Whew!

TEDx talk in the bag, Reedsy Live seminar coming up Wednesday

Well, I caught the wave, and mega thanks to everyone who commented and emailed and texted me: you buoyed me up so I could!

I’m like a bride the day after the wedding: I can hardly remember a moment of it. I’m told my hands didn’t fly around the place. I’m told I looked relaxed and as if I was having fun, which I actually was. And I didn’t flub even one word, except . . .

And here is where I am so massively grateful for all the coaching that comes with doing a TEDx in Asheville! About four lines into the talk, my mouth suddenly went so dry it felt like glue. There was no way I could possibly have talked for another 10 minutes. So, I said something like, “I’m very sorry, my mouth is so dry I can’t talk, I have to go get a drink of water.” And I left the stage and did just that.

I would never have been brave enough to do such a thing if I hadn’t known that it was fine! The organizers here were very clear: the video is the most important thing. If you flub, stop and do the line again. Last time around, one of the speakers had the same problem and he left, got a drink, and picked up where he left off. Makes me wonder if there was some kind of allergen in the theater that banjaxed us both.

It wasn’t nerves, or at least I don’t think it was. I’ve been way more nervous in my life, and I’ve never ever had my mouth dry up to that extent, that suddenly, before.

Anyway, wonderful Amy Climer, our emcee, went back out, filled up the space, and introduced me once more, and I emerged to even more applause than the first time! Apparently audiences like seeing that their speakers aren’t perfect.

I started again at the top, and I’m told those opening four lines were better the second time, so, YAY!

I begin with a story about Albert Einstein. I imagined Einstein standing there on the red rug waiting for me to tell his story, smiling at me. He waited while I got a drink, and I smiled back at him as I walked out. And when I said his name, I put my arm around his imaginary shoulders. He seemed to like that.

Imagining him there helped me make the story real—not just words.

Bad dress rehearsal, good performance, they say, and fortunately in this case they’re right. I got back to base on Thursday and asked Navé to rehearse me more, maybe my 500th time, at least his 50th time of hearing me. And only then did we realize that I needed to put Einstein on the red rug.

OK! I thought, I can still have an early night. So I went back to my loft and saw one of my fellow speakers, lovely and brilliant Meghan O’Malley, had texted a photo of me during rehearsal. Yikes! My gorgeous Yohji Yamamoto-ish jacket, bought for the occasion, looked DIRE in the stage lighting. Too dire to even post the photo here. Thank god I checked my texts! So I had to come up with a new outfit 12 hours before going on stage, with only the minimal amount of clothes I’d brought with me to Asheville. It wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t dire.

Disaster averted at the last moment. This is why actors have stylists.

I’m told the video will be on YouTube in, maybe, early May. Watch this space -

And on to the next thing: On Wednesday, 3 pm ET, I’m doing a Reedsy Live. If you write and you don’t know Reedsy, you should. It’s a brilliant site for finding designers, editors, proofreaders, etc. They also have a terrific newsletter and this series of livestreams with writing experts, free to watch live and later on their website.

Here’s the page announcing my talk: https://reedsy.com/live/write-dont-know-allegra-huston/

Here’s the link for the livestream:

I’ll be talking about Write What You Don’t Know and breaking the rules writing teachers teach you. I am the poster child for writing what you don’t know. When I started work on Love Child, my memoir, I thought I could just write up my memories and maybe research a few facts. IT DIDN’T WORK. Everything I wrote was stiff and pompous and basically awful. Only when I started exploring into what I didn’t remember about my memories, and all the other things I didn’t have in the pat stories about my past, did my writing come alive.

So, if you’re curious to know more about this, tune in on Wednesday at 3 pm Eastern Time!

See you there.

xx