It’s a strange thing, putting yourself out into the public sphere. I still haven’t quite gotten the hang of it. Writers, and people who advise people who want to be writers, assure me that readers want to connect with authors. They want to know them better than their stories allow, to understand the person behind the writing. All signs point to this being true. In this age of internet and social media, you must have a presence. People have to identify with you. And I get it. Sometimes I, too, enjoy knowing what JK Rowling has to say about a thing (her tweets are usually hilarious and on point and I enjoy the hell out of them). It’s nice knowing when the authors I like are making appearances or writing new books or even doing something as mundane as trying a new recipe or heading off to a favorite vacation spot.
In light of all this, the problem for me is threefold.
One: I’m not that interesting. I work, I write, I sometimes do things with friends and family. I travel rarely, because I feel guilty asking people to watch my myriad cats. In turn, I feel guilty for looking forward to the day when it’s just my husband and me, so we can enjoy our freedom. Let me assure you right now that I love my fur babies. They are spoiled beyond redemption, and will remain so for the remainder of their natural lives. But I admit, I do sometimes ponder how nice it would be not to have them. Or at least, so many of them.
Two: I’m not all that comfortable talking about myself. I have this fear that the more I say, the thinner I’ll spread myself, until I snap and roll up like a rubber band, becoming tiny and misshapen. Diet plan, or self-destruction?
Three: it’s bad enough putting my writing out there. Do I really want my innermost thoughts out there, too? And, perhaps even more important, are they even worth writing?
Case in point, I wrote a blog post a week or so back about the events of February, in which my husband injured himself and scared the hell out of me, and it took him weeks to fully recover, weeks where I had to do nearly everything around the house and wasn’t able to write more than a few sentences. This post waxed poetic about how much I missed writing and what it meant to me, and human experience and blah blah blah. A day after I posted it, I realized what a pile of pretentious garbage it was and threw it in the trash. And that got me thinking: what do I actually want to say? Is there a real purpose to this blog, or is it simply some half-baked attempt to create a persona? How much is too much? How little is too little? How do I know what the hell I’m supposed to be doing?
It may take me a while to figure these things out. I mean, it’s no secret that I want to be a writer. My dream is to eventually do this for a living, or at least have a following large enough to justify the time and effort I put into it. Artifice does not come easily to me, and pretending I do this strictly for the love of writing is disingenuous. Don’t get me wrong–I do love writing. It’s like air to me. I can’t live without it. But the end game is and has always been turning my passion into something lucrative, and for that to happen, I have to carve out a career path among a glut of writers and bloggers and authors, many of whom are a lot better at this gig than I am. In the meantime, I have a day job, because I’m not that delusional. I work in IT, in a position that pays well but stresses me the hell out. I’m on call about once a month for a week at a time, which means my days are not always my own. The work is fast-paced and high stress and it takes a lot out of me. On days when I can’t stop thinking about a meeting I have to prepare for or a presentation I’m giving or a particularly shitty situation I can’t escape, pounding out a few thousand words simply doesn’t happen.
Which brings me back to the question: is any of this interesting? Is it worth writing about? I don’t think so. When I read blogs, its’s often because the writer has an exciting life to talk about or a point to make, generally political, which is a minefield I plan to avoid for the time being. Wading into that arena takes guts I don’t have, although maybe I will some day. I also don’t have anything resembling a writing career yet, so I can’t write about that. What’s left? Technical stuff? I’m not really a technical writer. I may work in the industry, and I may even be good at it, but it’s not my passion. My dreams in life lie elsewhere.
So what I’m left with in this blog is my attempt, however rudimentary, at finding a voice. There are so many aspiring writers out there, dreaming and struggling and hoping against hope that some day things will click and they’ll find a community of people who want them to continue writing. There are a lot of other writers actually living that dream. The goal, then, becomes figuring out how to take myself from the former category and put myself in the latter. Easier said than done. I still haven’t mastered the art of pulling the words from my head and putting them on the page with any kind of accuracy (has anyone? Is this even realistic?). And I can’t make other people like what I have to say.
There’s also the fact that–and I’ll be honest here–people scare the hell out of me. Everybody has an opinion. Oh, boy, do they. And a lo-o-ooot of them aren’t shy about voicing these opinions. Until now, I’ve been a spectator, viewing these train wrecks at a safe distance through a lens of anonymity, where none of the vitriol or judgment I see online or in print is directed at me. Now, suddenly, some of it is. Only a little bit, to be sure. I’m not setting the world on fire with my writing, but I’m not burning it down, either, and I don’t plan on stopping any time soon. My first full-length novel is quickly being written, and if I can make it half as suspenseful, romantic, and magical as it is in my head, people might actually read it.
This thought terrifies me just a little less than the alternative.
I can say with confidence, though, that I refuse to be one of those writers who feels compelled to address negative feedback. I’ve read some pretty epic threads where that very thing happens, and let me tell you: no author comes away looking like a winner in that exchange. I’ve given myself a hard and fast rule that says simply: NEVER DO THAT. But it’s hard to sit back and watch people judge (and misunderstand, and assume the worst of) your work without attempting to set the record straight.
For example, I got a few comments on Daughter of a Dark God about some of its more difficult subject matter (something terrible happens to my main character in the first few chapters) and while I did respond to one person in order to clarify my position and reaffirm the reasons I chose to include it, I didn’t feel great about explaining myself. I had already broken my rule, albeit in what I hope was a respectful and professional manner. But I had to stop myself from taking it even further with the justifications and defenses. I know why I wrote what I did. I firmly believe it was necessary and fitting in the context of my work, and was not written for cheap thrills or as a poor excuse to forward the plot. I never realized, though, how hard it would be to sit back and let people judge what I’ve done. At the same time, it felt great to evoke a reaction at all, to make my readers stop and think about what I had to say. I realized how fucking amazing it is to have people read my writing.
But I’m still left with the question of who I want to be. Am I overthinking this? I’m pretty sure the answer to that is a resounding yes. I am who I am, and I shouldn’t apologize for that. Nobody wants to hear me get all philosophical about things that far greater minds than mine have hashed out for centuries, but at the same time, I have a perspective and a sense of humor, and sometimes that’s all you need. So expect to see more entries in the future, ranging from my thoughts on current events to critiques and reviews of the things I read, watch, love, and hate. Cause damn it, I am a person, and I have an opinion.
About everything.
Katia Cole 