Another kind of fear

Yesterday I wrote about my fear of having to make a lot of decisions, as one obstacle that stands in the way of my getting published. But there's another.

I am really afraid of putting myself out there.

(Stock photo about social anxiety)

I was reminded of this tonight because Jack and Jill are throwing a New Year's party. In fact it is still going on, even as I write this. At different times during the last week each of them had stopped me and asked if I were coming, so I figured I had to put in an appearance. I showed up, talked pleasantly to a few people, drank a few glasses of champagne, … and then, while everyone was engaged in a scavenger hunt that Jill had set up throughout the house, I snuck quietly out the door and came home. It's exactly the same story that I told you a year ago in this post here.

It embarrasses me to act like this. I didn't even tell Jack or Jill that I was leaving, and I'm ashamed that I didn't. But it felt better than staying. Now that I'm back in my apartment writing this to you, I feel way more comfortable and at ease than I did at the party. 

Of course there are plenty of people who succeed in publishing books even while they are poor at social interactions. In some ways that's a trope about writers. 

But I feel the same kind of fear about the job of getting myself published that I used to feel about the prospect of trying to make my career advance. I used to be combative and ambitious in my career, but sometime in the last decade all that ambition collapsed into rubble. I talk about it here and here, for example. 

I don't know if I have anything more to say about it. But it's clearly a factor. And it's one I have to face squarely before I will have any prayer of getting myself published.

Meanwhile I hope Jack and Jill's party is going well, and that everyone is having a good time. I wish I could make myself join them.

Happy New Year, everyone.