Tales of an Awkward Author - Part 1
Being an author requires a certain amount of confidence. It requires the ability to meet new people, talk to strangers about our stories, and constantly put ourselves out into the world.
I, unfortunately, am not great at this. But, because I'm me, I've never been willing to let my awkwardness stop me from tackling life head-on. This has lead to some...interesting adventures. And by interesting I mean mostly cringeworthy, but also generally funny with a hint of happily-ever-after.
Today, I am ready to share some of these adventures with the world. Prepare yourself. It's going to be a wild ride.
Broken Facial Recognition Software
I'm at a disadvantage when it comes to meeting new people. Why? Well, I am terrible at recognizing people. We're talking a level of bad that's about equal to George Lucas's prequel movies. Or Grima Wormtongue's charm. Or Gilderoy Lockhart's teaching skills. Or...or...*runs out of nerd references* You get the point.
This has led to some awkward mixups, but the most awkward scenario of all was this one:
In 2017, I was the Live Events Coordinator for WriteOnCon. Part of my job involved interviewing other authors for podcasts; a task that I usually did via Skype. However, one day I learned that one of my interviewee's lived about 20 minutes from me, so we decided: Hey. Why not just meet up and record in person?
What could possibly go wrong?
I could. I could go wrong.
And I did.
This was only the second time in my life that I'd met up with a fellow author to hang out and chat, so, of course, I was super nervous. This was where things first started to go wrong. See, the more nervous I am, the more awkward I get.
We'd agreed to meet at a local library. Knowing that my facial recognition software is terrible, I went out of my way to visit the author's website a few times to look at her profile picture. Surely, I would be able to recognize her if I did that.
But no.
I walked up to the library and there was a very sweet-looking lady sitting outside. I made eye-contact, nodded at her politely, and walked. right. past. her. I was so nervous that my brain was too jumbled to recognize her as the person I was there to meet.
I got into the building and the author was nowhere in sight. The sweet-looking woman from outside walked up behind me and introduced herself. I introduced myself and we found a place to sit.
And I said nothing. Nothing. Nothing about our weird eye-contact-head-nod, nothing about me not recognizing her, nothing about how nervous I was. And that would have been the polite thing to do, right? Because, from her point of view, I had nodded at her and, for some weird reason, had walked past her. Almost as if I expected her to trail into the building behind me like some sad, stray puppy.
But I was too flustered to acknowledge my error and the further and further we got into the meeting, the weirder and weirder it became for me to awkwardly say, "Heyyyyy. So, remember that time I just walked right past you? Sorry about that!"
So I said nothing. Which was so, so absurd because this author is a really cool person. She would have 100% understood and been chill with my awkwardness.
*sigh* This author's name is Sally J. Pla. Yep. Our meeting was incredible and we recorded a great podcast on writing neurodivergent characters.
I drove home afterward feeling super excited about the meeting, and also so, so, so awkward.
Ever since then I've been ultra paranoid about accidentally dissing fellow authors by not recognizing them. I have yet to find a way to correct this issue, but I did learn one valuable lesson:
Whenever I don't recognize a person, I can simply laugh and explain why. There's no need to be weird about it.
Shout-out to Sally J. Pla for reading this part of my blog post before publishing. It was the first time we'd discussed my weird behavior. We had a good laugh about it, and she made me feel a lot better about myself. As she says: We're all human.
Deer in the Spotlight
One of the perks to being an author in this modern age is that I rarely find myself in the spotlight. I get to hide my awkwardness behind a computer screen and, when I do have attention focused on me, the internet allows me to have time to formulate coherent, non-awkward responses.
But that changed the day I met up with fellow writer Elza Kinde. Herself and her mom run a local writing group, so one day I decided to attend the group so I could meet Elza. I'd followed her online for a while and I thought she was the epitome of cool, so I was excited. And nervous. Because, y'know...my track record when it came to gracefully meeting fellow writers wasn't all that great.
But here's the thing I hadn't anticipated: Elza really, really likes my writing. Like, a lot.
Now, I know people online enjoy my writing. That's awesome. It makes me super happy. But I'd never actually met somebody in-person who enjoys my work (aside from family and friends), so I wasn't prepared.
Prepared for what, you ask?
The spotlight.
I showed up to meet Elza and, thankfully, I had no issue recognizing her (thank you, Elza, for always wearing cool head wraps). I was really proud of myself for not fumbling our initial meeting.
But then something unexpected happened.
