Nakedness Disrobed

My friend Marian shared a horoscope (of mine) with me this week and it struck me it was awfully darned accurate. The link is gone, as a new one goes up each day, but the gist of it is I am a shameless attention whore and insecurity is the reason. I DID copy the punchline:

On the other hand, if you're attracting attention, even negative attention, maybe you're already winning. It depends on what you're trying to achieve. There's no bad publicity, in some worlds.

So I thought maybe it was time for one of those confessions I'm supposed to be doing around here.

It's true. I'm a shameless attention whore and insecurity is the reason. Lemme e'splain...

My Pre-Online Life

See... I'm shy and awkward, right? I mean I was in my mid-20s before I learned boys were people, so it is worse in mixed company, but I am PAINFULLY bad at small talk. Now with my close friends I was always pretty good at just being silly—silly broke the tension--helped me contribute, even if I had no clue what to say. And I think in late high school I realized that silly went over well with people I wasn't quite as close to, too.

Man, in college I WORKED IT. Because I had LEARNED SOMETHING. The risk of being laughed at is not NEARLY AS SCARY if you are doing something FUNNY. In fact... if you are doing something funny, they are SUPPOSED to laugh at you.

I mean sure, I still had yearnings to be dark and mysterious... sexy... desirable. But it really wasn't happening.

I grew to accept this as ME in my late 20s. I worked with a friend who was just as goofy and he and I used to bounce off each other until we were laughing so hard we were crying.... it was about the time I became a mom, too, so silliness and kids are a good pairing. Why NOT embrace it?

Yes, this is the kind of thing we observed...

Enter the Online Stuff

My first forays online were related to Harry Potter. In fact for a couple YEARS I was really only online in that capacity. The variety of people was big, and I made friends of all sorts, but the tightest friendships were those where a couple people could bounce off each other in sublime silliness—have it build, get the delightful surprises. By the time I was ready for Facebook in 2007, I had honed my ability with the quip. It just felt natural.

I am NOT the first naked writer

Enter my Writing Career

Such as it is... so I was being a goofball online with friends. No harm, no foul. Right? But what the heck was I supposed to do with a BLOG to promote a BOOK and the idea of me as a WRITER? (A public figure? Me? Eeek GADS—do you KNOW the skeletons I have in my closet?) Oh, sure, I'll be all professional, I thought... for about five minutes.

Because it came back to shy awkward me and how well I talk to people if I try to limit the range of the conversation... it stresses me out and shuts me down. Why NOT fall back on all that goofiness stuff?

I mean... who DOESN'T want to be naked all the time?

Because that way if I'm laughed at... at least that's what I was going for.

Erm... and when I looked for the image up there, I googled 'naked writer'... guess who ELSE is there... Me.  So it's working... I guess.


Speaking of... recent nudity success: I am doing NaNoWriMo and my buddy Tonja, in Friday comments, said, “Hey, I listed you as a NaNo buddy. I figured that was you if naked world domination was listed as a hobby. :)”

See—no risk of your friends not finding you if you are always completely yourself and different from pretty much everybody else... But if anybody ELSE doing NaNoWriMo wants to find me, I am hartjohnson. Three more days!