Social-networks_aIt’s funny that I sometimes forget just how shamelessly Twitter is about self-promotion. Someone follows me, I’m like, oh, new follower? Let me see who it is! Oh, a DJ. Why would you want to follow me? That’s right, you just want me to follow you back. That’s how this works. Then we can pay no further attention to each other because you’re thing, DJing has nothing to do with my thing, which is writing. Then maybe after a while you’ll unfollow me hoping I don’t notice so that you maintain a healthy number of followers against number you’re following to make it look like you’re the real deal, desired, wanted, leading the pack.

I have a few rules on Twitter, and one is that I’m always willing to follow other writers who follow me. A lot of us are struggling with the same thing, trying to make a go of our passions, follow that dream. When we publish something, we hope other people are reading it, so we want to promote it. Some of the people I follow post cool stuff, some not so cool. But if you’re another writer and you follow me, I’ll follow you back and you have my support, at least from the moral perspective. Honestly, it’s a little disheartening how many of us there are fighting for space. But then again, as long as each of us is doing his or her own thing, there’s room for it, right?

What I don’t particularly like is when someone from the writing community follows me to get me to follow back and then unfollows to buffer their numbers. I had this happen where an editor followed me under her own identity and then followed me with her journal page as well. I followed her back on both and when she unfollowed me, I unfollowed her. She then tried three more times to  to bait me into following her again, and I wasn’t having it. And Christ, if these types of maneuvers don’t make me feel childish and kind of gross inside! And I throw my hands up and think, do I really have to do this? I could be like, screw this, I don’t want to play by these rules. But I think you have to develop a reputation and following before you can pull a full Salinger. I’m not even sure Salinger would be able to pull a full Salinger anymore. And let us not forget, Salinger didn’t always want to be a recluse. Once upon a time, Salinger wanted to be published and sought out recognition. It was only continuous engagement that disillusioned him.

Navigating the social media aspect is tricky for an aspiring writer. Part of that is that I’m not entirely comfortable with it. I’m still learning the ropes. I’ve had this site for years now and only recently sussed out what I wanted to do with the blog. I’ve had numerous false starts, put up posts and took them down. At root, this was because I’m not sure how much I wish to share versus how much I wish to keep private. It’s tricky. I think I’d prefer to keep my personal life entirely personal. The writers of old never really had to contend with this. They could maintain an air of mystery, an elusive quality. But I keep hearing you have to promote yourself these days to make it. By make it, I of course, mean find an agent, publisher and get people to read your work. And I can’t really pretend that I don’t want people to read my stuff. Can I cultivate a persona of not seeming to say, “Look at me, look at me” while saying, “Look at me, look at me”? I hate the air of desperation social media self-promotion exudes.

I would really just like to produce work and let the work speak for itself. But what makes you stand out? How are you unique? What’s your platform? What’s your voice? Well, it’s in my stories. What? What do you mean it’s in your stories? Well, that’s where I do my work. I think about life and reflect on it in its various complexities and I engage them in narrative. Oh, we can’t sell that. You need an angle, a way to market yourself. People want personality served up on a platter, hot and fresh, they want authenticity. But how’s it authentic if I don’t want to do it?   

So I have to figure out a way to want to do it, I suppose. It’s fun to talk about process. I don’t mind doing that, so you’ll find that here. But I don’t really like talking about lit mag culture and submission strategies too much. You can find that other places. I like when I publish stuff to tell the story behind the story if anyone’s interested. And I’ll put that up here too. I also have always wanted to write film reviews, so I’ll try that out here too. I’m okay with sharing a bit of personal stuff, anecdotes about family life and raising kids. If you’ve been reading so far, I’m glad and I hope you’ve enjoyed these posts. I can’t guarantee I’m not going to hit that point again where I take it all down and start over. But I like the place it’s heading at the moment, and I’m going to try to keep it up. But please don’t be surprised if I go into silent mode again at some point.