Elza started introducing me to her friends as "an awesome author." She gushed about my writing, and my mind just kind of....
Exploded.
I had no idea how to respond. Was I supposed to smile, nod, and say, "Yeah, I am an awesome author. Kneel before me."
Or was I supposed to say, "No, I'm not all that great. My stuff sucks, actually. You should read Twilight instead." Neither of those things seemed quite right.
I started over-analyzing everything: Should I give people my business card after she pitched about my stuff? Do I wait for them to ask? Do I try to shift the conversation away from myself? Towards myself? Am I even a good enough author to deserve this praise? What am I even doing and oh my gosh why am I so weird about these things???
Overwhelmed, my brain went back and forth on what to do. Part of me wanted to hug Elza for being so supportive and cool. The other part of me wanted to hug Elza, then flee in terror.
I don't remember exactly how I handled it. It's all kind of a blur now, honestly. I'm pretty sure I just stood awkwardly, smiled a lot, and turned as red as Bob the Tomato.
But that was absurd, wasn't it? After all, why should I get awkward over somebody else gushing over my writing? That is way less uncomfortable than me having to pitch my own work (which I'm super bad at, btw). After a while, I started to calm down. I saw how cool it was to have a fellow writer friend who was willing and able to lift me up and support my work. Rather than feeling awkward, I settled into just be myself instead of some weird author-in-the-headlights dork.
I left our meet-up feeling slightly cringe-y towards myself, super appreciated of Elza, and inspired to go out and be that same type of supportive to other writers.
Many thanks to Elza Kinde for being cool with me posting this. It's worth noting that we are friends to this day and often bond over being awkward souls.
You'll notice that this blog post is titled "Part 1." That's right. I have several more stories about my adventures as an awkward author. Besides, I think we all know that I'll never run out of semi-embarrassing tales to recount. As much as I'd like to think that I'll get better at being a functioning human, I know that I'll always be awkward at heart. But that's okay. It keeps life interesting.
Have your own awkward writer stories to tell? Let's hear 'em! Bonus points if you want to be extra and write an entire blog post series about them.
Related articles:
There aren't really any, sooooo. Here's some on how to network:
Great Social Media Networks for Writers (And How to Use Them)11 Tips for Building a Successful Writer's Platform
Enjoy this post? Take a look around. If you like what you see, please don't forget to subscribe by email for a new post every Friday!
I, unfortunately, am not great at this. But, because I'm me, I've never been willing to let my awkwardness stop me from tackling life head-on. This has lead to some...interesting adventures. And by interesting I mean mostly cringeworthy, but also generally funny with a hint of happily-ever-after.
Today, I am ready to share some of these adventures with the world. Prepare yourself. It's going to be a wild ride.
Broken Facial Recognition Software
I'm at a disadvantage when it comes to meeting new people. Why? Well, I am terrible at recognizing people. We're talking a level of bad that's about equal to George Lucas's prequel movies. Or Grima Wormtongue's charm. Or Gilderoy Lockhart's teaching skills. Or...or...*runs out of nerd references* You get the point.
This has led to some awkward mixups, but the most awkward scenario of all was this one:
In 2017, I was the Live Events Coordinator for WriteOnCon. Part of my job involved interviewing other authors for podcasts; a task that I usually did via Skype. However, one day I learned that one of my interviewee's lived about 20 minutes from me, so we decided: Hey. Why not just meet up and record in person?
What could possibly go wrong?
I could. I could go wrong.
And I did.
This was only the second time in my life that I'd met up with a fellow author to hang out and chat, so, of course, I was super nervous. This was where things first started to go wrong. See, the more nervous I am, the more awkward I get.
We'd agreed to meet at a local library. Knowing that my facial recognition software is terrible, I went out of my way to visit the author's website a few times to look at her profile picture. Surely, I would be able to recognize her if I did that.
But no.
I walked up to the library and there was a very sweet-looking lady sitting outside. I made eye-contact, nodded at her politely, and walked. right. past. her. I was so nervous that my brain was too jumbled to recognize her as the person I was there to meet.
I got into the building and the author was nowhere in sight. The sweet-looking woman from outside walked up behind me and introduced herself. I introduced myself and we found a place to sit.
And I said nothing. Nothing. Nothing about our weird eye-contact-head-nod, nothing about me not recognizing her, nothing about how nervous I was. And that would have been the polite thing to do, right? Because, from her point of view, I had nodded at her and, for some weird reason, had walked past her. Almost as if I expected her to trail into the building behind me like some sad, stray puppy.
