How the talk went

It went well, surprisingly enough.  I’d forgotten how very tiny 5 year olds are, and I don’t know how much they got out of it, but they were all very good.  Although slightly wriggly, they were impeccably silent and attentive.  I did pretty much the talk that I outlined earlier, though with a bit more added about how a story goes from an idea to a manuscript and then has to go to a publisher for them to make the story into a book.

Some of the 11 year olds made shocked grimacy faces when I mentioned that I wrote gay heroes and why, so clearly they were actually listening and had already heard enough elsewhere to feel that I was saying something surprising.  This confirmed my opinion that it really wasn’t too early to start laying it on the line to them that, you know, there’s not actually anything shocking about gay people.  So I went on with my “God made us all the way we are, and everyone needs heroes like them” thing.  And, at the end, one of the teachers paused in leading her class out to say “I really liked your message,” and the Head Teacher said that they ought to have me back more often.

So, I was very pleased.  Several of the children even put their hands up with questions, though there wasn’t time for more than two answers.

Then my nerves were utterly shot for the rest of the day, so I did no writing.  Instead I went into Ely to get a coffee at the coffee shop I usually go to, but they were closed due to a burst water main.  So I came home, baked a cake and ate it.  (It was a weetabix, bran and carrot cake, so I don’t think anyone else in the family would have touched it even if I had saved some for them.)