Recently i was asked by an old friend Mark Adams to appear on his daily pod cast. I was of course both delighted to do so and utterly horrified by the idea. For an opinionated author seldom shy at expressing his views, I am somewhat reticent to talk about being an author. Or for that matter to talk at all on something outside my comfort zone… (there are I suspect some people who will disagree with this assessment.)

It is not for lack of opinions, or the will to express them. I am however a tad introverted, shy and dislike putting myself in situations I am uncomfortable with. I am always mildly terrified of such things in fact, and absolutely hate the thought of situations where I may be ‘found out’ for the ‘impostor’ I am. This has being the case throughout my life be it at work or in social situations. A somewhat unrelenting fear that I am in fact just worthless, pointless and by extension everything I think , say or do is also utterly without value… (hopefully some people may disagree with this assessment.)

As such, I tend to hide my insecurity behind walls of absolute self-assured arrogance, become loud, and be the absolute antithesis of  who I actually am, in order than no one can see the paranoid, self-doubting, insecure mess that lays beneath the crass and at times utterly obnoxious bastard that I put out as a fount to face the world…  (Sadly I suspect a lot of people will not disagree with any of that…)

Hence my utter horror at the idea of doing a pod cast… However, I also tend to push myself into situations I am uncomfortable with because you can not hide behind  a facade of self-assured arrogance, without adopting a little self-assured arrogance along the way. That and a desire to make myself do things I am not entirely comfortable with, no matter what the little voices at the back of my head are telling me. At the end of the day you occasionally have to make yourself do things or you end up never doing anything, and besides how bad could it really be…

Actually it was a lot of fun, and the thirty minutes of recording, in the midst of a three hour chat with an old friend, should not have caused me all the worry it did. But that tends to be the case with everything I end up doing despite the usual paranoid reservations I feel about doing so before hand. I even managed not to feel too worried several days later when the pod cast went out and I listened to it for the first time. Even though I realized fairly quickly that on it my voice sounded ‘like my dad’. I mean really, I have never before noticed just how like my dads my voice is… It’s a bit weird… because you never actually hear yourself as other hear you, just as you only ever see your reflection in mirrors never what others see…

It was a long chat about indie publishing, how prospective writers can get involved in it themselves and the industry as a whole. I even managed to sound informed and knowledgeable… Not sure how I pulled that off… If your interested in indie publishing and being a writer have a listen… Though be warned, I do sound just like my dad…

Mark Adams podcast, which are his way of dealing with the current situation, come out daily, and cover a surprisingly wide variety of topics, as he speaks to a different guest every day. I’ve listened to a fair few of them, though its an ecliptic menu of subjects and some I have not found time to listen to as yet. But I encourage anyone to go have a look themselves and see what appeals at https://www.spreaker.com/show/dont-say-the-c-word and to follow the pods on twitter at @DontSayTheCPodWe for daily updates of what the subject/ interview is today .