'Cuz I am whatever I say I am

I'm trying to get my groove back in anticipation of upcoming events. I updated my Twitter and Linked In accounts, linked my Facebook, Blogger and Twitter accounts so I can update from one to another with the click of a button, I've started talking about the book again...

It's overwhelming, making sure I've got all the social networking bases covered, but that's what I need to keep on top of in order to expand my platform. Yes. I said expand my platform, which implies that one already exists, because it does. In my mind.

In my mind, I'm published. In my mind, I have an audience of people who's lives I've touched and who've touched mine. In my mind, I answer every letter and e-mail I get from people all over the world who've read my book and connected with something I said. In my mind, my second book is close to publication.

Fantasy? Not exactly. It's the law of attraction. Whatever I give energy to is what I'm going to get more of.

The concept was first introduced to me when I was in rehab at the Walker Center in 2006. Being of extremely unsound mind and body at the time, I wrote it off as a lot of new-age bullshit. It's difficult to get your mind around new concepts when you can't even see straight.

But the seed was planted and as I stumbled through my first couple of years of recovery, I heard about it more. About two years ago, I started actively using the principles of the law of attraction - tentatively at first, and even still. It works. And it'll keep working as long as I keep working at it. Which is the direction I want to take with this blog. I have a lot of anecdotal evidence to share with you, and I have a strong feeling that there is more in the very near future.

We'll talk more...

Tell me more about me, baby

I heard from my editor last night.  After waiting months for her feedback on the final draft of the manuscript, I was looking forward to getting everything by the end of this week.  Last night, I received an e-mail from her.

". . . [an independent reader has]  been very enthusiastic about the memoir (as I expected)--I asked him to read at least the first fifty pages and more or all if he had time. He told me that he was completely captivated by the first fifty, couldn't put it down, and really wants to finish and comment all the way through. He's perhaps a little less than halfway through at this point. I'd like to take a look at his thoughts before sending everything on to you--I'm going to keep his feedback separate so you can see how someone unfamiliar with the story reacts, of course--but I do think it makes sense to have everything together and to read his feedback to see if there are any last things to consider.  I expected him to be this enthusiastic--you really did a great job with this revision, and have written some of the toughest scenes so well. . . ."

So I won't be hearing anything until next week, and that's fine. After all this time, what's another week, right?  The thing that's bothering me is how I'm reacting to what she said:  I feel numb.

If she had criticism for me, I'd take those words, and the ones between the lines, internalize, analyze and weave them into the fabric of self-loathing and doubt I've cloaked myself in my entire life.  It's that which is most familiar to us that's easiest.

When I read her e-mail, my knee-jerk reaction was, "Bullshit. You're not ready. Why not just say so instead of all the dick-stroking?"
Isn't that awful??  I don't know if it's the addict in me, or the writer or, more likely, both.  I'm terrible at accepting compliments. The reasons could fill a book. They have filled a book.  One of the biggest things I've had to work on in recovery is accepting compliments at face value rather than assuming that everyone has ulterior motives.

Every once in a while I have the audacity to think that I'll wake up one day and be "cured" of addiction and all the twisted, illogical thinking that goes along with it.  Maybe it's enough, some days, just to be able to wake up.

Helplessly hoping

Still waiting. STILL waiting. The book is with my editor after the third rewrite. I sent it to her in November. She says she'll be ready for me by the end of this week. This will be the final edit and then I'll send it back to my agent. And all this time I'm supposed to be "building my platform" - a darling phrase of the publishing industry meaning I'm supposed to be busy creating an audience for my book.

How do you create hoopla for something that doesn't exist? How am I supposed to get other people exited about something I'm not even sure is going to happen? It's hard enough keeping my own passion alive.

That's why I haven't been blogging. I'm starting to feel like a fraud. Like the person who's always talking about the great things they're going to do, but they never actually DO anything. Pretty soon, you quit listening.

Anyway, I've been doing this to pass the time.