Everything Tastes Like Chicken
Well, I’m still here. I’ve been writing. I’ve been not writing. I’ve been listening to a lot of Limp Bizkit. Been listening to a lot of Hole. Watched a documentary on Courtney Love. Started rereading that book on Columbine. Watched the Trainwreck documentary yet again. It’s writing while not writing. I found this clip of Fatboy Slim in the Woodstock 99 rave tent. I watch all this stuff while writing every single night. Probably not the most focused of writing, but it’s immersive. I skip around scenes, figure out new details. This is the most immersed I’ve ever been in anything.
And, after HOURS of literal procrastination, at long last, finally, my WIP is starting to write itself.
Just like magic.
The other day I posted about a sex scene I wrote. The thread got a handful of likes and I considered it successful. A couple of people engaged with it and it made me feel good. It gave me some motivation to keep writing.
Post by @rebeccajoneshowe View on Threads
Word on the street is that social media might be a waste of time or whatever. Everybody’s soapboxing over this, and while I don’t 100% agree with every Thread on this issue, I can admit to the struggle. Before the mass Substack exodus, I felt as though I was building something nice over there. It was a proper balance between a newsletter and a blog and it worked very nicely. But yeah, then my audience left…
I don’t want to start a new newsletter (even though my gut is telling me that it IS the right way to go. I like this blog, though? I rambling. Condensing my life into newsletter-style plot points is difficult. Returning to Patreon is a logical choice, but I don’t think my audience is big enough to really set up a pay-to-appreciate format yet.
I already have two kids and a husband. I’m babysitting my nephew every other day. I SIMPLY DON’T HAVE THE FUCKING TIME TO LEARN NEW THINGS.
Blogging is useless. I am useless. I am a husk of a person trying to pretend that I have a writing career.
I never feel like I’m doing anything “right” online anymore.
Threads is fun but it sometimes feels like high school, every other post just people penning their loneliness to the Dear Algorithm. I’ve got a somewhat neglected Instagram page that never gets the engagement it once did. TikTok is fun, but I’ve no idea what kind of videos to make to promote my book. It was a fun way to share my fashion personality, but then all the cool music that I scored my #fitcheck videos was removed.
There is absolutely no guaranteed way to #win at writer life.
Blogging is useless. I am useless. I am a husk of a person trying to pretend that I have a writing career.
What am I even doing with my life?
It’s a valid existential question for a writer. Writing was never glamorized as being a “good” career choice. It’s a career ripe with alcoholic stereotypes, full of disappointment, rejection, and parental disapproval.
I am lazy. I am doing nothing. I am stuck in fantasy. My entire life was always spent in fantasy. And it’s kind of neat that some of us actually get to make a little bit of an income and find joy in that, right?
Like we got girlies out there actually writing their most depraved sexual fantasies, selling COPIES through TikTok. Stuff that never would have seen the light of day in the past. Ever since Twilight came out, ever since 50 Shades of Grey and 365 Days and now, the uh, absolute takeover of unhinged female fantasy being shared on TikTok now, I’ve been envious of other women’s ability to sell books.
I want to trash these books, but that would be counterproductive for me. Because I don’t want to be a dick, and also, some of the unhinged themes of these “dark romance” books are themes that I’ve been writing about for years. I fell in love with V.C. Andrews as a teen, and here I am now, a grown-ass woman still trying to figure out why women flock to certain forms of romantically disturbing literature.
I can keep on writing hot chicken sex scenes set in the 90s, or whatever weird unhinged stuff I want. I feel like social media is helping me shape the things that I’m both passionate and furious about into something tangible and insightful and fun.
All a writer really needs is a strong foundation from which to write.
Possibilities are endless on social media. I was on Twitter since 2006, and navigating my career without it has been a bit of a reality check for me, as I’m sure it has for many. All a writer really needs is a strong foundation from which to write. Time might be in short supply, but I find it somehow, I guess. I’m still here, doing something. I’m still happy to write. I’m still finding joy in it.
Anyway, if you enjoy my writing and my rambling blogs, please feel free to subscribe:
