When people tell me in real life, “I need to read your article,” I get a sick feeling in my stomach.
It’s one thing for strangers to read my writing. Internet strangers read my writing, clap, and respond all within the isolated environment of the internet. No matter what an internet stranger thinks of my writing, the consequences of their judgment will never extend beyond the boundaries of my internet-enabled technology. If they misunderstand something or have an irrational overreaction, it doesn’t have to affect me if I don’t want it to.
Real people are different. If a real person misunderstands what I wrote, they can confront me about it. If a real person wants to criticize my work, I have to listen, whether I want to or not. And lastly, real people are more likely to dislike my work, for the simple reason that we are more critical of creators we know than we are of those we don’t.
What makes me the most nauseous is the idea of someone close to me reading my work. Someone close to me knows me, knows my life story, and can read into what I’m writing. There’s a chance they will read into it correctly - there’s a much greater chance they will read into it incorrectly, assume they’re correct, and then start treating me differently based on their assumptions.
That fear is enough to make me consider adopting a pen name, which I’m ideologically against. When you use a pen name, you are preventing your audience from seeing who you truly are. Your authentic work can’t find it’s way back to you, and your life is less fulfilling because of it.
But when I consider that people close to me, people I love, could feel differently about me because of my work, a pen name seems really tempting.
What is even worse is people read my writing in front of me. They quietly whisper the words to themselves, and it feels like an electric shock. It feels like being naked.
No, it doesn’t feel like being naked - it feels like being much more naked than naked. It feels like having my outer layers stripped away, leaving me bare and exposed; a raw nerve.
Which is a bit of an overreaction to having someone read an article titled “The Stages of Life According to Furniture.”
There are two issues at play here for me:
A fear of being authentically who I am. I’ve touched on this feeling before. "I'm Too Afraid To Write Something Genuine."
A fear that people will judge me unfairly. That is tough shit for me because people will always judge unfairly. This is easy to brush off for strangers, but not for people I’m close to. But if someone close to me judges me unfairly, then the terrible truth is that perhaps they shouldn’t be so close.
What I want to know is, do other writers have this problem? Are there any books or resources that really helped you with these issues? I’d love to know.
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