I want to marry the Camrose Public Library
Photo courtesy Nicole Kyle, my angel at the Camrose Public Library. Not shown: Sheriff Woody keeping watch over me from my backpack in the corner.
What you see is what you get with me. That’s the real me up there behind that unfamiliar laptop, my pink Chucks tucked up under me (some people are leg crossers; I’m a leg tucker), talking about editing your own work this past Saturday in Camrose.
I was disoriented, as my husband and I were in the middle of our week-long anniversary camping trip and the drive felt weird and… urban. Also, the older I get, the less I like to be away from him. But I knew what I was driving toward, and that was my friend Nicole and the tea and cookies and pizza and welcoming atmosphere she always creates for me when I work there. Plus the night at the Camrose casino hotel where I walked out with $50 more than I walked in with. I’m not a gambler, but hey: I’m in a Casino! Why the hell not, says I.
What I’d most like to thank Nicole for, though, is for trying EVERYTHING UNDER THE THOUSAND BOILING HOT SUNS OF HADES to get my Mac to play nice with her projector and screen so I could actually do the workshop. Nothing doing. I had several people pushing various buttons on my machine and any number of remotes, none of which had the slightest interest in making this shit work. The people cared; the technology did not.
It may surprise you to hear that I have these troubles. I thought it would be nothing. After all, I can keep up my blog, I can turn on my Apple TV, and I can make my Netflix work. Hell, I can even make an e-course without tearing my fingernails out at the root. But trying to get this machine hooked up? Fuggetaboudit.
A lovely gentleman said, “If I may,” and suggested we use a library PC, email the document to it, and use it from there, knowing that it would hook up as it has been hooked up to that projector zillions of times. Problem solved!
Sorta.
Background: I’m a Mac. No amount of “Mac sucks” will ever convert me, so I don’t advise that counsel. I shan't heed it. Remember those old ads?
Yeah, I’m the cool kid in the jeans who’s got it aaaaaallll together. ONLY I DON’T. A lifetime of Mac use doesn’t matter when one machine just won’t talk to another. I asked everyone to get some coffee while I took the five minutes required to find the different buttons on the version of Word for PC I was suddenly working with. Thankfully, it was old, and it didn’t vary much from my Word for Mac. My students that day were incredibly patient with me, and helped me find various buttons in locations where I wasn’t used to finding them.
Half an hour later, and with everyone well caffeinated, we got underway.
Five hours of teaching is something most teachers do a lot of days of their lives. THEY NEED TO PAY TEACHERS MORE. I’m not sure who I’m directing that at: just a general observation. I kept well hydrated and focussed. However, the discussion was at such a high level, and the conversation and work so stimulating, that by 2:00 in the afternoon, I felt a bit like this:
Oh hell. Who am I kidding? I felt exactly like that. How anyone got anything out of me from that point on is a mystery that only Angela Lansbury could solve. Or maybe this dude.
At any rate, I somehow managed to convey what I wanted to get across: the steps one takes in editing one’s own prose. The participants that day got roughly (though necessarily truncated for time) the content of my e-course. They were my beta testers, and I think I passed! The overwhelming takeaway (for me) was that they truly liked the way I presented the work: one element at a time.
If you had a look at my blog post from last week, you’ll see the way I’ve broken it down. It takes longer than just moving paragraph to paragraph looking for every possible editing opportunity, but the results are so much better.
The course will be available to you on the 15th of October at a 15% discount for one week. It sells for $179 CDN, but from the 15th to the 22nd, you can purchase it for way less than that. All you gotta do is sign up at my website and you’ll receive an email containing the early bird discount code.
By 3:00pm on that Saturday, my voice was failing, my brain was mush, and I managed to get my ass back to the campground in time for the gorgeous chicken dinner my husband had made for me. SO! BONUS FOR YOU: if you enrol in my course, I sound FRESH AS A DAISY from beginning to end, as I only recorded a lesson or two a day.
If the response from the Camrose participants is anything to go by, I think you might really benefit from what I have to teach. Hit the button below and you’ll have your discount code.