I feel so lucky to be here and yet I’m so far away from anyone I love, this is truly an epic adventure of heart and mind for me at Sexpo Perth.  This isn’t how I start my seminar out loud but maybe I should have!

Day One

Sales are going well and before I am due to go on some angels come to visit me. One is Madison Missina her strong charisma always projected a few feet ahead, she also talks at the share center and is a proactive safe sex advocate.  Madison takes the sexpo tours, holding the hands of the curious, encouraging their intrigue with every step. Then I catch Isabelle Deltore, she looks beautiful as always and tells me how busy she’s been and how she needs a break as always though her energy is high, racing around as fast as her motorbikes!  She joins myself and Jack, a historian and we discuss his three published books.  Sexpo really is soup for the soul, a mixture of the caring, curious and conscious.

It’s amazing how many confessions I am hearing, all sorts of people are telling me their hidden desires, wants and needs.  Sexpo seems a safe place to be open and ask the questions that we only dare google!

Minutes before I am about to hold my seminar on Sexual Liberation I meet a guy who wants to start teaching women in the industry self- defence.  When I started writing my book and needed to feel strong again I attended an amazing course at ICS. I tell him that I learnt a lot physically from the course but also mentally.  Releasing Resistance was a huge lesson for me and obviously still is as I realise I’ll be late if I don’t go and grab the microphone now and stop putting off the inevitable!

After my hand shaking, voice quavering talk a wonderful man comes over from the audience, ‘What an amazing discovery of self your writing has taken you on’ he says and I melt immediately, he understands! ‘Not everyone will get it and that’s ok’ he says ‘just keep being beautifully honest’.  We chat for a while and as he walks away I feel like I have just won the undisputed, sometimes illusive heavy weight title of Being Understood.  Thank you.

Day Two

I knew that overwhelm would come at some point during this trip. This is my step into independence, no longer a wife but a single woman. Can I make a living from my writing? How well are my books received by the public? How well am I received by the public? Can I really play grown ups?

At five to two, some people that said they would buy the book come back to my stand and start to chat, another writer also starts relaying their story and I lose track of time. The sound technician appears and I feel the overwhelm rising from my stomach to my throat. I’m on my own.

‘Are you still going on?’ he asks

‘I don’t know!’ confusion sets in and I look at the stand, what if someone steals my books I think, or my laptop? I can’t speak in this state my head is all over the place, my heart beat is thumping in my ears. I’m so happy to be here, so nervous about talking and then I realise I really need to pee, I haven’t left the stall for four hours. I go to the toilet tears welling in my eyes. Looking in the mirror I tell myself to get my shit together, go and show them the scared, vulnerable little girl, just maybe someone else needs to know they’re not alone! The overwhelm then turns to anger,  I go to the seminar room and with hands shaking I read and talk about my book apologising for being late. This is my out, this is my way out from a place that I use to inhabit, that use to inhabit me; my Petrifying Truth.

Day Three
At five to five a couple walk up and grab the book. Immediately they burst into laughter,’We’re from Southend’ they say  ‘Oh wow! You will know all the places then! Maybe even some of the characters!’ This is a great high before my talk.  We all laugh and I desperately want to divulge some truths about characters and place but with two minutes to go I just don’t have the time. They buy the book and I grab their email address, this will be a review that I will wait on with baited breath!

I celebrate my five seminars and a very successful sales weekend with a quick cider and a delicious curry the first meal I’ve had at a normal hour all weekend.
As eight o clock approaches I start to pack away and along comes a guy from my seminar, another writer.
‘You’ve obviously been on an amazing journey with your writing’ he says
‘This is just the beginning!’ I reply

An excerpt from my seminar;

Sharon is probably the worst version of me, well what I thought of as the worst version of me that is why I made her a prostitute and put her in the cellar;

Sharon had been hiding in the cellar, she was petrified that the world would judge her and so she locked herself away. The lack of light had stunted her growth and she had regressed into a little girl, she thought this was her power and so this was the persona she threw out to the world.  However it was time for her to grow up and become a woman and so she decided to open the door from the cellar. As she climbed the thirteen steps the light hit her and immediately she grew.  Like a new born she couldn’t see properly for a while, it took time for her eyes to adjust to this different perspective. It took months not weeks before she could stand tall again but one day she looked into the mirror and recognised the reflection, she smiled her eyes wider than ever before.