Fear of Missing Out

You’ll never believe what I missed out on…

At the beginning of February, a friend of a friend (and employee of Boeing) attended the corporation tribute that marked the conclusion of the 747 model production at the Everett, Washington plant. And guess who was there?

John Travolta.

😭

Okay, it’s obviously unfair of me to have any feelings about this at all. I wasn’t even invited. And if you’re not invited, how can you miss out? I’m not even in the same country. And yet. My immediate response was jealousy and a wave of FOMO so heavy I wanted to stomp my foot like a toddler.

The truth is, I don’t want to meet John Travolta at a party or some corporate event. I want a classic meet-cute in which I spill coffee on my jeans and he passes me a napkin. Our hands touch. I blush. His eyes are bluer than I thought they’d be. He smells like the mountains and buys me a fresh coffee. “You missed a spot,” he says, handing me a new cup. My name isn’t written on it, but there is a small chalk heart instead. I lick a drop off my finger that remained from the initial spill. “Should we find a seat?” he asks, indicating a private booth in the back of the café. I nod, leading the way, feeling his energy close behind me, those blue eyes on my back, every fantasy I’ve clung to since I was 16 resting like a dare in the air between us…

My children think it’s “gross” and “wrong” that I harbour such devotion for a man who was born the same year as my father. Maybe they’re right. I don’t care.

An eccentric hippie actress moved to my little small town and bought a gallery. I wooed her for a while, using her desire to write her own stories to build up her trust in me before initiating a coffee date in which I made that poor woman share all about her time on the set of Hairspray with my John. Thankfully, she seemed to find that adorable rather than alarming, and an easy friendship was born. When she signed a copy of her first book for me she wrote: Alanna, JOHN would LOVE you!

And I really think he would. I make a point of making myself likeable. Not in a fake way, but in a down to earth, approachable way. I try to lead with empathy and grace. And sure, I fall short some times, but I aim to view those shortcomings as learning opportunities and I work to rise above them.

Way back in 2016 there was a publishing party I wasn’t invited to. My own. I’d written a book that I was incredibly proud of, but everywhere I turned, gatekeepers were slamming the door…er, gate?… in my face. I had no platform and no industry connections. The one time I sat down for a meeting with a potential agent, he tipped his cowboy hat at me and sent me on my way. (He’d flown in from Texas to give a speech at a conference I was attending and I was able to land a fifteen minute pitch session with him.) He told me I was eloquent and charming, but those things wouldn’t get my book published. I needed social proof that a company could make money off of me.

“Gross” and “wrong”

Art as a commodity hurt my heart. Artists should get paid. One hundred percent. But for someone else to value my soulwork as their potential paycheque… I couldn’t stomach it.

So I started my own publishing company.

Cynics will say I’ve become the thing I hated, but here is the difference: I value quality over qualification. Heart speaks louder to me than platform. I believe in relationship and community and nurturing writers towards publication in a way that makes them feel like they haven’t sold their soul or compromised their own integrity or that of their story. Yes, I choose to invest in the books that I think I will be able to sell—I want my authors to be able to fund their passion. Yes, I do ask writers about their existing platforms, but not as a measure of their worth, only as a potential tool that might help to fuel success. But more than books that sell or platforms with wide arms, I am looking for stories that resonate.

Are you sitting on something special? Is there a manuscript in a drawer that the gatekeepers have forced there? If you have a story you believe in, Chicken House Press might be the place to renew your belief in it.

Maybe this is me bumping into you. Maybe this is you tucking your hair behind your ear as we both bend down to pick up the pages you dropped. Maybe this is me glancing over the opening line and saying, “This is quite good. Can I get you a cup of coffee and you can tell me about it?” Maybe this is you saying yes, even if you’re unsure, as I hand you a warm cup with a little heart drawn in chalk on the lid.

Maybe today is the start of the party you’ve been waiting to be invited to.