I Don't Want A Block Button

You know what, I'm really happy this platform doesn't have a block button. I hope Vocal never gives us one.

Here's why.

Welcome to being published

You might denigrate posting here as "not being properly published" because it's not a book. A lot of people seem to think that way. But I promise you, being published on Vocal (or anywhere like it) is "being published". Evidence: If you've published a story on here, and you try to enter that same story in a contest somewhere else where they specify it must be new material, not previously published... good luck with that.

When something is published, it's public. Everyone and his wife and his dog can see it, have an opinion on it, and voice that opinion. That's the beautiful, exciting and terrifying thing about it. Anyone can see it. Really. Anyone. Your mum. Your worst enemy. Your old high school teacher. Your neighbours. Your friends. Buy the ticket, go for the ride. Get your big boy/girl pants on. Have a strategy for dealing with the shit you don't like.

It's not supposed to be comfortable.

If you want to share your writing with a select group of people, then I get that. There are already places to do that. Your private social media pages. Small groups, in person or online.

That's not to say you have no control, here. You can have boundaries, and you should - it's healthy. You can choose to ignore people or commentary that bothers you. You can log off. You can override your need to be validated externally, and resist the urge to look for positive remarks, ones that support you or blow smoke up your bum. You can use a pen name. You can revel in obscurity, and deliberately not promote your work, or avoid sharing it in certain places.

You can also (stay with me) turn off comments. (But then again, you miss out on the positive engagement, which some just cannot abide doing.) Turning off comments is more than you can do in many public spaces, and I really don't think we need more than that. I know that is probably unpopular. I'm old enough not to care. We aren't here to be popular. (Ah, if only I could send a memo to my teenage self, that is what I would say!)

If you want positive responses, I think you need to be brave enough to weather the ones you don't like as well. Take the rough with the smooth.

Disclaimer

I am confident there will come a day when I eat these words. When I say the wrong thing (or the right thing) and the wrong person sees it. A chain reaction happens, and I'm flooded with mean-spirited people trying to bring me down one way or another. One day, I'm sure, I'm going to think (or say out loud) "oh, I wish I could block these people".

That's an unpleasant prospect, but it's also just the risk you run when you speak publicly about anything at all. The most mundane things can draw ire from groups of people. If not now then in five or ten years. No one knows what is going to be offensive years from now. None of us are "safe". "Public" isn't safe. We aren't here to be "safe" either.

But it isn't just unpleasant. There's a sort of yin/yang dynamic, here. The day my book gets a 1 star review out there in the wild, that is the day I know I have arrived. If I'm only reaching people who know me and don't want to offend me, then I'm making no impact at all. If I'm reaching people outside my echo chamber, and they are affected enough to voice disagreement or even hatred, then I will know I am not just shouting into a void. It's the cost of being heard.

To recap, then:

We aren't here to be liked

We aren't here to be comfortable

We aren't here to be safe

We are lucky to be heard, including (especially) by the "wrong" people

So, yeah. Don't give us a block button. We don't need one. We need to cultivate a rhino skin jacket, and an awareness of when to wear it. We need to wear slippers, rather than expect the world to be carpeted for our special little feet.

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Thank you for reading! Leave me a link in the comments to a piece you were nervous about publishing, and tell me why that was hard for you 😁

If you've not seen much from me lately, here's a couple of pieces about what I've been up to: