Tag Archive for: J.M. Phillippe

Nurturing Patience

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by J.M. Phillippe

Summer has never been my favorite time of year, as I am not someone that does well in the heat (and the summers keep getting hotter). But I am also working on several projects at once…and struggling. My progress has been slow, my motivating waning, and my desire to just get to what I’m trying to accomplish building.

So, of course, this blog is about patience, something I am trying to cultivate (with a lot of deep breaths) this summer.

Patience is not something I have ever had in much abundance. A hard core procrastinator, I never really had to deal with waiting for something to click in my writing (since waiting for the last minute put me in adrenaline-induced flow). But working on multiple projects at once means that I am actually having to practice writing discipline. Being patient with myself and my process has not been easy.

What I know about patience is that it is a necessary part of life. Worrying and waiting anxiously has never made anything happen any faster. Fussing and trying to force something has been equally unhelpful. Instead, I have been trying to make space for my feelings of frustration, and assuming that the pace things are happening at are happening at that pace for a reason. I have been trying to trust my back brain to come up with the answers, and trust the universe that those answers will come in time.

Patience is ultimately about keeping the faith. It is hope coupled with action, a plan put into motion that with luck with bear the fruit you have been waiting for. I suspect farmers and gardeners have more advanced patience skills than I do. They understand that whole “a time for every purpose” thing.

And I am sure there are writers who are more patient than me as well.

Somehow though, I bet they weren’t as worried about meeting their deadlines.

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J.M. Phillippe is the author of the novels Perfect Likeness and Aurora One and the short stories, The Sight and Plane Signals. She has lived in the deserts of California, the suburbs of Seattle, and the mad rush of New York City. She works as a clinical social worker in Brooklyn, New York and spends her free time binge-watching quality TV, drinking cider with amazing friends, and learning the art of radical self-acceptance, one day at a time.

Going Home

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by J.M. Phillippe

This week, I am writing from home. In this particular case, home is the last home I lived in with my parents – a lovely house with a gorgeous pool in Santa Clarita, California. It has a special place in my heart — I even set  my first novel in this town.

But home is a complicated thing for me to define. Whenever I go back to California, I say “I am going back home.” But whenever I go back to Washington, I also say (and feel) “I am going back home.” And of course, whenever I fly back to New York, I very much feel, “I am going home.”

I spent my early childhood in the suburbs of Los Angeles. Then we moved. So I spent my most formative years — middle school through the end of college — in Washington State. Many of my closest friends come from that time and place in my life.

Then I moved back to California and spent my identity-figuring-out years in various places in and around Los Angeles again. My parents bought a house there where I lived (after moving “back home” for a while), and of course all my childhood things — boxed and moved around for decades — reside there.

And then I moved to New York, where I currently live, and built amazing relationships there too.

Every home, of course, shaped me, and continues to shape me. Every place I have lived put its mark — the constant sun of southern California and the heat and deserts; the near-constant grey of Seattle, and the amazing green forests; and the constant noise of New York City, and the density of buildings and people. Home is the Pacific Ocean, but also the Williamsburg Bridge. Home is watching the sunset over the water, toes in the sand. Home is walking a muddy trail among evergreen trees. Home is hard concrete and the constant noise of people everywhere.

But mostly, home is the people in those places, the friends who spent hours in book stores with me, or on hiking trails, or in dance clubs. The family who told me I could do it (even when “it” kept changing), and cheered me on. Home is the conversations that helped me figure out what I believed and who I am.

Still, it feels strange to be back in this particular home, where things are starting to be packed up or given away in anticipation of eventually selling the house. Even though this is not my childhood home, I am having many of those same feelings as I look at shelves emptying and closets cleared out. I am feeling the passing of time, feeling my age. I am going through all the emotions of holding on and letting go (and telling myself that it is okay, better even, to let go).

My head is filling with stories real and imaged — the stories I still tell when I try to tell people about myself and my life, the stories I only remember because I have a photograph or item to anchor them to, the stories that kept me company in each place, and the stories inspired by them. 

