An exciting weekend cometh

This weekend is filled with firsts. I'm going to my first ever music gig (at least that I can remember) at the Frome Festival to see Turin Brakes. I have their first album and love it, so I'm really excited about that. In case you've never heard of them, here is a link to Future Boy, a track that always makes me cry. In a good way.

The second first, if I can write such a clunky thing, is that I'm going to be helping my Dad run a fire walk. How cool is that? I'll tell you all about that next week though, because the third first (gah, make it stop!) is that I am going to give my first talk as a professional author.

And there, right on cue, is the anxiety demon. Come in then, sit down, there's a biscuit over there for you. Yeah, we're getting to be like old friends now. The talk, in case you happen to be in Frome, Somerset at 10am on Sunday morning (10th July) is all about writing for young adults and social media for writers. It's part of the Writer's and Publishers day, all the info regarding booking and whatnot is here.

I've been mulling it over for a long time, and I know what I want to say, I just need to tidy it up into a presentation. One of the tricky things is that I know nothing about the people coming until I meet them on the day, so I don't know what level of experience they have with the old social media. I'm not so nervous about that…

It's the whole standing up in front of people thing.

Yeah, that old chestnut. The thing is, what I've been trying to fathom today is how I used to stand up in front of people several times a day to teach them A-level psychology. On Sunday, those people will want to be there, which wasn't always a guarantee when I was a teacher. I didn't break into a sweat before every lesson.

Actually, the first few lessons I did, probably the first six months of teaching I reckon. But even then, it wasn't as bad as the anxiety is these days. I suppose it was the post-natal depression that happened between then and now; it sucked the marrow out of my confidence bones, making them all brittle. I'm hoping that once I start the talk I'll be fine, and a part of me – the part I consider to be the real me and not this scared shadow of myself – is actually looking forward to meeting new people and helping them. At least I hope I'll be of some use.

One thing I am working hard on is not fretting about the whole implied expert status thing. The anxiety demon, sulphurous, ill-mannered little troll dropping that he is, is sitting here saying that I've got no right whatsoever to stand up in front of people and pretend to know all this stuff. I'm telling him that I don't call myself an expert, I just got two publishing deals thanks to my social media efforts, and a career as an audio book narrator, and lots of other people have already found my advice on writing for young adults very useful and told me so. So (sticks tongue out) nuuuh!

Alas, it has come to this, my precious ones, yours truly sitting in a home office, sticking my tongue out at a coping mechanism. Le sigh.

Have I remembered this correctly?

I know that many of you are writers, so just to reassure myself that I have remembered what it was like to start out on social media, could you be a bless poppet and tell me the things you struggled with at the beginning? Any things you wish you knew back then? Any things you still struggle with now?

And a little bit of good luck wishing is always gratefully received…