The Evolution Of Me

I want to be invisible, but I want my work to be seen. 

Here I am, early forties and knee deep in my life. I know that I need to be visible for my career to move forward. Yet most of the time I still feel like a young girl who wants to hide in the corner of the library immersed in books and living vicariously amongst their pages – a skill which I have largely pulled off for almost 30 years. But something plagues me. While I don't want to be seen, I do want my work to be seen, I know I must emerge from the shadow of my library corner, like an awkward butterfly. 

And so, I ponder the big question of how I can shape my online identity in a way that is authentic, warm, and professional. As Van Dijck (2013:NP) writes, “Promoting and branding the self has also become a normalized, accepted phenomenon in ordinary people’s lives. Following the examples of celebrities’ self-promotion, many users (especially young adults and teenagers) shape their online identities in order to gain popularity and hopefully reach a comfortable level of recognition and connectedness”. For many modern careers maintaining an online presence is vital, this is especially important for freelancers, like me, as social media provides a platform to make vital connections with collaborators and clients.

The last ten years have been extraordinary, I have kicked goal after goal after goal. I've done degrees, created an entire human child who is spectacular. Been involved in several successful businesses, rescued countless animals, built a home, and I've embedded myself in a wonderful community. 

Somewhere in there I became a writer. It wasn’t planned or procured. It became me, and then I became it.

Since my daughter arrived I have written her stories.

And illustrated those stories.

And turned them into picture books.

And so here I am, invested so deeply in my business that I've started realizing there is only forward from here. 

Not so niche anymore.   

As I have studied over the years, and experienced more of life, my writing has diversified too. My stories started off as love letters to my daughter to teach her about why we have chosen to be vegan and dedicate our life to rescuing animals. I wrote in a gentle way about our food choices and our lifestyle, and eventually that turned into writing about the animals we cared for, and then even further out into the animal kingdom around us. The beaches, the bushland, and even suburbia. Somewhere in there my stories became just warm and whimsical stories for small children.

I moved from niche to normal without even barely noticing it. Except that my readers eventually did. My circle audience became bigger and bigger and bigger around me, and then suddenly I realized I am no longer a vegan author, but just an author. Yet my work is still dedicated to animals, and the kindness they call for, my love, my passion.

I haven’t abandoned my vegan self, but I know that it is part of me, not the whole of me, and it’s not the only thing I think about when I write. I have grown, my daughter has grown. My thoughts have grown. My community has grown.

Move it or lose it.  

So now the journey becomes not only about emerging as an author, but about re-understanding who I am, and the person I want to present to the world. I often feel trapped between who I am in-person and who I am online.

In person I exist in a small community, a small town where people say hello on the street and the circles are very small. Online is a different story, a much bigger story. I often question how I can remain authentic both in-person and online, genuine, caring, connected. How do I remain me when so much of online media feels inauthentic. Baym (2019:12) writes about the fear and anxiety that new forms of communication bring with them, but parallel to this is the opportunity that they create. Somewhere in the middle between fear and opportunity lies the human ability to adapt and change. And adaption is itself a part of authenticity.

Where I have come from and where I am going are equally important parts of my genuine self and the me who I share with the world.  

References

Baym, N. K. (2009). Personal Connections In The Digital Age. Polity Press.

Mawrick In Hartley, J., Burgess, J., & Bruns, A. (Eds.). (2013). A Companion To New Media Dynamics. Wiley.

Van Dijck, J. (2013). ‘You Have One Identity’: Performing The Self On Facebook And Linkedin. Media, Culture & Society, 35(2), 199-215.