(no subject)

It's so important to watch Harry Potter films. Of all this and next week's courses, the school for wizards one is the only one that has enough enrolments to go ahead so far. People don't want to learn about heroes and writers are very confident about their capacity to have and hold an audience. Kids, however, want their own wizardly schools.

I'm really not sure the confidence in public speaking is well-founded, so I'm hoping that the speaking course will get a few people by the weekend. It makes such a difference for an audience if the writer actually knows a bit about what they're doing. It's so disconcerting when a writer has no idea about using their centre of gravity and sways back and forth for ten minutes, or if they focus on a pen rather than on their listeners, or if they can't tell how far their voice is projecting. That's why I'm teaching this particular course. There are many and many new and emerging writers in Canberra right now, and all of them have the capacity to fascinate a crowd, but have no technique.

It's a sad by-product of recession that people don't have money for studying their heroes. I'll spend those evenings writing novel.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have more school novels to read.