It’s barely November and I’m already behind! I did this amazing NaNo Prep workshop back in September/October thinking that I was 100% ready to write.
I was wrong. Sitting down in a coffee shop this past Friday, I found myself fiddling with the keys, typing a sentence and deleting it, and staring off into space. I couldn’t figure out how to start the story, and when I did finally start just typing, I hated everything that came out.
As luck would have it, I signed up to do a speech at the Notre Dame Toastmasters club. For all you fellow Toastmasters out there, I finished my Presentation Mastery path back in September and have been on hiatus from speaking ever since while I figured out which path to start next.
The problem with starting a new path is that I had to give a new Ice Breaker speech, a speech designed to ease new members into public speaking by introducing themselves through a 4-6 minute prepared speech. This was going to be my third ice breaker with the same club; I decided to go rogue.
Instead of giving a speech about myself, I gave a speech from the perspective of one of my NaNo 2019 characters. It started as a way for me to double-dip, but as I fleshed out the speech it turned into a way for me to narrow down how I want to tell this story. In a weird way, writing a speech tangentially related to my NaNo project helped get me past the writers block (and gave me a fun new prologue).
For all my fellow NaNo writers out there, I hope you’re off to a great start!
Cheers,
Annie
Annie Sauer 