Author: Miriam Drori

Author, editor, attempter of this thing called life. Social anxiety warrior. Re-Connections, a collection of short stories, published with Ocelot Press, 15/10/2025.

Blogging Books

Writers’ Blogs

I write.
My friends write.
They get published.
That’s wonderful.

I’ve been reading a lot of blogs by writers lately. It seems every writer has a blog. That’s not surprising. Writers want to publicise themselves and their work, and writers can write. So, it seems natural that they should blog.

What do they blog about? About writing and publishing, about authors and publishers, about writing competitions and other news in the writing world. And, of course, about themselves, what they’ve written and what they’ve had published.

They write well, of course, because they’re writers. Sometimes, they’re even humorous. And yet, I’m starting to get bored with these blogs, because of the one thing they leave out: personal struggles. Yes, I know, they write about their pets, their children, the places they live in. But they don’t write anything really personal. We readers can’t tell much about their characters. We don’t know about the hurdles they’ve overcome, or the way their personal lives influenced their writing.

And I wonder how honest they are. They treat their writer friends very well, praising them for their skill and their good fortune when they win competitions or have their books accepted by publishers. But do they really mean that? Aren’t they just a tiny bit jealous of other writers’ triumphs? According to Ann Lamont in her wonderfully humorous and informative guide Bird by Bird, they certainly could be:

Jealousy is such a direct attack on whatever measure of confidence you’ve been able to muster. But if you continue to write, you are probably going to have to deal with it, because some wonderful, dazzling successes are going to happen for some of the most awful, angry, undeserving writers you know – people who are, in other words, not you.

Not that I’m jealous. I haven’t got that far, yet. And I’m not criticising anyone else. I’m just wondering how all of this relates to me. This is what I’ve decided:

Writing involves innovating, pushing boundaries, being courageous. And I’m going to continue writing what I write, because, amongst other reasons, I don’t want to turn this into just another writer’s blog.

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Tags blog content, courage

Social anxiety

My teachers failed me

We learn throughout our lives, but most of our learning is done in childhood. In eighteen years, we’re supposed to advance from knowing absolutely nothing to knowing enough to manage on our own in this complicated world. What we need to learn isn’t just how to calculate the area of a triangle, or the difference between “its” and “it’s” [sorry – forget the second one: it’s apparently not important these days and probably not PC to even mention it].

We also have to learn how to get on with other people, how to communicate with them, because we’re all in this world together and we need each other to get anywhere. Besides, it’s pretty boring with only yourself for company.

Most children get sent to school to learn these things. This seems a good idea because, not only do you learn academic subjects, but you also have to interact with a lot of people. What happens if it goes wrong? – pear-shaped, I believe, is the current term.

I didn’t learn how to communicate with others at school. Instead, I learnt not to communicate, because anything I said could be remembered and used to bully me. And my teachers, who knew how to communicate and should have seen what was going on, didn’t think of communicating anything to me or finding anyone else to communicate with me. Reports complaining that I didn’t take enough part in lessons, and monologues after years of my non-communication telling me to change my attitude weren’t exactly the right approach.

Someone should have delved deeper and made me understand how I felt when I was teased or ostracised, or when my only friend suddenly vanished. But no one did.

I’d like to think that things have changed in all the years that have passed since I was at school. I’d like to think that teachers now care about the emotional well-being of their pupils and know how to handle problems. I fear that this is not true. That, just like then, they act when children are disruptive and fail to act when they’re not.

Tags communicating, school, teachers

Uncategorized

Feeling Lucky

Me and my backpack This post is going to be different from its predecessors. I’m going to ramble on and see where it takes me.

I’m back from a three-week trip that was interesting and mostly enjoyable. It was enjoyable because I met a lot of people and, despite all the difficulties, I like to be with people. It was interesting because I made it so. Because I asked questions and also partially opened the blinds to let others see into my world – the good parts and the bad parts. And it brought home something I discovered before: that most people have problems, and it’s only when you’re open about yours that you get to hear about theirs. So, opening up has at least two advantages. It lightens the burden on you, and it helps you to realise that you’re not as strange and different as you thought. You look for similarities, you share your own experiences. You feel better yourself and you hope that you’ve helped in some way.

This probably all sounds obvious to you. But it doesn’t to me, because I’ve spent too many years locked inside my walls with the blinds fastened. Opening up still feels unnatural and therefore difficult. But it’s worth it.

I’m feeling lucky. Lucky to have some wonderful, understanding friends. Lucky to have a lovely, loving family. And lucky to have won a book: Tania Hershman’s The White Road and Other Stories. I hope my luck continues. Maybe I’ll win a short story competition, or find a literary agent, or both….

Tags friends, luck, opening up

Social anxiety

Coming Out

I’m not gay, but I’m coming out. The process has taken about seven years so far and I still don’t feel comfortable saying, “I have social anxiety.”

“What’s that?” is the typical response. No one asks that about being gay. Once the statement is made, it’s understood. Gayness … gaiety… homosexuality has become an accepted state. Similarly, depression is mostly understood. No one has to ask what depression is.

So what is it with SA? Why don’t people know about it? The definition of SA provides the answer. SA is a fear of people and particularly of what those people think of the sufferer. People with SA tend to avoid talking to others and often avoid social contact altogether. So other people don’t know they exist, or they don’t know what they’re thinking, why they’re so quiet.

That’s why SA doesn’t get the recognition it needs – we need – to fight it, destroy it, prevent it from starting even.

Why has it been so hard to come out? Because I’m afraid of the response. Afraid of the thoughts, even if they’re not spoken. Afraid of being thought strange, weird. It goes against my unwritten, unplanned life policy: to pretend to be the same as everyone else. It’s an impossible quest. You can’t miss out on so many basics of growing up and still behave in the accepted way in every situation. And yet, I still try to do it. And I imagine that by keeping quiet I’m not “found out,” although I know that this is untrue.

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I’m going away and might not be able to post again this month. I’ll be back. In the meantime,

Tags avoidance, coming out, keeping quiet

Books

When did you know you wanted to write?

Post author By Miriam Drori
Post date Apr 20, 2009
4 Comments on When did you know you wanted to write?

Books Are Boring

“I’ve always been fascinated by books; always loved to read; always knew I wanted to be a writer.”

How many times have you heard that? How many times have you heard this from a writer:

“Most books bored me. I understood how to put language together, but I had nothing to say.”

The latter quote was true of my childhood and young adulthood. I’m only beginning to understand why: I took a long time to grow up. I wasn’t emotionally ready for the books considered suitable for my age. When children say they’re bored by books, it’s often because they’re not ready to read those books; not yet able to understand them.

If I’d been born two weeks later, I’d have been in the year below. Probably, I would have been better at English, at comprehension in other languages and at interacting socially with my peers.

Of course I had nothing to write about. I’ve had nothing to write about for most of my life. Because I didn’t understand myself. I think you have to understand yourself before you can write about anything. Do you agree?

It was only when I had something to write, when I knew that I wanted to tell the world about social anxiety, that I began to realise how enjoyable writing is. And so my desire to publicise a specific topic has grown into a need to express myself in the way I know best, and a wish to inform and give pleasure to others.

When did you know you wanted to write? Or haven’t you discovered that yet?

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Tags boring books, desire to write, late developer

Blogging

The Trouble with Blogs

World Viewing Blog

The trouble with blogs is that everyone can read them. I know that’s the whole point of writing a blog. Before I started this blog, I thought long and hard about the fact that I was exposing myself to the whole world – to anyone who might stumble across what I write and, even more daunting, to people I know. Although I know that this is what I want to do, I’m still frightened by the possible consequences.

During the past few days, I discovered another problem. Something happened between me and one other person. I wanted to write about it on my blog, because my reactions to it were partly what most people would consider “normal” and partly due to my lack of self-esteem. In fact, I wrote the article but decided not to post it, because that one person might have read it and might have been hurt by it, and I have no way of knowing.

So that’s all I can say. My lips are sealed.

Tune in again, keep in touch and don’t suffer in silence.

Tags Blogging, exposing yourself, offending others, self-esteem

Social anxiety

Hands Up Normals

Well? Are you normal? How do you rate yourself on the normalcy scale?

What did you say? There’s no such thing as “normal”?

Strange, that. Probably most people would say that. It’s the normal answer. And yet, most people have a pretty good idea of who is normal and who isn’t. Normal people dress in certain ways, act in certain ways, talk in certain ways.

Talk in certain ways. When I’m not sure whether I’ve made a faux pas, I only have to look at my listeners’ eyebrows to have my fears confirmed. When you’ve seen as many raised ones as I have, you know that the things you say are often socially abnormal. Or that the way that you say them is not acceptable amongst normal people.

That’s why it’s nice to meet others with similar problems. Suddenly, it becomes all right to hesitate, stumble or even to keep mum. You know that the other person understands. And in such company, your behaviour becomes normal.

The people I meet in my daily life don’t have these problems. And because I, like most people, don’t want to be the ugly duckling, I have always tried to pretend to be what they see as normal. Tried and failed.

Enough! Pretending means keeping quiet in order to hide deficiencies, and I want to talk. But the imagined necessity of pretending is ingrained and therefore hard to change.

From now on, I’m going to try. I shall keep my hands firmly down and try to announce, albeit hesitantly, that I’m not normal.

Tune in again, keep in touch and don’t suffer in silence.

Tags abnormal, normal, talking

Books

Frustration

I love my writing group. I love its members, each with their personal outlook on life (and on my writing), and our mentor, David, who brings a wealth of knowledge to each meeting. I love the relaxed, friendly atmosphere of the meetings. I love the structured format, which enables even me to express my opinions, fairly confident that they’ll be accepted. I love the fact that the members are not afraid to say whatever they think about my writing, even when their views are not so favourable – something that others have been afraid to do. And, of course, I love it when they praise my work.

This group has taught me so much about writing. It has given me the confidence to say, “I am a writer.” It gives me the impetus to write regularly. I look forward to our fortnightly (bi-weekly) meetings very much and enjoy them immensely.

So, when a meeting is cancelled at the last minute, as it was this week, because some of the members are less committed than I am, I feel frustrated. I know I’ll get over it – the group is not the only thing that happens in my life – but right now I am saddened by this fact. A little less so now that I’ve written it here. Commiserations will be greatfully accepted.

Tune in again, keep in touch and don’t suffer in silence.

Tags frustration, writing group