being a writer vs being on social media
It’s been a long, long time since I’ve kept up my writing blog.
I used to love coming here to write about the creative process, share writing tips, and put together bits and bobs of pieces I was working on.
I’ve intended for some time now to revive my blog, and I’m hoping this entry is the start of it.
But honestly? It’s hard.
A lot has changed since I started writing professionally over 20 years ago.
At that time, Facebook was still just a thing that college kids were using to connect with each other. It was literally putting the “social” in social media.
MySpace was a thing, but nothing that seemed to take up as much time as social media does these days.
There was no Instagram, Twitter, Tik Tok, Threads, or other platforms to get distracted by.
I remember, though, when Facebook started to catch on and evolve into a more robust platform, how many established artists from previous generations said that they would have loved to have something like social media when they were building their careers.
And at first, I felt grateful for it. And I, too, wished it had been something that had existed much earlier. Especially since it took some time for social media to become, and be seen as, the marketing tool we tend to think of it as now.
If I’d had more insight into what social media was becoming, I might have used it less casually early on.
For many of out there, social media is no longer about keeping up with your friends. There’s an agenda behind it of building a platform, selling, marketing, and becoming known.
And there’s nothing wrong with any of those things at a basic level: They’re all important if you are intending to build a business or create visibility around your work.
But now, after being online for nearly as long as I’ve been writing, I find myself resenting some of the tools that have been useful (to varying degrees) to me along the way.
I’m tired of social media hijacking my mind and my time.
Instead of sitting down to write a blog, I sometimes feel obligated to open up my Instagram app and post a photo with a caption. Especially if I haven’t posted something in a while.
I also find – and maybe you do, too – that I think differently than I used to. Now, I catch myself observing something while I’m out in the world and thinking, “That would make a cool post.” Or, “Should this be a post?” Or, “I haven’t posted in a while: I should look for something to post.”
Post, post, post: It feels like part of my mind is on this hamster wheel of social media creation and curation that I don’t want to be on.
What I should be doing – as a writer, as an artist – is freeing up my mind, not jamming it full of distractions and pressures.
Instead of looking at the world through the lens of social media, I need to be seeing with the eyes of a writer.
I am a writer, not a content creator.
I don’t want my creative energy being sucked up into an endless stream of posts and videos that will flit across someone’s screen for a few seconds at a time.
This isn’t to say that I still don’t think social media can be useful. But it’s a tool, not a lifestyle.
At least for me.
And I don’t want to spend the rest of my life staying up to date with whatever platform everyone is rushing onto next.
I want to express myself in the way I think I do best – through my words – but I don’t want to do it in a way that has me creating ten times more content than writers were 30 years ago and more.
Writers have long found success without social media. I want to believe that we can continue to do so. Or, that if we choose to use social media as a tool, that we can do so in a way that doesn’t compromise our creativity or drain us of our energy.
Because some days it feels like there is just too much to stay on top of, and too much to pay attention to.
And I’m about ready to change the ways I’ve been working.
One of those ways is getting back to long-form blogging.
Another is by focusing more on my ‘80s podcast, Forever 80s.
One of the ways I’d like to do that is to start up an irregularly scheduled newsletter. It will include the odd musing like this one, and will highlight any events or publications I have coming up, as well as podcast updates.
If you’d like to join, let me know by dropping your email below. We’ll see how it unfolds in time.