There are a lot of saying about what home is, but I find myself drawn to this particular one over all the others:

***

J.M. Phillippe is the author of the novels Perfect Likeness and Aurora One and the short stories, The Sight and Plane Signals. She has lived in the deserts of California, the suburbs of Seattle, and the mad rush of New York City. She works as a clinical social worker in Brooklyn, New York and spends her free time binge-watching quality TV, drinking cider with amazing friends, and learning the art of radical self-acceptance, one day at a time.

The Flying of Time

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by J.M. Phillippe

There comes a point in a new position where everything begins to feel routine. Where the schedule is pretty locked in, the tasks rote, and the days start to blend together. I always worry when this happens, because as the weeks whirl into months, I feel my life passes before my eyes at an almost numbing speed. I become complacent.

Writing is the only thing that seems to help keep the flying of time in check, because it is a measurable use of time. Most of my tasks disappear, as it were, by the next week. As a therapist, I see the same people over and over again, marking their progress with notes written weekly and treatment plans written every three months. But the progress in therapy is sometimes is small, and hard to see from week to week, like tracking the growth of a child. You know they are growing, but it takes a while to actually see it.

At the breakneck speed of a mental health clinic where I see clients one right after another, with one short break midway through a stretch of 9 clients in a row, it’s hard to spend a lot of time processing each session to look for those moments of growth or change. Each week picks up on the topics of the previous, so it feels sometimes like I am binging other people’s lives.

And it sometimes feels like in doing so I am neglecting my own. Again, writing is one of the few things that keeps me grounded in my own goals and dreams, and helps me see my own growth. I can see the pages that mark the passing of time, see the drafts build, one on another, and when I hit that final draft, have an actual product to give people that is a physical manifestation of “how I used my time.”

However, I struggle to make time for writing. It often comes after — after work, after chores, after general life maintenance. It’s been hard to put writing first. When I look back over a stretch of time and see how few pages I have to show for that period of time, I know my priorities have drifted away from me, and that my routine has taken over.

You’d think that the natural thing to do is to make writing part of that routine, and that has always been my goal. But with so little time, and so many other things going on, it continues to be very hard to make the kind of dedicated writing time I want. I end up getting snatches of time here and there, which never seem to let me get to the place I want to get to, where the words just flow and the story takes over. That is what I miss, more than anything, when I say I miss writing. I miss being a conduit instead of a work horse. I miss feeling inspired instead of feeling obligated. I miss getting quality time with my own imaginary adventures.

So, now that I see that my time management has gotten away from me, it’s time to make adjustments and put writing back up on the priority list. I know doing that though means that some other things may start to slide. There simply just isn’t enough time for everything. I have to use the time I have better.

***

J.M. Phillippe is the author of Perfect Likeness and the short story The Sight. She has lived in the deserts of California, the suburbs of Seattle, and the mad rush of New York City. She works as a family therapist in Brooklyn, New York and spends her free-time decorating her tiny apartment to her cat Oscar Wilde’s liking, drinking cider at her favorite British-style pub, and training to be the next Karate Kid, one wax-on at a time.

Writing Contests

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by J.M. Phillippe

I have to admit that I am a little distracted trying to write a blog this week, as I am anxiously awaiting the results of the second round of the NYC Midnight Short Story Writing Challenge tonight (Tuesday, May 2nd) at Midnight. This is my second year in a row participating in the competition, which assigns writers a randomly generated genre, character, and subject and then gives you a limited amount of time to submit a short story that includes all three. If you are in the top five of your heat in the first round, you move on to the second, where you get a newly assigned genre, character and subject, and if you make the top four of your heat in that round, you move on to the third and final, where you get yet another genre, character, and subject, and even less time to write your story. The story length also goes down each round. Personally, this is the hardest part for me, as a novelist, to try get an entire story completed in only 1500 words.

