Whew! Been a while since I posted. It's been over a year now since I've been saying that things are going to slow down and I'll be back on a regular schedule in a minute. Yet things keep getting busier and busier. So busy that I'm not meeting my own personal deadlines on my books, and well, you know that's gotta stop. So, I made up my mind, starting today, everything else comes secondary to finally finishing books three AND four, and, uh....making money. LOL

But guess what? I'm finally getting over it. I thought it would never happen, but I'm finally getting over my fear of public speaking!!! It was so cool. Yesterday, I was the Keynote Speaker at the 4th Annual Indianapolis Book Fest. I'd been knowing about this for months (which probably helped) so had time to mentally prepare myself for speaking. Usually, when I speak before an audience, I get that queasy feeling in my stomach, I'm a-sweatin' and my voice is a-trembling... LOL But this time, I really thought about it. I mean, what am I afraid of? The audience is my friend. :-) No but really, I thought about myself before I wrote my first book or being a reader. And when I went to events, I wanted to receive any information the author could give me. So, instead of looking at the speaking opportunity as me having to talk about myself or promoting my book, I looked at it as giving others information and sharing my experience with them so that they can know what they could possibly expect. WOW! It worked. I wasn't nervous because I felt like I was giving useful information in a casual way. Man! I could do that again! That was my best speaking experience thus far.

Don't get me wrong. My inner critic evaluated me and pointed out areas where I could improve, and, to me, that's okay. I just feel like I've gotten over a major hump in public speaking, and now I can move on to making a core speech and perfecting it! :-)

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