On Speeches

Firstly: if you’re reading this and it’s still the 26th or 27th of August, Ad Luna is free right now in the Narratess Indie Sale. Get it. Get it now. And get a bunch of other SF&F books too.

I am currently faced with the biggest writing challenge of my life. I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve written a dozen books or more, countless stories, millions of words. I’ve described alien worlds beyond imagining and tried to delve into the heart of human emotion. I’ve written for children, I’ve written for adults. I’ve done some poetry, which you will probably never see, and I’ve even written comedy, which if you have seen, I implore you to forget.

All of that – all those stories, all those characters, all that effort – pales in comparison to the fact that, this week, I have to write my own wedding speech.

After over a year of it being ‘months away’, suddenly I’m getting married this week. In a week from the time of writing we’ll be clearing up the venue after the wedding. My front room is full of boxes of stuff, a not-insignificant portion of which is silly hats; I have a lovely new suit whose shirt I really need to iron and whose shoes I will let my father polish because he’s much better at it than me. I have a fiancée sitting in the next room right now! I’ve had a fiancée for some time, in fairness; that part I’ve had a while to get used to. She’s very nice. We have a venue, we have food, we have Legal Stuff, we have music.

And at some point in the day I have to talk.

I thank the gods that we decided not to write our own vows, because I’m fairly sure I’m going to forget my own name when we’re up in front of the registrars, let alone be able to deliver something so personal under that much pressure. The speeches, at least, will all be delivered when our audience is replete with excellent food and wine and thus generally inclined to cheer at pretty much anything, which takes the pressure off a bit. A bit.

There’s something of a formula to follow, of course. Between me and my at-that-point-wife we have to thank everyone, and we’ve divided the list already between ourselves. One of the most useful things I learned from comedy was to keep it short, so I’ve only got to fill about 5-8 minutes, and thanks should fill up a chunk of that. But then… I have to talk about some other stuff. Mostly my wife, I imagine, which shouldn’t be hard. We’ve been together for coming up on a decade and we do quite like each other, so I’ve both got a lot of material to draw on and it’s all reasonably positive.

But can I think of what to write? Can I hell.

I’ve done this sort of thing before… just not for me. I’ve done emotional speeches of all kinds for all sorts of characters in all sorts of stories. I’ve even dipped a toe into romance from time to time! (In fact I’ve nicked dialogue for some upcoming stuff from what I said when I proposed. Not because it was a smooth line. Definitely not that.) But when it comes to writing it for myself? To expressing my feelings about my fiancée to anyone other than my fiancée herself?

I am not very often lost for words. I’ve written a lot of them. But these feel like fairly important ones to get right.

No pressure, eh?

Also, this time next week I will genuinely be clearing up after the wedding, so no blog: I’m going to be busy enough that day. Normal service will resume on the 8th of September.