On Conquering Anxiety

Somehow, the book-signing has evolved into a right of passage for authors.  Frankly, I’d rather have a tooth pulled than talk about myself, hawk my books, or in any other way draw attention to myself.  When I first landed the contract for The Lady of Bolton Hill, I assumed I would be one of those writers who quietly published her books without telling friends, co-workers, or neighbors.  I simply dread the attention or the perception that I might be trying to foist my books on them.  Revealing myself online is easy for me, but in real life? 

Anxiety is a strange thing.  The logical portion of my brain, normally so dominate in my life, collapses in the face of mild provocations like meeting someone new or attending a book signing.  I can marshal a dozen perfectly logical reasons to quell the anxiety, but I’ve been living with this long enough to know that these techniques will be useless in the face of a social interaction. 

So along comes an opportunity to participate in a book signing at a nearby LifeWay Christian Store.  My instinctive reaction was to run and hide.  I know that unless you are a superstar (hello, Tim Tebow, Nora Roberts, Ken Follett), the likelihood of sitting alone at a table while listening to crickets chirp in the background is pretty high.  Still, LifeWay has been generous in helping me promote my debut novel, and I simply could not repay that sort of kindness by letting anxiety get the better of me and refusing to come.

How fortunate I was to have two other seasoned authors sitting at the table with me.  Mark Mynheir is a homicide detective who writes suspense novels, and Dan Walsh is a pastor and author of historical novels.  Not only were these guys terrific company who helped show me the ropes, they both had plenty of experience in dealing with the public and book signings.  There was also a lovely young lady named Rebekah who did a wonderful job as a greeter for the event.

As is often the case with these irrational anxieties, within about five minutes of entering the store I was perfectly fine.  I have learned the only thing that works to defeat an attack of The Nerves is to meet it head on in a frontal assault.  I am always fine once I get to an event (a party, business meeting, etc.) but the run-up is awful.

So my first book signing turned out to be a thrilling event.  I moved a respectable number of books, met some terrific fellow-authors, and felt much better about not letting my amorphous anxieties get the better of me.

Still… to this day not a single one of my neighbors or co-workers know that I’ve written a novel, nor are they likely to in the near future.  I suppose I need to take this sort of thing one day at a time!