Managing Public Speaking Nerves as an Introverted Writer

Featuring some things I do for public speaking nerves and some funny books on the subject

There has been a lot of recent discourse over this Vox piece about self-promotion for artists and one facet of promoting things as a writer often involves speaking on podcasts or panels or to your Second Cousin’s Book Club.

Being introverted doesn’t mean you will automatically be anxious about public speaking as there are extroverts who get nervous about public speaking and introverts who don’t. I’ve been teaching undergrad classes since 2006 and at this point have taught over *checks notes* 1000 classes, and I typically don’t get anxious about teaching these classes anymore.

However, as an anxious introvert, some public speaking situations do make me nervous. I was at the AWP conference last week and participated in an offsite panel presentation that I was feeling nervous about, and I talked with other writers at the conference who had similar pre-panel feelings. And, as the above quote by Jerry Seinfeld demonstrates, a lot of people aren’t super chill about public speaking.

I don’t claim to have the most solid methods in this department, but these are some of the things that I do…

Overprepare like no one is watching

As an introvert, I like to prepare for things and think them through before I do them, so if I am doing a podcast or speaking on a panel I try to prepare as much as possible. This may mean listening to the podcast, visiting the venue where I am speaking, or just thinking through some answers to questions. When podcasts tell me some questions they plan to ask ahead of time I always appreciate it!

Jessica Pan’s book Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come is one of my favorite books on introversion because it is very funny and she does things that I have yet been too much of a chicken to try (like The Moth storytelling and stand-up comedy). In her prep for telling a Moth story, she realizes that practicing it helps her get through the real thing.

I also practice when I can — reading out loud questions I’m going to ask or book excerpts I need to read. I resisted doing this kind of practice for a long time but now I do it and I think it helps.

The upside of all the prepping is that I feel like I often get a lot of the anxiety out of the way ahead of time and by the time the actual speaking event arrives I am not as nervous.

Schedule things early-ish

If I have control over when something is scheduled I try to schedule the speaking thing early (but not too early!) in the day. Too early makes me freak out about oversleeping but too late in the day makes me nervous about it leading up to it. So I try to aim for late morning/early in a conference if possible.

I thought about this method while reading Aparna Nancherla’s book Unreliable Narrator in which she describes her all-day anxiety leading up to standup shows which, spoiler alert, often take place late at night.

Reading about her experience made me feel better that even professional comedians can still experience speaking anxiety. And it also made me realize stand-up comedy is probably not in my future (unless it starts becoming a brunchtime thing?).

Strike a Pose

In Shonda Rhimes’ book Year of Yes she talks about a year when she starts saying yes to things like public speaking engagements. One of the strategies she learns is doing sort of a Wonder Woman power pose in the mirror before the event, the idea being you can build up confidence by projecting it.

I’ve tried this at times and I feel like it is not a bad use of nervous pre-speaking energy. I also imagine you could channel Stuart Smalley’s “Your Good Enough..” mantras if you wanted to?

The post-speaking overthinking

Another fun thing I like to do is overthink things. So even after I’ve done a panel or a podcast I sometimes think about things I should have said or rephrased.

When I was first promoting my book, I did a Zoom interview and afterward, I entered Overthinkingville. But then when the interview came out and I watched it I realized that the loop in my mind was definitely worse than the actual interview.

Now I try to remind myself that it probably went better than I think did. That and no one is probably giving it as much thought as me, which is somewhat related to a strategy Jerry Seinfeld uses —reminding yourself you're pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe. Also, a solid strategy, I think.

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Do you have other tips and tricks in the public speaking department? If so, I’m curious to hear them.

One thing I also sometimes spend too much time overthinking is what to wear, which (coupled with this uniform post in Cafe Anne) has made me think I should come up with some sort of standard public events uniform to typically wear. Is that something other people do? If so, share your secrets in the comments!

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