Speaking as a Children’s Author: What to Talk About

How to Begin

The most important thing is to connect to your audience. Greet them in a cheerful and friendly style. Be as natural as you can. Smile a lot, but don’t overdo it. If there’s no one to introduce you, do it yourself and do so right away.

Get your audience involved as soon as possible. Ask a question. Start with a story. Read something interesting from your work. Hold up an audio-visual. Whatever you start with (and everything else that follows), make sure it’s interesting to your audience’s age.

Topics to Talk About

Whatever topics you decide to talk about, make sure you sound like a real person with everyday struggles just like your audience. In general, include as many interesting tidbits as you can. Kids love to hear how I come up with character names, and if I ever use names of real people.

Here are some things you can talk about:

1.      Challenges you face in your work. It may be coming up with ideas, getting your thoughts on paper, revising, dealing with your editor. You can discuss advantages and disadvantages of the genre and/or age range your write for.

2.      What you enjoy about your work. Talk about feel-good and fun moments, and also the long-term satisfaction.

3.      Your goals as a writer. For example, explain how the writer always has to connect to the reader (kids their age), and how you do that.

4.      What makes you unique as a writer? For example, my friend and I coauthor many children’s stories. Everyone always likes to know how that works.

5.      When did you start writing? As a child? Or maybe you never even thought of being a writer until years later.

6.      Your personal writing process and the writing process in general. How you work with plot and character.

7.      If your audience is young, you can demonstrate (with your actual book) the different parts of a book and what the author has to include besides the story, like the table of contents, acknowledgments, etc.

8.      Describe the revision process, how you self-edit, and how you work with an editor.

9.      Tell them how the words on your screen become a printed article and published book. You can talk about the different kinds of people involved in newspaper and book publication, like editors, proofreaders, illustrators, graphic artists, etc.

Conclusion

Always finish before your audience’s interest starts lagging. Of course, in the best-case scenario, your audience will be begging for more, but don’t forget that there’s a limit to how long children (and adults too!) can sit at one stretch. One good way of ending your talk is to include a fascinating tidbit about yourself or your work. You may even want to read aloud from your writing. And of course, finish with a smile and thank your audience for listening.

Modify Your Mood in Minutes

As a wife, full-time mom, part-time writer, and of course, housekeeper, here is a fast technique I've adopted to improve my mood and get a hold of my emotions.  It's a method that has helped me again and again, propelling me forward and keeping me from sinking into the morass of mood.

Human nature makes it too easy for us to slip into a negative frame of mind, and the more negativity we indulge in, the deeper we dig those neural pathways in our brains. And the more entrenched we are in annoyance, anger, apprehension, disappointment, frustration, sadness, and worry, the harder it is to dig our way out.

Here's what you can do the minute you become even slightly conscious of something negative hovering in your brain:

Stop and tune in. Label what you are feeling; give a name to the emotion. Then verbalize why you are feeling this way. Even if you don't actually say it aloud, put the reasons for those feelings into words.

For example: I realize something inside me doesn't feel good. I stop. I say to myself, "I am feeling irritated, and on the way to feeling full-fledged fed up." Why? Maybe because I just realized that my eight-year-old son did not put his clothes into the hamper – again. Maybe because during supper tonight my husband answered his cell phone three times, and I wanted his undisturbed attention.  Or maybe I'm feeling frustrated and apprehensive because I have a work deadline tomorrow morning, and I don't know how I'm going to achieve it. And I'm also afraid that the client won't like my work.

Tell yourself what you wish would happen right now. For example: I wish my kids always put their dirty clothes in the hamper. I wish I had more time with my husband. I wish I had finished my work already, and I wish I was more confident about my writing. I wish I could lie down right now and sleep for two days. I wish my daughter always spoke considerately to her siblings.

Accept the situation.  Then add, "But I accept the situation the way it is." You can also add any other words that you find helpful, like: This is normal. So many other people around me are dealing with the same thing. It will pass. I will be okay. In the end, it will work out – just like it has so many other times.

