Putting up a website makes you think a lot about how you are perceived and how that perception differs from your own self-conception. For example, my recounting of my childhood is very different from my siblings, I’m sure. What is it they say? “Nobody grows up in the same family.”
It also makes you acutely aware of the persona that you put forward. You want to be interesting but not too weird, articulate but not stuffy, friendly but not so approachable that you have no mystery. And, as you think about it, you have to come to terms with parts of yourself that seem mutually exclusive.
For example, I was raised on a ranch. There were parts of that I really love, but there were also parts that were horrible. I can neither reject it whole cloth because it’s part of who I am nor accept it unquestioningly because of the damage it did.
So, when putting a persona out there, how do I balance those different parts of myself? And I can’t just ignore it and hope it’ll go away because I have to put something out there. Also, it’s from this tension that a lot of my fiction originates.
I don’t think I can come to a conclusion on all this. I guess I’m just pointing out the tension.
What I’m Reading Today: Getting ready to read Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid for book club and to get back to my friend’s zombie novel.
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