Lesson 1: You don't need to be born a performer to be an effective public speaker.
Standing at a microphone is always scary. If you weren't scared, then it's time to quit, I think. I love doing it, but I'm not a performer; I never was. I'm a writer, and so I'm leading a charmed life, and at some point the charm runs out.
Lesson 2: Avoid over-preparedness and don't treat your nervousness as a weakness to overcome. A little bit of danger can be a good thing.
I start out with a story in my head and I try to write down as much of it as I can without creating a script which would then bind me to repeat back to the audience what I had already written on a page, which I don't want to do because in the moment when you stand on stage on a live radio broadcast in front of an audience and being aware of a larger audience beyond it in the dark, some marvelous things are possible there, when you're scared and on the spot. Some wonderful things are possible which you should not deny yourself of by being overly prepared. You always want to leave yourself in a little danger so that things will come to you -- possibly may come to you -- as you talk.
Contrast this with Malcolm Gladwell's scripted-down-to-the-inflection-point strategy. Both strategies can be effective, I think, but I am especially attracted to Keillor's idea of using your body's biological stress response to create magic. I try to live by the Bucky Fuller motto "Don't Fight Forces, Use Them", and this perfectly illustrates the point. Instead of seeing your anxiety as a barrier to overcome, remember its purpose: to mobilize your energy to do things you are not ordinarily capable of.
There is such a thing as under-preparedness, of course. And at some point anxiety becomes destructive. The optimal strategy, I submit, is to be very well prepared about exactly what you want to say, but not how you want to say it. Leave room for improvisation because you never know what wonderful places your anxious mind will lead you.
Lesson 3: Use insecurity as motivation.
What holds my interest is a profound sense of failure. I was born with it, I think. I grew up to Calvinist people -- they were fundamentalist members of the sanctified brethren -- and they pretty much did away with self-esteem. We didn't have any. And so I have this perpetual sense of having fallen short, sometimes seriously short. And this is a sort of engine that you carry around in your back pocket, and it keeps motivating you. I do a live show every week and I've never done a show and finished it and the audience claps and you walk off stage -- I've never finished the show with any sense of accomplishment, and this is what keeps you going.
Lesson 4: What makes a story-teller great is not his technical prowess but his powers of observation.
When asked how far his on-stage persona is from the real Garrison Keillor:
That's a very good question, but I wouldn't be the one to answer it; my wife would be the one answer it. I think she would say they are fairly close, but, in real life -- as would be true of any writer -- I'm pretty much a silent person. I mean it would be weird to do a show for your own wife and daughter, no? I think that would be absurd. You want to listen to your daughter and listen to your wife. And this is what a writer is supposed to do, is to be still and to pay attention.
Again, driving home lesson 4:
My advice to writers is very simple, it is to get out more. Don't sit in the house. Go for long walks. It's good for you. Writing is an obsessive activity and it's too easy to get too tied to what you're doing. When your deadline is the most serious, that's the most important time to get out of the house and go for a walk, to walk for 2 or 3 miles every day -- rapidly, if necessary -- but to get out and to look at the world.
Writing is not narcissism. Writing is about the world that we live in, and when writing loses touch with the beautiful surface of the world, it loses its way. So much writing is about the alienation of superior intelligence that is the writers -- that's the writing to avoid. You always want to be in touch with how things look, and what people say, and what they call their dogs. You always want to be there.
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The source material for this post:
1) The 1985 interview from Wired for Books.
2) The Q TV interview from last December. (link goes straight to download)
3) Keillor's advice to writers (on YouTube)
If you've never *seen* (as opposed to heard) one of his monologues, try one. Here is one I like, not for the story as much as for how incredibly focused he seems:
