The Writer and the Green-Eyed Monster, Squashed

So I promised A. I would write this post, sort of. That is, I mentioned in passing in an email that I definitely was going to blog about this.

So...there was this local author that spoke at the library yesterday. She's from the area and has written a young adult book that is getting a lot of buzz nationally and even internationally. Tempest by Julie Cross. I knew nothing about it before this speaking event. I did look up the premise and felt a little "eh, whatever" about it. I'm not really into time travel novels. They tend to confuse me and leave me disoriented and unsettled.

But that wasn't why I initially didn't want to go to this event.

My first reaction upon looking at the picture of this author that was in our library was a mean snark that she is pretty, but the picture looked totally pretentious and posed, as I'm sure it's supposed to. Like she's supposed to look sort of mysterious. It made me cringe inside. Anyway, that's not her fault. That's what the publishers probably do as part of promotional thingies.

But on top of that, author talks make me cringe because of an embarrassment squick. It's like all I can think about is how they can go dreadfully wrong. Like the author will start spewing stupid stuff or nobody will be interested or ask her questions or there will be hostile questions. I would die of embarrassment for an author if I were in the audience and that happened.

And then there was the other part of my feelings about this -- the secret, ugly part. Not so secret anymore. When hearing about this young, newly successful author who was sort of writing in my genre, I had to swallow a whole lot of bile and jealousy. Yes, that old fashioned, ugly, vile jealousy. She's young, she's local, and she's done what I can't seem to get going on in my life. She has achieved my dream, my longing, and she's here, right in the same town, not some glitzy New Yorker or L.A. hotshot.

HOWEVER, in alignment with one of my happiness project resolutions this year, I began to be super hyper aware of the thoughts in my headspace and worked on "reframing" the thoughts. I decided that to counter these thoughts, I actually needed to go to this event with an open mind, ready to learn from this person. I needed to go with genuine admiration for this person who has done what I have not been able to do yet and most importantly, I needed to go with the prevalent thought that her success does NOT equal my failure and that there is room for more, should I actually f***ing finish something.

This also goes along with another resolution of mine this year and that's to say yes to things that I would normally just automatically turn down or be too lazy to attend, especially local events.

So I went, I conquered, and it was good. I know most of you probably will think this is absolutely ridiculous, but I was nervous. I was waiting for A. and a friend of hers, and I was just nervous. I didn't get to sit with them because they had registered and I had not. I wasn't even sure I would get in because it was a popular event, but at the end they let people in when they determined who wasn't showing up on the registered list. I sat next to a very nice woman who keeps a book-reading blog, which I need to look up.

Anyway, I was still nervous. Why, you might ask? I was afraid of my thoughts! I was afraid that those jealous, resentful, knee-jerk reactionary emotions of shame that I, too, was not yet successful would return and make me ugly inside. I just took deep breaths and reminded myself of many truths, not the least of which that no matter what, there is something to learn from everyone. Anyway, the author had a young man do some reading from the book, and unfortunately the one scene that I did not want to be read was read (there was a home invasion murder toward the beginning that sets the rest of the plot in motion and those types of scenes are personally very triggery to me). But then it was over, I survived it, and the rest of the time was left for questions. I began to relax and enjoy. I took a lot of notes. Mostly I was looking for time management/motivation vibes from the author, haha. Quote from her, "I watched no television, had very little sleep, and had a lot of caffeine." Yep. Also her agent was there. Man, I always pictured literary agents as older/crusty/cynical people with rough New York accents, lol, but this woman was very young and pretty and sweet (she spoke a little, too, about the process of becoming a literary agent, which I found fascinating).

The weirdest thing that happened was that about, say 50 minutes into it (out of the hour time), a person at the back raised her hand and said in a tiny, sort of muffled voice, "I came in late. Do you think you could summarize everything you said up until now?" Everyone in the room was like HUH? and some people giggled nervously. The author was quite gracious and just babbled a bit. That seemed to satisfy the asker.

In conclusion, I'm glad I went. I did something I'd never done before and I'm glad. Another notch in the saying yes to something I normally would have turned down...AND I was able to conquer a major source of insecurity in my life. I shall start going to more of those, I think! :)