Why I Wrote Going Wilde

Early in the process of writing my memoir, I met up with a friend for a drink. When I told her about the book, she said, “ Why would you want to write that? Doesn’t it mean reliving a lot of bad stuff?”

She wasn’t the first or the last person to ask me that question. I get it. A lot of people want their past to be in the past. We move on.

Much as I understand that, I wanted to own my story. When you put yourself out there in the digital world trying to earn a living on social media, so many people create a fiction around who you are. My followers, and lots of other people, project their own perceptions and assumptions onto Jessica Wilde. Those fictions are about their needs and their perceptions. Frankly, I’m fine with them using Jessica as a foil. But telling the truth, capturing the real story of a real woman, became an itch I badly needed to scratch.

Partly, it was the fundamental desire to feel “known.” For so much of my life I’ve been alone and understood that nobody really knew me. There’s this satisfaction when you get deeper into a relationship and the other person discovers layer after layer about you, right down to your deepest corners. I wanted to immortalize that process and that feeling.

Lastly, I wrote this book—as I do everything—for my daughter. I was intent on exploring self-image—what’s healthy and what’s not. My daughter is growing up in a world where online illusions will deeply impact her. I want to give her the tools to navigate that particular environment and come out of it whole.

It’s a lot to ask of one small book, but it was at least worth the honest effort I gave it.