It’s Saturday morning, and I’ve got the whole day ahead of me to do nothing but write. A perfect opportunity to pound out a thousand or more words and make some real headway on that second novel. So why don’t I do it? Because I need to exercise, water the garden, hang with the critters, catch up on email, do some heavy duty online shopping, and eat something that I make from scratch because I tend to feel powerfully hungry when I’m distracting myself and I want to eat healthy…all before I can hunker down over the computer and do what I love. Really.

I love the feel of words as they spill out from my fingertips and onto the page…even when they don’t make sense or feel clunky. When I engage in other activities, I tell myself it’ll only take a few minutes. I’ll get to my writing soon, and suddenly hours whiz right past me. After which, I shuffle around with broken promises settling over my shoulders. I make myself incapacitated for no good reason. What to do?

I don’t sweat it anymore. I get through the morning, knowing that I will write. Just before noon, I take out my ball and chain made of industrial strength iron, secure one end to my ankle and the other to the table leg where my computer sits, and write. Usually the first attempts are feeble, but an hour or more later, it’s not so bad. Until gradually, a zombie invasion can’t pull me away (I keep a chainsaw nearby).

Even when I take breaks, the writing doesn’t stop. Physically, I can be seen washing dishes or walking with the dogs, but on the mental front, I’m with my characters, on a college campus, at a pig farm or wherever their adventures may lead me. I’ve accepted my inability to start writing as promptly as I’d like, but knowing how awful I feel when I don’t write at all is a mighty powerful elixir that forces me to glue my back end to the chair. Eventually anyway.

By now, you’ve heard that many authors tend to share a certain personality trait: introversion or shyness. Which doesn’t help when it comes to marketing and promotion of our books. In fact, it can prevent us from doing what we may end up enjoying immensely: meeting valued readers. The people for whom we wrote our books.

Shyness used to be my Achilles’ heel. Decades passed before I could muster up nerve to ask a question when in a public setting. On my third bookstore signing, a former colleague stopped by the store. We hadn’t seen each other in a long while. Her first question: “How can you do this?” “This” referred to the fact that I would appear before an audience and would have to do a fair amount of speaking. In fact, it was my first actual talk. And I admit (to you anyway), I was terrified. But I refused to admit it to her or anyone else. I reminded her that she’d not seen me in a while and a few things had changed. But had they?

Fortunately, I was on a panel with two other authors who knew what they were doing. I watched and listened and learned…fast. In fact, I learned at warp speed because I had to. By the end of our session, I felt like an old timer. So how to speed up the fear-shedding process? The crash course:

1. Remember why you’re there. You’ve published a book! It’s like climbing to the top of Mount Everest, discovering the Fountain of Youth, finding a cure for stage fright! Public speaking is one of the most common phobias. It’s not fun to be phobic.
2. Smile. Pasting a smile on one’s face does wonders for warming up one’s blood and diminishing a cold sweat. Every time I look out into the audience, I see people’s expressions change instantly when I’m smiling. They smile right back. It sure helps to look into a crowd of happy people.
3. Make it personal. Talk about your journey, your inspirations, your need to write. When it gets personal, the impact can be monumental. Most of the time, I have no memory of what I’ve said, but attendees come up to me later and thank me for being inspiring or entertaining or informative. Really?
4. Be grateful. Gratitude is the elixir that pumps calm through one’s bloodstream. I always pause and wonder, am I really here? I contemplate how grateful I am to have made it to the exact place where I wanted to be.

Until I hit the ripe, somewhat older age of…never mind the exact number, I seldom looked becoming in photos. In fact, “dreadful” summed up my physical appearance. I avoided photos for that reason. They were too revealing. A crooked upper lip, squinty eyes, or a lackluster expression would display inner frustrations and annoyances. My photos seemed to scream, “I’m not happy, but I’m not sure why.”

Then I started writing…seriously. I’ve always written something…essays, articles, interviews, letters, notes to self. But one burst of writing lingered and grew into a torrent of words. It was my first encounter with honest-to-goodness, story writing; the “I will not go quietly” type. The words ended up as my first published novel, which culminated a lifelong dream. The dream of accomplishing a feat that made me happy.

My facial expression started to shift to something more tolerable, and my aversion to being photographed diminished. I noticed that strangers who looked my way would smile. I wondered why…until I realized that I’d been smiling too. It became so that during bouts of frustration, I’d plaster on a smile, and soon, I’d feel a jigger of contentment that led to more of the same. All because I’d spent time toiling over (it wasn’t really toiling; it was more like creating or fashioning) something I loved. And the smile became a natural occurrence. This reminds me of a little story:

There once lived a king who was ill-mannered, bad tempered, and disliked by his subjects. This made the king lonely and bitter. He went to his wise counselor to ask how to change things. The counselor created a mask for the king to wear that looked exactly like the king’s face…wearing a smile. He told the king he needed to act pleasantly as well. The next time the king walked among his subjects, he was surprised that he was kindly greeted by all. After a time, the king became ashamed at the way he was deceiving his subjects and removed the mask. He walked among his people, saddened that their warm encounters had come to an end. But they didn’t end. The subjects continued to treat the king warmly; the same way as when he wore the mask. The king went to the sage who held a mirror to the king’s face. To his amazement, his eyes were bright and his expression radiant. The smile was still there. The sage told him this happy, smiling king is who he really is.

Inside all of us are the seeds of contentment. It’s vital that we find and stay on that path to happiness. And if we find that a challenge, “fake it ’til we make it.” Happiness depends to some extent upon external conditions, but chiefly upon mental attitudes. Fortunately, our attitudes are under our control…which makes happiness a choice.