Social media is a double edged sword. It highlights all the things that are amazing about our world, but it can also make us feel like we are not enough, not doing/being enough and that everyone else is far more successful/beautiful/richer than us.

I remember when social media first became a thing. I’ve lived through the various platforms coming and going, and I have learnt to curate my feed to show me the things and people I want to see.

I could not be prouder of all of the people in my social media circles. They are all amazing human beings (mostly women to be honest) who are kind, loving, smart and funny. But here’s the thing. We often just share the good bits. Here’s a photo of the embroidery I just finished. I sometimes struggle to be proud of myself, but for this, I am. I love it. I love the bright colours, and the stitches that I worked so hard to keep neat. This is the photo I’ll put on social media, in the hope that other people might go, oh I fancy doing embroidery too as it is THE most relaxing hobby and requires very little skill or equipment (and you can do it while you watch TV).

This isn’t the whole truth of the embroidery though. Turn the picture over and you see the messy bits. It’s the same with my writing. You might see the finished book and think WOW that looks amazing. You don’t see the sleepless nights over cover designs. The endless drafts required to get your blurb spot on. The countless rewrites of the same chapter because one thing just doesn’t feel right. They are all there. They are the messy bits. And sometimes we need to show them.

Here’s mine…

And you know what? That doesn’t feel so scary. It’s not as pretty as the front, but it shows the process I’ve gone through to get there. It’s the drafts and the rewrites, and the group chats, and the fiddling with colours and fonts. Life is in the messy bits and the neat. Let’s show them both.