You don't mind giving a ten minute talk at JW3, do you?" says the boss. "I know you give lots of talks. You'll be very good."
"Sure," I reply (I'm busy, obviously. Also mildly flattered. She's clever that way). "What's it about?" I do give loads of talks, in my capacity as an author of Young Adult novels, but they are mostly to teenagers in schools, and they are about my books. I know how to talk to teenagers. Mention knives, money, sex and the internet (all covered in my books, please buy them) and they listen with great interest. And once you've told a group of Year Tens in Peckham how to stab someone most efficiently - subsequently sparking an actual fight in the library as kids jostled for copies of the book - then no other audience feels scary.
"It's a Jewish TED talk. It's called JDOV. You'll be great. Don't worry about it."
She glides away, and I google JDOV and discover a website full of ten minute speeches. "We invite inspiring speakers to share their Jewish dream, observation or vision," it says. JDOV's website is full of brilliant speakers - former refugee and entrepreneur Stephanie Shirley, former refusnik and Israeli politician Natan Sharansky, to mention just two - speaking about Jewish things. Very Jewish things. Things like identity, Israel, Jewish pluralism, Jewish tradition, politics, spirituality and social change.
Now, of course I think about Jewish things all the time - I'm the JC's Features Editor - and I have written a "Jewish" book, This is Not a Love Story (Atom £6.99) featuring contemporary British Jewish teens falling in and out of love in Amsterdam. If there's a Jewish message there, it's about giving teen readers the chance to see Jews as more than victims (the Shoah) or villains (Israel, sadly). But I've done that, all 70,000 words of it. Maybe there's something more personal that I need to say. Something bigger and more complicated Something I don't talk about often.
It's a Jewish TED talk. You'll be great. Don't worry
In fact, I have quite a few Jewish things that I could talk about. None of them seem to fit into a ten minute time slot though.
I go and see the boss. "I'm not sure I can do this," I say. "I don't have something obvious to talk about for ten minutes, while being filmed. Also, I have nothing to wear."
"Don't worry," she says. You'll be fine. You need to talk to Shoshana."
Shoshana Boyd Gelfand is the founder of JDOV, and the director of JHUB, an impressive- sounding organisation based in West Hampstead which supports positive social change in the British Jewish community and beyond, in a variety of ways. She's also a rabbi. She reassures me that there is plenty of time to work on my speech. It'll be fine. We arrange to meet for a coffee to start the process.
When we meet, Shoshana is held up in traffic. I've eaten a Teacake of Anxiety by the time she arrives. But I needn't have worried. She's so easy to talk to that I hardly draw breath for the next hour and a half. By the time we finish she knows my life story, I have shed tears and I have four ideas for speeches outlined in my notebook. She's like a dream editor, one who shapes your rambling story into a crisp, clear narrative. The one who tells you what you mean and then makes a few suggestions which - at last - brings the whole thing together.
The only thing is, there are four of them. Four ideas. I want to do all of them. My mind flits from one to another like a demented canary. And so I dither. Will this one make me cry (on film, in front of an audience?). Is this one too personal? Have I enough to say for that one? What was that one even about? I ask my husband's advice. "They're all the same really," he points out, "It's just you talking about yourself." He picks the least personal speech, the only one I'd already ruled out.
Time passes. I watch some of the JDOV videos and am struck by the coherence and brilliance of the speakers. I commission an article for the JC about Imposter Syndrome. ("All women have Imposter Syndrome," says a colleague. "I really don't," I reply) I bump into David Aaronovitch at the Cheltenham Festival, where we are both speaking. He's on the same JDOV roster at JW3. I carefully avoid the subject, as I know he is very good at these things, and will have loads of Jewish Dreams, Observations and Visions, even though he isn't actually Jewish. Then I go and speak to a room of teenagers about homelessness and YouTube and child actors. For twenty minutes, without notes or a plan. Because, you know, public speaking doesn't actually scare me.
It's too late to get out of it. I've finally decided on a title (Living a Double Life). I've spent a train journey planning what to say. I've even bought something to wear. All I have to do is write the thing. And rehearse. And breathe.
