Rule #1: Don’t speak for free. When you do, the organization thinks you’re crap.
Rule #2: Don’t speak in your hometown. One county over, you’re like the Second Coming. In your hometown, you ain’t chopped liver.
I learned those lessons years ago. Learned them, but ignored them.
Last year I volunteered to present a punctuation and grammar program at the Sarasota Authors Connection. This business about editing is important; people need to know. I’ve been attending its meetings for years, and spoke there (for free) two years ago about book tours. I got the spot as the speaker at the May meeting, which was last night.
I worked very hard on my promotional material for the flyer. I spent hours trying to get everything just so. I sent the text in as a PDF, simply so there couldn’t be changes, but the person doing the flyer couldn’t use PDF, so back it went in Word. When it was published, I was flabbergasted to discover that 8—EIGHT—punctuation and grammar mistakes had been introduced to my text.
I wrote the flyer writer a relatively calm email, and then a second inviting her to the program. She needs it! She definitely needs it. But the point is this: why did I spend hours putting together a flawless text if she is going to take it upon herself to introduce mistakes? I did tell her that if I was thinking about coming to the program, the program about editing, and I saw 8—EIGHT—mistakes in the text about the editing program, I’d laugh my head off and wouldn’t go. And, irony of ironies, the one mistake I did make, saying the meeting started at 6:15 and it started at 6, she didn’t touch! How stupid is that?
Well, since the location is fairly close, I went out three weeks ago to make arrangements for the projector and think about the best way to set the room up for the workshop. I got permission to put tables out and, instead of having to break down the room right after the meeting, I got permission to return the next morning (first thing!) and break the room down. I called last week to verify that the plans were still in place.
I spent hours putting together an author-specific PowerPoint. I spent hours putting together not one but two author-specific handouts for the two self-tests, which coordinated with the PowerPoint. To keep things easy, one self-test was printed on blue paper, the other on yellow.
I got there yesterday at 3:45. I set up the room. I displayed my nine books on two six-foot tables, with a table skirt, business card racks, phone charging with Square in place—the whole nine yards. This is what I do.
At 5:30 the organizer came in and went nuts. Can’t do this, can’t do that, blaa, blaa. Then she lit into me for criticizing “her friend” who “is not an author and doesn’t care about writing” for the mistakes in my copy. According to the organizer, eight mistakes is “no big deal. No one cares!” You have to picture someone who is sloppy, someone who looks like a hillbilly bag lady, getting in your face and saying this to you, when you’re about to put on Manolo Blahnik heels and your good pearls to address her group, to educate her members.
I broke down the room, returned the projector, and took my books out to the car. I stood outside in my jeans and a T-shirt, and then a friend of mine, who is not in the group but who came at my invitation, walked up. She’s also a professional speaker, and we talked and I decided I’d give the program with the handouts. Easy.
I changed into my “author lady” outfit in the ladies’ room, and did it. Did I miss the PowerPoint? You bet. Was the program as good as it should have been? No, not at all. Did the audience members get my best? No, I’m sorry to say, no they did not.
But when it was over, I picked up the garment bag with my jeans and shoes in it, and my clipboard with the extra handouts on it, and I just walked out. Easy. No hurried change of clothes in the bathroom. No returning of the PowerPoint projector. No schlepping of boxes of books. No race to beat the closing. No having to return to break the room down first thing the next day, when I’ve got to take my mother out to lunch.
I got home, and it was like a revelation. Why am I knocking myself out to do all this stuff, when no one cares? It doesn’t matter! I can show up like everyone else, looking like a street person, with a cardboard box of six books in my hands. And, really, why do I care about educating authors about basic principles of American English? Why do I have to do a PowerPoint? Why do I care about how my text looks on some group’s flyer?
Well, I do. It turns out I do care. There’s something in me that won’t be sloppy. I guess the trick is to find people who are committed to excellence, people who are interested in learning and not playing defense—finding those people and hanging out around them.
To the audience last night at the Sarasota Authors Connection: I’m sorry. I should have hung tough and given you my very best. To Susan and Paula: fuck off. You are sloppy and I won’t be associated with you.
Life is too short to be around sloppy people.
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