Wrangler Dani

I know. I walk into offices weekly, and assure business owners and self-made entrepreneurs that social media and blogging, done well, will forever change their business. I am an expert at the online world, and I attend conferences and lead meetings and teach people about this stuff day in, day out.

But there’s another side of me, too, one that is shrinking the more I become addicted to the instant gratification of online visibility. I’m writing a book, and it’s moving slower than I want it to because writing long is nearly impossible to make myself do. I like snippets, quick witticisms, deep thoughts on an RSS feed, compiled by some faraway genius. Who am I to write long chapters from my heart, to believe that “I have something to say” an expression that I have so often pitilessly mocked as a narcissistic impulse?

I think that the hardest thing about writing is letting go of the need for attention and approval, of writing for myself alone and being true to my heart only. I don’t need an ever-growing band of followers to my blog or Facebook fans or re-tweets – that stuff is powerful and I am more than happy to use my knowledge in social media to help others – but for me, I just need to stop racing toward virtual popularity and embrace the blinking cursor.

No more self-editing, no more distractions into the world of online buzz and glitter. At the end of the day, when my work is done, I want to have written more than just a status update, and I want my words to matter. The only way to do that is to take time to “really” write. To write long and hard and not criticize and not overthink and not worry about what my friends or my parents or my second-cousin-three-times-removed will think.

It’s less terrifying to blog about silly stories of my life and ridiculous incidents in politics. It’s much easier to keep all of you at arms length, showing you the version of me that I want portrayed on this tangled World Wide Web of ours. But if I wrote a book, it’s too long to hide in, and too close to my heart to fake. So I either need to admit that I’m scared and do it anyway, or admit that I’m scared and let myself quit.

I’ve decided on the former, and no amount of online distractions, instant gratifications or self-doubts will derail me – they may distract and cloud my vision, but I know that I need to focus on more than “likes”, “hits” and “retweets” as grateful as I am to them for my daily bread. Here’s to saying something real.

(A caveat: You guys know that I’m not saying that social media is bad or that blogs can’t be “real writing”. I’m just figuring out how to make them work for me and not against me. For the people who were going to call and say, “But I thought you said I should blog….” this is a disclaimer just for you. 🙂 )