Speaking in Public

When I was young, I used to dread speaking in public. I would shake when the spotlight was on me. It was out of my control. I kept thinking that the next time might be different. I would try not to drink coffee on the day that I would need to speak. But that just left me with a headache and shaky hands that distracted me and everyone else from anything that I had to say.

But then, years later, I heard my dad make a presentation. It was for an honorary chair at his hospital. He went up to the podium, and he was funny. He didn't stumble. I asked him afterwards how he did it. Was he just talking off the top of his head? It seemed to me like he was. But he told me his secret. He practiced. When he was in his car driving around, he would be rehearsing what he was going to say.

I happened to be involved with a women entrepreneurs' networking group at the time, one where you could sign up to make presentations. After I talked to my dad, I volunteered to speak. And I did just what he told me. I wrote out what I wanted to say, and then I said it over and over again while I drove in my car. When the time came, I was steady, and people liked my talk. I found that I actually enjoyed doing it.

So I signed up for more presentations with this group. After my first novel came out, I volunteered to speak at the local Rotary Club. When I became active in the Young Writers Program in Santa Cruz, mentoring student writers, I was always happy to speak in front of the groups.

And this year, since moving to Sonora, I've been a leader for the Odd Fellows Cemetery tour. I made a video for an Indiegogo campaign, where I spoke on the power of audiobooks. I've talked about being a writer at a Tuolumne County Historical Society meeting, and last night I presented a talk on Robert Burns at the Burns Supper.

As an introvert, it's surprising to me that this is something that I really like to do. I find that with each presentation, I feel more confident. I don't have to recite my speech as many times as I used to, although I do still need to practice quite a bit. Here are some things I've learned:

1. When I'm brainstorming a speech, I use the cluster approach, where I write single words or ideas all over a page and circle them and connect them to other words that seem to belong together. When I first started public speaking, I then wrote my presentation out linearly. I no longer do that. I sometimes write down my ideas in list form to figure out the sequence, but then I just start talking it out. In that way, I figure out where my stumbles are, what works and what doesn't.

2. Try not to expect anything. Sometimes I feel that a line is funny, and I think people will laugh, and they may just smile. That's all right. Keep going.

3. My hands no longer shake. But when I am having fun and excited in a presentation they can fly around. I am not Italian. I've been told that I'd be a natural to learn ASL. Perhaps at some point, I'll work on minimizing my hand gestures. But right now, I'm letting them do their thing.

4. Honesty really works. People appreciate it when they think you're being real with them.

5. Respect the time: Know long your presentation is supposed to be and conform to that time limit. Your audience will have a built-in sense of how long your presentation should be. It may be stated in the program. It may be a weekly or monthly part of their agenda. People will be frustrated or annoyed if you go long. And that's hard because I often have much more material than I can use in a given time. You have be willing to use your editor brain and be brutal. You have to prioritize what are the most important things you need to say.

And, maybe like me, you will see that it's something that you really enjoy doing. Maybe you too will start dreaming up places where you can speak next.

Growing Up

This week, in writing news, I have finished a draft of The Sharpest Claw, Book 2 of the Cats of the Afterlife series, and I have sent it off to my beta readers. It was the right thing to do. I really could not look at it any more. But when I woke up this morning, forty-eight hours after I sent the drafts, I had major doubts about the work. But then the next thought was, “That always happens,” followed by “Perfectionism is not your friend,” followed by, “It was time. You will hear what they have to say and then move on with your work.”

The Sharpest Claw features kittens, based on our young cat siblings who live with us, Indiana Jones and Samantha Bee. They will be two this April. We've had Indy and Sam since they were eight weeks old.

When I was a kid, I remember mama cats giving birth to kittens in boxes inside our home, but before Samantha and Indy, I hadn't been around kittens for years on end. I loved the experience. Sometimes I mourn the loss of their kittenhood—how Indy can no longer sit inside of a hat. But Sam still squeaks. Indy remains a shoulder cat, although most of the time now I lift him up. As a teenager cat, he doesn't like to have his picture taken, but Sam will still look up at the lens and accept the click. To my great sadness, Indy is no longer interested in lying on my legs. I know I sleep better without him there, but I miss it. He still loves Mike's legs and sits on them when we're watching TV and dozes on them in the early morning hours.

