I'm Still Me

This is the thing I was leery of when I started self publishing my books- people not quite knowing how to treat me because suddenly I wasn't who they thought I was. Well, I am still the person they thought I was. I haven't changed. I was writing before (for a long, long time),but just not talking about it or sharing the fact, except with family and really close friends.

Nothing about me has changed.

Yet people don't quite seem to know what to say to me or how to act around me.

Honestly, I'm still me. I haven't changed any. If you were my friend before, you're still my friend today.

If you've just met me, then this is exactly who I am. I'm generally a quiet person. I listen to everything and seldom say much. I've always been an observer. I can be sitting in a room with you, listening to you talk, but my mind runs on multiple tracks so I am also observing your body language, your gestures, facial expressions and what you're wearing, filing all that away in a mental filing cabinet where I can pull out bits and pieces to create a fictional character using those descriptive tidbits I've gleaned. I'm also observing my surroundings for the same reason. I like to write realistic details, about places, rooms, settings where real people might find themselves. I'm also thinking about work, stuff I need to do at home, the next chapter I need to write, and I'm also watching the background people walking past the windows and doorways. It's not that I'm not paying attention to you, I am, but my brain works on many levels simultaneously.

And that's why it's difficult for me to unwind and relax at the end of the day. I have a complex brain that needs to be slowed down and derailed onto the siding called rest/sleep. Most nights I can accomplish this, but there are other nights there is just too much going on in my head and I have to get up and do something- write, distracted myself cleaning the dining room table off, or whatever until I'm tired enough to sleep.

But that's just me. The same old me I was before I started publishing the mountain of material I've written during all those years before you knew I was a writer.

I love my family. I love hanging out with my dearest friends. I like meeting new people (okay, don't be weirded out, but new people to me are like specimens I can study under a microscope because although we're all human beings, we all have a variety of characteristics and quirks, eccentricities and habits that make us rather unique and identifiable). I look for things I can flesh out a fictional character with to make that character more real, like someone the reader might know, or might know someone who shares that trait.

So, while I'm now an author, I was actually always an author. It's not something new except in the sense that now you know it when others have always known it. I've always been what I am.

Therefore, I just wanted to be treated like you always have, because I'm still me. It's just your perception of me has changed.

This must be one of those things like Murphy's Law.(The minute someone learns you do something they didn't know you did they suddenly look at you differently and don't know how to act around you.)

Hello!

It's just me.