On Saturday I launched my first book, THE GREEN LADY, in my home town of Knysna, South Africa. 

I had an absolutely brilliant time connecting with readers over coffee and a shared love of books and signing all the copies purchased. Afterwards I drifted around, starry-eyed, on a fluffy pink cloud, with multi-coloured bubbles of excitement fizzing through my veins for the rest of the day. 

But the very next morning I woke up feeling strangely vulnerable and exposed. People were actually going to be reading my book... (gulp!)... And... They might not like it!

Even though THE GREEN LADY is a work of fiction, it still reveals a lot about me, my life, my passions and my philosophies. Somehow the thought of meeting people in the streets of my small home town who had read my book was FAR scarier than the thought of the thousands of strangers worldwide who have already downloaded my free e-book (and hopefully read it). The genie is now well-and-truly out of the bottle and there's no putting it back. Aargh!!

But then I think about how it would have been if I had never published this book and made it available to others to read. That would have been really sad. I actually want people to read my work. I love connecting via my thoughts expressed in words on paper.   

Ah, the conflicting desires to hide and to be seen.

I'm learning that it takes real courage to begin to fully inhabit my life; to find my own light and to shine it, regardless. Sometimes the small, dark prison cell of conforming to society's expectations looks SO much safer! 

And you ask, "What if I fall?"
Oh but my darling,
What if you fly?”
- Erin Hanson