Me And My Cave

I live in a cave. A social media cave. Called WordPress. You may have heard of it. It’s my safe place, my sanctuary, a refuge where I’ve been able to lick my wounds and heal. When my confidence was at an all time low two years ago I discovered it. It was a new beginning. A chance to start afresh and tentatively expose my writing to a new audience. An audience which I’ve watched grow beyond all expectation.

I would say my WordPress experience has been 99.9% positive. I’ve met some amazing people along the way. Oozing talent, telling their stories, bravely opening their souls to all and sundry. Bloggers encompass a kaleidoscope of genres, interests and values. A more eclectic bunch I’ve never seen. Yet at their core, runs a common thread of goodwill and kindness. Bloggers aren’t nasty. End of.

2019 has necessitated me stepping out of my comfortable, dank cave into the glare of other social media platforms. This has been a disorientating experience. I feel like it’s my first day at a new school and I’m standing in the middle of a packed playground, stark naked. The cool kids point and stare. I want to run away, back to where I belong. Back to WordPress and steady, stable ground.

Instead I find myself on Twitter, an old stamping ground I find baffling and infuriating in equal measure. Everything is a million miles an hour. My efforts at securing a toehold are largely ignored and I’m lost in a screaming melee of other wannabe authors, desperate to be seen and heard. Twitter is me, me, me, the land of the selfie. It’s also possibly the angriest place on earth.

There are a lot of very angry people on Twitter. They have an opinion and they want to share it with us all, and woe betide anyone who dares to think differently. Arguments erupt left, right and centre. A minefield of bitterness and bile. Politics, religion, sexuality, it’s all there. And it’s often the so called oppressed minority groups who reign supreme, bullying and baiting the rest of us into submission.

It’s not a place I want to frequent. The blog appears there and I skirt the edges of its writing community. But I’m wary of fully immersing myself. Before too long, I’m beating a hasty retreat back to my cave and my tribe. WordPress is my online home. It’s where I go at the end of a long, hard day. It’s where I feel appreciated, valued and wanted. It is the antithesis of Twitter. It’s where the good people are.

Then there’s Facebook. My authors page was launched there yesterday. ‘Real’ people now know about the book. People I see every day. I have no idea how they will react to this news. Will I become an object of scorn and ridicule? I hope not, but I worry some may see this as an opportunity to mock and belittle me. It makes me edgy, anxious and defensive. It makes me want the security of the cave.

It takes courage to step out of the cave. Courage I’m not sure I have. But here I am, nonetheless. At least I know, if it all comes tumbling down, I have somewhere I can retreat to, I have people who ‘get’ what I’m doing and will rally round when the wheels come off. I hope that time never comes. My period of hibernation is at an end. I stumble out of the darkness and into the light. It is time. My time.