I’ve joined the public-speaking circuit

I gave my first formal presentation in more than a decade tonight! Two other editors and I had collaborated on the creation of a slide deck on the editorial process last year, and my time finally came to use it. I updated the Canva slides to fit my chosen theme and tweaked the content to fit my style and understanding of terms and concepts.

And then I practiced. I discovered the notes feature and made abundant comments of things I wanted to say or point out. And I practiced the presentation again. All told, I think I ran through the presentation at least four times today. It’s a good thing I did, because once I tried to share the presentation on Zoom, I couldn’t see the notes function. (Sharing the Canva presentation while on Zoom was the one thing I hadn’t practiced. :head_desk: ) So I had to give my talk from memory based only on the text in the slides.

Amazingly, it worked! I know I stumbled a few times, and my mouth kept drying out quickly because I had done so much practice, but overall, everything went well. Practice was key. And possibly the adrenaline rush of nerves. 😝

All that to say, should you be in need of a qualified individual to explain the editorial process, please reach out. I’d be glad to join your event via Zoom.

Do you like public speaking? What’s your favorite topic to talk about? Share in the comments!