What I Learned from Being a Writer and Being “Famous” on Instagram

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be a writer these days? Or what it’s like to have a following of people who love what you do? (I love you guys back so dearly). Well, sit back and relax. Faraway’s got ya covered. Today, I’m going to tell you a lot about what it’s like to be and have just that – both the good AND the bad!

October 1^st  2017 marks the day that I officially started calling myself a full-time writer, as it’s the day I released my first book of poetry, ‘Sad Birds Still Sing’ – which is doing incredibly well thanks to my fans, by the way. I’ve been writing poetry, songs, and stories for about 4 years, though, so it’s taken me 4 long years to get to where I’ve always wanted to be. People only see the last 7 months, because that’s when I started Faraway; though, this story has much deeper roots than that…but I’m going to spare you the gory details of my origin story and get straight to business.

Having a following is both a blessing and a curse. By the end of this, you’ll come to see that that it’s more so a blessing, but let’s kick things off with the bad, since people sure seem to love drama. Haha.

DUDE, how many times are you gon’ ask me for a shoutout? After hundreds of people asking for one, it’s actually quite annoying at this point. If I can build a Lego house all on my lonesome, then so can you. I believe in you, and there’s more than enough room for all of us to succeed, but I never asked for help. I never begged for anything.

I did Independent research and worked 24 hours a day on getting to where I wanted to be. I woke up at 5-6am every single day to write and post my work on Instagram and make my book. I stayed up late into the night to write, perfect my style, and research important things. I created a second account to write and post more – to push myself even further.

It became my life.

I taught myself the ins and outs of the self-publishing world to get my book out there. Heck, I even taught myself Photoshop just to create my book cover because I had no money to pay anyone. I was dedicated, consumed, and…um…dead broke.  So it was funny to me when writers were accusing me of buying likes and followers, while I was driving around with never more than a quarter tank in my gas (thank you to my mom for giving me 5-10 bucks a week for gas haha). This leads me into my next topic: jealousy! Woohoo, my favorite sin! Wait, is jealousy a sin? Idk. Anyways, let’s continue.

One last side note: like I said before, I believe in all of you, even the writers that flipped on me. If you want something, work your butt off for it. The world is yours to conquer, my friends. <3

Artists are emotional creatures.  Meaning, we’re nuts, bonkers, off-our-rockers, batsh*t crazy…but that’s what gives the world great art. After all, you have to be a little different in order to say something different. It takes a certain kind of person to peer into a soul and have the guts to put it into art. It’s weird, though; a lot of artists want you to do well , just not as well as them.

I think it’s because, when people get followings, it gets to their heads. Me, I’m still that poor, homeless kid I was years ago, just a lot wiser and more mature. I refuse to let myself change in any negative ways. But, yeah, it gets to their heads, and an ego starts to develop. I like to think it’s a slow process, becoming a hyper-sensitive, egocentric, drama queen; with the more ”clout” you get, the more you become this fiend for attention and success. Or, perhaps, it’s always there, and getting some level of attention begins to bring it out. Either way, before I say anything that’s happened, I still love and mostly respect all of them. I still wish them all well in life and to be ridiculously successful. I don’t have the space in my heart to hate or wish harm onto any of them - AT ALL.

Now, I’ve lost count of the well-known, wrier/artist friends I had that have turned their backs on me. We were great friends, and then, as soon as I’m doing too well, passing too many of them in followings on social media, poof, they vanish. In the words of the almighty Drake, “People like you more when you’re working towards something, not when you have it.”

One by one, they all stopped liking my posts and responding to my messages, which hurt so much because I truly thought that we were all friends and in this together. I helped so many of them out with the research I did, gave them tips and strategies to do better when they asked.

But wait for it, here’s the nail in the coffin, that horrid “unfollow” we all know all too well. In English, they all unfollowed me eventually. Haha. Meanies. These are all people I kind of looked up to and respected, showing me that even people with large followings are just humans with fragile emotions.

And I got zero peer support for my book launch, even though I’ve helped so many others out. Okay, there was one that helped, but still, what the heck Haha. I had to do it all on my own. Some of the few ones I still occasionally talk to, they told me NOT to release the book on my own, that I wouldn’t sell any copies, and that I was wasting my time. Thanks for the advice, but I sold more in 5 weeks than most of them will sell in a year. Unlike them, THAT’S how loyal and supportive my fans are. THAT’S what being genuine and compassionate will get you.

Okay, I’m done talking about the bad. I’m not even going to begin on the things writers were saying behind my back, writer you all most likely know and like their writing. More of it might come out slowly in future posts, but it’s putting me into a weird headspace, and I want to have a good day today. Let’s talk briefly about the good.

Putting genuine pieces of yourself out there leads to such beautiful things. Love. Compassion. A real connection. Trust. Respect. Opportunities.

Everything I’ve gotten, I’ve gotten from being real, honest, supportive, and open. I started Faraway as a way to change who I was, to become somebody I someday wouldn’t recognize, the best possible version of myself. Taking people along on this journey with me has been utterly amazing. That bad stuff, it means very little to me compared to the love I get from fans (like I said, I so sincerely hope that they all succeed one way or another).

