As launch day for Social Anxiety Revealed draws close, activity surrounding the book is increasing.
My other half and I made this video:
And the blog tour has begun. So far there is only one post, but that is about to change!
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2 August, 2017 |
Book Review: The Mill River Recluse |
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To all my Facebook friends with a birthday in August (17 by my count!), I wish you a wonderful day of sweet and simple pleasure.
לכל חבריי בפייסבוק עם יום הולדת באוגוסט, אני מאחלת לכם יום נפלא של הנאה מתוקה ופשוטה. א
In my youth, my August birthday was a blessing and a curse.
I enjoyed the fact that I was always on holiday from school on this special day. I was free to spend the day enjoying myself, even if there weren’t many special things to do.
But that also meant that everyone else was on holiday and not around to celebrate with me. I was often away, too, on that day.
And, with a birthday at the end of August, I was always the youngest in the class – a fact that held great significance when we were young and was not advantageous.
Now, it’s all good. Summer, freedom, almost always sunshine. And the fact that I’m the youngest of all my old school friends doesn’t bother me one bit!
From this year, I’ll be sharing August with my baby: Social Anxiety Revealed, published on August 22, just three days before my birthday.
Many thanks to all those who offered suggestions for a slogan to accompany the launch of my new book: Social Anxiety Revealed.
I decided I wasn’t the best person to judge this contest. I think when you don’t live in a country where English is spoken, sometimes words don’t ring in quite the same way, and slogans are all about that tinkling in the ears.
So I chose a judge – Jean Davison. Jean probably caught social anxiety herself as a teenager, although she wasn’t diagnosed with it (unsurprisingly, as social anxiety wasn’t known in those days). Instead, she was diagnosed with something she didn’t have, as told in her memoir, The Dark Threads. Thank you, Jean.
The winner of the competition is Catherine Kullmann with the slogan:
We need to talk about Social Anxiety
Jean felt (and I agree) that this slogan gets the message across most clearly.
Congratulations, Catherine! I’ll be catapulting a signed copy of Neither Here Nor There over to you as soon as I know where to direct it.
Many thanks to all those who entered my slogan competition. The result will be announced shortly.
In the meantime, you’re invited to the online launch party for Social Anxiety Revealed on Facebook on August 22. All are welcome and you don’t have to bring anything – not even social anxiety!
There will be songs, videos, interesting information, competitions and guest appearances.
See you there in 37 days!
I need a slogan.
Update for clarification. The slogan is supposed to say: you need to know about social anxiety.
I tried using a free slogan maker. It asked for a word and I gave it social-anxiety. It came back with slogans – lots of them. Slogans like these:
I thought about these. For a second or two. Then I decided…
I still need a slogan. Something that says that social anxiety is the next big thing. That everyone needs to know about social anxiety. That you should be on the social anxiety bandwagon, because you don’t want to get left behind. That soon only ignorant people won’t know what social anxiety is. That sort of thing.
That’s the competition. The person who thinks up the best slogan will win a signed copy of my romance with a difference, Neither Here Nor There. If the winner has read that book, I’ll think of a different prize.
Where should you send your competition entries? Write them here in the comments or send them privately, if you prefer, using the Contact me button at the top. I’ll announce the winner here, unless they don’t want to be announced, and will use the winning slogan for marketing my forthcoming book: Social Anxiety Revealed.
I’m delighted to be able to reveal the cover of my non-fiction book, Social Anxiety Revealed, which is to be published by Crooked Cat Books on August 22.
Here’s the cover:
I’m very excited that this is going to happen, and in only 48 days!
In the meantime, if you want to read more about social anxiety, please visit my other (new) blog, which is here.
What’s in the book?
This post is inspired by this one, called: Top 5 Beliefs of Fearless Writers: How Would Your Writing Change If You Were Fearless?
This is how I need to think about my writing, especially with regard to the non-fiction book that’s going to be published soon: Social Anxiety Revealed.
BELIEF 1: ‘I know that the right people will embrace my work at the right time.’
Not everyone will agree with everything I say. That’s not a problem.
BELIEF 2: ‘It is OK for people to see the true me; the essence that helps others connect to my message, my story, my characters.’
