Speaking Busybird Publishing Open Mic Night #121

By Laurie Smale

On Wednesday 17 June 2026, I attended the Busybird Publishing Open Mic Night #121

Special thanks to Kev Howlett for providing this opportunity and Les Zig for being the Facilitator of the Open Mic Night.

My segment is also on the full Busybird Publishing Open Mic Night video and starts at 00:01:03 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnDGCzHuNTY&t=63s

Transcript

Please welcome Laurie.

Thank you, Les.

Well, my point. As authors, a book is made-up of a series of examples, little stories, each with a point and I proudly write, produce and edit my Magic Minute.

Laurie Smale’s Magic Minute.

It’s on pretty well all the platforms and I’mn developing a nice little following, and it’s a nice feeling. But it’s hard to make a point in 60 seconds.

It’s hard to come across as if it’s just natural and it’s got a beginning, middle and an end and still make a point.

And then one of my followers said to me, “You know, what’s good about you is that it’s not what you say, it’s what you don’t say.”

Now they’ve got me thinking.

What I don’t say, and you know, I thought, well, I’ve got a point to make in this thing, so I can’t tell them the birds were twittering, the sun was shining, this, that and the other.

I’ve gotta have that sort of stuff in there as a context. But I’ve got to get to the point.

So I’ll just tell you a little story, one of my Magic Minutes.

The shortened version.

My brothers and I were standing by the swamp.

This was in the early 50s, and we saw Keithy Dowler with a fishing rod.

We said, “What are you doing?”

He said, “I’m fishing for eels.”

We said “There’s no eles in here,” and he said, “Oh, yes, there is.”

And pretty well right there and then he pulled out a really big one.

“Ohh, I see. What are you gonna do with it?”

He said, “I’m gonna skin it, he said you gotta nail it to a post, peel it down with pliers because the skin’s really thick.
Cut it up into chunks, roll it in flour and eat it with chips.”

Well, all we had with us was a rake.

And so my brother Darryl, Keith went off on his way, my brother Darryl said, “See those ripples, Keithy said every one of them was an eel.Let’s just go in and give them a wack and see what happens.”

So we did.

So we went in and we went bang.

Up comes a stunned eel and we thought, this is really easy, flung it to the side, dispatched it and we got six more.

Well anyway, we went home to my Mum and we were covered in mud.

We said, “Mum, look what we got for dinner.”

And she said, “Get down to the dam, get all that mud off you.”

And I said, “Yeah, but we’ve gotta nail them to a post, then we roll them in flour and we eat them with chips.”

Anyway, when we got back, my Mum said, “Look, we haven’t got a post but we can nail them to the kitchen table,” which we thought was made a lot of sense.

So I did that and just as we were doing this, the Olives paid us a visit with their five kids and of course, they were among it. It was wonderful, turned out to be an absolute feast and it did taste just like fish.

And the Olives?

The Olives spoke about that incident for years, the day they paid the Smales’ a visit.

And they were skinning eels nailed to the kitchen table.

Now that’s my point.

My point wasn’t where did we get that rake?

My point wasn’t I spoke about my Mum, where was my Dad?

He wasn’t mentioned.

You’re the readers.

Fill in the gaps.

The point was how we were skinning eels nailed to the kitchen table when we were paid an unexpected visit by family friends.

That was the point.

So I took you there. So have that end in mind when you write a story, even the overall book.

And then take your listeners on a journey to that point.

Thank you.

Social Media Share

SPEAKING // I recently spoke at the 🕊️ Busybird Publishing Open Mic Night #121🎤 and shared a story about getting to the point in a story.

Watch now at https://lauriesmale.com/blog/speaking-busybird-publishing-open-mic-night-121

Special thanks to Kev Howlett for providing the opportunity and Les Zig for being the Facilitator of the Open Mic Night.

I look forward to attending more Open Mic Nights in the future.

#lauriesmale #lauriesmalespeaking #magicminute #busybirdpublishing

Shared on Archive.org, Speaking Page, Facebook Page, Facebook Profile, Google, LinkedIn Profile, LinkedIn Page, Twitter / X, YouTube Busybird Publishing, YouTube