Last year, I won my heat in the first round, but didn’t even make an honorable mention in the second as I did not really nail my genre (romance, which isn’t usually my forte). This year, I was assigned romance in round one and was very concerned about my entry — but managed to win my heat in the first round anyway, which I was super excited about. I am hoping to make it to round three.

Regardless of the outcome, the competition has been great for me, both years running. Last year, my short story The Sight was written because of this contest, and I am now turning that into a full-length novel. Plus, there is something about having to write under deadline that really appeals to me. The random genre assignments means me — and most participants — are forced out of our comfort zones, while the limited time helps me stay focused on the task at hand. Plus, every story submitted gets read by readers and sent back with comments, which has been great for helping me develop as a writer overall.

Still, I am amazed by how much of my ego has been wrapped up in this competition, and how much seeing my name in the top five of my heat (two years running!) made me swell up with pride. I know it’s just a contest, but it still feels pretty validating to even make it past round one. So I’ll be crossing my fingers that I made it past round two.

And if not this year, there will always be next year.

***

J.M. Phillippe is the author of Perfect Likeness and the short story The Sight. She has lived in the deserts of California, the suburbs of Seattle, and the mad rush of New York City. She works as a family therapist in Brooklyn, New York and spends her free-time decorating her tiny apartment to her cat Oscar Wilde’s liking, drinking cider at her favorite British-style pub, and training to be the next Karate Kid, one wax-on at a time.

When Gratitude Isn’t Easy

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by J.M. Phillippe

The common wisdom is that a daily practice of gratitude is not only good for the soul, it is also good for your mental health. As a therapist, I often help my clients focus on the positive in their life, and on their own strengths. Strengths-focus is the heart of Positive Psychology, “the scientific study of the strengths that enable individuals and communities to thrive.” Martin Seligman, the founder of Positive psychology wanted to find a way to help people “to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves, and to enhance their experiences of love, work, and play.” He found it in practices of strength-based focus on positivity.

I am a huge fan (and amateur practitioner of) positive psychology, so I get all the health benefits of gratitude. But lately, I have found gratitude to be particularly challenging — I am having a hard time staying focused on what is good.

Right now, there is a lot of hurt in the world. Here in the US, we have water protectors at Standing Rock getting hosed down in freezing water, and the Southern Poverty Law Center reporting a high number of incidents of hate crimes since the Presidential Election. My clinical clients are struggling — some have been targeted by hate crimes themselves and most are afraid of what will happen next. Plus, there is still a lot of bad things happening outside our country, the most recent being yet another huge natural disaster in Japan (BIG earthquake). In the midst of all these horrible things, how do you stay focused on the strengths? How do you continue to practice gratitude?

I want to remind people that gratitude is not an absolute feeling. It’s not something that requires that you feel it, and only it. Gratitude is an “and”, not a “but”. There are horrible things happening in the world, “and” I am thankful that most of the people I love are safe and sound. There is a lot of fear and hate floating around, and I am grateful that people are still able to come together under the umbrella of love. The “and” is not trying to eliminate, or even counter, everything that comes before. Gratitude is not about balance — some things are so horrible a simple expression of thankfullness could never even begin to counter them. Gratitude is a practice of opening up all the parts of us that are afraid, sad, and overwhelmed just enough to let some of the good in — and some of the good out. It is the the thing that lets us keep the words of Mr. Rogers in mind:

Gratitude reminds us that we are strong — is the very act of focusing on strengths. It says, life is hard, and I am capable enough, talented enough, and brave enough to handle it. Life is hard, and it is beautiful, and worth living.
It is when gratitude is the hardest to find that we most need to look for it, to look for the “and” as a way to help bolster us against everything that comes before. This Thanksgiving I will be far away from family, and still reeling from the events of the last few weeks, and still worried about the future. And I will be with friends, will be eating bountiful food in relative safety, and will be able to find moments of laughter to share. Life is never just one thing. This year, I am grateful for “and.”
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J.M. Phillippe is the author of Perfect Likeness and the newly released short story The Sight. She has lived in the deserts of California, the suburbs of Seattle, and the mad rush of New York City. She worked as a freelance journalist before earning a masters’ in social work. She works as a therapist in Brooklyn, New York and spends her free-time decorating her tiny apartment to her cat Oscar Wilde’s liking, drinking cider at her favorite British-style pub, and training to be the next Karate Kid, one wax-on at a time.

