All You Have to Fear is Fear Itself

Yesterday, I was corresponding with a friend looking for information on how to do a public reading in front of a live audience. I’ve never done a reading in front of an audience but on November 2^nd, I will be doing just that.  The Prana Café and Teahouse in Toronto is going to host my very first public reading. I’ve been doing readings on the radio but those were a little different. Doing a reading in front of a group of people I don’t know is somewhat intimidating.

 My friend congratulated me on doing this, saying that most people wouldn’t do something that scared them. When I first became published, I made a decision to say yes to any promotional opportunities that came along and, with one exception, I’ve done exactly that. Even though every time I’ve done one of these promo opportunities it has scared me to death.  

The problem is these days that writers are expected to have a number of personalities. One is the writing personality who is an introvert. Writing is not something that I can do with somebody else.  All of it comes from somewhere within and I dump it out into the computer. The other personality is the one that’s supposed to know how to deal with people, how to do readings and how to look confident and comfortable doing everything. It’s a dichotomy, and it’s one that every published writer these days has to deal with.

It’s not just in writing where this expectation has happened. I’ve been in information technology for many years. I started off as a computer programmer and I’ve done just about every job in information technology. It used to be, as a programmer, that you could hide in your cubicle and nobody bothered you as long as you were doing your job. Now, technical people are expected to have excellent soft skills as well. Companies want their technical people to not only be technically proficient but be able to relate to other people. There are places for pure technical people but, more and more, technical people are expected to be more than just technical. They are expected to be socially well adjusted and not scratch or adjust their privates in public.  Most women don’t do this but some men still haven’t caught this part of social etiquette. But aside from the very obvious like this, social skills are vital.

I have never considered myself an outgoing person. But since being published and doing signings, doing interviews and doing all the external things related to writing, I’ve learned how to be more comfortable in social settings. I’ve learned how to reach out to people to a certain extent. I’ve learned how to be more outgoing and confident in myself. I attribute that to directly to the peripheral writing activities.

The thing is with fear, unless there is a very real possibility of being physically hurt, it’s all in your head. People will say they can’t do something whether that’s public speaking or traveling by themselves or meeting new people or any number of things. But what they are actually saying is that they don’t have the guts to try, that they won’t do certain things because they’re afraid.

I think with fear you have to break it down. Some of the questions I ask myself when something scares me are:

1)    Am I going to be physically hurt?

2)    How realistic are my fears? I mean, are people going to throw rotten fruit at me at this reading? Are people going to start laughing at me? Are they going to be unkind, are they going to hate me? Am I going to lose my voice suddenly? (At the first public speaking event I did a number of years ago, I actually did lose my voice because I was so nervous. Perhaps some people at this point would have thought, oh my God, that is the worst thing ever to happen and I’m never doing that again; my thinking was, okay, the worst happened, it will only get better from here. And it did).

When I look at things this way, I realize that very few things are actually going to harm me. In fact, doing these things will help me. I have what I call the “bubble theory of life”. My bubble theory of life is that life is like a big elastic balloon. If you’re not pushing on the balloon from the inside, breathing life into it, pretty soon your balloon turns into a straitjacket and you can’t do anything—you have allowed your fears to immobilize you. So, breathing air/activities into your balloon expands your boundaries.

I’m not talking about throwing yourself off a building or mountain climbing. I’m not talking about things that could possibly hurt me because quite honestly I have a fear of heights and I’m quite comfortable with that fear. J Now some people could turn around and say well your bubble theory of life says that you should be throwing yourself out of an airplane and they could be right, but I really don’t see any point in doing that. It doesn’t help me. So it’s not a priority for me. 

What is a priority for me is anything that will help me in my day-to-day life. I try to be pragmatic about the things I do. Everything is for a purpose. If I need to do something to get to where I want to go, then I’ll do it.  I’m also not talking about the things that I have to do as opposed to the things I want to do. Having fun is just as pragmatic as being responsible. Everyone needs a balance for good mental health and an enjoyable life.

So instead of turning down opportunities and adventures because they scare you, give it a shot and just say yes. Yes, I will do that. Yes, I will go there. Yes, I will do that public reading. Because after all, you only get one shot at life and you might as well make the most of it.

I hope that I will see some of you at my first public reading of Pitch Dark. The Prana Café & Teahouse is located at 2130A Queen Street East, on the corner of Queen and Hammersmith in The Beaches in Toronto. The date is Tuesday, November 2, 2010, the time is 6:30pm - find a seat, schmooze and order one of their fabulous coffees.  The readings begin at 7:00pm.

