Faceless followers… and Facebook folly!

As all those other faceless writers out there in the wide world know, writing is pretty much a solitary craft. I’m talking about the craft here, not the promotion that comes after – the part of the work when the ideas stream out of your head onto a notebook or a computer keyboard. Where you write, how much you write, whether you do it to music or not is irrelevant; the process is an isolated one. You have to get that draft out before you can work on it. Whenever my young writers turn up at my office first thing in the morning, saying, ‘Miss, I have this great idea for a story, it came to me in a dream last night’, I always say to them not to tell me about it, but to get it down on paper. An idea in someone’s head is no good. A draft on paper can be taken in a direction.

The faceless writer… Leilanie Stewart as a blank slate

And as for the extroverted side of the craft; the side that deals with publishers, editors, submissions, promotion and readers, this is where the writer turns agent. Until recently, I was using Facebook primarily as a promotional tool for my work. Out of 169 ‘friends’, less than 10 were interested in my writing. Of these 10, at least 7 were themselves writers, artists, editors, or avid readers. A writer considers their work to be their ‘baby’. My writing is my brainchild – when a person likes my writing, it’s not just professional it’s personal. Easy to sum up: 10 Facebook friends supported me professionally, 159 didn’t care personally. Conclusion: Facebook was a promotional waste of my time.

WordPress on the other hand is professional, so this last little bit is a happy note to my followers. All of you are artists, writers, editors, photographers or bloggers. Out of the 60-something of you (which is a small number compared with 169), I have met 1 of you in the ‘real’ world. That must mean you stop by my blog because you like my work. I’d rather have 60+ followers who like my work than 169 – 10 = 159 followers who don’t support me professionally or otherwise. Thanks for following my writing, readers! I do stop by your blogs to check out the work of all my fellow writers in turn!