New Twit on the Block

 

I took the plunge into Twitter when I retired. I try to post every day; most days I’m successful. (By “successful,” I mean I tweeted, not that tweet was well received, or received at all. Or even grammatical.) I’m getting more comfortable with it over time (one would hope so), but it’s still a little like trying to tie one’s shoes while wearing mittens.

 

There are things I like. Twitter is a good for random thoughts expressible in 280 characters or fewer. This forces me to write tight ,as I refuse to resort to Twitter shorthand unless I have no choice. (I will shorten URLs when necessary.)

 

As the Twitter account I’m keeping up with is my author account, virtually all posts are writing related, things that came to mind that didn’t seem to have blog potential. Sometimes they come in bunches, so I have a file on my desktop where I save them to post over time instead of dumping them all at once.

 

Twitter is also good for coming across people you might not encounter on Facebook. As far as I can tell, re-tweeting has far more potential for sending a post viral than anything in Facebook. It’s a personal thing, but I’m more willing to follow someone I don’t already know on Twitter than I am to send a friend request on Facebook. This provides me a field of vision less incestuous than what I have on Facebook, where I rarely send friend requests, though I also rarely refuse them unless they are obvious spam.

 

The downside of Twitter is the character count, which makes it almost impossible to have a serious discussion. Write as tight as you want, there are thoughts you cannot express in 280 characters. Stringing tweets together is fraught with awkward breaks that increase the chances of readers taking comments out of context.

 

I’m sure my activity will increase as the drop date for the new book approaches. I want to give Twitter at least a year of honest effort, which I have never done. There will be highs and lows as I move along my learning curve. Check this space (or my Twitter feed: @DanaKingAuthor) for progress reports and feel free to send suggestions, either here, via Twitter, or on Facebook.