Mindy: Welcome to Writer Writer Pants on Fire, where authors talk about things that never happened to people who don't exist. We also cover craft, the agent hunt, query trenches, publishing, industry, marketing and more. I'm your host, Mindy McGinnis. You can check out my books and social media at mindymcginnis dot com and make sure to visit the Writer Writer Pants on Fire blog for additional interviews, query critiques and more as well as full transcriptions of each podcast episode. at WriterWriterPants on Fire.com. And don’t forget to check out the Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire Facebook page. Give me feedback, suggest topics you’d like to hear discussed, and let me know if there is someone you’d love to see a a guest.
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Mindy: So I'm here with Charise Mericle Harper, who's the author of So Embarrassing: Awkward Moments and How to Get Through Them, which is a nonfiction graphic novel for middle graders. So first of all, as a former high school library and I have to say how fantastic this is, what a wonderful idea. I mean, we all know that your early teen years are so difficult, so this is just wonderful. I think to have this book to show kids how to deal with those moments because we're all gonna have them.
Charise: Absolutely. We're all gonna have them. And thanks for inviting me to talk about it. I do want to say that it's not completely nonfiction, certain elements of it are made up, silly stories, and some of these silly stories don't happen to real people. But if they did well, then they're prepared because they read the book. So basically, the reason why I wanted to make the book was for the exact reason that you said is that kids are so sensitive in middle school to their peers if they know that other people are suffering, too, it just makes you feel a little bit better that you know you're not alone because I think sometimes you just feel like the spotlight is directly on you. And that was the case, even though it feels like it's the case.
Mindy: Absolutely, it does. And I also think that, like it's really important a lot of time, the kids that are a little more, have struggled a little more with self esteem or perhaps aren't the most popular kids. They feel like those embarrassing moments only happened to them, but they happen to everyone. Having some of these possible events and situations illustrated in a graphic novel is just wonderful. So can you tell us an example of one of the embarrassing moments that is in the book?
Charise: Some of these were taken from things that have actually happened to me in the past. There is a scenario in the book where somebody calls somebody by the wrong name, and instead of correcting the person directly that they have their name wrong. This is the character is Gary, and by mistake, they call him Barry. Instead of Gary saying, Well, you know, I'm sorry, my name's Gary, he lets it go. This can snowball into something that is really hard to deal with later, in the sense that Gary/Barry is introduced to other people by his incorrect name. So now there's more than one person that knows him as Barry. And so what does he do with this situation when suddenly all these people know him as Barry and his name's not Barry, and now he hasn't said anything about it, which is even more embarrassing than if he had said something in the beginning. It just snowballs into that kind of situation.
And the same thing happened with this cafe that I go to all the time. I knew the owner, uh, from going there all the time. And he did call me Charice. I think the first couple times I went in there when we first moved here. But then somehow he changed my name and it became, Hey, Clarisse, how's it going? And I was taken aback like Oh my gosh, I felt weird because he'd already pronounced my name properly the first couple times, and now he was calling me something different, so I didn't know what to say. But then every subsequent time I didn't say anything, and every time I walked in there, I had this anxiety about Oh my God, he's going to say my name wrong, and he would be so happy to see me, they would call me Clarisse! Hey, how's it going today?
And then the other people that worked there knew my name. And so it became the situation where they knew I wasn't saying anything to him, and he was calling me the wrong name. And I just started going to another cafe because I couldn't deal with it. And I just felt so bad, you know, after, like, a couple months, I went back there and he had my name correctly, but it was just... He knew that I hadn't said anything. I was just like, Oh, my gosh, this is like, so embarrassing. I’m an adult. I should know better than this. And the lesson is, you just have to really deal with this thing right away, because otherwise it becomes something so much bigger, that you have to now circumvent your regular habits to deal with this situation, and it just takes up more of your life. So much better to make a joke about it and handle it right away.
Mindy: Absolutely. And I'm really glad you bring names and confusing people or their names up because that's a problem that continues like into adult life, and it is kind of a difficult one to handle. I know that as a fellow author, when I'm doing signings, I'll have a face coming through the line. And because I worked at a high school for almost 15 years, I have, you know, 15 years worth of students out there that all expect me to remember their name, right? And it's like I don't. I simply don't. I found a little trick.