When You’re Busy Making Other Plans

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by J.M. Phillippe

There is this saying:

For most people, the shape of that life can be found in their daily routines, the tiny habits that carry us from waking up to going to sleep. Routines are seen as either amazing and wonderful, or soul-sucking and dreadful.

I am someone who has always resisted a routine. I wanted each day to look different than the one before it.  I wanted spontaneity and that sense that anything could happen. And yet, I fell into a routine anyway, because that is the nature of life. Work and school and other external structures shape our days, forcing us to wake up at certain times, which forces us to go to bed at certain times. The space in between carries all the usual things — taking showers, eating meals, doing chores, walking the same familiar paths of each day.

Moving to NY from LA, there were certain routines that made me feel safer. I began to go to the same places over and over again, and countered my fear of being alone in a new city by becoming a regular. There is a pub in midtown where they not only know my name, they know my order, and at least as much about my life as a casual social media friend. There is comfort in that, comfort in the familiar, in the steady rhythms of the day-to-day. Routine is just being a regular in your own life. 
What I have come to learn as I’ve gotten older is that routines happen whether we consciously form them or not. And in fact, consciously forming them (or changing them) is actually really hard. Now that I have a new job, many of my old routines have been forced to change, and I’ve been in this weird in bet

ween space where I haven’t figured out the new ones yet. I keep hoping this will be a great chance to shape how each day will look with more consideration than my days before. I want to add healthier habits to my routine and break away from some older, less desirable ones. I want to take my lunch every day, and do laundry more than on a “now we really are out of clothes to wear” basis. When my friends joke about not being able to adult anymore, I really feel like what we’re saying is that the routines of life can be overwhelming. The laundry always needs to get done. The dishes always need to be washed.

And if you’re a writer, that next project is always going to be in need of more work — writing, editing, planning, marketing. Work only gets done through the careful application of regular effort. Or it doesn’t get done, because your routine doesn’t include that particular effort. 
No one wants to feel like each day looks just like the last. But I think that sometimes my own resistance to that is actually doing me more harm than good. Each day DOES look like the last, because it turns out spontaneity takes its own kind of effort (and that I’m really more of a plan-ahead girl). Weeks get defined by regularly weekly activities — taking out the garbage, watching a particular weekly show, that family member that calls every Sunday, like clockwork. 
I am hoping that I will be able to actually use this external change of a new job to help me build a new and improved routine. The thing about things moving along like clock work is that they move along. If you want the gears to keep grinding, you need to give them a familiar path around the wheel. 
***

J.M. Phillippe is the author of Perfect Likeness and the newly released short story The Sight. She has lived in the deserts of California, the suburbs of Seattle, and the mad rush of New York City. She worked as a freelance journalist before earning a masters’ in social work. She works as a therapist in Brooklyn, New York and spends her free-time decorating her tiny apartment to her cat Oscar Wilde’s liking, drinking cider at her favorite British-style pub, and training to be the next Karate Kid, one wax-on at a time.

