Public Speaking

So, I say it all the time. I'm going to be famous. I'm going to be famous.

I'm going to be both an author and a mobile app developer. Actually, I imagine what will make me famous is my book. Yes, it will be lost on a lot of people, but there will be a small group of  people who really "gets" it, and likes it. This is what I imagine.

But what do you do when you are famous? If you are a famous singer, or musician, you do shows where you play music, sing and/or dance. I'm not going to be a famous musician. I will be a famous mentally ill author. So what do those people do? They talk. They give speeches in front of people. Public speaking.

I went to a couple Toastmaster meetings awhile ago. The problem I had with it was that it was too business-like. Like, oriented towards speaking in a corporate or business setting. I want to talk about mental illness. I would not feel comfortable talking at Toastmasters about my mental illness.

But then there's NAMI. If I could give speeches there, it would be okay. What I would do is, step one, write a really good speech. Step two, practice it. Step three, give it in front of people. Then, I could go around giving my speech, and then make a Youtube video of me giving my speech.

What would my speech topic be? So I was thinking my speech would be about how to talk to delusional people. Now, I have experience being both the delusional person, and the one talking to the delusional person. So I would first do some research about it, what experts say, and then incorporate in my own experiences.

So this could give me practice with public speaking.

I'd like to spend time making connections with people. I'd also like to spend time getting more experience with these matters. Like, talking to people who are out of it or delusional. I don't know how I would do this. I was thinking of volunteering with NAMI. The thing is I would want to work specifically with people who were out of it.

Leaving Your Comfort Zone Despite Crippling Anxiety

So I'm wondering why I decided to continue on to intermediate acting. Actually, I know why I decided to. It wasn't because I plan on making any sort of career out of acting. I know that I am fooling myself if I thought I could be good enough to make it like that. The reason I took the class was to get myself out of my comfort zone. It sounded like a good idea about three months before classes started.

We were assigned an assignment which involved us doing something in front of the class that we only did alone and makes us slightly uncomfortable. The trouble with this particular assignment is, it doesn't matter what the hell I'm doing, if I am in front of the class alone then I am uncomfortable. On top of that, we are supposed to make ourselves vulnerable in some emotional way through what we are doing.

So I decided to do something in front of the mirror. I kind of planned it out but didn't practice. I realized as I was preparing to do this in front of the class that there was no way in hell I was going to be able to do this. So I pretended to look in the mirror, which was actually the audience, and then I sighed and then put on some makeup. I was thinking that maybe I was pretending to think I was ugly or something, like this was a moment where I was insecure about my looks. I thought that might be an okay thing to do. Trouble is, I just got so damn nervous, I thought I was going to have a repeat of the near-faint I had during my speech last spring. I was shaking and I thought it might be visible. In the middle of the performance I suddenly said I was done. For some reason I think that maybe my shaking wasn't as obvious as I thought it was, but I don't know. The teacher seemed kind of surprised and said ok that was short but ok. Anyway.

So I felt like I failed. And now I'm wondering how I am going to pursue my destiny when I get so nervous in front of people. Like, how am I going to be a public figure. Because I am going to be a public figure.

I'm having trouble getting people to appreciate the parts of my book that I want them to appreciate. So, I rewrite it. It almost seems like a lost cause sometimes, but I persist because I know that it has something that if I succeed at making other people see it will be a big deal. Trouble is that I take for granted that I understand it so well, that it is not obvious to me what parts people might not understand, so I don't necessarily explain those parts.

One of the psychics at the holistic fair said it would happen, and that I would be a speaker at places bigger than that place, meaning bigger than the holistic fair. She told me something else that I think is going to happen, but that's something secret. She was also the one that advised me to meet literary agents in person. That was good advice, despite the fact that I have only heard back from one of them, and that was a no. But I didn't have high expectations for that particular literary agent.

Anyway, so for now I just have to deal with the horrible crippling anxiety.