Thursday, August 27, 2009

Losing Control

Tip of the Day: Don't waste your time trying to make the people who work at the DMV laugh-- they're a tough crowd.

You may not know this about me but I'm a bit of a control freak. I don't like things to just happen to me that I didn't completely intend to happen. And with being an author and getting closer to my release date I'm learning that there are a lot of things that are just not in my control.

Like pictures. If you are an author, people are going to take pictures of you and they are going to post them online. And some of them might be really, really bad. You could look like a squashed up monkey. Now you wouldn't post a picture of yourself looking like a squashed up monkey of course but you can't stop others from doing so. Not that they do it intentionally-- I'm sure they think you look like an adorable little monkey. But still. They're out there. And it's not like you can find every picture of yourself and paste a label over it that says "Seriously, my head isn't this big. I think the picture got weirdly stretched." right?

Then there is youtube. You could be giving a chat or whatever and someone can film it and put it on youtube. And you wouldn't know. Until you find it that is. I made it on youtube this week (no, I'm not telling where!) and the person even told me there were filming for something. Didn't stop me from sounding like an idiot. Then I think well, maybe I came off as more of a sweet idiot. And I watch again. Nope, I sound like the babbling kind.

And of course there's your book. People don't know you and how long you worked on your book. They can say anything at all about it online-- even if they've never read it. A person wouldn't come up to you on the street and say, "man your kid is one ugly little bugger." But they might write that about your book.

Ahhhhhhhh!!!

See? Powerless. How do you guys suggest dealing with this losing control thing? My current coping mechanism is closing my eyes, sticking my fingers in my ears and saying lalalalalalalala.

Kristina, Miss Delighted to Debut

5 comments:

Alissa Grosso said...

Your approach sounds perfectly reasonable to me. On the bright side there are far worse things to look like that a squashed up little monkey.

Kate Fall said...

Tina, you crack me up. Keep reminding yourself that although your voice may sound to other people like it does on tape, you really don't look like your worst picture!

C. K. Kelly Martin said...

I think your current coping mechanism is pretty much the gold standard. At times, to keep it fresh, you could change things up by singing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang instead of lalalalalalala.

But seriously, yeah it's strange to think of losing control like that. I imagine that if you're doing a lot of public events over time you'll get used to it but in the meantime I guess just mostly think zen.

Lisa Schroeder said...

I think that's actually a really good thing to do!!

Kristina Springer said...

Thanks guys! :)