Embracing the Change

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by J.M. Phillippe

Like many other writers, I have a day job. I am a social worker and have spent the last four years working in child welfare. While this can be a very rewarding field to work in, it is also a very draining field to work in. Self-care is a constant challenge due to the demands of the job. When you rarely get time for lunch, it is even harder to make time for writing — which has not been good for me, or my publishing schedule. 
It’s not just the hours, which are long, or the paperwork, which even the most prolific of writers would find daunting to keep up with — it’s that the constant stress leaves you so little mental energy to dig into character and conflict. Writing is work, of course, but it began to feel like more work than it ever had before. 
Every writer, regardless of their outside life, struggles to fit writing into that life. Writing is a very time consuming enterprise, and much of that time is spent away from other people, and away from the maintenance of every day living. It’s hard to write and do dishes at the same time (though so easy to get dishes done when you are avoiding a particularly challenging writing session). Time spent writing is time AWAY. You have to have the time to spare (or the ability to create it).  I was running out of away time to dedicate to writing (or laundry, which was piling up on the regular). Something had to give. 
So I sought out and found a new job at a mental health clinic — I will now be working as a therapist full time. What I am hoping this means is that I will have more time — and energy — for writing. 
And yet, change is hard. Change makes people very uncomfortable. (As someone who helps people change their lives for a living, I can attest that most people find it at best, a frustrating experience). So even though I’m very excited for this change, I am also nervous. What if this doesn’t work out the way I hope it will? What if I start to feel burned out again? What if I don’t make time for writing in this new schedule? 
Change comes with risk — it invites the unknown into your life. It leaves variables on the table that only time and experience can solve. And at this point, I’m still not sure what X will turn out to be. 
It feels very much like sitting down to write a new story with only a vague outline in mind, and no real idea how it’s going to end. So you’d think I’d be used to this feeling, used to facing down the unknown. The very act of writing is the act of embracing change over and over, solving for x time and time again. Writing is meant to be uncomfortable and challenging, or else it wouldn’t also be rewarding. Change, like writing, is hard every single time. It also is the only way that something new, and potentially amazing, can happen. 
Here’s to opening the door and inviting in the amazing!
***

J.M. Phillippe is the author of Perfect Likeness and the newly released short story The Sight. She has lived in the deserts of California, the suburbs of Seattle, and the mad rush of New York City. She worked as a freelance journalist before earning a masters’ in social work. She works as a family therapist in Brooklyn, New York and spends her free-time decorating her tiny apartment to her cat Oscar Wilde’s liking, drinking cider at her favorite British-style pub, and training to be the next Karate Kid, one wax-on at a time.

The First J.M. Phillippe

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by J.M. Phillippe

Earlier this month, Bethany Maines shared the question so many authors struggle with: “what other authors are you like?” As the Olympics finishes up this week, it’s pretty obvious that comparison is inevitable for anyone in the public eye — particularly women (as the journalists covering the Olympics seemed to only know how to talk about female athletes in relation to male athletes). This is why Simone Biles is my new favorite role model:

