“D” is for Daffy

Okay, of all the daffy things one can do, waiting until 11:16 on a Saturday night to START writing is one of the worst ideas. Especially if you have goals, and especially if you are maintaining a track record of daily writing.

I’m wondering where the day went. I know at least part of the time went to visiting with a houseguest and spending time with my family. Visitors came by and we spent several hours getting to know them better. Then, there were two trips into town for supplies and then more supplies.

Town is thirty-five minutes each way.

A further part of my day was spent trying to discover if there is a book on ETHICAL approaches to platforming. So far, I haven’t found one, though I did discover that platforming means different things to different authors.

When I started writing last year, I was daunted by all I didn’t know about how to win readers. In fact, I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to read my writing in the first place. After a few months, I went through a phase of being too audience aware and too concerned with what others thought of my writing. I’ve seen others go through this process and never quite recover their sense of an unselfconscious self.

Towards my birthday this year, I found myself coming into a new space. Based on what I was reading, and me knowing myself, I decided to give myself a gift: I was going to remain my own authentic self even if that self was not a so called marketable self. Anyone who knows me can tell you I’m a rotten liar, being both bad at the act and prone to prolonged guilt over dishonesty.

Reading other writers every day, I’ve become accustomed to judging them as much by what they write as by who they show they are in their interactions with others. I’m in several writing groups where people posts and share their work. In the two largest groups, one group has an extremely astute, all-female audience, one which is not afraid to confront each other while, at the same time, offering support. In that group, people are honest, respectful, proactive, and observant, AND they buy each others books.

In the second group (which has grown dramatically since it was started a little more than a year ago), there is a core group of vocal, hardworking, honest people and a transient crowd which at times becomes more vocal. In this group, sadly, there are people who have no idea of the negative impact they create when they misread the group norms and post work so often that they create a NEGATIVE association with their name.

Each writer needs to consider not only what is recommended for writer platforming, but also what fits his or her own ethical standards. Though there are platforming programs which suggest that writers should tweet, share, or otherwise remind people of their presence multiple times a day, an alternative is to have enough genuine respect for your reader that you provide a quality product which fills his or her needs, and you sell that in a way which doesn’t create negative associations for your readers.