Today I gave a twenty minute presentation at my local library that took and hour and a half. No one was more surprised than I. Even more surprising was reading the feedback surveys and hearing that people wished it was longer and/or broken up into multiple talks. Wow.

All extremely encouraging.

The takeaways?

• I talk a lot with my hands. Who knew? (Hint: everybody that wasn’t me)
• I need to be a bit clearer when answering questions
• Should have started the talk by asking why people were there/what they wanted to get out of it (to be fair, I did casually start that way with a couple people while we were waiting for everyone else to arrive…but close only counts in horseshoes – amiright?)

I’m excited to see what happens next. Will the attendees clean up their 5-minute exercises to take advantage of the local publishing opportunity? Will the attendees contact me with feedback from their writing journeys and/or with questions? Will our heroine be able to share the leftover cookies with her family or will she eat them quietly in the early morning dark? These questions and more to be answered soon!

Lastly, I’m working on a free giveaway for newsletter signups…details to come if/when I can figure it out.

*Photos courtesy of Annie Wooden