Glass is always half full

When you do a bookstore appearance, as I have been busy doing over the past five weeks, you absolutely have to approach it with a "glass half-full" mindset.
If you focus on negatives, then you will end up underneath the table that the bookstore kindly set out for you, locked in the foetal position, wailing slightly.
As I have said before, you are going to get knockbacks, sneers and even the odd casual insult. Focus on those and it will mess with your head. Instead, you have to concentrate on the positive.
Take, for instance, the Macquarie Centre Dymocks appearance I did.
This was on the Saturday before Father's Day and the place was packed. But everyone was in a rush and many had a specific book in mind as a gift. I was getting many, many knockbacks amid the sales and it would have been easy to focus on those. It was still a good day and I still sold plenty of books but I was copping a bit of verbal punishment along the way.
I refused to focus on that. Instead I looked at those who did stop to talk to me.
One teenager who made the entire day worth it was a delightful young lady called Emma, who worked for Baskin Robbins and popped in on her break.
I chatted to her first, then she was so excited she came back with money and bought The Wounded Guardian - and then she came back once more, to shake my hand and thank me for talking to her!
Instantly that made the 50+ sneers about fantasy and books that I'd received vanish in an instant.
Each person who does talk to you is a pleasure. Each person who buys one of your books is a joy.
You may have spoken to 50 people before them but, to every single person, that is the one contact with an author they have had that day. It is up to you to make that special for you both.
I use the memory of the wonderdyl people I speak to, to inspire me to go on and on.
For me, the glass is always half-full.