What number matters to me?

A matter of importance, not good or bad

While passing time waiting for my flight home at Okinawa’s Naha Airport, I came across an interview with writer and bookstore owner Ann Patchett. The title of the article alone drew me in as a potential glimmer in the current sea of chaos, but I left receiving much-needed divine confirmation by reading about a person with multiple fiction, non-fiction, and children’s books to their name and no personal social media accounts.

Having a social media presence is pretty much expected, and many of the writers whose work I enjoy have some form of that. Trying to balance a desire to get in front of potential readers with wanting to choose a platform I felt okay attaching my name to, I joined Instagram. I valued receiving occasional encouraging comments and choosing designs for my posts, and the group of people who knew about my writing expanded a little beyond family, friends, and acquaintances. However, significantly more of my time on Instagram was spent on scrolling through other people’s cool visuals and attention-grabbing reels than on consistently expanding and putting out my content. Consuming won out over writing in terms of my focus on the platform, as I often passed the time to see what others were doing.

I decided to deactivate my account several months ago and have been content to miss out on the avalanche of others’ personal updates (I have subscribed to some newsletters or podcasts) and focus more on my life and my writing.

Sunset in Chatan, Okinawa.

While I was satisfied personally, I struggled with whether I was hurting myself as a writer by disengaging from a space where a lot of people engaged. Patchett reassured me about this concern when she said:

"There are always going to be people who want to read. There isn't one truth about the way people are, how they get their entertainment, how they get their education."

It is no small thing that tens, hundreds, or thousands of people want to read what someone writes—I appreciate that you are taking out time to read this right now. But the numbers I find myself more drawn to are:

• the posts I have written, because it demonstrates my commitment to maintaining my writing practice and putting out something of value

• the works listed in my portfolio, because recognition from editors and publishers shows that the quality of my work is improving

• an ISBN, because it means I am not only writer but an author too

What is really important to me is that I write quality work that reflects my style and experiences and get that work published on this newsletter and other publications. Of course I want as many people to read it as possible and get something meaningful out of it, but I am just not willing to maintain much of a social media presence (or, rather, be part of the main social media platforms) as a method of doing so. The platforms I do have are mainly focused on writing, exchanging comments on content that was written, and reading other people’s writing, and I like it this way.

Please do not take this as condemnation of your social media use—that’s not really the focus here. Rather, it is about not feeling the need to follow the majority if what they are doing really does not matter to you.

Question for you: What is a number that really matters to you?

What I’ve been up to:

• I have returned to work and it has been a pleasant experience. I am looking to do a much better job of prioritizing my well-being and writing this time around.

• Visit my website to check out my portfolio.

• I am on BlueSky at the moment and am thinking about how and whether to engage more there. I do have a couple posts you can check out in the meantime.