An author's collection of thoughts and stories
Seeing that made me oddly satisfied.
In case you suspected that all of my ranting against social media was hypocritical, I give you this screen shot as proof that I don’t engage with it at all.
0 social followers.
😀
The weird part is the number of views I’ve gotten with Facebook as the referrer. It’s not my doing, and I have no clue who is posting links to my blog.
Reality:
Portrayal on social media:
Aw crap, I forgot to add a lens flare.
When you’re a creative sort, the number one advice is always, “Use social media to promote yourself.”
I don’t.
(I have nothing good to say about social media, so it would be rather hypocritical.)
This blog is the closest that I get to that sort of thing, and instead of trying to encourage any sort of ‘community’, I’m content to post my musings to the void. Lurk as much as you want — it’s fine by me. Personally, I miss the days when I could sit down in a private corner and read something entirely for myself without having to taint it with everyone else’s opinions, so I like to imagine that I’m recreating that here. Feel free to not leave any likes or comments. You don’t have to share if you don’t want to. What you experience when you read my blog and stories belongs 100% to you.
Note: If you are interested in helping me build a community, then join us over on Discord! We can chat in a more intimate setting, free from the pressure of garnering ‘likes’ or looking cool. Not to mention, I share my plans for my stories over there before posting anything about them here, so you, too, can be among the first to know.
Of course, I can’t be too well kept of a secret, because then I might as well stuff everything in a drawer for all the good it does. Writing is my form on self-expression, and I have some idealistic notions about being a positive influence on the world. I know, I know, but my north node* is in Pisces, so I can’t help it.
So, the question of how to reach people is always on my mind.
I’m trying to be creative about it, especially because I have a very rich real life that demands an enormous amount of time.
I’m still very much figuring out what I’m doing — because it’s very much my own thing. I’m not going to get myself into something that’s going to end up sucking out my soul and destroying my creativity.
How would you do it? How would you promote yourself without using social media?
XD
*In astrology, your north node is your overall life purpose/goals. In this context, Pisces represents empathy and healing.
[////]=I quit Facebook completely almost two years ago.
(^ Baby help. I didn’t notice it until several hours after posting.)
I created my account as a teenager because it was the cool thing to do (back when you needed to have a school e-mail address to sign up), then over the years that followed it mutated into a sense of obligation. That whole, “I need to keep people up-to-date on my life,” thang.
Facebook was never a big source of dopamine addiction for me. I was never viewed as being trendy, so instead I mostly felt the anxiety of not being ‘like’-able enough for anyone. But, you know, I was obligated, even though I grew to hate it.
Then the summer of 2017 happened. As I contemplated posting about personal events, I thought about how stupid it was to feel enslaved to people who were never going to see or talk to me again. And why was I keeping up on their lives anyway? They never cared about me before Facebook came along. You know what? Screw them all.
I haven’t looked at Facebook since.
I also highly recommend quitting social media to everyone. Doing so had a surprisingly beneficial effect on my life, even though I never considered myself much of a user in the first place.
So…
This year I published a book on Kindle. I’m not terribly concerned about making money off of my writing, I just want to connect with readers (you know, the peeps who appreciate the way I think). Since I have four small children, I don’t want to do anything that intrudes on my life too much — motherhood comes first above all else for me, and kids are time-consuming. I confess that the thought of Facebook has crossed my mind as something easy.
But I swore never again, and I meant it.
Not to mention, I’m not going to find readers on Facebook, considering that I, as myself, did not enjoy any sort of popularity on the site. Not the right crowd.
I haven’t the foggiest if I have any chance of finding anyone with my self-imposed restrictions, but hey, I’ve never been known to be conventional. The important part is, I still have time for homeschooling and baking cornbread.
At the end of my own life story, I want to say that I kept myself.
I joined an online community for writers.
I confess that on an emotional level, it takes me back to being a teenager on Elfwood, trying my best to chummy up to some clique, and wondering why they just didn’t like me no matter what. After all, I was WAY more talented than any of them.
Now I realize that it wasn’t about admiring talent. They copied each other, and I was stubbornly myself. Cliques don’t like individuals.
I like to imagine that those people who rejected me years ago are now trapped in lonely and pathetic lives. That’s what you get when you sell your soul! Bwahahahaha!
I can say this here, because we aren’t among them right now: I don’t like writers. I have never once gotten along with one. However, I like readers. I LOVE readers, really, because they love fictional worlds and stories as much as I do. I feel a kindred spirit with readers. Writers have fragile egos and are always on the defense — they feel threatened by talent and hard work. They don’t like me either.
I fully expect them to utilize the reviews and rating system to attempt to bully me into conformity. I will likely never be featured as a top writer. I will probably abandon my account with enough time. I suck at fitting in.
So why did I join a community for writers?
Because my oracle cards told me that I need to step outside of my comfort zone, and I can’t think of a more uncomfortable place for me.
That’s why I joined.
I don’t get social media. In this day, having a friend count in the double digits probably makes me a loser, but I’m okay with that. I like the mobility of posting family photos to Facebook, and I like reminiscing back on the experiences I’ve had in the same way I read through my old journals, but I’m a fairly private person. I don’t like the thought of everyone knowing my business, and I don’t want to spend my time portraying a glamorous version of myself that isn’t entirely true to reality. And honestly, who wants to live in a world where a person’s worth is measured by the number of ‘likes’ they accumulate?
Yet occasionally as I work on my novel, I fantasize about having a big audience. I imagine thousands of other people enjoying the stories that I create, and perhaps even relating to my characters and the struggles they overcome. There is a piece of me that craves popularity after all.
From behind the safety of a pen name, so I don’t have to tell the neighbors what I do. Ha ha.
While I don’t write about the experiences that I’ve actually had, I’m emotionally honest in my work, and that makes it hard to advertise myself to the people I meet. In a way I want to be an idea that connects to the secret hurts inside all of us, to help others find companionship and solace. Is that weird? Probably. But I’ve never been normal.
After all, I don’t get social media.
By Autumn Rain 