I’ve had a headache all week. This has made writing my new novel challenging, but I was sick with a cold four of my five writing days last week, so I have made myself carry on in spite of the headache. Since drugs don’t usually work for me, I don’t bother taking them anymore. Instead, I try coffee (most painkillers for tension headaches are loaded with caffeine, so coffee gives me a fix without the other drugs). Usually it works, but this week it only sort of helped.

Generally, I only get headaches for two reasons. One is (look away male readers) hormones, and the other is me stressing over something stupid! I knew it wasn’t the first reason, so the quest for what is Joelle stressing over this week began. Which, of course, doesn’t actually help the headache. I came up with some reasons, but they were mostly fake ones…I’m good at avoiding the real answer!

1. It’s a residual headache from my cold.

2. Scrolling while editing.

3. Too much tweeting (probably…so I signed off)

But then, last night, I sat down with my husband to hash out ideas for my book trailer and I got my answer. And it’s one I have to deal with for many reasons.

Publicity.

What? Let me start with the good news. This week, I got my first review and it is pretty great. And then I heard from a journalist who is going to do a feature on me for a big magazine (it’s a secret which one for now) as well as a book review that will run separately, and he liked my book. On Tuesday, I recorded a segment for the CBC radio program The Next Chapter with Shelagh Rogers, which was terribly exciting and will air on March 26th. All good news, right? Actually, excellent news! So what’s the problem?

Well, when I started writing this new novel, I had hoped to have a draft done by the end of February and then spend all of March doing publicity for The Right & the Real while the novel sat and gestated. The problem came when I did not even come close to finishing the draft. For the last nine days, I have been fighting an internal battle with myself – I need to get my butt in gear and do my share of the publicity for The R&R, but I only want to write. And so I have forced myself to write through the headache in the morning, but by the afternoon, I’m spent and so I have done very little publicity, which apparently has been making the headache worse.

Now, you may be thinking, “Ooookay…this is one crazy writer!” But the truth is that while I have a background in publicity, it was always for other people. I have a very hard time promoting myself. My husband has the same problem with his music, and I tell him, “You’re publicizing your songs, not yourself.” Good advice, if I can remember it…it’s the book, not me, I’m talking about all the time…still, it starts to sound a bit self-serving after a while.

And then I got a BRILLIANT idea. All of you can do my publicity for me! No? Oh, well….

The point of this post, and it actually does have one, is I’m wondering how do you other writers handle this? Does it stress you out to talk about yourself and your work? Or do you love it? And for you non-writers, what do you do when you have to do something that makes you uncomfortable? I love the actual readings and signings, but asking bloggers to interview me, or do giveaways, or write reviews on Amazon and Goodreads just seems so…well…weird. Do you know that I have NEVER once given away a copy of my book on my website (but you can enter to win a signed copy on Goodreads right now!). I’m afraid no one will enter to win!

I actually have a TON of ideas for publicity because I am an idea machine. And I even have the know-how for pulling them off. This morning, I decided that I will sit down for two hours and create a plan this afternoon. I will break everything down into small bits to do each day. And the headache will probably go away (it actually already has…since I made this decision!). Essentially, I am going to embrace the publicity because I honestly love this book, The Right & the Real, and I want people to know about it. I can’t change the fact that I have to talk about myself for a while, but I can change my attitude and embrace it. After all, being published is a blessing, and it is always a good idea to be grateful for your blessings, don’t you think?