This past weekend, I attended my very favorite event of the year – the Dreamspinner Press Author Workshop. This is the place where our family comes together to bond and get great information about our company, our market, our business, and our craft. This is my family and this is the place where I found out that my social anxiety is worse after working at home alone for the last three years. This is where I found out how much harder events are without “JP” to hide behind with her porn stars and bravado. This is where I freaked out for literally no reason.

Most authors I’ve met have two similar but distinct personalities. The first is the person they are every day, their regular average Joe/Jane/Jasmine who cleans the house, washes the dog, and pays the babysitter. The second is the person who goes to events and puts on the armor they show the world. This was the case with me. Trish was the software developer who worked from home, made dinner, took the dog for a walk, and wrote fourteen novels. JP, however, was another entity entirely. JP donned her corsets and partied all over the country. She stood up in front of rooms full of people and talked about her books and her life. She was fearless.

She was also imaginary.

In Atlanta, JP hosted a body painting event which a large number of GRL folks attended. What people don’t know is that before that event started, I nearly had a panic attack in the room where we were setting up. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think. My friends got everything set up, and then stood around me, helping me zip into that JP armor. I closed my eyes and found her – and we opened the doors. She stood up on a chair and became that fun chick everyone expected.

A starker contrast may be an interesting story Jeff Adams told me this weekend, that I don’t remember happening (because I’m too freaked out at events to really be able to focus). He said that he’d been intimidated to meet JP, so he hadn’t come up to me at any of the social events during GRL in Albuquerque. Instead, one evening he hadn’t been feeling well and came down to the gift shop for something to help. He said that I stopped him and asked if he was okay, asked if there was anything I could do for him. That’s the difference between JP and Trish.

Back to the Dreamspinner Press Author Workshop.

On Saturday, after we’d had sessions and meetings and receptions into the evening on Friday, I went to class on keeping your ideas fresh. During that session, they asked what our biggest challenge was. I said that mine was figuring out how not to be JP anymore. That led to a half hour therapy session during which they asked questions and I had anxiety-driven word vomit. I joked and asked them to let other people talk, but inside, I wasn’t joking. I was nearly begging. We were coming to the end of the day, the end of the workshop, and I’d been shaky and in trouble to begin with. After the session, I went outside to sit alone. When I thought maybe I’d be okay, I went back in to attend a session I’d really wanted to see – the romantic suspense panel with Karen Rose.

I sat down, and I could feel the panic attack just below the surface of my skin. It roiled and twisted like the sky before a storm. Then Amy Lane, one of the people from the “therapy” session, came to talk to me—to see if I was okay. She had such concern and kindness in her face, the anxiety bubbled over and I couldn’t stop the sobs from starting. She pulled me out of the room and into a nook and just let me get through it. All I could think was—these are my friends, they are my family. If I can’t hold it together with them, how am I going to do this? A question to which I’m still searching for an answer.

So, what’s the point?

The point is, when you meet an author at an event, no matter how put together, how confident, how intimidating they may seem – inside, they may have a completely different emotional need. They may be barely holding it together. You may see them at a moment where, maybe, they just can’t hold it together anymore. Just tell the person that you love their books and how much they mean to you. Be kind. And if they need a minute to breathe, let them take one.

We are human too, and some of us are just as scared of you as you are of us. 😊

JP Barnaby is an award-winning gay romance novelist and the author of over two dozen books. Her heart and soul, the Survivor Series, has been heralded by USA Today as one of their favorites. She recently moved from Chicago to Atlanta to appease her Camaro (Jake) who didn’t like the blustery winters. JP specializes in recovery romance but slips in a few erotic or comedic stories to spice things up. When she’s not working on her latest novel, she binge watches superheroes and crime dramas on Netflix with her husband and Jack Russell Terror, Chase.

A physics geek, she likes the science side of Sci-Fi, and wants to grow up to be Reed Richards.

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