My guest today is Tiffany Clarke Harrison and we’re talking about the shadow side of publication—something many writers experience but rarely discuss publicly. While it’s normal to experience self-doubt, comparison, anxiety, and feeling like you want to crawl into a hole a couple of weeks before your book comes out, we often meet ourselves with shame, believing that we should simply be grateful for the opportunity. But what we really need is to offer tender compassion, and get in the habit of expanding our capacity for joy long before launch day.
Episode Highlights
Why paying attention to how our body feels in different situations is the first step to preparing yourself for publication
Recognizing and avoiding the shame spiral of “I should be grateful” in the midst of “this also feels scary”
A 7-word mantra we can use during publication (or anytime!) you’re heading into a visible season
The importance of expanding our capacity for joy long before books are released
The play-by-play experience of finding out Obama chose her book for his summer reading list (and why she was ready to experience it)
Why choosing presence is a gift to yourself and your nervous system
The difference between bragging and celebrating your work
Meet Tiffany
Tiffany Clarke Harrison is an author, author mentor/book coach, and intuitive introvert whose blood runs thick with feelings and beauty and purpose: writing stories that reflect what it means to be human, and guiding authors of literary fiction to do the same. She writes about feelings: the ones that feel good, the ones that don’t, and definitely the ones you don’t want anyone to know. She graduated from Queens University of Charlotte with her MFA in fiction, and her novel, Blue Hour, was listed as one of the best books of 2023 by Vulture and made Barack Obama’s 2023 summer reading list.
Links:
Conversation Starters
“When you have wanted something for so long and it’s arrived, or it’s about to land, your body goes ‘I don’t know what to do with this. We know how to *not* have this, but we don’t know how to have this.’”
“We really don’t celebrate enough. I tell this to clients all the time. Even if it’s ‘I just wrote a page,’ or ‘I just got this sentence out that really scared me,’ what are you going to do to celebrate? Because celebrating stretches that nervous system to receive more of it.”
“Let’s just lean forward. We’re just gonna breathe. For a while I just sat there… I don’t feel like a real person, but we’re gonna try and breathe and be really excited and also, I realized you have been building up to this moment right here.”
“People want to feel joy. They want to feel good. Will some people be annoyed? Sure. That’s fine. There are so many more people who want to experience joy even when it is through someone else’s excitement.”
Let’s Connect:
Website: nicolemgulotta.com
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