Twitter and Writing

When I signed up for a Twitter account it was only to keep up with my kids and their friends. I started out with four followers and followed six (three of my kids and three of their friends). It was fun and I learned things about them I wouldn't have otherwise, like my son's fondness of the "F" word!, but that's all it was, pure silliness.

Fast forward nine months:
I am up to 120 followers and follow 245, only a handful are kids! I still have lots of fun on Twitter and just last week my son and I got into the silliest, weirdest, most fun conversation ever. It meant a lot to me to just be goofy but it meant the most to me when I read on Eric's Facebook page "My mom and I are so silly!" For the most part, though, my tweets and friends are a little more serious now.

Sure, I tweet things like, "Thank God for my morning cup of coffee," or "Time for kids to come home," but most of my tweets regard my writing, others writings, books I have read, authors I love, and so on.

I am also big on using Twitter as a learning tool. I follow many writer's, both highly successful authors and those just starting out. Some of my very favorites are: @TheBookDoctors; @thebookmaven; @EllenhopkinsYA and @jw_collier. There are so many more who provide a wealth of information and/or support, but I won't bore you with the entire list. For my silly side, I enjoy following @SteveMartinToGo.

Many of those I follow post useful links to Blogs or websites. Most of the time I can't read them right then so I book mark them and read it all when I am on "research and learning" time. I have learned about properly formatted manuscripts, word usage, sentence structure, info to put in queries, how long it takes to get published, chances of getting published and much more.

Today I jumped into my first Twitter Chat at @novelpitch. I wasn't sure what to expect and didn't think someone insignificant and unpublished such as myself would receive a lot of feedback, but I was wrong. The information provided was invaluable and there were some great questions asked. Not only was it a learning experiences, but I made more friends who are writer's and have the same interests as me. One I am most looking forward to is a writer who is a Stay at Home Mom. It's easy to feel alone and deserted when friends don't understand the quest for success in writing, nor can they understand how difficult it is to balance writing with family needs. Through Twitter, I have found people similar to me to share daily writing life with.

Social networks are what you make of them, at least that's my opinion. My Facebook is mostly person and for fun, although I  do some networking. Twitter is mostly work, with a little frivolous fun thrown in here and there. I hope to learn more and utilize Twitter and maybe Facebook in my quest for writing success, but will fight to keep it lighthearted and fun as well.

If you have Twitter, you can find me at www.twitter.com/tinatoler. Look forward to sharing writing stories, trials and success with you there.