Fellow authors, if you are involved in that type of situation, especially if you're a teacher or worked with the public in some way, when I have a kid come through that I know (of course they're adults now), but if I have one come through and it's like I know I know this person and I know they were student, but I cannot remember their name. And of course I'm personalizing a book for them. I look up and I say, Hey, it's so great to see you again. Remind me what's your last name? And they'll tell me their last name. And most of the time my memory can fill in their first name. What’s bad is when they're like it's Miller and I'm like, Okay, yeah, I can't fill in that one, right? And I'll just be like, Okay, so then the other resort that I go to is, “remind me how to spell your first name.”
Because especially with a name like Rebecca or Mallia or Michaela is one - there's so many different ways that I can get away with that. But I did have an incident just like a month ago, and it was actually one of the organizer's that I had been in contact with for a couple of months, getting the event set up. Her name had simply slipped my mind once she came through the line to have her book signed. And I was like, Okay, like, remind me how to spell your name. Just so I know, I get it right And she said, Oh, it's Peg. And I was just like, Yeah, of course it is. Of course it's Peg, you dumb ass, Mindy. I was just like, Okay, I didn't know if you wanted it to be Peggy or, you know, whatever she's like. No, I go by Peg and I'm like, “Okay, good job! Good recovery keep going.” But like as an adult with these things don't stop. Like you can still have these situations happen as an adult.
Charise: Obviously, my story illustrates you're not any better at dealing with it. It happens to everybody, but the great thing about embarrassment is that it is something everybody shares. stories from embarrassing moments. It's a great way to connect with people. I think it's a great icebreaker. If everybody shares an embarrassing story, suddenly you're right there with the people who have similar stories to share, and it just makes us feel like, Okay, we're all human. We're all dealing with this.
And I went to a dinner party and it was a bunch of families that didn't know each other. A bunch of ranges of kids that were, you know, teenagers and younger and we were all asked to write on the card our embarrassing story that we wanted to share with the group. But as we went through, I mean, the kids were just so excited about sharing their embarrassment stories and my kids said stuff that I didn't even know what happened to them, you know, just like amazing. It's really something that people want to talk about, but there's no way to talk about it unless you call it out.
Mindy: Absolutely. And I think another lesson here, too, especially for kids. And I know that sometimes it's really hard if your a parent to get your kid to realize that you were their age once too. And I think maybe sharing your own stories is a wonderful way to help your own biological children, or perhaps if you work with kids in some capacities or either as an author, a writer, a teacher, a library in whatever the case may be, it helps to see -- you know you'll be okay. You'll remember this and one day you will laugh about it.
I remember my senior year, so this would have been late nineties. The National Honor Society was invited on a trip to D. C. And we had a really cool schedule, and we actually got to go in the Pentagon. Of course, this was all pre 911 and we were able to go into the Pentagon because one of our students’ uncles worked there, so we got to tour the Pentagon and we were waiting to get security clearance so that we could go in and there was an entire West Point cadets class waiting for the same thing. And of course, they're all like at attention and wearing their uniforms and looking, you know, they're all, like, basically our age and mostly male, very attractive.
One of my best friends walked over to say something to me, and, of course, we're in civilian clothes, and we have been asked to dress up to visit the Pentagon. So she's wearing a dress and a skirt and she trips over someone's book bag and just face first down in the hall in the Pentagon, in front of an entire class of West Point cadets. And her skirt flies up, you know, underwear up in the air, everything. And of course, we were like, Oh my God, we all help her back up. And she I mean, she wanted to die. Her face was so red, like she had to cry like it was horrible. Meanwhile, all these West Point cadets are trying so hard to keep their faces straight because, like they're at attention. She can laugh about it now. She could laugh about it now, but it took some time, right?
