I remember reflecting back on the NECRWA conference from 2009 and rejoicing how I didn’t have to pitch anymore. Now I could finally enjoy the conference!
How naive was I? I was tossing and turning all night before the workshop on Saturday and I was too keyed up to go to any of the workshop sessions before mine. Let me say, presenting is way more nerve-wracking than pitching to an editor or agent.
But it went extremely well! I happened to know my moderator, writer Mike Myers, from previous conferences and he did a fabulous job. The attendees were welcoming and interested. My only grave error was running out of handouts — I didn’t think more than 30 people would attend the talk considering MaryJanice Davidson was speaking at the same time. Luckily I had extra excerpt booklets which I think worked out really well.
The actual talk was a bit of a blur for me. Adrenaline will do that to you. But I got through everything, had a couple of laughs, and hopefully gave some useful information. Many people approached me afterward and for the rest of the day to tell me they enjoyed the workshop, which is a good sign.
Lessons learned:
- Breathe
- There will be no sleep the night before a presentation. I need to come to terms with that.
- More handouts! I thought 30 was an overestimate, but I should overestimate and tack on 10 more.
- Do you know you can request moderators? I’m totally doing this from now on.
- I also have a good idea now of what sort of questions will be raised and what parts I can narrow down or cut in the presentation for my shorter version at RWA national conference in July.
Next presentation is a panel this Friday at the Popular Culture Association conference in St. Louis. Thank goodness I have back-up from authors Crystal Jordan, Sela Carsen, and Amanda Berry for this one.
I just received a note from the workshop chairperson reminding us that the attendees there want a lot of time to ask questions. In other words, keep it short and simple gals. I’m very much okay with that. 🙂
Mar 29, 2010 @ 09:27:36
I’m glad it went well! You are certainly a braver woman than I am; presentations always make me tongue tied no matter how much I practice. 😛
Mar 29, 2010 @ 11:36:54
I actually really like teaching. It was just always with something I was much more qualified to talk about before — high school chemistry and biology. The nice thing is that I was able to connect with several members of the audience who were also teachers. They liked my handout and also smiled at my use of “Warm-up questions” on it.
Many of us teachers try our hand at writing during our “spare” time.