For some reason, the other morning, after I prepared coffee, I wondered if Indy and Sam might like to play. I had gotten out of the habit of playing with them. When they were kittens, they had a monkey's head on a string that they were quite fond of until they bit it so much that the head tore apart. But we had several stringed toys that I would whirl around while singing. It seemed important to sing while I played with them.

Since that time, they've grown up, and we moved, but there was still some stringed toys hung up on the closet door. So that morning, I picked one up and started dragging the string down the hall. Well, Indy showed up immediately, his ears pricked, ready to play. Sam observed from the top of the sculpture. After a few flicks of the string, she came barreling down and captured the string in a flying leap.

Then Indy looked at me. He sat down at the end of their cat tube. When we had played in the past, I would dangle the string from the other end, and he would run through the tube and capture it, then let it go, and sit down at that end, waiting for me to dangle it at the other end now. Something about this activity, of him racing through the tube and racing back always made me laugh. It was wonderful to see that he remember and he still wanted to do it.

Of course, I sang. There are two ballads that I've sang to them ever since they were small, “Till There Was You” from The Music Man and “Close to You.” Yes, it's the Carpenters. Of course, it's sappy. But it's really sweet, “On the day that you were born, the angels got together, and they decided to create a dream come true. So they sprinkled moondust in your hair and golden starlight in your eyes of blue.” Most of the time, I substitute “fur” for “hair.” Sam has blue eyes, and Indy's are brown. So I switch back and forth with that.

So this is our new thing. When the coffee is brewing, we play. How long will it last? Will they outgrow it soon? I don't know. But I intend to enjoy it as long as I can.

Being An Indy

Being an Indy

Sorry this is late this week. I had technical difficulties! But now they’re solved.

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak at the Tuolumne County Historical Society. I talked about my life as a novelist and read from my three books. It was a blast.

In preparing the talk, I needed to say things about my choice to independently publish. I knew there would be people in the audience who would want to know more information about it. It is an important decision for any writer to make.

The first thing I realized is that the general public does not know the term “indy writer.” In the crowd I hang out with and the materials I study, that term is part of our daily vernacular. But the regular person has never heard ot it. They would call me a self-published writer. There is definitely a question of whether I'm “really a writer” or whether I'm just creating “vanity projects.”

In my presentation, I talked about my spirit. I told this audience that I had been an entrepeneur, working as an editor and transcriptionist, for the past twenty-three years. I told them I liked to have control over my work. The one advantage I could see would be if traditional publishers truly marketed your work, but except for a select few, now most writers have to market themselves. I said that I had talked to writers who were traditionally published and had noted a common theme: a lack of communication between the writer and the agent and the publishing company, many broken promises, an abundance of power plays that the writer had to navigate, a building up and then a tearing down, and just general bad behavior towards the writer. I had heard tales on podcasts about agents telling writers that they could not write a certain book. I'm sure if I was traditionally published, my agent would not be pleased if, after two coming-of-age novels, I said that now I planned ot embark on a series of talking cat fantasies. Many writers are sensitive souls. I know I am. If I was being told what to create, I wouldn't be able to write. I just couldn't do it.

There is often an attitude that if something is self published, that it is slapped together, not worth your time. When I talk to people about my books, I like to have my work on hand so I can show them the care that has been taken with the production. At presentations, I like to read from my books, so people can hear that I've taken time with the writing. I like to talk about my process in creating a book—writing drafts, turning it over to a beta reader when I can't stand to look at it any more, revising, handing it off to a developmental editor, revising, hiring a copyeditor to review it, revising, sending it off to the proofreader, revising, publishing. Granted, not every indy writer does this, but many of us do.

When people think of becoming writers and publishing, I think there is still often the wish of having an agent and being published traditionally. It's what many of us grew up with as our dream. There is still a cachet attached to that parth, although I think it is not nearly as desirable as it used to be. The indy road is growing stronger every day. We are indy. Hear us roar!

