A search for perspective

As I alluded to in a recent post, I have made a massive change in my working life so that I can dedicate more time and energy to this merry writing life. Or rather, to the hard scary bits such as preparing for launches, getting reviews and the deeply awful self-promotion. Note that even when I typed that, "self-promotion" was whispered by my internal narrator, with a theatrical hunching of shoulders and sideways glance.

Over the weekend I made some rather fine (and long) lists of things to research, do, find and generally get my head around. Then I tackled some of the things that scared me, amongst which were contacting people regarding participating in the Alt Fiction convention and sending my details and a recording sample to Audible to be considered as a freelance audio-book narrator for them.

All good, I thought, I'm being brave and getting things done. Swelled with the joy of courage, I sent out a call on Twitter for any lovely book reviewers who review short story anthologies.

And in the best Twitter style, I was immediately connected with several people to approach when the time comes. Brilliant.

But then the panic set in. My vision tunnelled and I felt the familiar racing heart and sweaty forehead heralding a massive anxiety attack. And right at the centre of it was a singular thought:

People are going to review my work.

Well, duh! Of course that's going to happen. I'm being published, and that's part of the territory but oh! How scary and awful and downright terrifying it feels!

Living with the anxiety beast

So I tried to employ some techniques to deal with the panic. I remembered not to immediately get angry with myself for being afraid, and instead met it with compassion – something I learnt from being with my little man when he was afraid.

I tried to challenge the blind terror with some sensible, gentle thoughts, along the lines of:  "Lots of people have read your work and really loved it."

But it rapidly unravelled into: "Every author has to face this, and so many survive. Like… like… cancer. Oh no, wait a minute."

Then out of that whirling, muddy mess a thought surfaced, small at first, then expanding like a wonderful super-fast inflating survival dinghy, all yellow and sturdy and bobbing about in a welcoming fashion. The thought was:

"There are lots of things you used to worry about. This is just another one."

I scrabbled into the life raft and considered its message. Another list began to form.

Things I used to be really worried about / terrified of

Posting on this blog
Receiving a horrible comment (thankfully, that has never happened)
Anyone reading my work, at all. I'm talking about right back in the days when I was writing the very first draft of 20 Years Later and didn't even know what a blog was.
Analytics stats
Technorati rank (Yes, really, I did obsess about that for the first month!)
How many RTs my stuff gets on Twitter
Podcasting!

Then I realised there are some things that seem to freak other people out that have never bothered me, like how many people are following me on Twitter, and if someone unfollows. I have no idea when that happens to me as I never use the normal site, and so never see follower/following counts. (And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry. It's not that interesting in my opinion.)

So, bobbing about in my little rescue dinghy, I realised that the things I am very worried and frightened of right now, namely:

Book reviews (both seeking them out and what they'll say)
Arranging book blog tours
Arranging launch parties
Possibly attending Alt Fiction and maybe even being on a panel (if they'll have me)

…might one day float onto the other list. I might even look back and laugh, though I'm not promising anything right now.

The post about this blog's second birthday made that rescue dinghy float up at just the right time. Why am I writing about this? Well, I want to make sure my brain is fully registering it – and writing seems to get the message to parts of my brain that other beers mediums cannot reach.

The other reason is that I suspect other writers may fear this kind of stuff too, and hell, all of us are afraid of something and have had our little triumphs along the way. If only one person reads this and it soothes some fear, fantastic. There is a lot of room in this dinghy if you need to climb in too. And it has one of those ace little whistles that you can blow to get help.

So, my lovelies, I was wondering if you have an entry on your "things I used to be afraid of" list that you'd care to tell us about. I'm curious, and there's no TV or books in this dinghy…