Public speaking is a bit like figure skating: You perform solo before a live audience a routine that you've worked on repeatedly in private. In the course of your performance you may leave out a few things that no spectators know about (happily, there are no judges or announcers in public speaking) and you win the sympathy of people who, for the most part, are glad it's not them up there in the spotlight.
The similarities became clear to me Friday at Books & Books as I neared the end of my talk. I had chosen to talk about my book, rather than read from it, which is the authorial equivalent of figure eights - following pre-set lines. When I go to readings I always prefer to hear the authors speak. I can read what they've written; I want to hear what they have to say. ("Never read at a reading," Julian Barnes once told a fellow writer. "People would rather hear what you had for breakfast.")
There are writers who are not comfortable speaking in public; it's part of why they became writers. So they use their written words as crutches. Over the years, I've gotten to enjoy public speaking. As I wrapped up Friday, it was with the joyful feeling that I had delivered my talk more or less as I had practiced it - only this time some of the lines had been punctuated by laughter. I was almost sorry that there were no judges.