The messages of people telling me their stories, people telling me about how my writing has affected them and helped them become better people - changing their outlooks on certain situations in their lives. The way my book has lifted their souls up. God, nothing compares to that. It’s pure euphoria. If I could bottle it up and sell it, I’d be the richest person on Earth.

I want to do this forever. There’s nothing I want more in life than to affect people positively for as long as I’m breathing, and for lifetimes after that. And there’s no way in hell that I will ever allow a negative comment, something someone with a huge following said behind my back, or anything else, take away that happiness I feel inside of me. This happiness is mine, and I’m just getting started.

Now, I have seriously run out of time. There is more that I wanted to add to this post, but I will have to update it later! Sorry for the sudden ending, but I’ll let my readers know when it is ready. I’ll also let you all know when future posts are up.

ps you can purchase my first book of poetry, 'Sad Birds Still Sing' right here!

As an indie author with no publisher, dedicating myself fully to writing, I truly appreciate your support.

Love you all,

faraway.

How Faraway Poetry Began

Is this where I type? Oh, God, we’re ten seconds in, and I’m already lost. Okay, so, clearly, I’ve never written an article (blog post?) before. The last time I wrote anything of decent length and structure was when I sent an incoherent text to my ex detailing all of the reasons why “I’m not ready for this.” I did, however, tutor writing and grammar in college for a year before I dropped out to chase my dreams (more on that in future posts), so that’s kind of a plus…I guess.

If you don’t know who I am, I’m a writer/poet born and raised in California. I go by the pen name ‘Faraway.’ I post my writing primarily on Instagram (@farawaypoetry), and I’ve chosen to stay anonymous. “Why stay anonymous?” you might ask. Well, I’m 24 years old, in pretty great shape physically, not even very shy, and so forth. So the reason why? I want it to be all about the writing and what I’m trying to say, not me as a personality or a writer; although, I'm sure I'll come clean about who I am someday.

You see, I started my account and journey to where I am now seven months ago, and I hadn’t been the best or happiest person for a lot of my life. I grew up dirt poor, homeless at times, kicked and stepped on by the world around me, cheated on and abused in relationships, have a panic disorder, and many other types of not-so-fun things. Needless to say, I harbored a lot of negative energy within me. For years, I was bitter, depressed, angry, anxious, constantly on edge and mistrusting of everyone and everything but a few humans I grew up with.

Worst of all, I had the tendency to push everyone away. Loneliness is a cold that has a strange way of numbing nerve-endings: first I went cold; then I went numb.

But I’ll skip over all of that and the bad things I did and get to the point. I started Faraway as a way of letting things go. I wanted to forgive, to trust, to try again, to not be afraid to feel or let people get close to me, to change my mindsets and finally free myself of everything that I had voluntarily been dragging around. I focused my writing around those ideas, and, from day one, it took off beyond my wildest expectations.

I grew by at least one thousand followers a day. Sometimes, I’d even get over two thousand in a day. It was intense, euphoric, validating, and terrifying all at once. I had no idea that so many people would connect to the message I was presenting. Apparently, a lot of people felt the same way I did. All of a sudden, hundreds of thousand, and then millions, of eyes were on me a week. A journey of freeing and bettering myself through writing became something a lot bigger than that. Not only was I helping myself, but so many other people were being helped, too.

Hundreds, thousands, of Direct Messages have since poured in. It was and still is way too many for me to handle, but what people are saying is what matters the most. These words brighten their day, make them feel better about themselves and feel less alone, validate what they are feeling, give them hope, and so many other beautiful things. It’s such a lovely thing, to entangle both art and encouragement. However, there IS a slight catch: with that many eyes on you, there’s bound to be some angry ones. But I'll talk about that and how my writing peers reacted/react to my growth in a future post, as it's honestly quite interesting.

Now, I should probably throw this out there right now: I have so many blog post ideas, and to give you guys everything in this one post would be a waste - sorry 'bout it haha. A lot of the interesting things deserve their own dedicated posts. Some ideas I have are: how I grew on Instagram, what it's like and how to self-publish a book, what it's like to turn a publisher away (hint: it's terrifying, but I'm working on getting with a specific one at the moment), how to handle so many people watching you, relationship stories and advice, what it's like to date a poet, the story behind my book, book sales for an indie author, and SO much more!

As I'm crunched for time right now, this is going to be all for today. I want this to start some kind of dialogue between us, so you can message me on Instagram your thoughts or ideas about what to talk about on here. Maybe even submit some questions for me to answer! I'd love that. I truly do love hearing from my readers, so don't hesitate or be too shy! Also, what kinda person/indie author would I be if I didn't plug my book! 'Sad Birds Still Sing', my debut book of poetry, is available riiiiiight HERE!

p.s. I'll try to post one to three times a week.

See you all in the next post!

- Faraway