Because when it comes to describing my writing style, or even trying to find the right mixed-genre combo to describe my first novel, Perfect Likeness, I am often at a loss. “I write like me,” I want to tell people. Unfortunately I am not a household name yet and thus can’t compare myself to only myself. (I may need some writing equivalent of gold medals first.) I have to try to find someone that is writing like me, who people like, to compare myself to. Preferably a best selling author so that people think “oh yeah, I love that person!” and then, you know, buy and read my book. 
We can’t all be Simone Biles. Or J.K. Rowling. Or Stephen King. Or “put your Big Name Author here”. In fact, most authors I know in real life are pretty happy to be in the competition at all. We’re not looking to medal — we’re just hoping to get one or two (hundred, if possible) devoted fans.
The other big issue with “who are you like?” is that it taps into one of my biggest insecurities as a writer: that I don’t have a unique voice (or a unique story). Look, at this point, three out of five people I talk about my plots with pipe up with something along the lines of “it’s just like that other book/that movie/that video game/that song/that esoteric piece of art I did my PhD thesis on.” (Okay, maybe not that last one, but wouldn’t that be cool!?!) The “It’s All Been Done” record (go ahead and cue the Barenaked Ladies song) playing in my head is responsible for at least 60 percent of all my anxiety-filled blank-page moments. 
The LAST thing I want is to write something just like any other book, or just like any author (yes, even the best selling ones). I have fought long and hard with myself to come up with something that didn’t sound to me just like everything else I’ve read. In fact, the biggest reason I write is because I don’t feel like I have read anyone else quite like me. 
Which sounds great — all the way up until you have to market your book and someone asks you “what else is this book like/what other author are you like?” Because unlike gold medalists, there are A LOT of different authors and books, and people want some sort of sense of what they are going to get themselves into before committing 300 plus pages to a story. 
What this means is that the writer part of myself is often at odds with the marketing part of myself. The writer part of myself wants to jump genres and experiment with writing style and format. The marketing part of myself wants to create a brand that people will recognize so that they can say, “oh, that’s a J.M. Phillippe kind of book.” The marketing part of myself knows that it takes more than a single event to make a gold medalist; there are years of dedicated practice behind that moment. There are hours and hours (and yes, even years) of constantly working at it for most writers to become Big Name Writers. And an essential part of that work — however much we may hate it — is creating a Big Name Brand.
I don’t have a good answer for this constant push and pull between these two sides of myself (but I do have a great recommendation for a comic by Nick Seluk called The Awkward Yeti, featuring Heart and Brain, which basically sums up my eternal struggles against myself perfectly):
 I think the struggle is going to be a constant one. And nothing brings it to light more quickly than someone asking me what other kind of writer I am like. I always have to fight the urge to say “I’m the first J.M. Phillippe.” 
But maybe someday, I will be the author that others compare themselves to. 
***
J.M. Phillippe is the author of Perfect Likeness and the newly released short story The Sight. She has lived in the deserts of California, the suburbs of Seattle, and the mad rush of New York City. She worked as a freelance journalist before earning a masters’ in social work. She works as a family therapist in Brooklyn, New York and spends her free-time decorating her tiny apartment to her cat Oscar Wilde’s liking, drinking cider at her favorite British-style pub, and training to be the next Karate Kid, one wax-on at a time.

The Perfect Soundtrack

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by J.M. Phillippe
Living in New York City, headphones are a necessity. They not only help you pass the time on long commutes, providing your own soundtrack protects you from the more…natural soundtrack of life in the city. I like an up beat while walking to work, something that quickens my pace to keep time to it. Mellow music makes a bus ride home nice and reflective. 

Progress notes, the bane of every social worker’s existence, are made tolerable by a lovely oldies playlist I can sing along to. Even housecleaning, a chore I have loathed since childhood, can be gotten through best with a good music mix.

And there is not a single novel, story, or even blog post I haven’t gotten through without a playlist. In fact, my first novel, Perfect Likeness, pulled heavily from the music I was listening to as I wrote it. Sometimes, finding the perfect song can make or break the chapter I am working on. If I want to write something fast-paced and action filled, heavy bass and little words helps me find the right flow to move the scene along. Songs that make me sad help me get in the right head space for those moments in a story where I need to go deep.

Music is the only actual cure I know for writer’s block (besides not leaving the blank page until there is something, however bad you may think it is, on it). I have been known to put down a song lyric as a starting point, a way to get the creative juices flowing. In fact, some stories owe their existence to a lyric I couldn’t get out of my head.

I used to collect soundtracks, back when people would still buy CDs. I loved them because they were carefully curated playlists that helped move a greater story along. Some of my favorite movies are also my favorite soundtracks: Dirty Dancing, O Brother Where Art Thou, Singles, Forest Gump — just to name a few. Without their soundtracks, those movies wouldn’t even exist, and certainly not stand out in our minds the way they do.

Books don’t come with their own soundtracks, though I often think they should (if the copyright issues could be worked out). If you had to pick songs to go with the book you are currently writing or reading, what would they be?

