Lisa Blackwell

Social media is tricky to navigate for someone who isn’t particularly social. The friending, liking, mutual appreciation culture is alien to me. It reminds me of junior high, and I still have the unsigned yearbooks to show how good I was at that game. As Gwen Stefani might have said, I ain’t no follow back girl.

The majority of the social media I encounter is aspirational — perfect photos, perfect people, perfect prose. This is not my tribe. I look competent, but one stiff breeze and I’m in the closet, hyperventilating into a paper bag. I am a flawed, damaged, open box, 10% off of a person. I am the furthest thing from perfect, which is why I write.

My first novels were written (badly) in college as a way of escaping a world I didn’t think I could survive. No matter how many mistakes I made, there was always the delete key and a fresh sheet of paper. There are infinite chances to get your story right.

And now, even though I have a life that’s past all my expectations — and I have quite an imagination — I can’t kick this addictive, aspirational desire to create a perfect world out of words.

Hello, Pot — I’m Kettle.