I Hate This (But who am I really?)

Not the post I meant to write.

Kinda weird, being a writer. Or, rather, being an author. They’re different, after all. One is the real job, the creating. The making stuff up in our head and then letting it out before it drives us mad, ideally in some kind of form that means other people can upload it into their head and in doing so carry on the conversation. (All writing is conversation, right? Or else it’s just screaming into the void and/or masturbation).

But being an author? That’s about something else. Finding the people who might want to upload your download, I guess. Making sure they know you’ve written something. Putting your work out there. It’s attending the launch parties, which you mainly go to to catch up with the friends you’ve made and drink the cheap red wine, but which are also about — and this is a word I’ll hate until the day I die — networking. It’s going out and doing the festivals, sitting on a stage (or in front of a group of mostly disinterested library enthusiasts who have come because it’s a rainy Tuesday and they weren’t doing much else), to talk about yourself and your books and whether you write with a pen or straight onto the laptop.

More masturbation, right? Until someone comes up at the end and says, ‘I loved your book, it turned me on to reading and now I’m a reader’ (true story) or, ‘I saw you talk in a library in 2011 and I decided to finish my book and now I’m three books in with a a TV series on the way’ (also true story). Those kind of moments might be few and far between but they make it all worthwhile. And hey, I’m not complaining. It’s an honour to be asked to these events and invited to these festivals. I like red wine, after all, and (usually) I come away inspired by the people I’ve met. So all good.

Nowadays (and perhaps it was always thus) putting your work out there means putting yourself out there. And that’s weird. Writing is weird. Fiction, anyway. It’s spending hours and hours in a room by yourself (even if you write in a cafe´ you’re by yourself) talking to imaginary people, and asking them to do what you say, PLEASE. It takes a certain type of person to do it (or to want to do it, for that matter). An Introvert maybe, or ambivert at least. Someone who, just maybe, isn’t that confident with others. Isn’t that good at putting themselves out there.

Take me. I’m still kinda shy, I still hate initiating conversation with strangers. I can do it, but it isn’t easy. I hate walking into bars to meet someone who’s arrived early (or, lets’ face it, arrived on time — I’m habitually 3-7 minutes late everywhere) and ‘bagged us a table.’ I’d much rather meet outside and go in together.

(And no, I’ve no idea why. I’ve thought about this. A lot. I know no one is looking at me, no one cares what I’m wearing or that I have one leg longer than the other so walk slightly weirdly. Those people are too busy thinking about what other people think of them to think much of other people, and so it goes on.)

I’ve more or less got over my dislike of having my picture taken (a win for selfie culture, maybe), and almost like the way I look now. But video is different, and I hate hearing my voice. I sound much more camp than in real life than I do in my head, and though I know there’s NOTHING FUCKING WRONG WITH CAMP I’m a child of the seventies and was conditioned to believe otherwise. I never listen to the Podcast that Will Carver and I do, Let’s Get Lit, because even though I know we had fun recording it and I was hilarious (Will edits all that out so that he seems like the funny one, but trust me), I know I’ll just sit there and analyse how I sound, and what I said that was stupid, and what I could’ve said that might have been funnier, and how recording an entire episode after drinking for an entire afternoon might not have been the power move.

And that’s self-indulgent too. Why do I judge myself more harshly than anyone else on the planet judges me? (Maybe that’s the point, if I judge myself first then other people’s opinions are going to be like water off a duck’s back. ‘You sound camp.’ - I KNOW!) But the upshot is I self censor ALL OF THE TIME. And I find putting myself out there on social media — or at least putting myself out there in a real, meaningful, vulnerable way —  difficult.

They’ll tell you it’s important. Newspapers have all but given up on books unless they’re ‘written’ by celebrities. Publishers are reluctant to spend money on promoting books unless they’re ‘written’ by celebrities. When you ask what the plan is for your next release, they’ll say ‘Well we thought you might do a book reveal on your socials’ (another true story). Like you weren’t going to do that anyway.

So I’m as active as a socially awkward person who hates their voice and doesn't like video can be on social media. But ‘X’ is dead, and there are are rumblings that Instagram and Facebook (which no one under 50 uses anyway) are headed the same way. So what’s a boy to do?

(This is the paragraph where I give the answer. Or should be. But.. . I dunno. I don’t have one. You tell me).

I reckon the first thing I need to do is get over myself. I try to be as real as I can be in all my social media, but there’s always room for improvement.

And this place seems like as good a place as any to start. I’ve been writing here on Substack for a few years now, and I have a decent bunch of followers (or, readers, as I like to call you). So maybe I should trust that. Truly believe that you won’t laugh at my voice or the way I walk (leaning over to one side, if you want to know. It’s subtle and I was in my thirties before someone pointed it out, but there you go…), trust that I can say something you might disagree with and that’s okay, discussion and healthy debate is not only possible, but vital.

Be more real, basically. Be more vulnerable.

Anyway, here’s a picture of me on a train. It probably ought to be a video. Maybe next time. How about it? Am I worrying over nothing? (Validate me. Please.)