When Worlds Collide

I'm very much a two-world person. My online life is very different from my real life. Not in an exciting way or anything. I'm a lot more vibrant online, far less inhibited and much more entertaining.

In real life, I'm a low-key soccer mom. I appear to be as imaginitive as a rutabaga. People know I can cook. They know my kids are involved in way too many activites. They know my husband is a sports volunteer and that I'm involved in Girl Scouts.

They don't know I write.

It isn't a big secret, I'm not trying to hide it from anyone. But it is something personal and something I care very much about. I don't want it exposed for people's polite and trite commentary. I don't mean that in a negative way. First, writing is not something everyone understands. When I used to be more open about it, the first question I was asked was if I wrote children's books. When I answered no, I could tell they were tuning out. Or when they ask if I have anything published and I answer in the negative, they lose interest. And that's okay, I'm not offended. Frankly, if someone comes up to me and talks about their scrapbooking or basket-weaving, I'm going to do the same thing. I'll make polite noises and show a shallow amount of interest, but those are activities I can't relate to so my interest is feigned.

Hence, I keep my writing life exposed online only. People who read my blog are genuinely interested in what's going on. I know not everyone is a writer who reads this blog, but they are aware that I am a writer and know it often influences the rest of my life. When I am harping on some writing issue, I know there a dozen others out there nodding their head and saying, yeah, I know what she means. I generally don't talk about the specifics of my writing, for the same reason I don't like writing synopsis, I'm no good at describing the particulars. Plus, I'm more interested in the general problems of writing that we all share rather than the minute details. Again, you may not relate to my particular genre and I don't want to give you the yawns. Anyway, the point is, my writing world is based primarily in cyberspace.

Until Facebook. Boy, people can really find you on that network. Suddenly people I haven't heard from in 25 years are contacting me. People I know from my kids' schools are "friending" me. But like most things, my Facebook page is geared towards writing. One person I know in real life is my friend on Facebook and emailed me about my blog. Crud....I like the anonyminity of my blog. Another person said she had no idea I was a writer. Yeah, and that's kind of how I wanted it to stay.

For the most part, it is a non-issue. People are so busy with their own lives they don't have time to delve into mine. But I do feel like I have a secret identity which has been revealed and I wonder what people are going to think. Of course, if I sold a book and had a publication date, I'm sure I'd feel differently.