Always Late For The Party: An Internet Story

No matter what the trend, I always turn up after the lights are on, the music has stopped, and the only thing to do is help clean the place up.

Even when I’m early, I don’t engage. I sit in the corner, talking to the wall. Meanwhile, everyone’s in the kitchen having fun.

I’m talking about internet parties here. As if I’d ever go to a real party.

LiveJournal

I’d heard of it at the time. I had Xanga blog, read by all of 4 people.

Years later I discovered an abandoned LiveJournal blog on fantasy writing. Below, there were hundreds of comments and full-blown discussions. I had this overwhelming need for community. I forget what I wanted to write about, but by the time I looked into it the site had been sold to a Russian company, and everything had gone downhill.

Instagram and Twitter

I’d heard of them when they started. I joined! I never posted.

I was thinking of starting an Instagram for a project I was working on. I read online advice on how to kick-start your Instagram profile and get followers (and oh isn’t that a whole conversation in and of itself).

Turns out that ship has sailed. You can’t get followers on Instagram. I mean, you can, but only if you’re pretty. Or cool. I am neither.

Self-publishing

People were quitting their jobs over this new Amazon publishing model. You could publish your own books and make a killing! This was pre-Andy Weir too, but Hugh Howey was still talking about how he got his book Wool accepted by a publisher. These were the good old days before he literally hopped on a boat and disappeared (figuratively, he’s still updating his blog occasionally).

I wrote nothing. That ship has sailed. You can’t make a living self-publishing books now.

I’m incredibly slow on the uptake

I’m incredibly slow to figure things out and see that the biggest problem is me. I didn’t do the thing, post the content. I didn’t write.

There’s a big difference between the early adoption of a platform and the overall long-tail performance of a platform.

People are getting followers on Twitter and Instagram all the time. People are making a living self-publishing books all the time. It may not be the rush-and-panic of the new, but it’s the business as usual.

That is what I am trying to remind myself. I’ve written every day this past two weeks, which is a miracle for me. It’s the production of the thing that makes the difference. That’s the thing I’d been missing all this time. If I write every day, then it doesn’t matter about the platform.

I’m preparing myself. That’s the key, the little epiphany I had last night. I was lying in bed, staring into the darkness, staring into the void. Worrying about my online presence, my career, my life.

I mean seriously, it’s only been TWO WEEKS since I started this little journey of writing every day. But you know how time can collapse in on itself.

I am changed. I am a new woman. It’s not me that’s late to the party. I’m sitting in the kitchen now, pouring drinks, arranging snacks on a plate, waiting for the next party to begin.