I’ve been holding off on posting anything about this until it was 100% official that I would be doing it, and I got word yesterday that I’m good to go on that front, so here it is:
At Gobble-con, I’ll be giving a panel titled “So You Want to be a Speedrunner: A Leisurely Guide to Playing Video Games in a Frantic Manner”. Those of you who know me are no doubt laughing hysterically at your computers, knowing how confident and outgoing I am.
But in truth, as I mentioned previously, this is something I’ve actually thought about doing for awhile, in part because it’s so contrary to the image of me that most people have of me. That said, the fact that I’ve never lost the Best Vocalist Award at Connecticon‘s Rock Band tournaments, in which performance is a factor, does show that I can fake the confident, outgoing persona for short periods of time when it’s required…and I figure I’ll be fine as long as I keep telling myself “I don’t have to actually be outgoing and confident, I just have to fake it for an hour or so.”
More seriously, the fact that Gobble-con is a small (Don, the guy running it, told me he’s expecting somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 to 300 people. In contrast, Connecticon had roughly 8000 people this year.), first-year convention was what convinced me to take the plunge and try to do the panel there. For one, I figured that, being a first-year convention, they’d be looking for panels (And more willing to grant a panel to someone who has never actually given a panel before), as opposed to something like Connecticon which more or less has its pick of panel submissions. For another, the smaller audience means that if I do badly for whatever reason, not a whole lot of people, relatively speaking, will see my spectacular failure.
Truth be told, I’m excited about this. I’m hoping to use some of the stuff I learned in the How to Run a Panel panel, and I’ve been scouring the Internet for public speaking advice as well, using my judgment whenever I come across any contradictory advice. I also plan to use this site (Yeah, the one I’ve been neglecting for the past six months) a bit more to post my progress in this endeavor. I should really change that “Newest Song” at the top to more or a “Latest Progress” kind of thing, what with not having done any recorded music stuff in about two years.
Until next time..
-EE
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You’re not faking anything, when you know something it’s fun to talk about. I do the same thing with my book shows, because I’m talking about something I like and that is fun, it makes it much easier. A little nervous? Yes, that’s normal! But it’ll be better than you think….
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Well, that’s one way to look at it, definitely. As I said, the other part of it is actually rehearsing, in a general sense, what I plan to say (My most recent post [Day 5] briefly touches on the controversy, if you will, of writing your speech out word-for-word beforehand). Either way, I feel like it’s coming along, although once I have the video I need, it’ll be time to actually start rehearsing the actual presenting part of it. That’ll be interesting…
[…] I’ve done pretty much everything I can do short of actually rehearsing my panel, in order to continue making posts, I’m going to be doing a sort of “Director’s […]