After all, established family and friends who already follow my writings scattered across pretty much every platform except my own are basically an instant audience. I already know they like my writing style and are interested in what I have to say.
The problem? They fall into two distinct gorups: the 'wild' group doesn't know my actual name for safety reasons, and the 'conservative' group doesn't know about my wild side for sanity purposes. Combined with my established anxiety disorder, this results in feeling that writing real stuff with my real name spells real disaster.
I identified four things about myself today that are never going to change and must be reconciled somehow:
- I'm a writer. I'm always going to be writing somewhere, somehow, in some form.
- My natural writing style includes sharing about my personal life to the point of oversharing. Always has, always will.
- My immediate and large extensive family is extremely conservative Christians.
- I live a nonconventional lifestyle and identify as kinky, something that I'm passionate about discussing and being open about
As for the fourth point, such things might or might not be the focus of writing projects to come but avoiding any references whatsoever stifles my writing and ends up stalling me into serious writer's block.
This morning was a classic case of realizing why I've failed in the past. Perhaps other writers can be successful while anonymous, but I was always scared of success because the bigger it gets, the harder it is to hide.
I don't hide it because I'm ashamed of the lifestyle; I hide it because I haven't felt up to dealing with the backlash.
But now I have a specific goal in mind: become a successful writer. And I'm realized:
It doesn't work to seek publicity while hiding at the same time.
Damn, this is scary.
But it's my lesson for today. Takes a deep breath...
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