The worst part of the job by Poppy Gee

Writers do more than writing, as we know. Which bit of the publishing-business side of this caper would you ditch if you could?

Nerve-wracking... preparing to do a bookstore talk for the first time in 2013

If you asked me this question a decade ago, my answer would be quite different. 

On the evening of my debut book launch in 2013, as I was driving to my event at Mary Ryan’s bookstore in New Farm, Brisbane, I told my husband that I wish I never wrote the book. The reason for this dramatic change of heart (after the thrill of seeing the book in stores) was my terror of public speaking. I felt like I was being driven to the scaffold to be publicly guillotined. The actual scenario was a cosy bookshop and about twenty people – supportive friends, family and the bookseller who I’d met at a party and who asked me to do the launch there. The thought of standing before kind and encouraging people, reading a page of reflections about my writing journey, was the most horrifying thing I could imagine.

Terrifying... My first ever literary panel with Sisters in Crime - Lindy Cameron, Josephine Pennicott and Livia Day.

My first author panel was called Something Rotten in the Apple Isle, held in Melbourne. I don't think I slept the night before, I was so nervous. Again, this seems illogical in hindsight, as the event was fellow crime fiction readers and writers. You can't get a more supportive crowd!

Over the next decade I forced myself to accept as many public speaking opportunities as I could. Now, I’m comfortable talking about my work, interviewing people about their work, and teaching creative writing workshops. I’m teaching my special three-hour crime fiction class – Basic Instinct, Writing Crime and Thrillers – tomorrow at North Lakes library and I'm genuinely looking forward to it.

These days the thing I don’t like about the writing life, is using my writing time to do admin, invoicing, marketing or polishing up my PowerPoint presentation for my crime fiction workshop. It feels annoying. I’d like a private secretary to do these things for me. There’s nothing I like more than writing, my time for that is so precious. But it has to be done.