Blaugustine's Other Blog

CATCHING UP

I've been so busy converting people to bloggery that I haven't had time to blog. So this is going to be a very mixed bag in no chronological order.

MY APPLE PERFORMANCE
I had written a short introductory speech, complete with jokes, to warm up the audience before switching on my PowerPoint show. I rehearsed it in front of the bathroom mirror, in the street, in the bus, in the taxi and I thought I had it down pat. But as soon as I got up on the platform, facing the cinema-style seats filling up with people who had actually come to hear me, I forgot it completely. Apart from one joke which could have done with better timing:

I see there are some...(pause)....mature faces here tonight. Like mine. Well, I want to tell you that anything you've heard about brain cells dying when you get older is a lie. They don't die. They just get bored....(pause) And then they die. (pause). The way to keep them bouncy is to work on something you love.

Okay it's not that funny. But it's true. I got more relaxed when my slide show started and the audience attention was on that. I will find the way to post most of it as a QuickTime or Flash movie. Meanwhile, let me quote from the personal reports of two people who were there. Why blow your trumpet when others can do it so much better for you?

It was a wonderful and inspiring evening. Natalie was superb - power point presentation with embedded links and video! Wired for sound, she strolled up and down the platform as though she's spent all her life doing it. And gave live demonstrations of some of the techniques she uses to transfer pencil drawing to pdf image. Hugely practical advice about which software to use, different printing options, marketing and sales strategies. The audience space was nearly entirely full and the listeners very engaged, and there were a lot of interesting questions. By the end I was utterly convinced that I not only had a book inside me but that it could emerge into the daylight and hob-nob with its destined audience. R.R.

Natalie was ...tremendous. Absolutely charming and involving and a pro, and inspired me too to want to publish a book, and ended with a joyous, completely off-the-wall video tour of her studio, with loud self-electronically-composed music. Wonderful stuff. J.M.

The car-bomb that was defused earlier that day in the Haymarket, only a short distance from the Apple store, understandably deterred some people from coming to my gig but there was still a good audience - friends, strangers and passers-by. I had fun and I'll do it again, anywhere, anytime, if I'm asked.

AM I TURNING INTO MY MUMMY?

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