Discover more from Ani’s Secret Files ❤️

I've been writing for years in a huge stack of notebooks. My main intention was to “get good” at writing in English, since it's my second language. Will I ever get good? Who knows! But writing feels good! Now I’m sharing with you :)

From the hummus tub to the ping pong paddle ❤️

The journey from Squareface To Ping!

Ani Castillo

Feb 17, 2023

My dear friend,

for a long time I’ve been meaning to tell you how I wrote my book PING.

I feel a bit daunted by how humongous of that newsletter that could be!

BUT, I thought I could start by tell you what PING was GOING to be, before it found its actual voice and heart.

As of today, the tiny little book I wrote in my bedroom has visited way more countries than I have. Which makes me feel super grateful and kind of incredulous, to be honest!

A couple international editions of PING ☺️❤️

I will tell you about how I wrote it, illustrated it and published PING some other day,

but today I want to show you something I find really funny and kind of endearing when I think about the level of expertise I had when writing my first book (which was about zero!)

Not to mention, I was still feeling super duper shy about my English as a second language, so, all my notes were kept super secret.

For my eyes only!

This is my book, as it got published in North America:

BUT before all of this happened,

PING used to look totally different, and it used to have a completely different name.

Before I had settled on the name,

PING was called:

**** drumroll please ****

This was actually the cover of the book!

SQUAREFACE HATES PARTIES!

The idea behind this book, is that there was a little character who had a square face and who hated parties.

This was inspired, undoubtedly by the terrible terrible social anxiety I used to suffer!

But by the time I was writing this, I had been going to therapy for social anxiety for some years.

I had gone from someone who was terrified of parties and hated them with all her heart, to someone who actually LOVED parties with a passion!!!

This took years and years to accomplish. And it also took a lot of mental gymnastics.

I had amassed an arsenal of tools about how I learned how to love parties.

And how I learned to hang out with people, in general (when hanging out with people used to be basically a phobia of mine! Can you believe it???!!)

This book was meant to be a toolkit on how to enjoy parties, taught by a real party animal, named Sarubobo.

This character was inspired by an old and raggedy stuffed doll I made for my daughter when she was a baby 🥰🥰🥰

While I was rummaging around my old files, I found this little text note!

This is actually the first “draft” of Squareface Hates Parties (The text is super little. But I’m going to copy it and paste it below, so you can read it).

It’s not super refined or anything.

Basically I was just writing down some of the tricks I do myself so I can ignore my usual inner chatter and anxieties when I’m around other humans.

It’s almost as if Squareface is Ani Before Therapy For Social Anxiety.

And Sarubobo is Ani After Social Anxiety, trying to help her out.

Aw 🥲

Ok, here we go:

SQUAREFACE HATES PARTIES

By Ani Castillo

Squareface hates parties

Althought, he wonders

Why that might be?

Being that

He LOVES people

He truly enjoys One-On-Ones.

And he even has a best friend.

Her name is Sarubobo.

Sarubobo ADORES parties.

She’s the heart of them all.

“No worries, she says, just stay home and read a book. You like that!”

“But Sarubobo”, Squareface says, “I really feel like having an adventure”.

“No worries Squareface, if that’s what you truly want, I will help you love parties much better”.

Squareface, do you ever feel like you’re better than other people?

Only slightly. I’m very smart and a deep thinker.

Well, that won’t help. You gotta tell your heart one thing: all people’s feelings, ideas and experiences are precious. Even if they’re completely different from yours.

See that man over there?

Yes.

Look for something you like in him.

I like his golden rimmed buttons. And that he says please and thank you.

That’s a great job! Don’t you suddenly feel closer to the guy?

Sometimes I even imagine people having some big huge wings. Or a halo on top of their head. Kind of like an angel.

Who knows where the heck we came from? Why not imagine that we’re all these bunch of magical creatures hanging out on this planet.

By focusing on the other person, the pressure to “perform” is suddenly lifted.

Small talk is still talk.

Some people don’t like it because it is superficial, but it totally serves some kind of purpose within humanity. I bet even cavemen had some sort of small talk. (good morning! did you see that mammoth over there, it was big! yeah it was big!)

From small talk, you can extract much more interesting information and then comes the next point:

ASK QUESTIONS:

People enjoy questions.

FIND SOMETHING YOU CAN ADMIRE:

Even the most boring of people have something that they’re doing great at. And you know how many people have probably told them about it? About zero.

EXAMPLE

Hi! (small talk)

How Are you? (small talk)

Good thank you. (small talk)

Good weather we’re having eh? (small talk)

Yeah, it’s sunny. The plants like it. (small talk, you’ve struck some gold)

Oh you like plants? (question)

Yes, I garden sometimes. (Find something you can admire! Gardeners are awesome!! Gold!)

Oh, I love it when people go in their gardens. They make the world so pretty.

Well, you see... my dad used to garden and...

LISTEN

Use your imagination while listening to someone. Imagine what they’re saying. It’s so easy to get inside the story that way. And it’s so much fun!

Sometimes, if you get nervous while talking with someone, study her face. Look at the colours, at the movements, at the creases, at the hairs. Imagine that you’re painting them. Describe what you see to yourself (‘blue eyes’ ‘purple eyes’, shiny lips, square teeth, freckle one, freckle two)

MOST PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY SHY

In this world we’re expected to be this or that. And to look more like that person and have what the other person have. They will enjoy your conversation as long as you help them be more themselves.

STAY IN THIS MOMENT IN TIME

Words are like baby carrots with hummus. say them, taste them, and just like you’d swallow a piece of baby carrot with hummus, let it go to your belly and forget about it. Don’t keep chewing on the darn thing, don’t regurgitate it.

If you catch yourself going back to what you just said and feeling terrible and regretful about it, bring yourself back to the present. If you find yourself going into the future and thinking about what you’re gonna say, you, my friend, are time traveling.

Fight with yourself to bring your head back to the present, observe, listen, taste, breathe, smell, smack yourself , whatever is necessary but come back to where you are.