Interiority...

Hello everyone!!!  Or the one person who reads this bloggidy blog blog blog.  

I got told, by those in the know that a writer must have a 'Facebook Page" a "Twitter Account" a "Website" and a 'Blog' well, I have to say after a couple of years of having all these things and angsting over every fecking thing I write in them,  I can truely say, from my experience, that this is total and complete bollocks.  

A writer doesnt need any of these things!!!!!!!!!

All a writer needs is a medium by which to transfer words onto a thing, be it paper, a block of wood, computer, skin...whatever...by means of  pencil, crayon, felt tip pen (now called vivids after some genius advertising ploy) bic ballpoint, word processor, needle or what the hell ever.  

None of this other stuff matters unless you want to sell what you write.  And there my darlings, is the rub - the big fat rubbidy dub dub dub.  

Because all this bollocks comes under the heading of Marketing...yeah yeah say it after me....in fact lets shout it, MARKETING!!!!!!

Guess what.  I can't do it.  All the writing, facebook, connecting, twittering, engaging is taking time away from what I love.  Not that I don't enjoy all these methods of communication.  They are actually as addictive as the Zopiclone I’ve been taking for twenty two years to get to sleep of a night because without it I am a mental case.  (I am still a mental case but locked in my room I am no longer a danger to others *smile*)

I can't do it all anymore.  Social Media is sucking increments of my life away and I have to stop.  Right now.  Because for a little bit of time I become the person I am terrified of being and that is a seeker of "LIKES" and "RETWEETS" and "THUMBS UP'S" 

Fuck that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am not going to be a person who lives her life through other peoples fecking opinions.  

I write books.
They are stories about women who come up against shit in their lives and battle their way through it.  They fall in love, they have kids, they have secrets and people keep secrets from them.  They  are empowered and strong but still soft and vulnerable.  They make mistakes, sometimes huge ones that change the lives of everyone around them.  They are human and to me, they are reflections and refractions of all the woman I know, and those who came before me and will come after.  
I write stories about Men, strong, flawed, loving, sometimes talky sometimes silent, sometimes moody men who are reflections and refractions of the men I have in my life, those who came before and those who will come after.  I am lucky that there are so many amazing men in my family that I can ask those words "Why do men do this, why do they do that, what do they think about this, why do they react like that???'  
I write stories about children and young adults and their struggles finding a place in this world which is - let’s face it - a hard place to be different.

I write about these things because I am "different".  

I am a writer, and as a writer I live on the periphery of life and spend a lot of time observing it and not a hell of a lot of time being in it - being "Present" as they say .   I am mostly 47% present at any one time.  The rest of me is always somewhere else, observing, creating new scenarios, asking the big "WHAT IF" questions about situations I see or imagine, structuring, writing, writing some more, editing, muttering to myself, drawing to unravel my tangled thoughts, folding origami cranes, sitting in bed reading, watching youtube videos about other writers, listening to audio books, watching the good bits in movies because I know longer have the patience to commit to the story of a movie, not will I ever watch TV again, but I will binge watch tv series from beginning to end in one sitting and I write, write, write, write.

So what does all this revelation mean?  
Well I don't really know.  I
 guess I just won't be on line searching for validation or brandishing my opinions at people as much. 

I want to write, so that’s what I'll be doing.

Love Olivia