"Goomba38" > wrote

> Nancy Young wrote:

>> Has nothing to do with how they treat their fans, of course. It's
>> a book signing, sit there, sign books, all the time smiling and
>> pretending you're nice. It's not like Margaret cornered him in the
>> men's room.

> I recently organized a conference with a nationally known speaker/author
> and was shocked to find out that even after 30 years of doing public
> speaking she still had stage fright! She was rude, obnoxious, threatening
> to go home if anything was out of place,,,,her head was spinning right up
> until she took to the stage and turned her performance "on" and started
> speaking. No one would have imagined this humorous dynamo of a speaker was
> feeling so nervous! I asked her if she'd tried a beta blocker to help
> quell the stage fright response and she already took one. LOL When I drove
> her back to her hotel the first thing she said to me was "Do you hate
> me??" which was probably about as much apology for her earlier behavior as
> she could muster?
>
> So perhaps some of these authors aren't as comfortable doing the "off the
> cuff" chatting and glad handing as they are assumed to be?

I can definitely understand that. Jitters before a speaking performance,
who can't imagine that? I think I'd be Just get me some water and
go away and leave me alone. But in this instance, he's not speaking before
a crowd, he's signing books and he'd been doing it for a while before
Margaret got to him. I guess he was just getting tired, but there was no
reason to throw a tantrum like that.

Especially not to my beloved Margaret.

nancy