I’m also an alumni from this college, so the they call me a success story. Not sure why, maybe because I’ve actually attempted to get published, I dunno.

Anyway, the library is located directly acrOss the street from the English department so it’s been way too easy for an old professor to contact me and say, “Hey, Linda. Want to come and talk to my class today? We’ve got a couple students this semester interested in writing.”

This has happened to me twice.

I am NOT a speaker. Never have been, never will be. I just don’t do good at standing up in front of people. In fact, I even suck and one-on-one conversation. The only reason my hubby and I hit it off is because the blessed man could probably carry on a conversation all by himself. All I have to do is smile and nod, and throw in a couple “I understands.”

So when a professor asks me to come to her class to talk, I immediately break out in a cold sweat.

But I say okay. Sure. And run me over with a car while you’re at it (fine, I just THINK the run-me-over-with-a-car part!).

The first time I spoke with a class, my boss (who is also a writerly guy) went with me, and we both sat around this conference table thing and told our stories about how we got published. I stumbled over my words and filled gaps with plenty of uhs and ums and ands. These students were graduate students (a little older) and none of them were really into FICTION writing. They looked extremely bored; I think one girl fell asleep.

It was miserable.

The second time through, (different teacher–same conference table classroom) was much better. I still went in feeling sick to my stomach, of course. But the professor told me it would be a very relaxed, informal thing, so I tried not to prepare much so I couldn’t freak myself out beforehand (totally backwards thinking, I know!).

This second time through, I went at it alone. The students had to be freshmen; they looked so young. They were a chattier, livelier bunch, and they ASKED QUESTIONS, questions they actually wanted answered.

I guess I’ve been in writing stuff so long it didn’t even occur to me that I’d have to explain how ebook royalties are higher than print books, but they typically don’t sell as well. Then these wonderful, curious students wanted to know things like how many pages to put on their websites. They even asked about writing in general: do I have apprehensions about people reading my work, do I stumble through endings? Well yeah, doesn’t everyone?? But they hadn’t ever talked to someone who’d been the whole way through a publishing adventure, even a small-potatoes adventure like mine!

I went away from that experience feeling jazzed and ready to write. So I have to conclude, the audience is an integral part of a speaker’s lecture. Makes me wish I could go back to school (not really) so I could be a better student and actually participate in classroom discussions!

Since my husband went to DARE training, he learned a nifty trick about speaking which he told me about before my big speech. One thing you can do is take an opinion poll, like, ask how many people gathered are interested in writing. When someone raises their hand, you single them out and ask more questions. “Oh really and what do you write?” then ask more questions, to get the discussion rolling.

I was too afraid to use that technique, but it sounds like a great idea for other speakers out there to keep in mind for the next time they have to get up in front of a crowd and talk about their stories.

Sooo….Good luck to all you future speakers out there who will talk about your stories. I empathize with you. REALLY!

Now….If the crowd feels you, you’ll do fine! No worries.

Ever since I received an iPad for Christmas, I’ve been in book reading Heaven—well, excepts for those times the hubby confiscates MY gift to cruise the Internet himself. Grr!

So I downloaded Kindle, right, and have been buying ebooks off Amazon like they’re going out of style. One day while I was delving into a steamy little novella, I accidentally touched the screen too long. Then, pow, this nifty-looking magnifying glass thing popped up and the word I’d touched appeared at the bottom of the text with a dictionary definition after it.

I thought this was just plain cool. None of the paperbacks I’d ever read had done this before.

Now, my poor iPad screen is dotted with fingerprint marks from me jabbing at it, poking every word I come across, words I’d seen before, thought I knew the meaning of from their context, but never took the time to hunt up a dictionary and research.

Well, do you know what I learned?

Supine does NOT mean calmly and patiently as I always presumed it meant. In all the contexts I’d read it before, it meant “lying on your back.” So her supine posture in all these stories did NOT mean she was all serene and tranquil, she was simply lying on her freaking back!

Good to know, huh.

So thank you, iPad, for broadening my narrow-little horizons. And thank you ebook revolution for making book reading a whole new experience!  Man, I love living in the twenty-first century.