About Online Personas: Do I Have One? Do I Need One? Does Anyone Care?

You'd think, for an introvert like myself, interacting online and blogging and whatnot would be easy, seeing as I can do such things from the comfort of my non-people-filled home.

But no. And here's why.

1. It turns out, for me, interacting is interacting, at some level. Yes, in-person interaction is much more exhausting and often high-stress and occasionally bitterly disappointing (that's where my introversion starts to veer into misogynistic, self-critical melancholy). But online interaction takes a certain amount of energy, too. So I'll kind of disappear for days at a time, just as—if you know me IRL—I sort of do in actuality. I need periods of hermitude so I can be a fun-filled bundle of nonstop cheer when you do see me. Or, at least, so I can recharge my energy reserves and be ready to act like a normal person when I see you. And online, I seem to also function in bursts, and then need downtime in between. The two types of interaction also synergize, in the sense that if I'm feeling overwhelmed by real-life stuff, I also tend to be too exhausted to be present online, either.

2. I don't know how much of my actual self I want to put out there. Again, as an introvert, I'm used to sharing only certain things with certain people. So I often get paralyzed into doing nothing when I start thinking about posting X or Y to Facebook or this blog. It's not that I'm secretive. I am sort of private, I guess. But mostly, I wonder things like: Who actually cares if I post this? What if I post something that makes someone weirdly confrontational? What if I post about myself and then regret it and feel stupid about it later? What if my blog post doesn't pass some imaginary "coolness test" that I've totally built up in my mind? And so on.

3. Persona management is something that concerns me now that I have actual published books and articles and stuff out there. And frankly, it feels like an overwhelming Sisyphean task. Should I be doing certain types of posts now that I'm "an author"? Is it bad if I don't do what author X or author Y are doing? (Obviously the answer is no, but the question still bothers me.) What if by doing X or Y I totally screw it up? What if by doing NOTHING I screw it up? And then there's the feeling that whatever bits and pieces of myself are already floating around out there have a life of their own already—a thought that makes me feel incrementally better simply because it's out of my hands.

Ultimately, though, I guess I do at some level crave interaction, or I wouldn't be writing things and posting things in the first place. But just as I feel a bit out of sync with the way "most normal people" (who are these people??) in the world function socially, I also feel a bit out of sync with how I'm supposed to be or expected to behave online. I guess that's because now there IS such a thing as "normal" behavior online, now that most* people are online and doing things. So the normative mores for online behavior now follow what those "normal people" do, and we're back to fundamentally the same situation in the online world as the physical one.

Of course, that is a vast generalization. And I want to live in a world—real or online—where there is room for variety in the socialization spectrum. It's not actually something we're taught very well (or at all), in our society: to tolerate different types of social behavior and patterns of interaction. I make a conscious, conscientious effort to respect the needs of the people in my life when it comes to them needing more or less interaction. But I need to respect my own needs, too. And I guess, right now, I'm not sure what my needs actually are as far as my online presence is concerned.

Drum Roll...Contest Winners!

I'm grateful to everyone who cruised by to leave a comment in honor of my cover reveal for my next book, The Truth Against the World--the favorite sayings you shared were all fabulous, and I've compiled them into a list below. FIRST, though: the moment you've all been waiting for. The drawing of winners, who will be selected via Random.org, a random number generator, and picked simply by counting down through the eligible comments (a method I stole--er, borrowed--from the smartypants Greg Pincus and his Pi/Pie contest).

I'll be picking not one, but three winners (heh. pick a winner. HAHAHA! sorry, apparently I am 12 years old).

So, here we go: the winner of a signed copy of Underneath, my newest book, is--
Heidi

The winner of a signed copy of The Latte Rebellion, my first book, is--
RM1(SS) (ret), aka James

The winner of a Latte Rebellion coffee mug is--
Charlotte

Yay, everyone!! Congratulations! Winners please email me your mailing address and I will pop these in the mail this week. If you want the book signed to a particular person (i.e. yourself, a loved one, a sworn enemy), or not, please let me know.

