Hello my Freaky Darlings,

Earlier today, while misbehaving on Twitter, the question of public persona’s came up. Now, in a world where writers are perceived as being alcoholics and drug addicts, where the perception is that most writers behave like Hank Moody in Californication, do writers need to watch their p’s and q’s on public forums like Twitter and Facebook?

I must admit I don’t often misbehave in public, but when the chance for a little fun and games comes up I’m not one to pass up the opportunity. But I don’t behave like Hank Moody. I’m not even sure I would want to live like that. Where does he find the time to write in between his drinking, drugging, and fucking? I’m certainly not an alcoholic, in fact the most I drink is a glass of wine with my dinner. And as for drugs, well … the most I’ve done is smoked a little something and the most I got out of that experience was a headache. In fact I am rather boring. Sad but true.

I don’t often get into politics unless something truly disturbing occurs, like the whole Limpopo text book drama or that our so-called President thought that a shower would prevent him from getting AIDS after allegedly raping a girl with AIDS; those were topics I don’t think any South African could stay out of. But I usually do try and stay out of it.Which is probably what a certain South African model should have done when she made a racial comment on Twitter and promptly lost her rather lucrative modelling contract. She did garner a lot of publicity she probably would otherwise not have had, she also got a whole bunch of new followers on twitter, and people who had never heard of her all of a sudden knew more than they wanted to know about her. But somehow I think she would rather have that paying gig instead of the new Twitter followers. Thanks to her example we all learnt that one should never ever make a racial comment on Twitter. It’s probably one of the big No No’s. You can pretty much get away with anything else, just don’t be a racist especially if you want to work again.

But back to being a writer and public persona’s. Am I wrong in thinking that the worst thing we can be, as writers, is boring? Or should we behave ourselves and watch what we say? Or can we say and do whatever we please? Or should we simply be ourselves?