What Terrifies Me Most About Being a Writer (It's Not What You Think!)

A Literal Literary Loser Spills Secrets

On Tuesday, I was invited to give a presentation about my book, “My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region” to the Adult Center at the Mid-Island Y JCC in Plainview as part of their Jewish Learning Series.

Glossophobia, the fear of public speaking, is considered the most common phobia, affecting approximately 75% of people. Public speaking anxiety is more prevalent than the fear of death, spiders, or heights. Women are more likely to experience public speaking anxiety compared to men. Approximately 20% of individuals with public speaking anxiety avoid career paths that require frequent presentations or public speaking.

I am not afraid of public speaking. I am, in fact, rather delightful at it. (Watch videos of me public speaking, here, and reach out to schedule me for your book club, today!)

You know what I am terrified of? Getting to the public speaking venue.

I have no sense of direction. None. Negative. When I once took my daughter and a friend to a birthday party, the friend was stunned that, when we exited the subway, I set off in three different wrong directions before finally stumbling upon the right one (that would be the only one left). My husband cannot understand how we can enter a store heading north, and I exit it still heading north, instead of south and back the way we came. I walk into Central Park on the East Side and head exclusively West… only to walk out of the park still on the East Side.

If I can barely navigate Manhattan, which is a neat and clearly marked grid (uptown, anyway; there’s a reason I rarely venture southward), how in the world was I supposed to get myself to Long Island… and back?

The event’s organizer sent me directions regarding which train to take, what line to get on, and which stop to get off at. That may have been enough to reassure most people.

It was not enough to reassure me.

I had stress dreams every night for a week leading up to the trip. In said dreams, I was lost in the park, lost on a train, had my wallet stolen, and couldn’t find a bathroom.

Ah, yes, about bathrooms….

I am extremely prone to motion sickness. (My mother says I threw up in every cab of my childhood.) Planes, ships, cars, buses, trains… I’ve been sick on them all! I used to avoid eating while traveling, but ever since I passed 40, fasting makes me lightheaded, which makes me nauseated anyway. So now I need to plan my eating very carefully. Only bland foods, and only at certain times before travel. I scheduled my morning very, very carefully. And then my daughter asked for my help: It was 1970s Day at school and she needed me to dig through my wardrobe for something “retro” she could wear. I did, but it meant eating later than I’d initially planned to. There went my carefully calibrated schedule. Which is why I need to know where all bathrooms are at all times.

My oldest son assured me that the Long Island Railroad has bathrooms. He also told me exactly where to get off at Penn Station, how to buy my ticket, and where the tracks were. (He also told me that, no, Penn Station wasn’t Grand Central Station.)

I was, nevertheless, convinced I would screw it up. I am always convinced that I will screw something up. I have never, in my life, embarked on a new project or assignment without being convinced that I would screw it up. In college, I would look at the syllabus and know that I could never manage all the work on it. The fact that I survived four years of college and two years of grad school without once ever failing at all the work on the syllabus did not, in any way, alter my opinion.

My train was scheduled to leave Penn Station at 11:02 AM. I left my house at 10 AM. I got to the station at 10:20 AM. I found the ticket machines right where my son told me they would be. (I did, however, still manage to screw up by buying Peak tickets when I should have bought Off-Peak. I was too afraid that I would accidentally end up traveling during Peak times even though it was currently Off-Peak and get flung off a moving train as a result.)

The attendant suggested that, since I was so early, I could take an earlier train. (I was way, way too early.) But that wasn’t the schedule I’d been told to follow, so I hung around Penn Station for a half hour. I walked up and down. Got my daily steps in.

I was terrified of getting on the wrong train. Even though my ticket said the name of the line, the board told me what platform the train was leaving from, and when I got to the platform, it showed the name of the line that matched my ticket.

Nonetheless, I asked a man as I got on board, “Does this train stop at Hicksville?”

“You’re on the wrong line,” he told me. Very confidently.

I proceeded to panic. (I was already panicked, this just knocked it up a notch.)

A woman sitting across from us checked her phone and reassured me, “You’re on the right line.”

“Really?” The confident man shrugged. “I didn’t know that.” (This did not affect his confidence one iota.)

