Cloquet "Rendevous"...Now the Real Work Begins

Well, I'm back from Duluth. Lovely venue, lovely people. About 35 people attended my talk (there were multiple talks going on at the time) which made the room about 4/5 full. I was determined to be prepared so I took my information and arranged, rearranged, outlined, deconstructed, and threw it all up in the air and saw how it hit the ground.

In the long run, I ended up doing what those who know me well knew I would do: I winged it. I wonder, can it really be considered "winging it" if you've put that much time into preparing? There were several things that were good about winging it:

1. It felt much more authentic (have I written much about authenticity?) and that is of key importance to me.
2. It gave people the sense that they had permission to ask questions during the talk.
3. The questions and flexibility of my "open outline" allowed an organic flow that followed the interests of the group.
4. I was less nervous and less likely to get flustered than if I was following a script.

The thing that really helped me was that the night before I was delightfully distracted at the Rendevous, a very "casual" local drinking establishment in Cloquet, MN, in attendance at a celebration for a friend of a friend. Met nice people who expressed interest in my work and asked me good questions, had a couple of extremely reasonably priced cocktails, ate hot dish, and generally get good and relaxed. Which I needed. Badly.

The next day, I was very gratified that after I was done speaking, many people came back to my booth to talk to me, sign my mailing list and ask me "When is your book coming out?". Hmmmm....