Survival of midterms, check.
Survival of novel #2, check.
Finishing a novel and having midterms in the same week. Legendary no. Crazy stupid, probably.
That means one goal is off my check list. Hallelujah!
It’s been a week of blunt beginnings.
The life of a writer, a good life it is.
There has begun a media upheaval. It is not entirely unusual for this time of year. I’ve seen post after post about people claiming they’re leaving social media. Internally I roll my eyes and give them a time frame of how long they will last. Cruel sure, inaccurate no.
It’s usually a few days, at most a month. It’s all great. Yes absolutely, but I have drawn the lines myself.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, you name it I got it. For a while I found myself Facebook obsessed. Then I backed off, then I had the great idea of getting into groups. Aha writer groups. Lord help me, and save my sanity. Big mistake, thousands of members and drama at every turn. No, no this writer does not do drama. Big X take that drama and keep it away from my self protected bubble.
Needless to say, I found myself becoming irritated enough that instead of being smart and leaving the groups I would just stop using Facebook. Strange. After arriving back on Facebook and finding out that the algorithms had been axed a bunch. I have left and not looked back. Of course I still use my author page via an app that does not have my feed connected to it. WHEW! My author page is important it is a way to connect with readers and it is easier to be myself there than on my personal page.
What started as a small change has become a big change, cutting down wasted time scrolling and converting that into precious writing time. It cuts down negative feelings and promotes a more positive mood.
If you are feeling the need to cut social media, by all means I recommend doing it. Be realistic, but be relentless. You mother’s sister’s cousin can wait for you to reply to her comment.
Let’s make it a great Monday!
The name of one of the panels I spoke on over the weekend seems fitting for discussion.
Who am I? What is my brand? What thing do I identify myself with? How do you build an author brand? Do you even know what you are doing?
The answer is simple: I have no idea.
Logically I am learning as I go.
It may seem amateurish to admit that my mind is blown by marketing and all this technological use that comes with being an author and building an author brand. Really that does not bother me. I’ve always been a little strange and I’ve been able to incorporate that into my brand building.
What’s the use of building around yourself when you’re not really being yourself? The answer to that is, it’s completely useless. Being fake, is just an asshole ploy to try to teach people you’re this perfect little ball of writerly perfection. I tried that, made a fool of myself and have shucked out the parachute to land on Plan B. Take my advice, actually build a brand around yourself, the real you. The world needs more creatives, not more fakers.
If you’ve got a weird quirk, go with it. WE ALL HAVE THEM. I have more than I care to list, but that’s besides the point. Getting back on point, building a brand.
Okay, I have no idea what I’m doing but it’s working out for me so. Honestly I think that is the reality of building your own brand. None of us know what we are doing. Most of us if not all of us started from scratch, had to get our names out there, go to events, do things we maybe didn’t want to do. Even though that may be true, we all have different paths. Individually we have to find what works for us.
So when building the brand of you:
Sincerely,
A blunt writer named Monster Girl
