Like all sensible, struggling writers I maintain a social media presence. I’m not too in your face with it; just about every Tweet and Facebook status update I make is to announce a new blog post.

Today I thought it worth Tweeting and mentioning on FB that I’d just taught my last lesson in a long and distinguished (ahem) teaching career. When I clicked ‘update’ on my FB page to make my status live I noticed that my ‘sharing’ settings were locked on ‘custom’. For me this setting limits any new FB posting to about five family members. (I use it when I want to share something a bit private.) And the light of realisation winked at me through the curtains of my ignorance.

I think that my sharing settings may have been stuck on ‘custom’ for a good while now. Which means that I don’t know how many of my last blog-posts have only been shared with those five family members. (Thank goodness my little sister reads them.) This would explain why only my little sister has been commenting on my FB blog-posts recently. (Thanks, little sister.) I thought readers had just lost interest. (That is still possible and nothing for me to whine about. It happens. And I’m not particularly interactive on social media, preferring to limit my forays to providing news about my life as a writer. Social media thrives on interaction. I don’t have the time for that. Sorry, by the way.)

If I’m right about those settings (you’d think I’d be able to look back and see but I can’t understand how I would do that) then I feel a bit stupid and a bit cross with myself. Writers need social media to keep themselves visible and to spread the word about their writing.

Oh well. Lesson learned. Another one.

I’m off to make a cup of tea and contemplate my new life. First up: bonfire of the neck-ties at my place tonight. And lots and lots of beer.