Realized last night while trying to sleep that like, major reason I haven’t taken my writing particularly seriously like, in trying to make it a career or trying to get published, is that as much as I love writing and love having people read my writing I don’t want to have to make an Author Persona like I don’t want to make myself into a selective curated brand. I don’t want to pitch myself I just want to show my writing and be like “on its own merits do you like it” without having to market who I am around it. I often think about wanting different pen names on everything I write that’s remotely different from anything else. I’d love to write a book but I don’t want a book that says SHEL RAPHEN in big big letters or gd forbid my legal professional name that I use for my librarian career. I don’t wanna be that exposed. I don’t want anything I say online to reflect on what I do at my job or vice versa. Even though my publishing connections through my job would be useful in getting my writing noticed…. But my writing is always under this name.
And it’s very strange because right now my writing is entirely distributed by force of my personality. I distribute it solely via social media accounts where people follow me because they like my vibes or other writing. I like to think I’m pretty genuine on here and I’m not curating this blog into a branded character persona like some of my friends do whose careers are more tied into their online presence. I like that my blog doesn’t affect my income.
Like I want my writing to be read. I don’t really want income from it. I would prefer all my money to be nice and stable from my job. I just want the exposure of being published.
Working in a library I know that my writing doesn’t need to be of the highest quality to get a book published. It’s just about taking it seriously as a career and making those connections. I don’t want to. I just wanna write a silly romance novel and get it into libraries.