Still unsure, I checked with the conductor. He confirmed that I was on the right line.

So I shifted to terror that I would get off at the wrong stop and be lost forever in Long Island.

I checked with the conductor about what time we’d be stopping at Hicksville. “11:45,” he said.

At 11:45, the digital sign said Hicksville. I still wasn’t sure I was getting off at the right stop.

I got off. I went to where I’d been told my Uber would meet me. There was no Uber there. I panicked. (Quietly, and exclusively on the inside. I always panic quietly and exclusively on the inside. There is no reason why my stupid neurosis should affect others.)

I texted the event organizer. She gave me the details of the Uber. The Uber pulled up. I got in. But only after double-checking that it was my Uber. I have no fear of getting kidnapped. I only have a fear of getting lost. Forever.

The Uber dropped me off at the JCC. I only got lost taking the wrong turn to find the room where I’d be speaking (despite having been given very concrete directions — like I’m just supposed to know left from right, and up from down? — twice). This, for me, is a triumph!

I was a delight during the speaking engagement. The audience was delightful. Attentive, interested, friendly. They asked great questions. We had a lovely chat afterwards, during which one participant, a retired librarian, showed me his print out demonstrating that there had actually, historically, been 10 Jewish Autonomous Regions around the world. I was fascinated.

But then it was time for me to make the return trip home.

Cue more terror!

I got into the Uber called for me, this time with less trepidation since it was, you know, right there. The driver got me to the station earlier than expected. I was supposed to take the 2:00 PM train back to Manhattan. But it was 1:45. A train was approaching that said it was headed to Penn Station.

I needed to go to Penn Station. But it wasn’t the train I’d been instructed to take.

I got on it, anyway, half-convinced that it would, in fact, be going away from Penn Station rather than towards it. (Why would it say Penn Station, then? Who knows! Trains are very confusing!)

I asked someone on the platform if it was going to Penn Station. “Yup,” they said. (Though remember Confident Wrong Man from before?) I asked someone on the train if it was going to Penn Station. “Yup,” they said. I asked the conductor. “Yup.”

OK. So I was prooooooobably headed for Penn Station.

But then, just to mess with me, this train made different stops on the way back than the stops the first train had made on the way there. (Maybe it was the difference between a local and an express?) Despite all the earlier assurances, I spent the duration of the trip low-key worried. Especially when the train stopped in Jamaica, Queens and instructed the passengers in how to transfer. Did I need to transfer? Is that why the stops were different?

I didn’t transfer. Because it indicated the next stop was Penn Station. And I needed to go to Penn Station.

It was. I did.

At this point, you may be asking yourself, “Why do you do this to yourself, Alina?”

My oldest son flat-out asked me, “Why do you do this to yourself, Mother?” (He always calls me Mother when he wishes to mock me. We get very formal with our mocking.)

There are two reasons:

One) I want to be a living, non-hypocritical example to my children that, just because you’re afraid to do something, that’s no reason not to do it. Anxiety, even the lifelong variety, can and must be conquered. Otherwise, you become a slave to it. Letting it make your decisions for you. If I’d given in to my anxiety, I would have missed some of the most interesting experiences of my life, including traveling all over the world to cover international figure skating competitions (which led to my series of Figure Skating Murder Mysteries - Always Be Selling!).

Two) Because I love writing more than anything. (I said anyTHING, husband and children, not anyONE.) I want to be a writer more than anything. And, in order to sell my next book, I have to make sure people read my current book. And traveling to book talks is a part of that. (Or maybe it isn’t. As I’ve written before, nobody knows anything about what actually sells books, so maybe all the suffering is for naught. But I haven’t been able to think of anything better.)

I used to be terrified of making phone calls to people I didn’t know — and even to people I did know. This was back in the olden days when you didn’t have email to avoid all that pesky personal communication. But if you want to work in television, you have to make phone calls to people you don’t know ALL. THE. TIME. I’d stress about each one for hours beforehand. I’d script out what I would say. I’d try to call when I thought the person would be out so I could leave a message.

But I made the phone calls all the same. Because I really, really, really wanted to work in television.

And I really, really, really want to be an author.

Which is why, this Tuesday, I went to Long Island. In spite of everything.