Coming out

To my gay, lesbian and transgender friends, this post is not about my coming out in the usual sense. (Although I have a new-found respect for the courage of those who have negotiated this form of challenge in their lives). It is about turning inside out, coming out from my usual introversion, "getting out into the world".

I was certainly emotionally "outed" by my brief consultation with Sonai Choquette with which I started this blog. My covers were blown. I decided to respond by going public, nailing my colours to the mast as someone trying to change a deep orientation away from the world to an orientation into it and to ask for help in doing this.

Practically, I bought the Blue-Green Algae (Spirulina) we had talked about and I'm now regularly topped up with it. I left e-mails and made a follow-up telephone call with Angela Leake, the senior trainer with The Tranformational Breathing Foundation UK (It amuses me that this can be abbreviated The TB Foundation!) I sent a cheque by post to cover the cost of the combined TB Guided session and 100 Breaths to Joy CD. I sent a follow-up e-mail to Alan Dolan to book a place on the "Breathe Yourself Alive" Workshop in Kensal Rise, London at the end of this month. (I still haven't heard yet from the organisers or him. I struggle with patience when communications go unanswered). The copy of Susan Jeffers' "Dare to Connect" arrived and I have had such a pleasure and uplift in reading it. My E-mail tells me that Michael Brown's "The Presence Process" is in the post.

I have started to do some things I have never done before. During the end of last week I submitted some pieces of my writing, my CV and some information to freelance writing websites. My application for http://www.suite101.com/ was approved.

I notified various parties that I had started this new blog. My friend Christine Bouquet e-mailed back enthusiastically about it. I e-mailed her back and will phone her today now that my voice is eventually starting to come back. Since there have been as yet no public responses to this blog I looked up on the Internet information on how to increase traffic and eventually make a blog professional. This led me initially to a site called http://www.bloggingtothebank.com/ which was one of those hugely glossy, flashy neon sites that I find difficult to resist. It held out an enticing e-book system for "monetizing" one's blog for $47. It offered comprehensive advice and guidance for the start-off blogger. It even flashed up a special offer when I tried to navigate away from the page and put me through to a sales rep when I tried to navigate away from that! I don't like this kind of pressure-selling. What I did was take the details of an Australian Blogger who had endorsed the product, Yaro Starak (http://www.entrepreneur-journey.com/) who seemed to write with clarity, authority and integrity. I visited his website to leave a message for him and found that I had to join the chat forum in order that our conversation could be recorded publicly. I wrote a short post in the blogtrafficschool forum Introducing Your Blog section suggesting that If I could get advice I should set up a new blog about learning how to optimise a blog! There is going to be a lot of trial and error, trips and false-starts in coming out into the world!

On saturday I attended my firt acting audition for a more "featured" (talking) part in a short Film at the Central Film School in London. This was my first time doing something like this. The others seemed very familiar with the routine. One actress was going straight on to another audition. It's funny that we are made to feel embarassed when we admit that it is our first time doing anything! How do people believe that anyone gets to a level of proficiency without having to go through anything for the first time?

I actually enjoyed the experience. I liked the writing, I liked the Director and I liked the principle actor (who I was meant to hit over the head at some point!) The director wanted me to deliver a page-long "rallying of the troops" speech at an increasingly apoplectic level of anger. (This is difficult to do when you are trying to shout at someone and read your lines at the same time!) I felt after the third run-through that I had done well with it. I haven't heard anything from them since, however, and I'm presuming at the moment that the part has gone to one of the actors who followed me. I'll telephone today to check.

The other thing I would like to do freelance is proof-read and copy edit books and articles. There's a list of publishers I've composed to contact and see if they might like some additional help looking through and appraising their slush piles!

There's Scanners Evening this wednesday coming (http://www.scannercentral.co.uk/) and my first experience of the St Albans branch of Toastmasters Public Speaking Programme on thursday.

None of these things are close friendship, but they are points of outside contact and they feel like enough for the time being!

I'll keep you posted.........