Has it been a month since I posted? Gasp. Well, I've been busy. Mostly up to no good.
Yes, the rumours are true: I've lost my mind and gone over to the dark side. I've entered the Twitterverse. An evil scary place with glowing green faces and random beeping sounds and constant updates 24/7. Just what a pressed-for-time, easily distracted writer needs, right? Um, yes actually.
Twitter has become a significant part of what is called "social media." The persistent buzz in publishing lately -- where is that flyswatter when you need it? -- is that writers need a presence in social media arenas. Publishers and agents increasingly expect writers to find their own "fans" and market themselves and their books, not just after publication, but before they're even under contract. Before they're even done writing the damn book.
One agent went so far as to comment recently that she was seriously considering not reading submissions of any writer who did not already have a significant social media presence. I'm not going to get into how short-sighted I think that is, because this does seem to be the current reality for writers. Especially those as-yet unpublished. A fiscal sign of the times.
So I researched the likely alternatives: MySpace and Facebook. By "research" I mean I asked my 21-year-old daughter whether she'd "friend" me if I had a Facebook page. Her answer was an emphatic NO. Then she warned me about the dangers of MySpace and how no one even goes there anymore.
So I'm Twittering. I feel foolish just typing that. The tweeting itself isn't time consuming. I'm having fun with that. It's the following that's going to kill me. There are an awful lot of funny and informative Twitterers out there, linking to articles or people I'd never have found on my own. I did stop following one person, not because he wasn't interesting, but because he updated EVERY TWO MINUTES and I couldn't keep up. I have limits. Really. Trouble is, I could easily wander around, lost in information intake mode, for days.
But the really odd thing, which I'm having trouble reconciling, is my dual, er, triple identity. My Twitter ID is "BCB_" because it's short (plus I've kind of grown attached to it) and my name over there is "w/a Katherine James" (w/a = writing as), which will be my pseudonym once published. But I'm following people I know and who know me only by my "real" name. A couple of them are now following me in return and I have no idea whether they know that I'm, well, me. It's weird. But my real name is reserved for the day job, the one where I'm a responsible adult in charge of other people's money. I don't want the two linked, and certainly not out here on the intertubes.
It's a dilemma. Because it leaves me feeling somehow fraudulent. Yeah, I know, I'll get over it eventually. And really, I guess it's just another instance of being a writer, making stuff up and hoping people enjoy it.
So, want to follow me into the darkness?
