Readers Are Your Friends

Yesterday, I had a fairly large speaking engagement--I would guess 70 people for wine and cheese and a book signing at a local golf club. Surprisingly, since I don't like public speaking, I didn't throw up, didn't put them all to sleep, and the whole thing went rather well--at least for me. Hopefully they all felt the same. If not, hopefully they all enjoyed their wine and cheese. Oh, and there were pastries . . . so that was a bonus.

However, prior to my speaking engagement, while freaking out at home, my father told me, "The trick to public speaking . . . ."

And I assumed he was going to tell me "is to picture your audience naked." Which I have never understood. Why would talking to nudists make it any easier--yet people routinely give this advice.

But my father surprised me. "The trick to public speaking is to imagine that everyone in the room is your FRIEND. You're just hanging out with friends talking."

"But I don't HAVE 70 friends."

To which my dad thought I was being difficult.

BUT, while I was there yesterday, it was surprisingly easy to picture them all as friends. The gathering was large, yet intimate. It was a lot of fun. (Again, at least for me. Maybe they all were simply plied with wine.)

Which got me thinking . . . when I write, I never picture readers as real people. It's only at signing events that I ever stop to think that real people read my books. Fan mail does that, too, I suppose. And reader emails, of which I get quite a bit. But even that is somewhat faceless with the anonymity of cyberspace.

So when you write, do you picture a room full of friends? Your critique partner? Readers browsing a bookstore? A single solitary reader? Yourself? No one? I'd love to know . . .