Charise: Absolutely. And actually, when I was doing some research for this book, they've done some experiments that there is sort of this innate desire for people to laugh at somebody falling down. That's kind of hard wired. It's not out of menace or it's not out of trying to punish the person that fell down. It's just something that's that's absolutely hardwired in our system. People falling down is, I guess we have to say it's funny and unfortunately, not funny for the person that fell. And when that happens to you and that obviously happened to me, I mean, it is, and I blush to, like, incredibly, at the slightest thing. Um, it's really hard to deal with, and so one of the ways that you can sort of try to get your mind off of it - because what your mind is doing is replaying this loop of what just happened over and over again.
Try to think of something else, and the way to do that is to have something to go to already. If I'm gonna be embarrassed, I'm going to count down from 10 to 1, 15 times in a row and so that you already know before you ever get embarrassed, that's where you're going. And I have a stupid little poem that I say to myself. So if I'm trying to get my mind off of that loop once you're not thinking about that continuously, you can help yourself sort of breathe more regular and get yourself calmed down. But unless you prepare yourself before it happens in that moment, you can't find a place to go to.
You know, even if you think I'm never gonna be embarrassed, just think. If I was embarrassed, what should I do? Maybe I'll say that silly poem I know. Or maybe I'll do the lyrics to that song. Try to say them really slowly or I'll do some counting just so that you could maybe click into it if it happens to you. And I think that it is nice to have something in your hand that you can hold onto as a safety, you know, if you get in trouble.
Mindy: I think that's fascinating what you were saying about the knee jerk reaction to laugh when someone falls down. Can you tell us about any more any kind of research that you did for this book then? Because I am, I am fascinated at some of the different kinds of less well known areas that you ventured into in order to write this book.
Charise: I tried to just research embarrassment, and in general, one of the most interesting things I came across was when I talked this clinical therapist, and I didn't know this, she said - Embarrassment is something you do to yourself. What do you mean by that? I mean, No. It's something that happens to me and she said, No, you decide to be embarrassed. I'm not saying it's your fault, but it's your choice to be embarrassed. And it is a social construct to have people be embarrassed, because what happens is we are part of the social community, and as middle schoolers or kids in school, they are part of a smaller social community, and within that community there's peer pressure to behave in a certain way.
And so scientists said that we're hardwired to conform to that peer pressure because we want to stay as part of that society and our innate desire to not be embarrassed and to not step out of what we're supposed to do keeps us in that social environment. And so knowing that, you sort of feel like, well, you're not really thinking about, Should I be doing this, or should I be doing that? You are, in a sense, hardwired to behave in a certain way based on the social community, you’re part of, and that keeps us behaving as citizens of the world and in our communities. If you're in middle school, you have the way you act at school and then you have the way you act at home and then you have the way you act in a broader community of where you live, and then you have the way you act in your town and then just keeps going and going, and all these add elements to the way you behave. I found that really interesting, that biological reason to behave in a certain way, and the outcome of that is that we have social systems that work and that we're not constantly having To inform people that they're misbehaving because we're hardwired ourselves to behave appropriately.
Mindy: Our social contracts that we have with one another are a very interesting system construct if you, when you look into it some of the codified methods of behavior and interaction that we don't realize that we are actively participating in yet we are every day. One other thing that I want to ask you about that I think, is really interesting and useful both for young teens and young adults and adults. Are there any methods in this book about how to help someone else with an embarrassing moment? Because I know I myself really as a teen and and especially as a middle grader. I was just fairly mortified all the time, like constantly worried about looking dumb or saying the wrong thing. And just over the course of maturation I kind of moved past that, of course, not entirely. As you know, I just told you about a story last month where I had an embarrassing moment, but I've just kind of learned To let him slide. They're gonna happen. I'm sure that I will mess up amazingly again soon, more than likely, but I find myself, because I have reached a point where I'm more comfortable with my own social gaffes that when I see someone else like struggling or if I see him, someone having a bad moment, I always find a way to make them feel better. Try to like, usually by denigrating myself.
