I'm talking about privacy.
Nowadays, a writer's popularity doesn't depend solely on book sales. Social media plays a big role in setting the writer's status. Being present in book signings and events gets you closer to your target market. And even if it's totally unrelated, photo visibility seems to have an effect on the modern writer's career, as well.
For one's writing career to depend on all these factors is both a promising and worrying situation. One wrong step and your budding career goes down the drain.
History shows that reputations got ruined from far more trivial things. It makes you wonder if posting a selfie photo of you eating in a carinderia will make or break you.
Paranoia overload.
But like our mentors always say, the romance genre has intelligent readers. Contrary to what the rest of the cynical world assumes about romance readers, we ('cause I'm first and foremost a reader, too) know when the writer is making an effort to tell a story or simply trolling us. We know a good novel when we read one.
But the online world is far crueler for it doesn't discriminate between the truly critical reader and the yet to be enlightened ones. Everything I put out there, especially the personal bits, can be used against me. With a bitter netizen, it's always easy to find a connection between your writing ability and straightforward personality.
As if that mattered with the great writers of our history before.
Everything I say will have a negative connotation regardless of the good intention. By going online, I've laid down almost everything for the world to comment and intrude upon.
Almost, but NOT everything.
As tempting as it is to go with the flow and bare as many internal organs as I can in public, I'm thankful to have the foresight to still think about the repercussions.
Where do I draw the line between this writer persona and that (boring) personal life? How much more of my privacy should I risk for this career? Do I really have to go out there and socialize for the sake of people remembering my pen name?
Well, no one is telling me to do bare it all in the first place. It's still up to me to decide how much to reveal about myself. It's up to me how to interact with people and readers. And I always do it as respectfully as I could.
I guess I just prefer a low profile existence.
It's not that I hate the attention. Heaven knows, we all crave for it. It's basic human need if you ask me. But most of the time, it gives me unnecessary pressures in writing. It feels like I have to do more than write. It's distracting. I don't think it's what I should be doing.
A writer should only be writing, right? That's my priority more than anything else. That's my life. I should take care of it.
Protect it.
...
Sometimes, discarding my netizenship and living a hardcore hermit writing lifestyle is tempting, but I'm not going that far. I just think that what I'm doing right now, where I am right now, is my limit. It's as private as I want it to be. And I like it to stay that way as much as possible.
I've realized that privacy is a basic need for me. In my life, I've been struggling to maintain what limited privacy I have. It's an important aspect of my life. Maybe more important than meeting new people personally (though I don't mind interacting in social media). It's just that I need the freedom anonymity gives.
It's my last safe haven.
...
I always wondered how writers cope up in this era. Before, when being a published writer was just a dream, I thought fame is what I'm after. But now, I realized that I can't pay its price. I can't exchange my privacy for it. I prefer something simple and basic, no added spices or side dishes.
"Because I'm a writer, I write. That's all."
I like the sound of that. It keeps me focused. It keeps my feet on the ground.
"Because I'm a reader, I read. That's all."
That's also not so bad, don't you think?
A simple, basic system.
But then we are humans, therefore we tend to want more. A more complicated structure to build and nourish our lives with. Usually more than what we think we need.
(I'm a minimalist, so...)
...
What do you think? Have you evaluated how much privacy you are willing to let go in exchange for those additional writing perks? That's up to you. We all have our limitations.
A goody-goody facade is high maintenance. Your horrible, everything unlovable, real self will find its way out eventually. It won't hurt to put up a guard to protect your personal life at least. And the life of those you hold dear.
Don't take your privacy for granted. ;-)
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