An Hour Is A Lo-o-ong Time

I've been working away on preparing for my humor talk for New England Roundtable of Children and Young Adult Librarians. It's supposed to be an hour, but I can't seem to get past 37 minutes more or less.

It takes me a long time to prepare for speaking engagements because I suffer a bit from performance anxiety. I like to have the speech written out well in advance so I can rehearse like mad. Back when I still offered traditional slides as an option, I would rehearse with my own projector in the dining room every day leading up to the event.

I like to be performance ready. My fantasy is to be able to have a wide array of writerly things I can talk about on the drop of a dime.

Of course, there's a reason why I call that a fantasy.