Saturday morning I enjoyed the privilege of being invited as “Guest Lecturer” in a college classroom. The class, taught by my friend Linda Lacomb-Williams, is listed in the catalog as a seminar in “Exploring Women’s Issues in Literature.”
Linda said I could talk about writing, and pretty-much anything else I wanted to.
LIVE AUDIENCE: Here’s what’s interesting. I planned to follow essentially the same outline that I had used with high-school kids at The Great American Teach-In. However, before ten minutes had gone by, the presentation changed entirely.
It changed because (if you’re willing to make eye-contact, ask a couple of good questions, and actually engage the audience) speaking in front of a “live” group of people is a living, interactive, organic experience.
These women were grown-ups, people with families, jobs, bills, complex relationships, and pressures to go along with their hopes and dreams of continuing their education.
And so, by the time I was just a few minutes into my 70-minute lecture, I realized that I was there to talk about three simple concepts.
- The first was this, “Today I plan to encourage you to Think Differently.”
- Next was an old favorite of mine, “Live like You Mean It.“
- Finally, I told the women that I wanted them to “Stay Awake.“
WORK in PROGRESS: What’s cool is how the outline presented itself as I was talking. We identified the key points as they emerged, then I had the students write them down. They wrote them down for my benefit just as much as theirs because I didn’t know what they were until I said them.
Several times I said, “What was that last point I made?” and, “Aha! So that’s what we’ve been talking about!” Believe me, I’m not exaggerating.
And I’m pretty sure I now have a good idea regarding the direction my new book needs to be headed. Like I said when I launched this blog just a couple of years ago, “What you’re reading when you come to The Life-Charged Life is nothing any more refined than Derek Maul thinking out loud.”
That’s what my college lecture was yesterday; it was me thinking out loud.
What some people call writing I call, “Trying my darndest to corral all my divergent thinking and condense it into manageable bundles of sentences.”
Writing is always such a thrilling adventure!
– DEREK