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I’ve been thinking about what would happen if my book was published and actually went on sale in the real world. Just a normal little publishing deal with a moderately successful book. A message from a pilgrim that maybe reaches an open heart and maybe makes an impression.

I’m thinking about people from my past finding out what I’ve done. Maybe reading the blurb, maybe recognising themselves in a part of a character in the story. Maybe – oh god, my blood pressure is rising just thinking about this – actually seeing me at a bookstore reading. Maybe just coming across this blog (I’d have to start putting a name to it) or the Twitter and Facebook accounts I’d have to be running. What if they knew it was ME?

I’ve done some appalling things in my life. Things I’m not proud of and that I’d rather forget. There are people out there – some ignorant and cruel, others clueless and biased – who know those things from my past and who call me mentally unfit. I’m mad. I’m mental. Even those who know that I have actually had PTSD all this time still have no room in their heart to forgive me. I am a cautionary tale, a wild story, a hateful memory.

I have been hiding from those people for years now. Trying to live a quiet life. I make the odd mistake – the odd Facebook post which puts my head above the parapet. Any opinion I have is because I’m messed up. Now I discover that someone told my daughter that her opinions were messed up because she had been brought up by a mentally unfit mother. Words cannot do justice to the anger that raised inside me!

There are always going to be people who like the idea of snowflaking their way to saving the world while simultaneously judging and dismissing people right in front of them who perhaps were begging in their own misunderstood and mistaken way for someone to notice and help.

I was traumatised when I was small, and I have reacted to that experience throughout my life in the only way that I knew how. I was a pinball, bouncing from one person to the next. I opened my mouth and fantasy came out. I lived in a world of make believe and narcissistic sorrow. And yes, I hurt some people along the way, and I behaved awfully. But what can I do about that now? Am I really permanently painted in unfit letters?

This has made me feel that perhaps I shouldn’t be in such a rush to let the world see my work. Even with a nom de plume, they would find me. Publishers in this day and age (I am told) want their authors to sell themselves and put themselves “out there”. Out there is where I am most vulnerable and most afraid.

How can you sell a story told by a painted pilgrim?