I go to the gym a lot, but I didn't used to. And I remember coming into the gym, not knowing the people there, not knowing the social network there and not being able to do a pull up. Sometimes, if a pull up is part of the workout in the class, it's really embarrassing to be the person that raises your hand and says, I can't do that. Can I have a substitute movement? And so when I see someone kind of blanche, when they see a pull up in the workout, I'll just kind of walk out and be like, Hey, or you know, you're worried about the pull ups or don't feel bad. It took me five years before I could do even one and, you know, give them a substitute movement. So do you have any tips or tricks for especially middle graders about how to help others when they have their own moments of struggle?
Charise: What you just said, I think you have to share something that happened to you, too, or you know, it's like it's not so bad. It's the time, you know, I fell down too and that's really what this book is about. It's about sharing your story, to make others feel better, because there is no real trick to help somebody instantly feel better. The biggest power we have is to share our own story and by sharing our own story, they're not alone anymore. Not being alone. There are tips to like, you know how to calm yourself down if you're blushing and how to try to get your heart rate back to normal and things like that. But I feel like in an embarrassing moment. The biggest thing is that inner voice in your head that it's saying that this is the worst thing that has ever happened. That is a normal feeling, and at that moment everybody feels that feeling.
But this is actually what's going on. And the truth is, people don't care about you as much as you think they do, in the sense that they’re not thinking about you every moment of the day, it's not like they're talking about you every moment of the day. I mean with social media you think they might be, but it's not. People don't care about other people as much as or the mistakes that other people make, as much as the person who made the mistake is thinking that they do. In your mind, you can create these stories that are so much bigger than what actually happened. And certainly in middle school that can happen to exponential amounts. But the truth is that people aren't spending their whole day talking about the time you tripped in the hallway. To you, It's gonna last for days. That's the big difference in who's looking, and I Think sharing is really the strongest weapon we have against embarrassment.
Mindy: I love your point, too, about being uber aware of your own situation and not necessarily realizing that it isn't as prevalent to everyone else. I had author Matt Haig on the show a couple of weeks ago. He is a British novelist, and he has written multiple fiction but also some nonfiction, and one of his books called Notes on a Nervous Planet is all about anxiety of modern life, and he has a wonderful line in there that I just highlighted because I loved it so much and he said, Don't worry about what you look like. Other people don't care. They're worried about what they look like. Absolutely. I'm 40 years old and I read that line and I was like, I never thought of that before.
You know, I want to bring up something that you just mentioned. We've been talking about embarrassing moments in real life and in front of people. But what about those embarrassing moments on social media, which obviously is a huge area of concern, especially for teenagers today, right?
Charise: I purposefully didn't delve into social media that much because I don't have the knowledge. But one thing I did talk about in the book waas, especially on Instagram, the prevalence of likes and how you like something research on that when you get A like you have this shot of dopamine going into your system, that is like, Oh, this a positive thing. It's like addicting, having a little hit of chocolate or something. And so you become addicted to, You know the pings on your phone saying that people like you. But the interesting part of that is that they've done some studies, the exact same image on Instagram from what would be a random person that nobody knew if the image had already amassed, you know, in excess of like 1000 likes versus an image that only had five likes people were more likely to like the image that already had 1000 likes
They don't know who the person is. They are just going to go with what everybody else liked. We are part of that social construct again. We're trying to be like everybody else. A lot of that is people just seeing other people liking it, so they like it, too. And it doesn't mean that they really like it. It just means that, okay, I want to be part of the group. So I'm gonna click it. That's interesting in that you cannot define yourself by how popular are are on social media, because there's so many elements that are playing into it that you have absolutely no control over absolutely so.
Mindy: Very true. And it really does lend way too much power to social media which already has more than it needs in our lives. Yeah, for sure. I just want to add that again, The book is called So Embarrassing: Awkward Moments and How to Get Through Them. It releases November 10th. It is a graphic novel for middle grade readers. And would you like to let our listeners know where people can find you online?
Charise: Absolutely. They confined me at my name, which is Charice Harper dot com, And that's my website, and there's links to everything on there, and I'm on Instagram and Facebook. Not so much, but I hope that kids enjoy it. I really do. I think if I read this book when I was a kid, I feel like that would have been somewhat helpful. So That's my push.
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