Carrie Callahan

I've been struggling these last few weeks to reconcile the two goals I have for my social media accounts, so I'm splitting them. On one hand, I want to express myself specifically to my friends and family members. I want to write about silly adventures and my publishing successes. I want to post anecdotes and philosophies and other things I find interesting. On the other hand, I also want to write for writers. I want to be able to contribute to writing communities by reviewing resources, offering writing advice (whatever good my advice would do), and encouragement. Instead of doing either of those things, I've been trying to write to some middle ground on this blog. As I've kicked up my social media habits in the last few weeks, my Instagram account has come to look positively schizophrenic. I'm alternating selfies with writing prompts, pictures of my dog with blog posts about writer's block. Who even is that person? So, to maintain my sanity (as much ...

I've recently been reading  Booklife by Jeff Vandermeer, and I must say it's a great read so far! It's all about balancing one's public (often digital) life with their more private, creative life. Though some of the technical bits are a little outdated, the advice is as good as ever. As I read through a section all about choosing one's level of involvement on the internet, I felt a familiar welling of panic. I have a confession: I've felt jealous and bemused by young people's ability to juggle endless social media accounts while still having the time to write a story a week, and go out and explore the world. I have trouble just balancing writing with cleaning and keeping the husbs fed. Then it hit me: most younger folks don't have to cook. They don't have to meal plan, grocery shop, or do the dishes after. For a lot of students, it's eat and run - toss the paper plates and get to class or where-have-you. So of course they have the time! ...

So, I've been posting on this blog for a while now - since some time in 2010. And somehow, in five years, I have yet to consistently post on a schedule. Why is that? Well, for one, my home life has yet to be consistent. In five years, I have lived in nine or ten different places (I lost count), over three states. I seem to live in a place just long enough to fall in love and get a little comfortable, then leave. I'm like a serial monogamist in that way. In the last five years, I've also been in quite a few different occupations: Waitress, Student, Resident Adviser, McDonald's Cashier, Dominoes CSR, and in August I'll be entering into the first year of my Master's as a Graduate Assistant. All very different, nothing for more than nine months. I'm also a military spouse, which goes a little way in excusing my lack of solid career or home town - though not all the way. Additionally, my writing goals and process have constantly evolved and changed over the la...

With my last post, I shared a few of my disorganized thoughts and experiences on forming a digital self . This post, I'm going to explore some of my methodology for hopefully crafting said self and maintaining sanity IRL (In Real Life). First, some guidelines you should consider: Don't Spam You know this one and I know you know this one because every writing blog worth its salt mentions this at least once. Basically, you are what you post online. So, if you post nothing but advertisements for your next book you risk becoming a cardboard cut-out or a billboard. Don't flatten yourself. Keep it Reasonable  Don't just make a million accounts, thinking you're going to get a million followers on each one. In order to have an online presence you kind of have to engage in the community. You need to reblog, retweet, like, share, and comment. If you have too many accounts you won't be able to keep up with all of them; you'll be spreading yourself too thin. Ins...

I am not a "digital native," but I am a digital transplant. I only exist online because I put myself here. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, as I've finally made Facebook , Goodreads , and Amazon author pages for myself. Suddenly, I go from observing to existing. I didn't grow up with a digital self - a crafted version of my personality for cyber country. I didn't have consistent access to the Internet until I was twelve, and I didn't have a cell phone until I was 17. It was a Nokia phone with a background of two colors: black and green. You kids might recognize the color scheme from old fashioned calculators and the LCD clocks you find in thrift store bins. These days, if you don't have a digital self then you don't fully exist in the social sphere. The Internet has become its own universe and social media is where we do the things that used to be limited to shopping malls and night clubs: we walk and talk and flash and greet and...

Internet addiction is an open secret in Millenial society. There's no proper count of how many of us suffer from it, though to be fair, suffering is a bit of a rough word. Constant mental stimulation is wonderful in the moment and there's no real biological hangover (that we know). You go online, click things, interact, get that shot of dopamine and move on. But move on to what? More surfing? And there's the problem. I'm an internet addict. I use it to procrastinate, to feel better when I'm down, to stimulate my brain. I'm not alone, but I feel alone. As much as I can wander around on facebook, the bottom line is that I'm not really interacting with people, I'm just pretending to. For example, real talk: how many friends of mine know my favorite color? Favorite genre of fiction? How many even read this blog to answer this question? How many of my "friends" actually even see me (or this link) on their feed? I would bet it's a small percent...

I have been very busy this quarter and every time life lets up a little bit, I find something new to add to my plate. On top of seven classes, two clubs and a deluge of random hobbies, I have become the University of Cincinnati Creative Writers Guild PR person. Basically, I do the social media stuff. Wielding the powers of Twitter, Facebook, Blogger and Live mail, I thought I could quickly coax this fledgling little undergraduate club out of its infancy and into a big, robust adulthood. However, this baby is harder than I thought to raise; which got me to thinking: why? I have a theory: Writers are not social animals. Not to say there aren't exceptions - there are always exceptions - but it seems to me that writers just don't run in packs. Maybe it's because our creative brains can't handle the immediacy of IRL contact, or maybe it's because, underneath it all, there is the sense that no one else really  knows what it's like. Maybe it's just the ...