***

J.M. Phillippe is the author of Perfect Likeness and the newly released short story The Sight. She has lived in the deserts of California, the suburbs of Seattle, and the mad rush of New York City. She worked as a freelance journalist before earning a masters’ in social work. She works as a family therapist in Brooklyn, New York and spends her free-time decorating her tiny apartment to her cat Oscar Wilde’s liking, drinking cider at her favorite British-style pub, and training to be the next Karate Kid, one wax-on at a time.

The Vortex of Public Opinion

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by J.M. Phillippe

I have this phrase stuck in my head: “thrust into the vortex of public opinion.” It is a misquote from a long-forgotten class I took while studying journalism. I know it’s a misquote because thanks to that degree (and everything I learned about citing sources), I knew I couldn’t just repeat that phrase and not look it up. Thus, I slid down the Wikipedia rabbit hole on the definitions of libel and defamation, and more specifically, what makes someone a “public figure.” I won’t bore you with the court cases — Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. (1974); Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts (1967); Associated Press v. Walker (1967), and Hustler Magazine v. Falwell (1988) — or the actual quote (I was pretty darn close for a 15 plus year memory), but why I keep thinking about it: in the modern era of social media, is it time to update the definition? Are we not all, to our friends/fans lists in the hundreds (if not thousands, if your social media game is really on), “thrusting ourselves into the vortex of public opinion”?

Because as various news stories break, everyone seems to jump in to say…something. Sometimes what we say is very personal, and very connected to the big stories trending on Facebook and Twitter. And sometimes we don’t know what to say — so we say that we don’t know what to say. Sometimes we push forward a quote or meme and let that speak for us. But it seems that once we’ve entered these semi-public (or fully public, depending on your privacy settings) spaces, the one thing we can’t do is not say anything at all. Not just writers or journalists or other actual public figures — most everyone seems to feel this need to weigh in, one way or another.

And yet, weighing in is fraught with its own peril, thanks to comment sections and reposts. Many celebrities have learned this the hard way, and none too few private citizens as well, as they have actually been fired over things they have posted. Other people have found friendships ruined over social media posts (with online unfriending translating to real world unfriending), and still others have found themselves living the reality of the quote:

With all of that in mind, I often find myself hesitating before also entering the vortex of public opinion. I have become increasingly aware over the years that we are all on the cusp of being actual public figures — and as a published author, I likely have already, legally speaking, crossed that line. What we say has real world consequences, and the more we enter the public space, the less protection we have thanks to laws designed to preserve freedom of speech.

Even more than the legal ramifications, I worry about becoming a target. Online harassment and cyber-bullying are very real, and if someone garners the attention of certain groups, they may face extreme levels of it, including doxing (having your personal information such as phone numbers and addresses posted online), and even swatting (sending police or other officials to someone’s home through anonymous tips about bomb or other threats).

More, there is that thing that happens where our online interactions with people often out-number our in-person interactions with people, and what you post is also what people assume you are. I often find myself trying to view my various online spaces through the eyes of an outsider and try to figure out who they might think I am. From a marketing standpoint, I want to make sure that my public persona is “on brand.” From a safety standpoint, I want to make sure I am not opening myself up to the vortex, to that crazy unknown where one post or share could send me whirling in a direction I could never have imagined going in. I am responsible for my words, sure, but while I can own my intentions, I have no idea exactly how what I write may impact my readers. More often than not, I find myself not posting anything at all.

But the thing is, a huge part of selling a book is about selling yourself as an author, and not posting doesn’t actually help me. I should post more — I know that. But it’s a scary vortex out there, and I find myself teetering on the edge, hand hovering over my mouse, taking a moment before I hit “post.” Because the Internet never forgets.

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J.M. Phillippe is the author of Perfect Likeness and the newly released short story The Sight. She has lived in the deserts of California, the suburbs of Seattle, and the mad rush of New York City. She worked as a freelance journalist before earning a masters’ in social work. She works as a family therapist in Brooklyn, New York and spends her free-time decorating her tiny apartment to her cat Oscar Wilde’s liking, drinking cider at her favorite British-style pub, and training to be the next Karate Kid, one wax-on at a time.