Cheers!

All the Angry People, Where Do They All Come From?

It seems like the world is one big blob of pissed-off-ness. Walking down the streets, driving on the roads, malls, airports, churches. Everywhere I see people who are ANGRY for some reason. And do you know where all this anger is taking us? Nowhere. It’s a dead-end road.

I grew up in an angry, chaotic childhood. I traveled around an angry, chaotic world. I’ve been employed in angry, chaotic workplaces. I’ve lived in an angry, chaotic marriage. The one common element? Me. And the world at large.

Have you ever known a truly calm, peaceful, unflappable person? A person who doesn’t let anger creep into their lives, who lives life in harmony with themselves and others. I haven’t. Everyone seems to be living in his or her own personal hell.

There always seems to be a reason to be angry. Oh, he cut me off, the bastard. Oh, my boss is a jerk, the bastard. Oh, my workload is so unfair, those bastards. Oh, my life is hell and I am going to blame the whole world, you bastards. Oh, life is so hard for me while it’s so easy for everyone else, those bastards.

People walk around thinking everyone else is the enemy. The politicians, the economists, the terrorists, the intelligence agencies, the countries that populate the world. Anger is fear. Fear that someone else is going to hurt us or take something away from us. Fear that our circumstances will never change. Fear that we are alone in the world, without support and without love. They say that love makes the world go ‘round but that seems unrealistic. It seems that anger makes the world go ‘round. And that’s not a good thing.

Angry people make stupid choices. Angry people are so busy being self-righteous that they don’t see anything good in the world. They are crippled by unreasonableness. Everything and everyone is a target for their anger – why should anyone else be happy when I’m not? they ask themselves. Bitter, vindictive people go out of their way to spread their fear and paranoia.

Anger is like a contagious virus. I see it on the 401 Highway in Toronto, the busiest highway in North America. One person, apparently having a bad day, cuts off another motorist and flips him the bird. The second motorist responds by becoming angry and starts driving more aggressively, cutting other people off. Pretty soon, the 401 becomes an arena for gladiator road warriors. The 401 is crazy and so are most of the people who drive it. Because of this, I drive very defensively in Toronto – too many people having too many bad days, doing too many reckless things. I try to be aware of what is happening 100 meters behind, ahead and to the side of me (the 401 is 16 lanes wide – there’s a lot of space for aggression).

I turn on the news and everyone is angry. I go onto news websites and all the comments on all the stories are angry. I speak to people who seem ready to explode with anger – those ones scare me.

Anger is a natural emotion. Angry responses are each person’s choice. None of this but you did this wrong so I’m pissed off with you and I’m going to demonstrate how angry I am – I have no control over my emotions – you made me do it. No personal responsibility, no integrity whatsoever. Well, you may not have control over your emotions, but you do have control over what you do with your emotions. We all do, but rarely do we see people exercising control over themselves. They just erupt like Mount Vesuvius and rain their rage down on everyone within spitting range.

After I left my ex, I was angry. I was angry about how I let him treat me. I was angry with him. I was angry with me. I was angry that he took my piano out of spite (he didn’t play but he didn’t want me to have it because he was angry that I was leaving him). But anger doesn’t help me. Anger eats you up. Unfortunately, it doesn’t spit you out; it devours you until your whole existence is one of chaos and turmoil.

I have been learning how to let go of anger. It hasn’t been an easy process. I’ve had to cut some things out of my life such as news reports and negative, angry people. Driving in Toronto used to be a real problem anger-wise for me – so instead of reacting to the stupid things people do, I sing at the top of my lungs in the car and let it go. I don’t have to take on someone else’s anger. I’ve talked to people who are in my life, who will always be in my life, and explained how their anger affects me.

I am an emotional sponge, something I am working on not being. I suck up negative emotions around me very easily. So now, I work on controlling whom I come in contact with. Yes, I have de-friended a couple of people on Facebook, who only seemed to spew and stew with anger. I don’t need this garbage in my life.

I meditate. I try to concentrate on the positive instead of the negative. I don’t always succeed but at least I am aware of my shortcomings and I work on my issues to understand why I’m feeling what I’m feeling. Walking around angry without knowing why you feel like crap is no way to live a life. And your body knows this – anger causes stress hormones to flood your system and you become prone to all sorts of health problems.

