Guest Post: Author Rob White On Faking It ‘Till You Make It.

I’m an introvert. If you’re a writer – or any kind of artist, really – I bet you dollars to donuts you’re an introvert too, or at least have some ingrained introvert tendencies. Can’t speak for everyone but growing up I found my mental and creative stimulation through fantasy rather than through social interaction. I was the kid swinging the wooden sword in the woods at invisible goblins. I was the kid drawing monsters in the back of class instead of passing notes to cute girls. I was also the kid who had more than one epic fantasy tale mapped out in my brain before the age of 18. As an adult who allowed himself to believe that he could be a “real writer” (I’m one of those guys who says that being a real writer is about intention rather than measurable results) I finally began to share those fantasies with the world. If another lonely kid can gain the same thrill from my stories as I gained from Tolkien or Stephen King or Final Fantasy then I’d say all these hours in front of a keyboard or notepad covered in chicken scratch have been worth it.

Buuuut - and it’s a big but and I cannot lie – being a writer who releases his/her work to the public means that an introvert suddenly has to develop skills usually associated with that mysterious and alien race known as extroverts. We have to smile and greet passersby in hopes that they’ll buy our book (and therefore buy us lunch). We have to say hey, hi and how are you to dozens of names and faces online and in bookstores in hopes that they’ll carry or review our book. And if we’re really bold and really lucky – or persistent – we’ll get to sit at a table in front of a microphone and tell prospective authors about our experiences and how to get ahead in the business.

If you can’t guess, that’s what I’ll be doing soon as a panelist at Timegate, a Doctor Who and Stargate convention held in Atlanta in May.

I am horrified at the idea of not only being on stage in front of who knows how many people, but being up there in a position of supposed authority about a subject many of my audience members may actually be more experienced than myself at. I could look like a phony. I could look like a fraud. I probably will look like an idiot.

Yet I’m going to do it anyway. Why? Because I’m learning in this tricky, sticky business of being an artist that the only way to get up there, over there, out there and beyond is to carry yourself as if you’re already there. One year at DragonCon I decided to cosplay as the successful writer I wanted to be. I felt damn good that day. Better than the day I wore a Space Cowboy outfit. Better than the day I dressed as the protagonist of ThePull  and got mistaken for Snake Eyes. Better than the time someone thought I was Neil Gaiman. In a way, I’ve been wearing that costume ever since.

So my plan for Timegate is this: load up on caffeine, climb up on that stage and sit down at that table and be my own wise-ass self. The self who makes jokes to empty rooms while he writes alone in his office. The self who yells at the screen when Carl walks backwards away from a zombie and then falls on his ass on The Walking Dead. The self who posts ridiculous non-sequiters on Facebook and then comments on his own post. You know, that guy.

I hope I’ll be entertaining. I hope I won’t appear like I’m talking out of my ass. I’ll either be funny or I’ll be the quiet guy on the panel who says one helpful thing and then lets the experts talk. Or – worst case scenario – I’ll be the guy who says something inaccurate about Season 7 Episode 4 of Doctor Who and gets lynched by a mob of angry Whovians. This is the risk we take in putting ourselves out there, be we introvert or extrovert; and let’s be honest, it’s the extroverts who more often end up with their feet planted firmly in their mouth.

So I’ll fake it and believe that I’ll make it until one day – just maybe – I won’t be faking anymore. With each risk I take, public reading I participate in, story I submit and festival I sell books at I find that I’m faking it just a little bit less. One day, perhaps that guy you see at DragonCon will not be a wanna-be-writer in the costume of a real one, but will in fact just be me.

Maybe it already is.

Rob White is a novelist, a comic book author and a professional dreamer. He makes his home in Athens, Georgia where he revels in the chaos and magic of living in a town full of artists. He is the author of the Pull Series  and a local writing hero as he inspires and assists members of the Athens Writers Association to follow their writing and publication dreams.

You can find Rob on twitter: @robwhitethepull 
on The Pull's Facebook page 
and on his website: followthepull.com

Both book one and book two of The Pull series are on amazon.com: 
The Pull - Book One 
and 
Home is Where the Monsters Are