My name is Bliss Capron...

 ...but you should know, Bliss isn't really my name. You should also know that I believe that my name doesn't matter. I've been on a social media blackout for almost two years now, and my perspective on things has really changed.

 I believe that society is drowning in its own false sense of self-importance. Everyone is in everyone's face all the time, desperate for attention, ready to go to any lengths necessary to get it. Any kind of online existence, even that which originated with one's best intentions, will inevitably have every last ounce of authenticity drained out in the quest for views, likes, comments, notoriety. 

And everyone is so, so very angry. There's no such thing as a middle ground anymore. If you aren't with a particular faction, you are against them. Either way you turn, you're going to be on somebody's bad side. And as a writer presently on a journey that I am confident will culminate in publication, this gives me a rather poignant pause.

 I'd like to believe that once I am published and I find myself "out there" as someone who is known, that I could be like Dolly Parton with an adamantly neutral stance and yet be universally beloved. I am not, however, this self-deluded. I can expected to be despised by some to the same degree that I can expect to be loved by others. I am prepared to face this; however, as I said, people's collective anger right now is frightening. 

Behind the protection of intentional anonymity, I can be reasonably certain that someone isn't going to end up hating my books and thereby, me, so much that they track me down and try to harm me or my family. Is this hyperbole? I hope so. But it isn't something I want to risk. 

I have no desire to be any kind of public figure, someone in everyone's face on Twitter spouting off hurtful opinions about things that are literally none of my business. I have written these books to serve as a metaphor for my own survival which I hope will serve to strengthen young people who are, at present, still in the midst of surviving a world which is cruel to those who don't fit into prescriptive boxes. 

That's why my name is Bliss Capron. And I hope you come to think of me as that empathetic, understanding English teacher you had in high school with whom you felt you could share anything.

I will disclose, this is true about me in real life. When my books find a publisher, and are dispersed far and wide, this is who I will continue to be. The world will be my classroom, the young people who fall in love with my stories will be my students, and I'll be that teacher, ready to listen, support, and believe in you.