A Chat with the Narrator of The Loudest Meow, Kae Denino!

Great news!

The Loudest Meow: A Talking Cat Fantasy is now in the process of distribution. For this project, I worked with the audiobook company, Findaway Voices. One of the reasons why I wanted to work with them was because they have the largest audiobook distribution network in the world. The Loudest Meow is currently available at the following locations:

https://www.estories.com/audiobook/257016/Wendy-Ledger/The-Loudest-Meow

https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/395980639/The-Loudest-Meow-A-Talking-Cat-Fantasy

https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/loudest-meow-a-talking-cat-fantasy/366424

In the weeks to come, you will be also be able to find it at Audible, Google Play, Walmart, Storytel, and numerous other companies. I will keep you posted.

Findaway also helped me find a wonderful narrator, Kae Denino. If you sign up with Audible and need a narrator, they will take you through an audition process, where you fill out a questionnaire on what you want, and then they select candidates, and you can read their bios and listen to their clips and chose who you would like to audition for the book.  Through that process, I found Kae Denino and soon realized that she absolutely needed to be the narrator for this book.

After we had finished production on The Loudest Meow, I asked Kae a few questions via email about her work and the project:

Kae, when I listened to the different voice talents and their clips, I was immediately blown away by your zest and enthusiasm in your samples. You definitely convey your love of the work. Can you talk about how you got into this business and your wonderful approach to things?

Wendy, it’s all my parents. Listening to them talk to anyone…they do it with such respect, such love and humor. They’ve both been in customer service their whole lives, and are truly “people people.” And they read to my sister and I since before we were born. So speaking with kindness, respect, and love for a good written word has been with me my whole life. Growing up I was always the one grabbing the microphone—plays, speech and debate, poetry readings, weddings and funerals, and about issues I love to help, such as fighting human trafficking.

For the audition, I was happy to discover that Findaway would let me choose my own excerpt (with a certain word limit). I selected a passage where my four main cat characters were in high-voltage dialogue. I wanted to hear all of the really important voices. I wanted to make sure that my narrator would be comfortable in operatic situations. What did you think when you first encountered the cats?

What can I say? I LOVE THE CATS! When I first learned about it, I counted them up—there are roughly fourteen—and walked around telling everyone, “I’m going to be fourteen cats in a book, all with different voices and personalities!” I was excited but didn’t really believe I could do it. It was only when I really delved into the text that I learned how each cat was so different, so rich in character. Even how they talk by the end is different than how they talk in the beginning, because they grow so much throughout the story.

Do you want to say anything about what it was like to work on this particular project?

This was the first story I ever worked on that seriously got out of hand. Every other story has had parameters—it’s going to have this kind of feel, it’s a classic romance novel, it’s going to follow this kind of course. But by the time the cats are literally on a beach, creating and destroying all kinds of things and jetting off into space, the reader knows all bets are off with this story. It has a wild, feline mind of its own. There are no good guys or bad guys, just fully formed beings trying to navigate unforetold circumstances, just like real life.  It was a true pleasure to narrate and I missed the cats as soon as we were finished.

As you know, I am so thrilled with your work. It was such a pleasure working with you. I hope we can continue to collaborate. Thank you so much, Kae.

I love working with you, too! Thank you! Let’s get some more books out there! I think The Loudest Meow would make one heck of an animated movie. Looking forward to the mewture.

A Writing Refuge

Happy Holidays!

Mike gave me a tremendous gift this year. He bought me a heated mattress pad for my writing bed. He hung up pictures on the walls of my office—a collection of owls, so smart, aware, and fierce; a horse in motion; the ocean showing off its waves; a road lined with trees in fall foliage; a black-and-white cat sitting in a window, staring at me, reminding me to try my best to get it right. Now I sit down to write and work, and I'm surrounded by images that mean so much to me. I'm toasty warm. When I walk into my office, I feel even more that I am in my cave, where, of course, cats are welcome. And with an electric blanket and a heated mattress pad, they visit often. With these changes, I have fallen more deeply in love with my office. What do you have in your work space that makes it so welcoming to you?