I think many of us are angry because of the pace of life these days. Between jobs, family and friends, we’re loaded down with more than we can handle. I think at least a partial solution to this problem is to simplify one’s life as much as possible. No, your kids do not have to be in some sort of organized activity seven days a week, requiring you to be licensed as a taxi driver. No, you don’t have to do everything yourself – you can ask for and require help. No, you don’t have to be perfect. No, you don’t have to have everything your way. No, you don’t have to walk around angry.

Even simple things, like your physical environment, are important. If your physical environment is messy, then it affects you emotionally. Try to pare down what you have. What do you really need? What are the things that are just getting in your way and bogging you down? Make a distinction between wants and needs. Yes, I would like to buy that cute pair of shoes and a few hundred dollars worth of books, but do I NEED to? No. I don’t need another pair of shoes, I don’t need more books and I don’t need more STUFF that I forget about as soon as I buy it.

And I definitely don’t want to go to the mall where there is temptation to buy stuff everywhere. Have you ever noticed that people in malls have this glazed look in their eyes? You know. The “I must buy something or die” look. They gaze longingly through shop windows at some item they’ll wear or use twice and then never look at again. Mall people are especially bad at Christmas because they get aggressive. They wait until the last possible moment and then desperately run around angry and upset. This is why I don’t go into malls between November 15^th and January 15^th – those people are crazy.

At any rate, anger is yours to deal with. You can let it eat you up or you learn how to deal with it constructively. Your choice. I’ve made mine.

A Banner Day for Pitch Dark!

I am having a banner day today! Pitch Dark is now available on Amazon USA, Canada, UK, Germany / Austria and France AND the Barnes & Noble websites! Excited bouncing happening here!! Select the links below to take you to the website of your choice :) Discounts from the list price are available at some sites.

Barnes & Noble

Amazon USA

Amazon Canada

Amazon UK

Amazon Germany/Austria

Amazon France

WOW!!

Pitch Dark Released Today!!

Talk about un-freaking-real! I am in shock. My first novel has been released today online in e-book format by Cerridwen Press at http://www.jasminejade.com/pm-6985-543-pitch-dark.aspx. You can also click on the Pitch Dark cover to the right to navigate to the book on the publisher's site, with the blurb and excerpt. The book can also be located at http://www.CerridwenPress.com - just search for Brooke London and you will find the book. Obviously, I encourage everyone who has a computer and a minute of time to buy my novel ☺.

The blurb for Pitch Dark is:

Alyssa Tiernan must protect her grandfather’s cutting-edge, environmentally friendly oil sands extraction technology—and his life. Forced into dealing with her grandfather’s chosen partner, Connor Donnelly, a wildcard business mogul and ex-CIA spy, she knows she can’t trust him.

Connor resents that she has the final say on his multi-million dollar partnership. When someone tries to kill them both, they are thrust together and their mutual attraction sparks hot enough to heat the sheets to searing intensity, despite their mutual distrust.

Together they race between his headquarters in Colorado and the oil sands of Alberta to stay one step ahead of the terrorists who are determined to stop them at any cost.

It will take their combined cunning and courage to survive the explosive and treacherous covert world of espionage, betrayal, terrorists and spies. But even if they do, can they survive the secrets they are keeping from each other?

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You might be asking, what the heck is an e-book??? An e-book is a book that is in electronic format, meaning that a reader can download the book from the Internet, in a variety of formats (pdf, rtf etc) and read it on their computer, on their e-book reader (of which there are many, even iPods can be used for e-books), PDAs or print out the e-book onto paper if they so choose.

What are the advantages of e-books over traditional paper books? Well, for one, trees aren’t cut down in order to produce the paper used in traditional books. For another, the reader doesn’t need to drive or take the bus to a bookstore to get a book. There are no huge gas-guzzling trucks delivering the books to stores. The book is delivered directly to your computer. No wasted gas or additional pollution. E-books are also priced less expensively than paper books.

What are the ‘traditional’ views of e-books? Traditionally, the prevailing view was that e-books were of poorer quality than their paper cousins. This is no longer the case, especially with the e-publishing giant Ellora’s Cave Publishing Inc, or ECPI, which produces the imprints of Ellora’s Cave, Cerridwen Press (Yay - that's me!), Lotus Circle and Cerridwen Cotillion. ECPI is the largest e-publisher in the world and growing.

