Last week, I gave my first ever solo program at my local RWA meeting. Have I lost you all yet? For those of you who aren’t familiar, RWA is the Romance Writers of America and it’s a professional organization for published and aspiring romance authors. It’s a great source of information on craft and the business of writing, and it has several local and online chapters.
I’m a member of two online chapters, as well as my local one, but it’s the local one where we have monthly meetings and have people come in to speak on a variety of topics. I’ve been a member of the RWA for years, and always belonged to a local chapter, but for the first time, I thought I was qualified to speak on an aspect of craft. So I put my name in to present a program, and I was granted the opportunity to do so at the last meeting.
I spoke for an hour about point of view and characterization, and how getting to know your characters will only strengthen your ability to write in their point of view, which in turn allows your readers to more fully identify with them. All well and good, but that’s not the point.
This was the first time I planned a somewhat educational program and presented it – by myself – to a roomful of people, some I knew, some I didn’t, without freaking out. Speaking in public is terrifying, and I never thought I could come up with a unique way to present a writing topic that others hadn’t done already and done ten times as well. But I think I managed. Or at the very least, I didn’t have a mass exodus once I started talking. That’s a good start.
And I do rather enjoy telling people what to do... I lecture people I know all the time! Once I got going, it was a lot of fun. Mind you, most of the questions I got at the end had more to do with the genre I write in rather than the topic I'd been speaking on, but I'm always happy to answer those questions, from anyone. The more good publicity for m/m romance, the better, in my opinion.
A couple of chapter members suggested that I *gulp* offer it up to conferences or other chapters. We’ll see. One neurotic hurdle at a time, please!
