My name is Fiona, and I am an egogooglahohic

It's that good old cocaine lure of success again.

I've been struggling with my addictive egogoogling behaviour for a while, but over the past few weeks it has been getting ridiculous.

Putting my name in Google. Checking my blog counters. Going on Facebook. Checking the Amazon rankings of all my books. Looking on Goodreads to see who's reading my books. Going on Facebook. Oh - a little bit of writing. Putting my name in Google again.

I think I hit my rock bottom. I'm going to give myself the gift of a whole month free of all of that stuff - no looking at my sales figures, no reading blogs, nothing. I'll review the situation after that month is over. I'm scared and excited. If you see me on Facebook before July 13th, tell me to get out of there.

Anne Lamott describes this phenomena so well in Bird by Bird that I'll leave you with her words. Have lovely weekends x

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One more thing about publication: when this book of mine came out, the one that did pretty well, the one that necessitated the buying of a new dress, I found myself stoned on all the attention, and then lost and derailed, needing a new fix every couple of days and otherwise going into withdrawal. My insides became completely uninhabitable, as if I'd wandered into a penny arcade with lots of bells ringing and lights flashing and lots of junk food, and I'd been there too long. I wanted peace, peace and quiet, but at the same time I didn't want to leave.

I was like one of the bad boys in "Pinocchio" who flock to the island of pleasure and grow donkey ears. I knew my soul was sick and that I needed spiritual advice, and I knew also that this advice shouldn't be terrible sophisticated. So I went to see the pastor of my son's preschool.

The pastor is about fifteen. We talked for a while. It turns out he just looks young. I said that I was all over the place, up and down, scattered, high, withdrawing, lost, and in the midst of it all trying to find some elusive sense of serenity.
"The world can't give that serenity," he said. "The world can't give us peace. We can only find it in our hearts."
"I hate that," I said.
"I know. But the good news is that by the same token, the world can't take it away."