I just got invited to speak to a group of senior citizens on any topic I chose. I had to decline because, while I know a little about a lot of things, I don’t know a lot about any one particular thing. So I missed a chance to enhance my platform.

How often have we been told that in order to establish a marketing platform, we should specialize or become a bit of an expert in something? For example, my friend Dodie Cross, who wrote “A Broad Abroad in Thailand” can talk about her experiences living not only there but in Iran before the Islamic Revolution. My friend Vicki Mills who wrote “Any Body Can Enjoy Computers — the Clear and Simple Basics,” can talk about that. What can I speak about?

Let’s consider my almost-finished novel, Dakota Blues. I could become more of an expert on any one of its themes. See how many you can spot:

A middle-aged workaholic executive gets the kiss-off from her job and husband while attending her mother’s funeral in her Midwestern hometown. She wants to race back to California, but wonders if she should reevaluate – if she has wasted the first half of her life. Besides, North Dakota beckons; she meets a whole new network of dynamic gal-friends and falls in lust with a sexy professor. She is drawn by the sweetness of her hometown, and by her immigrant roots. Torn between the familiar and the possible, she rejects them both, and instead agrees to ferry a persistent 90-year-old neighbor cross-country in an aging RV. It turns into a road trip that will change her life.

I’ll bet I could talk about a lot of things from the above. Mid-life crises, the second half, Banat German immigrants to the Midwest, modern-day patterns of reverse migration…The next time I get invited to speak on anything at all to a group of kindly, receptive people, will I accept the offer? Ask me in three months.