Gone til November

How I am going to spend this month long social media break

Welcome to Fidgets and Fries. Somewhat free. Somewhat not. If you’d like to honor my writings with a monetary contribution, thank you. If you already have, thank you. Your support allows me to invest in my writing in a way I hadn’t thought possible as well as pay for my son’s communication lessons. And if you are still an unpaid subscriber, thank you. Cause in a world where everyone wants their eyes on their work, you still chose to put your gaze on mine. This newsletter rests at the intersection of the unserious ramblings of a woman full of buttered rice and dad jokes and the somewhat sophisticated stories and essays of someone who knows just enough “smart” words to sound super intelligent and insightful.

What will today’s newsletter be? Hmm…

Social media. Love it. Hate it. It’s draining the fuck out of me. You’re pulled in this way. Then you’re pulled the opposite direction. Then you’re sitting still. Then you’re going fast. Then slow. Then you’re not even moving.

You feel like you’re at the mercy of…THE ALGORITHM. Even your favorites who tell you they don’t care about the algorithm, chances are, they do. They feel it when their numbers are down. That’s why they spend a few posts asking you if you can see their work.

And it’s okay to care about the algorithm, it matters when you are content creator or influencer, etc. You need people to see your work. It’s weird when so many people be acting like they don’t care about it, when everything in their shares indicates that they do.

You ain’t gotta lie to kick it, boo.

I don’t have as much reach as many other content creators who have far less followers than me. I wonder how they can reach a million accounts and I only reach about 200K. I think about it for about 15 seconds and then I move on.

My issue isn’t that I feel like I should be reaching more accounts. I feel like I should always be creating top tier content. Always. Even when I am sharing a funny story about our lives.

And it ain’t easy to reside at the intersection of parent and Autistic. In the middle of these two warring sides. Feeling as though if you lean too far in one direction, the other side will be upset. If you scale back too far to the other then the side that liked you the previous week is upset. I have been called pro-parent, which is weird cause I am a parent. I have been called dangerous because I don’t identify as solely Autistic (I use both Autistic and has Autism). And at times, someone will attempt to bring my name into the space to draw me out.

It gets annoying but it’s the least of my issues with social media.

My ass is just tired.

And it takes too much to keep up. Too much to stay relevant. Too much to stay at the front of your audience’s mind, because let’s face it, a large part of your audience is part of someone else’s. As much as you want to be okay with that, your work in that space is contingent upon your audience spending time in your space.

So, even with archived posts that I reshare, it’s work.

I just want to know what it’s like to chill and focus on writing my books and spending more time with my family. I want to cultivate the spaces I have outside of social media (here and Patreon). I have ideas for different courses and community spaces that I need to work on.

I have my health I need to take care of.

I have so many things cooking up this fall and winter that I cannot wait to dive into them. I have been off social media for one day and I am, for the first time in a long time, excited about writing again. Don’t get me wrong, I love sharing for social media but this feels different.

A good kind of different.

Y’all, I am about to OWN this month.

I will be making social media appearances from time to time via my manager, Anna. She will have my back and promote A Day with No Words, take requests for tours, and try to convince the fine folks of both my Instagram and Facebook spaces to join me over here.

A (maybe) exciting thing:

I think I got roped into looking for a house to buy.

My sister is a realtor (if y’all looking to buy or sell, she’s your girl. Based in Texas but can help you with out of state real estate). I go with her sometimes to her open houses and different home communities cause I am bored at home and need something to do. I went to a community of new homes with her. Now, apparently when I am bored I go set up open house signs in yards and fill out home loan applications. Ugh. So, I am not all that sure I want a house. I thought Hammy felt the same, but it’s looking more and more like he was trying to make me feel better. He was neglecting his dreams for mine. And y’all know I don’t like that.

So, I don’t know what we are doing but I guess we are looking. I am just thankful we are giving ourselves some time to think though because my husband’s job moves him around so much I am afraid we will buy and then he will get ordered to go somewhere else.

There, my kinda exciting news this week.