Traditional publishers turn down many very well-written books because publishers want a sure thing, especially in these difficult financial times. Traditional publishing costs and risks are so much greater than e-publishing just by the nature of the beast. The risks are so large that publishers lean towards big name authors and to authors who write in the most popular genres. E-publishers don’t have that issue as much. Yes, they hire editors and cover artists and they promote the books, but since they’re not printing actual books, they can afford to take risks on lesser known but equally talented authors who write excellent stories.

E-publishing is the democratization of publishing. Less expensive books. Equal quality writing. Deliverable to any computer on the planet in seconds. Fewer costs. Less pollution. Decreased use of natural resources.

Traditional publishers are also realizing the benefits of e-books and many are now offering e-books themselves. Traditional publishers are interested in a less costly production and distribution model and e-publishing is it. No need to worry about book returns of up to 70%. Book returns are those books originally purchased from the publisher by a bookstore or book chain which did not sell. The publishers then must refund the money the book buyers paid for the books. So authors of books may only be paid once a year, once book returns are known. With e-books, there are no book returns. The reader has bought the book. End of story. The authors are paid regularly based on their actual sales, not on projected sales.

There are many e-book readers available - I have one of them, the new Sony PRS700. The screen actually looks like a piece of paper. And you can store many books in one e-book reader: you can carry an entire personal library of books with you in a package the size, and just a touch heavier, of a paperback novel.

The publishing industry is going through a shakeout, one that is being accelerated by the global economic slowdown. Traditional publishers are looking for ways to decrease their costs without decreasing market share or quality. E-publishing seems to be the answer, the wave of the present and future.

So that’s an introduction to e-books. But what is the background story of my debut novel Pitch Dark? The question upon which the book is based: What would happen if terrorists took out the Saudi Arabia oil production machine? Where would the terrorists go next to ensure the world oil supply was minimal? The answer, surprisingly enough, is Canada.

I’ll give a backgrounder into the politics and economics of the world oil market. At this time, Saudi Arabia is the big dog on the block. Their daily oil surplus of approximately two million barrels of oil make it possible for them to step into the world oil market and stabilize it at any time. They have the world’s largest proven oil reserves. This doesn’t necessary mean that they actually have the largest oil reserves, just that they are verifiable as such.

The area of the world with the second largest proven oil reserves is in the province of Alberta, Canada. In reality, there is probably more oil in Alberta than in the entire Middle East.

The current issue with oil in Canada is that it is tied up in what are called the oil sands or tar sands, also known as pitch or bitumen. Oil is mixed together with sand or earth making separating the oil from the surrounding matter an intensive process. The process is also environmentally damaging. Hot water or steam is used to wash or extract the oil from the sand and the chemical-laden water left over from the process is placed in huge tailings ponds.

While it costs the Saudis under $2US per barrel to extract oil from their traditional oil reserves, it costs anywhere from $36US to $40US to get one barrel of oil from the oil sands. The costs are dropping as more research is being done. In recent months, we’ve all heard that Canadian oil is “dirty” because of the environmental damage caused by oil sands extraction techniques. In the lab, they have found a way to essentially eliminate the environmental problem. The new process will not use water to extract the oil, so fresh water won’t be utilized. They are field-testing this process now and oil extraction in the oil sands will no longer be an environmental problem in the near future.

The problem with getting oil from Saudi Arabia, in particular, is terrorism. The Saudi government pays terrorists not to attack Saudi oil production facilities. In effect, they fund terrorism throughout the world, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan etc so that their oil supply remains safe. So when anyone in the world buys gas (a by-product of oil processing) or oil from Saudi sources, they are in actuality paying for terrorism. Oh, what a tangled web we weave!

In the USA, dependence on Saudi oil has dropped in the past twenty to thirty years. I think, and my actual figures may be wrong, that originally Saudi oil products accounted for 25% of US domestic consumption. Now I believe that figure is around 8% of US domestic consumption. The US wants to insulate itself, rightly so, as much as possible from Middle Eastern oil, since the region is politically unstable at best.

This is where Canadian oil comes in. America has access to oil from an economically and politically stable neighbor. According to Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athabasca_oil_sands, “the Athabasca Oil Sands are now featured prominently in international trade talks, with energy rivals China and the United States negotiating with Canada for a bigger share of the oil sands' rapidly increasing output.”

So that’s the primer for my novel, Pitch Dark, and of the premise behind it. Yes, it is definitely a romance novel but I figure that reading should be entertaining and interesting. I’ve learned many things from romance novels and my aim was to have fun, be entertaining and be informative. Pitch Dark can be easily purchased in e-book format from Cerridwen Press. At your convenience, on your computer, today.

Good Reading!