Giving SpeechesXtina — Torn Between Delight and Terror On Sunday morning, the phone rang. The caller ID showed Geralyn Dawson. You all know Geralyn’s a great author (coming November 29, HER SCOUNDREL), but she’s also on the National Board of Directors for Romance Writers of America. Despite this show of maturity, Geralyn’s one of my best friends. (RWA is an organization made up of 9500 writers with an annual conference where members gather for three days of seminars, schmoozing and awards.) So when the phone rang, I grabbed the phone ready for a gossip, but it wasn’t Geralyn on the other end. A stranger said, "Hi, Christina, this is Gayle Wilson, the president of RWA. We'd like to issue an invitation —" I thought, "I'm going to kill that rat Geralyn, what horrible job did she volunteer me for?" "— To be our luncheon speaker at the 2006 RWA conference in Atlanta." The luncheon speaker? Holy smokes, this is a big deal! This is one of the centerpieces of the conference! I’d be speaking to and inspiring 2100 published and unpublished writers about their hopes, their dreams, their ambitions! You can imagine my first thought was how honored I was ... Okay, actually my first thought was "Is Gayle *$#%@ crazy?" and "I'm going to kill that rat Geralyn." Because, ladies, public speaking is my phobia. Of course, I’m not alone. Fear of public speaking is the most common phobia. People are less afraid of dying than of public speaking. I consider this eminently sensible. When I realized I was nervous about public speaking, I decided to face the fear head-on. As a senior in high school, I took a speech class … from a guy who despised people who were afraid of public speaking. It was much akin to taking swimming from a coach who drowned his students. I lived through it (unfortunately) and went from nervous to phobic. For years I didn’t speak in public. Then I got published. Within a week, I was asked to speak at my local RWA meeting. I said, "Are you crazy? You know I don’t do that." And the coordinator said, "Oh, but it’ll be different now." HAHAHAHAHA! In fact, getting published hadn’t changed my personality, but it had changed people’s perception of me. Eventually someone invited me to give a speech so far in advance I thought the day would never come and said yes. And I lived in terror for the six months before. So I decided once again to tackle my phobia. On the theory that exposure would lessen the terror, for a year I said yes to everyone who asked me to speak. A couple of things happened during that year. I got good at giving speeches — because of my fear, I spent days writing a speech, and before I spoke I practiced over and over until I almost lost my voice. Because of my program, I cut down the time of panic before a speech from six months to a few weeks. A lot of you speak in public without any worry at all. A lot of you quake in your shoes, too. And maybe some of you are scared to death but manage to speak anyway. Reveal your secrets, tell us your techniques! Because being the 2006 RWA luncheon speaker WAS too great an honor to pass up. I said yes. Now I have to write a speech and practice it. And lose weight and get in shape. And have a face lift. And liposuction. And get taller. See you in Atlanta. Posted: 03/03/2008
Christina expounds on Geralyn’s PINK MAGNOLIA CLUBFour years ago, Geralyn called me all excited. I can always tell when Geralyn’s excited because her Texas accent gets moving so quickly I worry the Drawl Police are going to arrest her for speeding. Geralyn had been working at the giant wedding dress sale for Making Memories, a traveling charity that takes donations of old wedding gowns, washes them and resells them to future brides. She told me how the future brides got fabulous deals on beautiful wedding gowns (only worn once!), the people who donated the gowns got a tax write-off and more room in their closets, and the proceeds fulfill the wishes of breast cancer patients. Then she told me stories … The one that sticks in my mind is the story about the old man who brought in his only daughter’s wedding gown. She’d died of breast cancer at age thirty-six and he wanted to know another bride would have the chance to wear the beautiful gown his daughter had worn on the happiest day of her life and that money the dress brought in would help another breast cancer patient. After Geralyn got done making me cry (the rat) she announced she was going to write a story featuring the Making Memories wedding gown sale. So she wrote this funny, touching story of friendship and hope, THE PINK MAGNOLIA CLUB. It was sort of daunting to find out my BAD LUCK WEDDING DRESS friend who writes such light comedic romances could pull those kinds of grand emotions out of a story. How’d you do it, Geralyn? Posted: 03/10/2008
Hero Come BackDespite the title, HERO COME BACK is not the story of a sandwich shop revival. It was the brainchild of one of our Avon editors who said, "Let’s do an anthology with the secondary heroes the readers are begging for." Brilliant! The original plan was for a single anthology with Stephanie Laurens, Julia Quinn, Lisa Kleypas and me, Christina Dodd. Then the Powers That Be decided that was too much firepower in a single book and divided it two, adding an author to each anthology. So we got WHERE'S MY HERO (Lisa Kleypas, Julia Quinn and Kinley MacGregor) and HERO COME BACK (Stephanie Laurens, Elizabeth Boyle and Christina Dodd). Personally, I wish we'd been able to keep the original four together because the book would have been SO HUGE!!!! But that's the kind of decision that isn't in an author's hands. My story, "The Third Suitor," stars Harry Chamberlain from LOST IN YOUR ARMS, one of my best books IMO. I always love my writing (Teresa Medeiros and I are our own most unabashed fans), but when I wrote "The Third Suitor," I knew I'd nailed it. The heroine was very different for me — a wide-eyed, fresh-faced ingenue with a twist of earthy wisdom. I had fun writing it and because I wrote it four years ago (!), I read the page proofs cold and found out it’s definitely a fun read. The good news — HERO COME BACK is #30 on the New York Times Bestseller List! Posted: 03/31/2008 Back to Previous Page | Back to Blog Home |
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