I am by nature a hardwired introvert. In fact, I’m pretty sure I practice Extreme introvertion. I lived next to one neighbor for 5 years before I talked to her. She claims she tried multiple times to yell at me from her yard, and all I did was jump and run into the house.
I can’t deny that the episodes happened, but I don’t remember it. You see, I also have a tendency to retreat to the world I create inside my head and block out all but the most pressing actions around me. It was the challenge of bringing those worlds to life on the page that compells me to write.
But I digress.
Fully cognizant of my nature, I often force myself to step out of my comfort zone more. First, I decided to coordinate my chapter’s writing contest. Next, I began to inflitrate social media–I prefer facebook to Twitter, but I link my accounts so I can post on both. My latest project is to visit many blogs–this has the bonus of informing me, but I predominately do this to support my fellow writers, find out new things and hopefully add to my TBR pile. So when interview or guests blogs show up on the various lists belong to I try to stop by. This is not self promotion as I keep my comment about them, their books, writing or topic.
I am fairly comfortable doing all this things. It is when other people are involved in a face to face kind of way that I want to vomit or run screaming away. Usually at chapter meetings, I try to sit next to an unknown face and engage in conversation. Given my lack of practical social skills, this can degenerate into into an interogation:P, but I’m improving slowly with time and practice.
Alas, my improvement drive may have gotten me in a bit of hot water as for the Arizona Dreamin’ Romance Reader’s Conference I volunteered to not only host a table but give a intimate spiel to a group of 10 or so people on a rotating basis for an hour or so. Suffice it to say, I’ll be spending the next couple of days figuring out what I’m going too say.
Wish me luck!