You’re going to see a lot of me in this book. I’ll live with that.
BELIEF 3: ‘I love and accept all aspects of myself.’
Yep.
BELIEF 4: ‘I choose to be the best possible version of me in all that I do and know that I have something of value to share.’
Readers will gain from reading the book. That’s why I wrote it.
BELIEF 5: ‘Success is who I am.’
This book will go far.
Thank you, Trina J. Stacey. I should live my life by those beliefs, but that’s harder to accomplish.
Do you live by those beliefs, or at least write by them?
Following on from the news that my book, Social Anxiety Revealed will be published by Crooked Cat later this year, hence giving a big boost to my passion: raising awareness of social anxiety, I looked up quotes about passion and found these:
Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.
~Oprah Winfrey
If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.
~Benjamin Franklin
We must act out passion before we can feel it.
~Jean-Paul Sartre
It is obvious that we can no more explain a passion to a person who has never experienced it than we can explain light to the blind.
~T. S. Eliot
Nothing is as important as passion. No matter what you want to do with your life, be passionate.
~Jon Bon Jovi
I started posting one a day on Facebook. In fact I was ready to post the last one when tragedy struck in Manchester, UK, making me think again. Whatever you want to do, be passionate? I think the perpetrator of that horrendous crime was passionate, but he was passionate about the wrong thing. Considering the beliefs he held, I think it would have been better if he hadn’t been passionate about them.
So instead of posting that last quote, I wrote one of my own:
Your passion should stimulate you to help fellow humans – not harm them.
I added: “Over the last few days, I’ve been posting quotes about passion. This one is mine, inspired by Manchester and similar atrocities, perpetrated by people with the wrong sort of passion.”
If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you’ll know what I’m most passionate about:
RAISING AWARENESS OF SOCIAL ANXIETY
I’ve explained why it’s not better known, despite being very common, and why it should… must be better known.
Now I’m one big step further towards furthering that aim.
Crooked Cat is going to publish my book: Social Anxiety Revealed.
I say my book, and it is mine, but it also contains a lot of quotes by a lot of other people who know SA all too well. Without them, I couldn’t have written it.
Social Anxiety Revealed will be published later this year.
The excitement is only just beginning.
Fifteen years have passed since the day that changed my life. It seems like yesterday and it seems like a century ago. So much has happened since that day – good things, although there’s plenty more I hope for. And yet, I remember that day so well, and the months that followed.
To celebrate, I’m repeating my post from five years ago.
—o—
On 3rd March, 2002, I received an email. It began: “Hi, it’s Gill Balbes (as was) here. Was talking to Jane the other night and she was telling me about how she’d been in contact with you and that you remember me (as I do you) so I thought I’d say hello. Schooldays seem a long way off but it would be nice to hear how you’re doing.”
Schooldays certainly were a long way off. It was over thirty years since I’d walked out of the school gates, vowing never to have any connection with any of the girls I’d known over the previous seven years – a few even longer. It was only recently that I’d added my name to the Friends Reunited site, opening up the possibility of contact, although I didn’t expect anyone to write to me.
But Jane did write and I made a decision: that if I was going to correspond with anyone from school, I would make the relationship meaningful by being open about what happened to me there. If they didn’t want to discuss it, there wasn’t much point in reuniting.
Fortunately, Jane did agree to discuss it. She also apologised for what she did to me, although I didn’t hold her or any of the former pupils to blame as adults for their actions as children. I always knew the bullying (which I called teasing then) had had a bad effect on the rest of my life, but never thought the children were mature enough to understand what they were causing.
Jane soon put me in contact with Gill, who had more time to write. Gill and I corresponded almost daily for a long time, and she became a very special friend to me. It was Gill who told me about social anxiety. I didn’t realise the significance of it at first, but gradually two things became clear. I was not alone in being this way and it’s possible to improve. (I don’t think it makes sense to say there’s a cure, and I don’t think there needs to be one.)
Gill has been the catalyst for many changes in my life – for starting to write, for starting a blog, and much more. We have now met several times. After ten years, I still count Gill as a very special friend.
—o—
Actually, Gill and Jane are both very special friends. Do you have a friend story you want to share?
Miriam Drori, Author