Thank you all so much, too, for all of your support over these past few busy years--I've known nearly all of you commenters for quite a number of years, either in person and/or online, so you probably know far more about my ups and downs than you really WANT to. I'm thankful for your friendship and kindness--and your collective, collected wisdom:

• "-- life exists -- and identity -- the powerful play goes on -- and you may contribute a verse" -- Walt Whitman
• "dyfal donc a dyr y garreg" - "It's a steady tapping that breaks the stone."
• "There are more things in heaven and earth, {Horatio,}
  Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." -- Hamlet (1.5.166-7)
• "Gwlad heb iaith, gwlad heb genedl." - "A country without a language is a country without a nation."
• "If you truly want your 'ship to come in,' don't wait on shore expecting it to steam in past the breakwater and onto the beach. Risk everything, jump in the water and swim out to meet it."
• "There are two types of ships - submarines and targets."
• "Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep."
  — Scott Adams
• "If you love something, set it free.
  If it comes back to you, it's yours.
  If it doesn't, it never was."

THE TRUTH AGAINST THE WORLD Cover Reveal Giveaway

Goooood morning, and welcome to the official cover reveal for The Truth Against the World, my next YA novel, due out in June of 2014! Whee! Raise your glass or coffee mug or whatever you happen to be imbibing at this hour, and take a gander at this:

(C) Flux Books, 2013. Don't steal it!

I honestly could not be more excited, considering I had no preconceived notions about the cover design this time around. ALL three of my covers have been awesome. I'm thrilled. I keep looking at that fake old-crinkly-paper look around the edges and ooh-ing and aah-ing. In fact, I've learned a lot about graphic design just from my own book covers.

Anyway, because I'm all excited and jumping up and down about it, I am holding a giveaway so I can share the love. The details:

• The entry period is NOW, today, Friday, October 4th, through two weeks from now, Friday, October 18th.
• The requirements: leave me a comment (A REAL ONE, PLEASE) on this post, letting me know one of your favorite slogans or sayings. (Why a saying? The title of my book comes from the slogan of Wales' Gorsedd of Bards, and there are some cool Welsh proverbs scattered throughout the book.) One entry per person, please. I reserve the right to deem any entries ineligible: e.g. if they are not real actual people, if they are duplicates, or if they are evil trolls. Like Google says: Don't be evil.
• There will be Three Prizes, awarded by random drawing at the end of the contest period: one signed copy of The Latte Rebellion, one signed copy of Underneath, and one Latte Rebellion coffee mug.
• OK: go!

Tune in Tomorrow, Kids

...for the long-awaited (or, at least, awaited) unveiling of my next book's awesome cover! I love, love, love it, just like I've loved my other two covers, and I feel incredibly lucky about that.

Another teaser about my next book, The Truth Against the World: some of you might remember it as my "Welsh novel," because part of it's set in South Wales. You might also remember it as my World War II novel, although the wartime bits are mostly memories and such, and most of the story's in the present day.

This one is also going to have a heinously long list of thank-yous, because I consulted a ridiculously large number of people when I wrote the first draft, and it will also have a bibliography, because I'm nerdy and looked up books about WWII Britain. I BOUGHT books about WWII Britain. They are cool. No, really. Where else could I find recipes for Trench Cake, Wood-Pigeons, and Mock Oysters?

Those aren't in my book, though.

Check back tomorrow! There will also be a giveaway, so come with your commenting hat on!

Cover Reveal Countdown!

Okay, so this is an unforgivably short post, but I just wanted to alert you all that I will be doing the OFFICIAL COVER REVEAL for my next YA novel, The Truth Against the World, this Friday, October 4th, right here! Watch this space!

Some of you may remember The Truth Against the World in its earlier form, The Other Olwen, a ghostly mystery about a family secret. It was my MFA thesis (and therefore exists in a rather embarrassingly early draft bound in the Mills College library) and the first book I ever tried submitting to publishers and agents. It has undergone some serious changes (damn you, cell phones! damn you, inevitable passage of time!) but, I hope, is much better for it.

I will also be having Some Sort of Contest to celebrate the cover reveal. Details to be determined, but there will be prizes. Prizes, I say!