-Julianna Mercado

P.S. “Genius is 99 percent perspiration and 1 percent inspiration.” -Thomas Edison
I bet Edison smirked too.

Here’s my advice: talk about what you’re good at. If you don’t care for literary theory don’t bother with it. A guest speaker is a break from the normal routine of rhetoric and formal language study (a very welcome break, for student and teacher). You say you’re good at self-discipline and work habits? Well that can be applied to any person in any subject.

In all honesty, the biggest questions my students want answered (these are 16 and 17 year old juniors, by the way) is ‘why read?’ They want to know why they should turn off the video games, put away the cell phones and open a thick wad of binded paper.

Hope this helped. Also, I just thought I’d mention that if you ever decide to do school visits and come within a 100-mile radius of my school I may have a minor heart attack (your books have been my life for over a decade now). So please, send some warning!

Sincerely,
Jessica Honard

p.s. I’d love to know the secret to your ’series bibles’ - they’re the bane of my existence!

I thought about that long and hard. So I start talking, telling the truth about whatever comes out. If teachers raise their hands to ask me to explain revision, I ignore them and watch the kids’ faces and keep telling stories about whatever that school, those kids, that day, the stories behind the books on the table, make me want to tell. And when the faces light up, that’s the way we go…

From what I see above, self definition could be a good clothesline to hang your first few stories on….or surviving as a loner among those who prefer to run in herds, or seem to, anyway, at that age. Talk about how the bullies couldn’t define you and talk about how you defined yourself, then, later, now, never, whatever is true. Tell them about the great relief of writing, the hard work involved, or whatever it was/is for you. Reading, ditto; include how certain books shaped you a bit if that feels right, how *writing* certain books effected you. Do what you do on the page. Let your true stories carry things along. Poof, the hour is over and the kids love you for talking to them straight-up about what matters/ed to you. The teachers are amazed at how still and attentive they were, and the messages about reading and writing and libraries and literacy they all want you to include were there, organically. And the big thing, that you respected the kids enough to tell them some of what is true for you, will stick with them and help some of them more than you can imagine.

About the stock signing thing–

I, too, am fast, and have a stacking method, but haven’t signed more than a few hundred all at once before. Perhaps when my career actually takes off, if it ever…?

–well, if you ever hold the derby, tell me.

k

I was always very comfortable working in children’s theater (I was a sixth grade teacher for four years) but speaking in front of adults was always much harder for me. The following things might not help you, since they are the things I try to do before speaking before grown ups–as my mind tells me “you’re going to screw up” and my I feel a mild stroke coming on–but they’ve been of service to me.

1. Cary Grant played Cary Grant every day of his life–he created the character. So I created a character that is a knowledgeable, warm, kind, charming editor who is thrilled to be speaking to the audience. He also happens to be several inches taller than I am, has a full head of greying hair, a large Swiss bank acount inherited from the arms dealer “father” who adopted him at age 26,and carries a Walther P99 on a shoulder holster under his perfectly tailored Calvin Klein collection suit. But you can create whatever character you want–that’s the fun part.

2. Like the great critic Stanley Edgar Hyman (The New Yorker, husband of Shirley Jackson) I use the toilet,wash my hands, and check my fly. (And by that I mean I make sure it is zipped up.)

3. Breathe in (nose) and out (mouth) noisily several times. Do this BEFORE you are in front of the audience–people tend to find it funny.

But most of all, who cares what they think? Let most of them be bored. As long as you have something REAL to say to them, at least one of them will get the message. Kids hear bull*%#@ all day long–just be honest about what you do and say and if they start talking over you, just drop your voice to a whisper. They’ll shut up and listen eventually. And think about the Walther P99. Just having it makes you feel warm and cozy. (SEE FOLLOWING NOTE ON IRONIC CONTENT OF THIS COMMENT.)

NOTE ON IRONIC CONTENT OF THIS COMMENT

I actually loathe handguns, but love the new James Bond movies and that’s his gun of choice. With the exception of Daniel Craig, I think no one should be allowed to have handguns, or larger weaponry for that matter. I am adamantly anti-NRA, FYI.

You and the teacher should leave the class alone for five minutes and when you come back to paper aeroplanes and fist fights say, “Now imagine that times a 1,000.”

Or you could get one of those bags of flour they give to young teenage girls to make them think twice about the responsibility of having to take care of children. I reckon most wouldn’t last the lesson.

OR just do a Bill Hicks, sit on a stool, smoke cigars and give ‘em hell.

As fellow introverts, we totally get how hard it is to come up with a schtick for things like school visits and speaking engagements when all you really want to do is be alone. However, it is also our opinion (dear gawd, why-oh-why did we start using this royal we thing, and how can we stop??) that even the crankiest and most introverted among us can find some angle or subject that makes these sorts of presentations easier. There are a couple of approaches to try.

One is something like what Daniel Handler does and that is to step COMPLETELY outside who you really are and put on an act. It can be a wild act or a subtle one, but sometimes completely stepping outside your own box can be freeing. Unfortunately, neither one of us have had a chance to read your books (but if you saw our TBR piles, you’d see you are in very good company) so we’re probably not in a good position to be able to speculate what sort of act might work with your books.

The other approach is to be completely authentic, flat out, this-is-who-I-am-warts-and-all type approach. In fact, this might work really well for you because so many students will relate to not being smart enough or cool enough or anything enough to warrant being picked on. It might also be comforting to them to know that you aren’t visited by a muse and find inspiration smirk-worthy, many of them probably feel the same way–especially about homework.

Also, having read the description of your books, it sounds as if one of your thematic elements might be Extreme School Politics Brought About by Catastrophe. That, in turn, sounds like it might tie in with one of your above stated passions, politics. Seriously, who says you can’t use your books to engage kids in a discussion of why the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force has merit and explain how that’s different from the gang of high school kid beating the spit out of weaklings? Take it to their level, put it in terms they are familiar with, and you might just have a fascinating angle for school presentations. Especially if you pepper in some examples of how you used those same elements to build a plot or why a certain sort of backstory became critical and how that backstory allowed your characters to be heroic rather than despicable. Let them know that the writing assignments they are doing in school are not what being a writer is truly about, and they may just heave a sigh of relief.

Or you could just tell the school you’ve managed to break your leg yet again, and in fact, now that you’re older, you aren’t such a quick healer. Introverts everywhere would understand.

What astonishes me is how many shiny-faced teenagers (with the starry-eyed support of their parents) tell me that, “It is my dream to be an author when I grow up.” And then, with their precise diction, they talk about writers workshops and literary theory … and i just think: No. Not gonna happen. You are way too normal.

As for advice (I actually got a degree in teaching high school English before realizing that I’d rather not spend my days surrounded by humanity): Don’t think of it as a speech, think of it as a lesson. Throw it back to the kids as much as possible: “What do you think a writer does all day?” You can show them copies of drafts & notes & ARCs and cover concepts & explain the process of a book. Tell them you always knew you wanted to be a writer. Tell them your ideas come to you in dreams. Tell them you make piles and piles of money. Just don’t forget to pop a breath mint if you swig a little whiskey first.

That probably wasn’t helpful…