[Note: Accepting the situation doesn't mean to passively accept life situations the way they are and never institute changes. Obviously, there are many issues that require intervention and solutions. After all, you don't want to passively accept that your children never put things away, or that there's never any time to spend with your spouse. Right now, you're focusing on this one incident, tuning into it, accepting that it happened, and moving on with your day.]      

That's it. Yes, that's the whole thing. I assure you that it works. It may not immediately make you feel like jumping for joy, but it stops the negativity in its tracks, which inevitably makes way for positivity. And the more you do it, the more results you will see.

This technique is especially good if you're one of those people like me who get mired so easily in negative feelings to the point that you can't concentrate on other things.

I am not a therapist, and I do not pretend to have created this method. It came about from books and articles I read, and of course, personal experience. It began with reading about the need to empathize with others, but how we can only do for others what we can do for ourselves. So if you want to be able to truly empathize with spouses, children, parents, sibling, friends, neighbors, colleagues, and even that harassed individual standing on line in front of you, you first have to know how to empathize with yourself.

This knowledge combined with the benefits of stopping in my tracks, identifying the emotion(s), and most important of all, acceptance, has become my quick and practical method of not letting all those negatives out there get the better of me.

Nine Things I Learned From my Eighteen-month-old

1.     Always greet everyone enthusiastically - and by name. When my toddler's eyes light up for every person who walks in the door, she's experiencing a joyful moment in her day, and boy, does it make the other person feel like a million dollars! And when she comes running, proclaiming the name of her siblings, relatives, friends, and neighbors in that sweet, sincere, soft baby voice, it is the ultimate delight. A heartwarming welcome never goes wrong. 

2.     When a parent or sibling hugs you, grab the opportunity. "Hold you" was one of my daughter's first phrases. It means pick me up, hug me tight, and let me feel close to you just because I feel like it. Just because I want to enjoy our bonding, which gives me the strength to go on.

3.     Know your own mind. Like my dear daughter, make your desires clear to all. When you want something, just keep asking for it again and again and again. At this age, there sure doesn't seem to be much, if any, fogs of indecision. If only we could always hold on to that confident certainty of knowing what we want in life - and doing everything possible to make it happen. No distractions and no giving up.

4.     Eat as much as you think you should – then stop. If you've ever tried feeding a toddler against their will, you know just what a futile exercise this is. As soon as she's had enough, my daughter will hand her plate or cup back to me, which if I don't take within a few seconds, will end up on the floor. You'll never convince her to finish that last bite or spoonful just because it's there – exactly the recommendation that nutritionists are being paid to teach today's overweight population.

5.     When you're upset, know what calms you down and do it. My toddler doesn't need to be taught what relaxation means, or how and when to do it. She just tucks that pacifier into her mouth, and presto! Sadness, frustration, and disappointment evaporate in a flow of contented sucking. As the years pass, I realize how often much of my own sadness, frustration, and disappointment evaporate once I remember to stop and calm myself down. It's often not the situation that's so difficult to deal with, but my perception of it and my resulting frame of mind.

6.     Sleep eleven-twelve hours a night – and supplement with an afternoon nap. Many are the jokes made about "sleeping like a baby," but there's one thing that's true for sure. A good night's sleep and an afternoon nap when needed is the answer to many a problem.

7.     Spend most of your day exploring new things and discovering your world. After all, our time on this planet is not unlimited. Go out and see what the world has to offer, even if it's just to walk down a street you've never strolled before. The pleasures and multiple benefits you'll reap in all areas of your life cannot be overestimated.

8.     Keep a close eye on what's going on around you. Make sure no one's getting something good that you aren't. My daughter's close observations of what good stuff other people have, have made me more aware too. Don't let everyone else have the fun in life. Look closely at the people around you who are (truly) enjoying life, and learn from them how to include more  joy and laughter in your own existence. 

9.     Insist on doing things for yourself even if it takes time, and even if you don't get it right at first. Even if it takes ten tries (or more), learn to feed yourself and dress yourself. Keep trying to get that cover back onto the jar, and your feet into those shoes. The rewards for independence and self-empowerment are invaluable tools for life.