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. 🙂