A funny thing happened to me yesterday. I had spent most of the day preparing for my talk at the Olympia Timberland Library, stressed about those 10 tiny minutes as if they were 10 long hours.
After several hours work I was pretty proud of myself. I had finally come up with what I wanted to say, and I had almost nailed down how I wanted to say it. And how long was this wonderful speech? All of 7 minutes.
Can you tell I don’t like to speak in front of strangers?
So anyway, I was still short 3 minutes. But what is 3 minutes! It had only taken me several hours to come up with those precious 7 minutes. No problem, right?
My husband, who is going to Olympia with me, wanted more information about exactly what was going to happen while we were there. So I immediately went to the library website to see what they had published.
I was a little surprised, but not concerned, to see a blurb stating that some of the authors were giving 20 minute talks. They must be the authors who enjoy public speaking. I was satisfied sticking to my 10 minutes, it was probably all I could handle.
But my husband wanted even more information. With a sigh, I dug out the email I had received so that he could read for himself the schedule for the day.
I almost fainted.
I am slated to give a 20 minute talk.
Maybe I can talk really, really slow.