Will I write a talk in one day? Tune in to find out!

I’m currently trying to decide if I should make a toy example to go with my talk, or use work code (that’s cleared to share).

The benefit of the toy is that I can manage branches to show each stage. The downside is spending a weekend writing “imaginary” Terraform.

(Really this talk SHOULD be a two hour workshop... I guess I know what I’m pitching for a HashiConf...)

(I guess I'm living in this thread because I cannot handle my main TL today. So let's talk about talking!)

I draft my talk text ahead of time. All of it. While I "improv" on stage, there are usually notes in my draft that suggest topics for improv, I'm never just looking at points and winging it. I do this for two reasons:

1. I don't want to be on stage and not know what to say because I know how my brain works, and if I don't have a script I will *definitely* say something like, "Oh fuck, what am I talking about, this is bullshit." And that's not something I need immortalized on YouTube.

2. Not every conf provides captions, and not every attendee is English primary. By supplying my full text ahead of time (usually linked to on my personal website) I provide accessible options, whether it's reading along with me, or obtaining a translation.

This reminds me of a heart dream I have, that I wish I could find the money to sponsor. I wish conferences would offer a second caption track for non-English primary folks in regionally dominant languages in the US, and in the country's primary language int'l.

I *hate* pitching int'l because I only speak English and I think it is *bullshit* to be in someone else's home (country) and force them to speak what I speak. Cross-lingual captions would soften this *and* help decolonize tech's US-centricity.

So. I write my text ahead of time. My rule of thumb is 1000 words per 7 minutes of speaking. Why that number?

A ten minute talk is estimated to be ~1300 words.

Even when I slow down to deliver a talk, I am a rapid speaker. So I estimate I *deliver* closer to 1500 in ten minutes.

7 minutes is 30% less than 10, so I allot myself 30% fewer words (roughly).

This tends to actually give me a bit of buffer, in case I find a groove on stage and lose 90 seconds to being an enthusiastic nerd.

In my outline, once I have all my points laid down, I assign rough word counts to each main section. (Somewhere between 5 and 9 for < 30 min.)

Introductions are limited to 3 minutes. If I can’t present what it is and why you want to listen in 3 minutes, I have failed.

I also usually leave crafting the intro for last, and I often write the conclusion first. Think of it as a form of Top Down Design. If I know where I’m going, the ride to get there is straightforward.

Often, my conclusion is half crafted already. Where?

In my pitch abstract.

Remember that while an abstract LOOKS like an introduction, what it ACTUALLY is is a map of the journey with a big flag on the destination.

(Writing this talk is a little rough, as my abstract isn’t where I’d like it to be.)