Nerves be gettin’ the best of me.
In one week I will be seated at a table covered in copies of Warflower in the entryway of Title Wave Bookstore in Anchorage, Alaska while three other authors sit at tables with their own books waiting for customers to approach to buy a book and ask for a signature.
What if nobody shows?
What if the other authors are surrounded by dozens of readers who cheer their names and buy their books and ask them a million questions while taking pictures with them as I sit alone with a fresh haircut as my nervous fingers pick at each other under the table?
What if the owner of the bookstore approaches me and says, “I didn’t have a chance to read, Warflower, but I’ve heard customers talk about how raw and traumatic it is?” And I am reminded again that even though I don’t see the story, or my life, as very traumatic at all – for some reason – people continue to inform me that my life has somehow been hella traumatic, which makes me wonder if I have been, and still am, completely detached from everything.
Nerves be gettin’ the best of me.
In one month I will be in Kalispell, Montana being interviewed on the podcast, Cleared Hot, by a former Navy Seal/Superstar named Andy Stumpf. The podcast is filmed live and shown on YouTube, which seems like a perfect opportunity for my bumbling ass to totally fuck up some words.
Cleared Hot has a long list of superstar Veterans and Humans who are CEOs of companies, former Special Operations operators, big time business owners, and go getting mofos who probably make a million dollars more than me a year and went through way more training and combat.
So why me?
Nerves be gettin’ the best of me.
So I remind myself everyday – I have a story to tell that is different than anybody else’s.
I live a life that is off the beaten path.
I am a bad motherfucker.
And then I open the second piece of fan mail I received since Warflower was published and I smell it just like I used to smell the letters when I was in Iraq and I place it against my heart and I thank the old Vietnam Veteran who now lives in Casa Grande, Arizona for taking time out of his life to write me a letter explaining how much my book meant to him.
Because nerves ain’t gonna get the best of me.
You got this