Twitter | Carol's Musings

Twitter is a concise form of online communication… “bursts of information called tweets, each 140 characters in length.” The Twitter hashtag, #amwriting, is an abbreviation of ‘I am writing’ and is intended to encourage an ongoing conversation within the writing community. To reach the intended audience each tweet needs to include the #amwriting hashtag, so the rest of your message is limited to the remaining 130 characters.

It’s remarkable how inventive people can be in expressing themselves in 130 or less characters. I won’t identify the sources, but here are a few recent tweets that made me smile:

I should be #amwriting. That was in my plan for the night. But then I picked a book from my TBR shelf and I CAN’T PUT IT DOWN. *shakes fist*

I haz tea, blankie, theme from Goblet of Fire, and a quiet house. #amwriting #amtryingtostayofftwitterbutfailing

The weight of words isn’t fixed. 3000 words can be like nothing and then 800 words can feel like dragging an elephant uphill. #amwriting

Typo of the day (so far): She wrong out her hair. #amwriting or attempting to anyway.

All this makes me wonder how creative YOU can be with #amwriting and 130 characters or less. C’mon, give it a shot. Share a tweet about your current work in progress, the actions of a character, or a writing dilemma. I’ll even start:

My characters are eavesdropping here without me. It’s after 1 a.m. and I’ve gone to bed. #amwriting not.

Okay, so it’s not very creative. That’s because I really am ready for bed. I get silly when I’m tired.

(You’ll find me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/caroljgarvin.)

There’s a lot being said about social networking these days – some of it good, and some not so much. I crept into the blogging world a couple years ago to initiate my internet visibility, and since then have discovered many wonderful online friends.

Then I was coaxed into the world of Facebook, mostly to keep in touch with family and close friends, although now writing connections are also among my ‘friends’ there.

During the recent SiWC conference, everywhere I looked people were texting and tweeting, and meeting and greeting ‘peeps’ they knew from online but had never met in person. Tweet-ups happened all weekend long and by the time I returned home, I found myself venturing into Twitter territory, too, just to stay in touch with my new conference friends.

During this month of frenzied NaNoWriMo writing, I’m spending a lot of time squirreled away by myself, and yet I’m not alone. As I work on my computer there’s a whole community of similarly occupied people out there. And occasionally I take a break to check in. The bits of encouragement tacked on at the end of this post were snippets from Twitter that came in during just one brief period. When I need inspiration or motivation there’s always someone ready to provide it. Now that definitely is something positive to say about social networking!

Question for you: What social networking opportunities do you take part in? Have they been mostly positive experiences for you, or have they had some negative aspects?

Managed to write 3600 words for #NaNoWriMo today. Pretty happy w/that. Puts my total @ 6925. Not bad for 4 days work – I think. #amwriting
I didn’t quite hit 2K but I did write 1775 words. That makes 3902 so far today. 5K here I come. #amwriting #NaNoWriMo
ooohh keep it up #vancowrimo We are presently #18 for highest overall word count. #2 in Canada behind Toronto by 500K words.
After spending most of the day preparing to move tomorrow, I #amwriting for a bit before bed.
I’m going to finish chapter 3 tonight. #amwriting
I’m back and feeling better. My head still hurts but not as bad. Time for #nanowrimo I #amwriting again! Woooo! :3
Didn’t realize I broke 10K on my WIP. Up to 11,875. That gives me a little more #amwriting motivation for tonight…
3067 words! Goal for the day met, spanked and sent on its way. Yes, I’m still writing. #amwriting #nanowrimo
Today is over in 30 min so word count for today is 3290 #nanowrimo #amwriting I shall write on, for tomorrow…
I think I just wrote at least 1000 words of new stuff. Shows what I can do when focused. Wrote most of it on the kitchen bench. #amwriting
When a Wrimo reaches quota, an angel gets her wings. Or something like that. 10261/50k #nanowrimo #amwriting
#amwriting Getting TONS done tonight. Not sure where the inspiration is coming from, but I’m not going to ask questions.
15k. Still going! #NaNoWriMo #amwriting
Nudging 12,000 words but some o’ them ain’t pretty! How y’all going? #NaNo #amwriting #shutupandwrite.
Awesome job!! RT @Xxxxxy: 8,161 words today — personal best. 31,163 words total. #nano #amwriting #amgoingtobed
@Xyyyz Glad you reminded me. Guess the only rule for #Nano is to keep writing even when the muse is silent. #amwriting