Posting on SeumasGallacher.com

Guest blog on Seumas Gallacher’s famous blogging emporium.

Yesterday, my good friend and fellow author, Seumas Gallagher (blame Apple autocorrect! ) Gallacher, had me as a guest on his blog. So my two readers don’t miss out on the fun, I am reposting it here.

…Glen R. Stansfield shows how Authors often don’t ‘see themselves as others see them’…

…one of my Author ‘besties’ here in the Middle East is actually a terrific hat with a writer underneath it… Glen R. Stansfield, the man who drove on a motorbike more than 200 miles in the early hours to join a ‘croissants and coffee with author friends’ morning with me in Manchester recently, and he lives just down the road from me in Bahrain…go figure… who says scribblers aren’t part-crazy?… here’s an insightful offering in the form of his Guest Post… enjoy…

As a child I was quite shy. In the sixth-form at school I shunned thecommon room because there were people there I didn’t know, and girls…especially girls. Even after leaving school I retained this shyness, despite being the lead singer and playing lead guitar in a band. When did you last see a lead anybody try to keep out of the limelight on a stage? (Actually we had electric lights…I’m not that old!)

So, you can imagine that group events and parties were not my thing, and I have to confess that parties still don’t really do it for me, especially as I don’t dance (there are parts of me that don’t stop moving for several minutes if I’m too energetic.)

Not until my mid-thirties did I start to come out of my shell, and even then there was still a part of me that was reserved, especially when meeting new people or in unfamiliar situations.

It was while studying for a degree in Psychology I discovered something that came as a bit of a shock. As part of a class experiment, we completed a questionnaire to determine where we were on the Eysenck introvert-extrovert scale. The results were collected anonymously and the range of results were given to the class. This shy, retiring person scored 19 out of 21 on the extroversion scale, the highest score in the class. Yes, it appears I am a stark, raving extrovert. The biggest shock was that everyone in my group knew that was my score! I, on the other hand, remained unconvinced.

Then a few years ago I started this writing malarkey. My first outing as a writer was to attend a writers’ gathering in Wigtown, Scotland, near to where my home is in the UK. At that stage I hadn’t published anything, and was only part-way into my first novel, Fishing for Stones. I must confess, I felt to be something of a fraud amongst published authors, and slightly uncomfortable in their company and that of other aspiring writers.

Fast forward to Bahrain, where two years ago I went to the Bahrain Writers’ Circle for the first time, to hear a certain Mr Seumas Gallacher give a talk on being a writer and selling books. Ihad such a warm welcome from fellow and would-be authors, I joined straight away.

Since then, I have launched my second novel, Harry, attended the book launches of other members of the BWC, held a joint signing with Seumas at a local book store, and shared a stall with him recently at a craft fair, where we sold a good number of books in yet another joint signing session. Online, I am a member of several groups run by fellow authors.

So whether you hide under a rock every day to do your writing, or sit in the window of a local store, tapping away at the keys, don’t be afraid to be involved with other writers; they are amongst some of the most supportive people on the planet.

Fellow authors, you rock!

http://www.glen-r-stansfield.com

…thanks, that man, Glen… see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!…

ALL MY BLOG POSTS ARE FREE TO SHARE OR RE-BLOG SHOULD YOU SO WISH—BE MY GUEST!