But I was too flustered to acknowledge my error and the further and further we got into the meeting, the weirder and weirder it became for me to awkwardly say, "Heyyyyy. So, remember that time I just walked right past you? Sorry about that!"
So I said nothing. Which was so, so absurd because this author is a really cool person. She would have 100% understood and been chill with my awkwardness.
*sigh* This author's name is Sally J. Pla. Yep. Our meeting was incredible and we recorded a great podcast on writing neurodivergent characters.
I drove home afterward feeling super excited about the meeting, and also so, so, so awkward.
Ever since then I've been ultra paranoid about accidentally dissing fellow authors by not recognizing them. I have yet to find a way to correct this issue, but I did learn one valuable lesson:
Whenever I don't recognize a person, I can simply laugh and explain why. There's no need to be weird about it.
Shout-out to Sally J. Pla for reading this part of my blog post before publishing. It was the first time we'd discussed my weird behavior. We had a good laugh about it, and she made me feel a lot better about myself. As she says: We're all human.
Deer in the Spotlight
One of the perks to being an author in this modern age is that I rarely find myself in the spotlight. I get to hide my awkwardness behind a computer screen and, when I do have attention focused on me, the internet allows me to have time to formulate coherent, non-awkward responses.
But that changed the day I met up with fellow writer Elza Kinde. Herself and her mom run a local writing group, so one day I decided to attend the group so I could meet Elza. I'd followed her online for a while and I thought she was the epitome of cool, so I was excited. And nervous. Because, y'know...my track record when it came to gracefully meeting fellow writers wasn't all that great.
But here's the thing I hadn't anticipated: Elza really, really likes my writing. Like, a lot.
Now, I know people online enjoy my writing. That's awesome. It makes me super happy. But I'd never actually met somebody in-person who enjoys my work (aside from family and friends), so I wasn't prepared.
Prepared for what, you ask?
The spotlight.
I showed up to meet Elza and, thankfully, I had no issue recognizing her (thank you, Elza, for always wearing cool head wraps). I was really proud of myself for not fumbling our initial meeting.
But then something unexpected happened.
Elza started introducing me to her friends as "an awesome author." She gushed about my writing, and my mind just kind of....
Exploded.
I had no idea how to respond. Was I supposed to smile, nod, and say, "Yeah, I am an awesome author. Kneel before me."
Or was I supposed to say, "No, I'm not all that great. My stuff sucks, actually. You should read Twilight instead." Neither of those things seemed quite right.
I started over-analyzing everything: Should I give people my business card after she pitched about my stuff? Do I wait for them to ask? Do I try to shift the conversation away from myself? Towards myself? Am I even a good enough author to deserve this praise? What am I even doing and oh my gosh why am I so weird about these things???
Overwhelmed, my brain went back and forth on what to do. Part of me wanted to hug Elza for being so supportive and cool. The other part of me wanted to hug Elza, then flee in terror.
I don't remember exactly how I handled it. It's all kind of a blur now, honestly. I'm pretty sure I just stood awkwardly, smiled a lot, and turned as red as Bob the Tomato.
But that was absurd, wasn't it? After all, why should I get awkward over somebody else gushing over my writing? That is way less uncomfortable than me having to pitch my own work (which I'm super bad at, btw). After a while, I started to calm down. I saw how cool it was to have a fellow writer friend who was willing and able to lift me up and support my work. Rather than feeling awkward, I settled into just be myself instead of some weird author-in-the-headlights dork.
I left our meet-up feeling slightly cringe-y towards myself, super appreciated of Elza, and inspired to go out and be that same type of supportive to other writers.
Many thanks to Elza Kinde for being cool with me posting this. It's worth noting that we are friends to this day and often bond over being awkward souls.
You'll notice that this blog post is titled "Part 1." That's right. I have several more stories about my adventures as an awkward author. Besides, I think we all know that I'll never run out of semi-embarrassing tales to recount. As much as I'd like to think that I'll get better at being a functioning human, I know that I'll always be awkward at heart. But that's okay. It keeps life interesting.
Have your own awkward writer stories to tell? Let's hear 'em! Bonus points if you want to be extra and write an entire blog post series about them.
Related articles:
There aren't really any, sooooo. Here's some on how to network:
Great Social Media Networks for Writers (And How to Use Them)11 Tips for Building a Successful Writer's Platform
Enjoy this post? Take a look around. If you like what you see, please don't forget to subscribe by email for a new post every Friday!
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