Recent & Coming Events
Rigours of Speech
Since 2014, speaking engagements have been undertaken in Melbourne and environs, to Probus, Rotary and Lions clubs. Talks have also been conducted in libraries in Byron Bay and Tweeds Heads.
The subject matter of these speeches deals with the hazards of book writing going back over the last few centuries, when writers such as William Shakespeare, the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen, Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, all writers with a tremendous output, had to write all their works in longhand and without the ease of writing conferred by fountain pens and ball point pens. After writing three or four words they all had to dip their pen (or quill) back into the inkwell to replenish it, with the attendant danger of blots and smudges.
In the more modern era, starting in the late 1800s, the typewriter appeared, which moved on from mechanical to electric before the appearance of the word processor and now the computer. Writers themselves have consequently become more prolific in output, and more numerous, which makes the task of literary agents and publishers more difficult. These days they are besieged as more and more aspiring writers find it easier to deal with the mechanics of the actual writing of books and stories, consequently manuscripts are submitted to them by the thousand.
Speaking, like writing, is a means of getting the message across, it can be very hard, but only if you do not prepare. My talks on this subject have, in the main, been delivered to Probus clubs in the south-eastern suburbs, Rotary clubs have also been on the agenda and provide excellent audiences.
It is to be hoped, as a result of these speaking activities, that more and more people are aware of the difficulties experienced by authors these days, particularly those of us who have not attained the giddy heights of J.K. Rowling or Michael Connelly and others.
There are many gifted writers submitting their works to publishers today, many are excellent story tellers on a par with those who are best sellers, but the difficulty is obtaining recognition. All one can do is persist in plugging away, writing and publicising one’s work.
This year, 2017, my wife and I have enjoyed the hospitality of Carrum Downs Rotary, Mount Martha Ladies Probus, Mornington Rotary and the Mentone and Mount Eliza Probus clubs. One of the more uplifting comments was received via e-mail from a member of one of these clubs which read;
” My husband grabbed your book when I got home and not long into it he said; ‘This is a good book,’ and he is still by the fire reading it.”
Comments like this make it all worthwhile and do wonders for the morale. Since receiving and reading that communication I have been pounding the keys of my computer with even greater enthusiasm.
