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Shirley Parenteau

Finding Confidence in Jane Austen’s Carriage

Have you been watching the Jane Austen movies currently being shown on Public Broadcasting? I was particularly intrigued by one about Jane, herself. When invited to meet the Prince Regent, she confessed in the carriage to being nervous, saying she had no experience with the Court.

Her escort reassured her. “You don’t need experience. You have imagination.”

What a terrific line! It’s become my new mantra!

In fact, it served me well on the first Saturday in March when I was one of thirty-nine authors circulating during Authors on the Move, an annual gourmet dinner and fundraiser for the Sacramento Public Library Foundation. I was happy to accept months before, but when the evening arrived my nerves went into high alert.

This wasn’t helped when the authors dined together beforehand. As one after another stood to introduce themselves, it struck me that most had traveled or had incredible life experiences or had been given prestigious awards. What was I doing here?

With the others, I entered the ballroom of the Hyatt Hotel during lively bidding for such donated items as having a character named for you in New York Times bestselling author John Lescroart’s next novel. The well-dressed diners were bidding so far out of my range, they were all but invisible.

How was I going to talk to these sophisticated people? On the basis of a children’s book. A picture book. One already out for a full year.

Calling on that conversation in Jane Austen’s carriage for courage, I searched for my first assigned table. Thank goodness, the authors had eaten earlier. We didn’t have to talk and eat at the same time. On the other hand, I couldn’t move food around to keep busy.

To my astonishment, the evening flew by. If food had been placed in front of me, I would not have had time to touch it. I discovered that shyness disappears when people are interested in you. Even better, as a copy of my book passed from hand to hand, people slipped away to the bookstore set up next door and returned with books to be autographed.

THEN I crossed the room to locate my third table and found it at the head of the room near the podium. An empty seat waited for me—next to a popular television weatherman, the master of ceremonies for the evening. (Gulp).

However, here again, the people at the table were enthusiastic and easy to talk with. When the weatherman asked if children listening to frogs had inspired the counting book, I said, “No, that was me,” and told the story behind it.

He returned to the podium a little later and this is the part that had my mouth falling open. He reached for a display copy of One Frog Sang, held it up and with remarkable animation, told that entire room the story of our hundred year old house, frogs singing until silenced by a car on a wet street and the muse giving a nudge to a writer’s imagination.

When I went to the autographing tables in the next room, every copy of my book was already gone. I quickly sold the one I’d been carrying with me and several people promised to order from bookstores.

Public speaking is the most common of all fears. As for writers—well, we’re comfortable in writing out our thoughts, not in speaking them, especially before a sea of strangers.

Moral of this story: The next time you find your palms sweating and your throat threatening to close as you prepare to speak to a group, remember that conversation in Jane Austen’s carriage. Look out at your audience and tell yourself that whatever level of education, wealth or sophistication those people may have, they want to hear you. Because YOU have imagination!

By the time you read this, I will be in Massachusetts meeting my editor and the staff at Candlewick Press. At my editor’s suggestion, I plan to travel by train from Boston to New York, down the Atlantic coast past small fishing villages, an area I’ve never seen before. Once in New York, I’ll attend the annual Novelist’s Inc. conference. I hope to gather a lot of tips to share in future columns.

Thank goodness I’ll be in the audience, not one of the speakers addressing a group where everyone has a writer’s imagination.

A shorter version of this column appears as the March 13^th entry in a blog site you may find interesting. Called “To Be Read,” for the stack of books we all have near our favorite chair, the site is maintained by sixty-some published writers who share anecdotes, insights and news. You can visit here: http://toberead.wordpress.com.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on this or any other writing topic. Email me at shirleyp@softcom.net.